#330 - Stone cutting
Everyone was mocking him.
Jun Wuxie remained calm and ignored them.
He believed that the Longevity Lock wouldn't react for no reason, and he trusted his own judgment.
Even if there were no spirit crystals inside this cracked stone, there would still be clues he needed to complete his mission.
After paying for the raw stone, he quietly stood below the stone-cutting platform, waiting.
This round of stone selection brought a considerable income to the Taikoo Stone Workshop.
He saw the marked prices of the raw stones chosen by those gambling on stones.
The prices ranged from ten billion to a hundred billion.
Dozens of raw stones, adding up to hundreds of billions!
"The financial strength of this Taikoo Stone Workshop is evident. It's definitely unimaginably wealthy!"
Jun Wuxie estimated that there was probably no entity in the world wealthier than the Taikoo Stone Workshop.
Sovereign-level forces had jointly established commercial banks, but their expenses were too great, with millions of disciples.
It could be said that they earned a lot, but they also spent a lot. The annual surplus was only a few percent of their income.
The Taikoo Stone Workshop, on the other hand, clearly had far fewer people than the Sovereign forces, so their expenses would naturally be lower. Moreover, they had abundant spirit crystal resources of their own, so they didn't need to spend money to buy such cultivation resources.
At this moment, the crowd's mockery of Jun Wuxie continued unabated.
As the first stone gambler stepped onto the stone-cutting platform, the entire scene quieted down.
People's attention instantly focused on the stone-cutting platform.
It was a rogue cultivator, with sharp eyes, looking about fifty years old, but in reality, he had probably cultivated for at least several hundred years.
The raw stone he chose was shaped somewhat like a pumpkin, slightly larger than a washbasin, with faint, sparse patterns on the surface.
The rogue cultivator raised the stone-cutting knife, and people's minds immediately tensed up.
As the stone-cutting knife fell, pieces of stone skin fell off.
The rogue cultivator cut very slowly, the feeling being like a gambler slowly rubbing the cards in his hand, nervous and full of anticipation, so much so that after each cut, the hand holding the knife trembled slightly.
Jun Wuxie looked at the stone-cutting rogue cultivator and felt his nervous and expectant mood, making him feel nervous as well.
"Is it necessary?"
Jun Wuxie touched his chin, realizing that he had been unknowingly influenced by the stone cutter, and was somewhat speechless.
"It's green, it's green!"
The crowd exclaimed.
Just as the rogue cultivator had made dozens of cuts, and the raw stone was only the size of a head, he finally saw radiating green threads on the stone skin.
Jun Wuxie saw that the extremely nervous rogue cultivator clearly breathed a sigh of relief.
Seeing green meant that there was a one in ten chance of cutting out a spirit crystal inside the raw stone.
Today's stone gambling was different from the past.
These raw stones were too expensive. For a rogue cultivator, a raw stone might mean financial ruin.
Even high-level members of large forces couldn't afford to buy a few raw stones if they were gambling privately.
Soon, the raw stone was only the size of a fist.
The rogue cultivator's face was already covered with sweat, constantly flowing down his cheeks. His body was trembling.
Crack!
With the last cut, the entire raw stone split into two halves.
The rogue cultivator seemed to lose his strength in an instant, falling to the ground with a thud, his expression dull, his lips trembling, his face pale, and his eyes empty.
"It's over, it's over..."
He muttered, the deep unwillingness and pale helplessness conveying to everyone's hearts.
The crowd sighed.
A raw stone worth about two billion!
They didn't cut out anything, not even a low-grade spirit crystal.
Immediately, many people felt that the Taikoo Stone Workshop was really too坑 (kēng - a pit, a trap), simply坑死 (kēng sǐ - trap to death) people.
"We at the Taikoo Stone Workshop express our regret for this outcome,"
Yu Zhu said softly and ethereally, very calmly.
The rogue cultivator came back to his senses, let out a long sigh, walked off the stone-cutting platform, and couldn't help but turn back to look at the stone skin all over the ground, his facial muscles twitching. Then, he stepped off the stone-cutting platform, his eyes no longer having their usual brilliance.
Two billion spirit coins!
For a rogue cultivator, this was simply an astronomical figure!
For hundreds of years, all his savings amounted to this much. Today, he had almost bankrupted himself!
Originally, he had hoped to cut out something useful to help him break through the bottleneck in his realm.
But this time, he had lost the gamble, utterly defeated!
The second rogue cultivator stepped onto the stone-cutting platform.
The previous one had put too much pressure on him, so much so that his hand trembled slightly before he even started cutting the stone.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his mindset, and began to peel off the stone skin.
After dozens of cuts, a wisp of green light bloomed.
"Spirit crystal!"
"It looks like the weight is not small!"
People exclaimed, all excited.
But the stone-cutting rogue cultivator's legs went weak, and he almost collapsed to the ground.
"Ah! It's light green!"
"Light green, low-grade spirit crystal..."
Everyone then reacted that the green light was too faint, which was the luster of a low-grade spirit crystal.
Low-grade spirit crystals were simply not worth mentioning compared to the price of this raw stone, only a few hundred thousand spirit coins per catty.
And this raw stone was priced at more than a billion!
In the end, all the stone skin fell off, revealing a low-grade spirit crystal of more than ten catties, emitting a light green glow.
The stone-cutting rogue cultivator, feeling hopeless, walked off the stone-cutting platform with the spirit crystal in his arms, without saying a word.
"Stone gambling, for those who haven't cultivated Original Spirit Art, no amount of experience is key, it's all just luck. I hope my luck won't be too bad today."
Su Ji shook his head and sighed, walking onto the stone-cutting platform with his raw stone.
He knew very well what buying such a raw stone meant for rogue martial artists.
The raw stone he chose was an irregular polygon shape, about the size of two washbasins, priced at 3.6 billion spirit coins!
Relatively speaking, Su Ji was much calmer than the previous two rogue cultivators.
The stone-cutting knife in his hand was very steady, peeling off the stone skin one cut at a time.
When half of the raw stone's volume had been peeled off, green was finally seen.
There was such a small piece, the size of a fingernail, of green marks.
He took a deep breath, and another cut fell, a burst of tender green light blooming.
"Mid-grade spirit crystal!"
"The raw stone is still so big, and the spirit crystal has already revealed a corner, God, it must be at least fifty or sixty catties!"
People exclaimed in waves. Many people had never seen such a large spirit crystal cut out in their lives.
Su Ji's face, however, did not show joy, but rather some disappointment.
The knife in his hand was very steady, peeling off the stone skin piece by piece.
Finally, a spirit crystal slightly smaller than a washbasin, like a huge green diamond, appeared before everyone's eyes, the tender green light illuminating the stone platform into green.
This mid-grade spirit crystal was estimated to be about sixty catties, worth more than a billion spirit coins!
But overall, it was still far less than the price of the raw stone.
Su Ji lost, losing more than two billion.
He was somewhat disappointed, shook his head, put away the spirit crystal, and walked off the stone-cutting platform.
"Elder, you spendthrift!"
Su Xiaoxiao reached out and grabbed Su Ji's beard, and said angrily: "Ah ya ya, more than two billion, I can buy a lot of resources to practice medicine!"
Su Ji only felt a pain in his chin, and looking at the few strands of gray beard in Su Xiaoxiao's hand, the corners of his mouth couldn't help twitching a few times.
Next, the stone gamblers of various forces successively stepped onto the stage to cut stones.
Several quasi-Sovereign level stone gamblers left a pile of stone skin and gained nothing; more than a dozen quasi-Sovereign level stone gamblers cut out varying weights of low-grade and mid-grade spirit crystals, the heaviest of which was forty or fifty catties.
The stone gamblers of the Charm Eye Clan, Demon Appearance Sect, Ice Cloud Tower, Great Brahma Zen Sect, Open Heaven Sword Sect, and Spirit Control Sect all cut out dozens of catties of mid-grade spirit crystals.
If it were on a normal day, cutting out mid-grade spirit crystals of this weight would definitely be a profit, but today, it was a big loss, with everyone losing more than several billion spirit coins.
"Well, everyone's stone gambling skills are actually very good. The raw stones from the Chaos Ancient Mine Cave have a mysterious power that interferes with the judgment of stone gamblers."
The elder of the Mei family, holding a raw stone more than one meter in diameter, stepped onto the stone-cutting platform and said: "However, when it comes to stone gambling, you still have to look at our Original Spirit Art family. Today, the things that everyone cut out are not ideal. I will have to reluctantly show some brilliance."
He put the raw stone on the stone-cutting platform, his face full of confidence, and said: "Then, please wait and see!"
"Boy, look carefully, what is a real stone gambling master!"
The resentment and hatred in his heart made Young Master Mei lose his usual composure. He loudly mocked Jun Wuxie, who was waiting in line to cut the stone: "You are a frog in a well who relies on luck to cut out two mid-grade spirit crystals. Open your eyes wide and learn, see what real strength is!"
Hearing this, the corners of Jun Wuxie's mouth, hidden under the cloth strip, curled into a slightly cold arc.
