62: Achieve merit and face death

Mining spatial ore veins was not difficult; the storage devices issued by the Academy contained very professional mining equipment, capable of extracting and collecting 4000 units of spatial raw ore in just 10 minutes.

During these 10 minutes, Lin Chen and his team needed to protect the mining equipment from external interference, acting as guards.

Mining, after all, was best left to the professionals.

Brawlers needed to understand their role as brawlers.

Ten minutes passed in a flash, with no incidents occurring.

This was also normal: a hidden, small spatial ore vein, with no aura leakage, no Bug Clan proficient in ore-seeking passing nearby, no Bug Clan Demigod acting erratically, and no involvement in troubles with their own kind.

Thus, everything was calm and peaceful.

Leaving the mine, Lin Chen selected the next target for excavation.

Open-pit ore veins and shallowly hidden ore veins were mostly occupied and exploited by the Bug Clan; only deeply hidden ones could escape untouched.

Lin Chen's goal was these hidden ore veins, as he completely wanted to avoid fighting the Bug Clan, because once a battle occurred, their presence would be exposed, and then that area would be thoroughly searched by the Bug Clan.

They were confident that they would not be easily discovered by the Bug Clan, but this would severely interfere with their mining progress, as the mining equipment could not be hidden during excavation and would inevitably be sensed by the Bug Clan.

At that time, they would witness what a Bug Swarm was, and what a natural disaster was.

The Original Ore Insect Domain was still too vast; the tens of thousands of student and mentor Copy Bodys that the Sixth Academy sent in were still a drop in the ocean.

Lin Chen and his group quietly mined for half a month, still not encountering their own kind, nor engaging in battles with the Bug Clan; they coexisted peacefully, each minding their own business.

Walking too many night roads eventually leads to encountering ghosts.

Just as Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones placed down the mining equipment, expecting it to take half an hour to excavate this Ninth Order ore vein.

Outside, a five-person team swept past; they did not discover Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones, but the Bug Swarm chasing them covered this entire area.

As a Tenth Order Bug General passed by the hidden mine where Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones were, it inexplicably stopped.

It stared intently at the mine, its senses spreading deep within, and it immediately became ecstatic, for this mine concealed an extremely large Ninth Order ore vein.

If it absorbed this Ninth Order ore vein, its own strength would advance further, taking another step closer to the Demigod Rank.

So, this Tenth Order Bug General stopped its pursuit and began to exert force on the mine, quickly digging a tunnel leading to the ore vein.

“Tsk, an unprovoked disaster.”

Lin Chen was also helpless; the moment he sensed trouble outside, he immediately put away the mining equipment, and the group fully operated the Spiritual Stealth Technique, trying their best to minimize the possibility of being discovered.

However, things are unpredictable, and this Tenth Order Bug General still stopped, which was bad news.

The good news was that the Bug General had not discovered them; it had simply found the ore vein and was preparing to feast.

Before the Tenth Order Bug General entered the depths of the mine and reached the ore vein, Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones left the mine first, passing through various bugs, and fled in the opposite direction of the Bug Swarm's advance.

Fortunately, the Bug Swarm had no Demigod Rank presence and thus could not detect them.

The group spent half an hour passing through the Bug Swarm, entering a new area where they could continue mining happily, as long as they weren't implicated again, there would be no problems.

The Bug Clan within the Original Ore Insect Domain had clearly discovered the human invasion, so more bugs began to become active.

Teams of bugs specializing in search and perception, leading Ninth Order and Tenth Order bugs, continuously hunted down the student Copy Bodys who had entered the Original Ore Insect Domain.

For a time, more than half of the less cautious student Copy Bodys were eliminated by the bugs, and the remaining half were also hiding, severely affecting mining efficiency.

This was unavoidable; after all, this was the Bug Clan's territory, and the student Copy Bodys had limited strength, only able to act covertly; even if they gathered, they were no match for the Bug Clan.

“Our human race has powerful technological weapons, so why don't we use them against the Bug Mother, directly eliminating the Bug Mother and the Bug Clan Demigods? Have they not found the main target yet?”

Lin Chen was somewhat puzzled; after all, humanity not only had extraordinary abilities but also very strong technology, though the application of technological power was more subtle, mostly used on the front lines of the border.

It wasn't that the Academy didn't want to use technological weapons to clear Bug Clan obstacles for the mining teams, but they hadn't yet pinpointed the location of the Bug Clan Mother Nest.

The Academy had already deployed ten teams skilled in stealth and searching; much of the previous intelligence had been provided by them, and they were also working hard to find the location of the Bug Clan Mother Nest.

Once the location of the Bug Clan Mother Nest was pinpointed, the Academy would definitely launch a devastating strike against the Bug Clan, creating an environment suitable for the student Copy Bodys to operate.

Another week passed, and Lin Chen's gains were half of what they were before, mainly because the Bug Clan had reacted and increased their search efforts.

Many times, the mining equipment would be exposed shortly after activation, forcing them to temporarily avoid confrontation, as Lin Chen truly could not defeat a Tenth Order Bug General; it was a pure numerical suppression.

“Bug Clan Demigods?”

“Five of them?”

“Is this a crucial Bug Clan stronghold? Otherwise, why would there be five Bug Clan Demigods stationed here?”

After another escape, Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones entered a new area, and when the old dengs book appraisal technique activated, they discovered five Bug Clan Demigods hidden within an unremarkable mine, no more than a dozen kilometers high.

“Let’s retreat first and see if there are any Bug Clan Demigods stationed in other areas. If there are, we might have made a significant contribution, and the academic credit rewards will be substantial.”

Lin Chen led the Sanbao Clone away from the small mine, and in another small mine further away, he discovered a Bug Clan Demigod.

At this point, Lin Chen decided to risk passing through the small mine.

Carefully passing through the small mine, the area ahead was flat, and after traveling tens of thousands of kilometers further, Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones made a discovery.

Standing on a high point of a mine, they could see a slightly abrupt ore vein plateau on the horizon, and also countless large Bug Clan members with super-speed flight capabilities, transporting countless ores to the plateau.

Just by intending to approach that plateau, Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones felt a chilling sensation.

Their sixth sense was warning them, indicating an irresistible danger within; going there would mean death, with no possibility of survival.

“The Bug Clan Mother Nest must be on that plateau.”

Lin Chen couldn't determine it, but he wasn't alone.

He compiled the information about the ore vein plateau and the reconnaissance data, then transmitted it via the teleportation array in the storage device to the Bug Domain gathering point, where professional personnel from the Academy would naturally analyze it to determine if the ore vein plateau was indeed the Bug Clan Mother Nest.

Six hours later, Lin Chen received information from the gathering point.

The ore vein plateau was not the Bug Clan Mother Nest, but its importance was no less than that of the Bug Clan Mother Nest; it had immense destructive value, and once destroyed, it would definitely draw out the Bug Clan's main target, changing the current situation where the Bug Clan was strong and humans were weak in the Original Ore Insect Domain.

On the ore vein plateau, the Bug Clan was constructing an ultra-long-distance teleportation array; its destination was currently unknown.

However, according to prophetic calculations, the Original Ore Insect Domain was an isolated area, and the Bug Clan here was considered lost, so they urgently hoped to establish contact with the main Bug Clan forces and rejoin the swarm.

Destroying the uncompleted teleportation array would inevitably incite a riot from the Bug Mother, and then the professional search teams could pinpoint the location of the Bug Clan Mother Nest through clues.

Half an hour later, the Academy would launch a devastating strike against the teleportation array; to maximize the strike's effectiveness, the Academy issued an order to Lin Chen.

Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones were to find every possible way to infiltrate the ore vein plateau, and in the last ten seconds, expose their presence, using the lives of their Copy Bodys to attract the nearby stationed Bug Clan Demigods, drawing them as close as possible to the strike's core point.

The Academy naturally wouldn't let Lin Chen suffer a loss; discovering the teleportation array awarded 100,000 academic credits, and subsequent assistance to the Academy in the devastating strike on the teleportation array would earn at least 50,000 academic credits, with an upper limit of 100,000 academic credits, based on contribution.

Under the temptation of academic credits, what did the lives of Copy Bodys matter? Moreover, the Copy Bodys couldn't escape anyway; they were too close to the ore vein plateau, and the Academy's devastating strike would simply eliminate the Copy Bodys along the way.

There was no friendly fire immunity setting in reality.

If the Copy Body died, Lin Chen could reformulate a new one, at the cost of 10 years of life essence, but 10 years was a trivial matter for Lin Chen's lifespan.

If the Sanbao Clone died, it only needed to consume half of its essence, qi, and spirit to reformulate, at the cost of half a month of weakness.

With the main body safely hidden, half a month of weakness was barely a cost; it was practically no different from infinite resurrection.

Thus, Lin Chen’s Copy Body and the Sanbao Clone cautiously approached the ore vein plateau; upon reaching the base of the plateau, they dared not relax or use their own power.

They could only transform into ores, allowing the large Bug Clan members to transport them onto the plateau, finally drifting with the current to various parts of the ore vein plateau.

No accidents occurred during this period; the four successfully arrived at the ore vein plateau, and at this moment, only three minutes remained until the devastating strike.

After an agonizing two minutes and fifty seconds, the final ten-second countdown began; the Copy Body and the Sanbao Clone simultaneously dispelled their Spiritual Stealth states, erupting their auras with all their might, almost self-destructing on the spot.

Four human auras appeared on the ore vein plateau, causing the Bug Clan Demigods responsible for guarding the four directions to feel their heads buzzing.

They immediately rushed frantically towards the plateau, terrified that if they were a step too slow, the invaders would do something unspeakable to the teleportation array.

In just one second, the Copy Body and the Sanbao Clone were surrounded by twenty-eight Bug Clan Demigods.

The Bug Clan Demigods were almost insane; mere four Eighth Order ants had managed to evade their senses and infiltrate the teleportation array construction site; they would definitely be killed by the Bug Mother.

However, before they were killed, they had to brutally torture Lin Chen and his three Sanbao Clones, torturing them for a hundred years, a thousand years, until forever.