Tòumíng pressed his palm flat against the exposed purple crystal, feeling the cool, smooth surface beneath his skin. He focused, channeling the skill, willing it to activate, to compress, to condense all that raw material into something manageable.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the ground started shaking.
Not a gentle tremor. A violent, aggressive shaking that made his teeth rattle and his knees buckle. The walls groaned, dust and small rocks raining down from the ceiling. The sound was immense, a deep grinding rumble that seemed to come from everywhere at once, like the earth itself was being squeezed.
"Oh shit, oh shit, this is too loud!" Tòumíng pressed himself against the wall, his hand still on the crystal, unable to break contact now that the process had started. "Everyone's going to hear this! They're going to come down here and—"
"Just hold on!" Cupid's voice cut through the noise. "The skill's working! Don't stop now!"
The purple glow intensified, visible even through the stone. Tòumíng's enhanced vision showed him what was happening inside the rock. the massive ten-meter geode was collapsing in on itself, the crystal structure compressing, impurities being forced out and crumbling into dust. The amethyst was condensing, tightening, the molecular structure rearranging into something denser, purer, more perfect.
Ten meters became eight.
Eight became six.
The shaking intensified. Somewhere above, he could hear shouting. Other miners noticing the tremors, probably thinking there was a cave-in or structural collapse. Footsteps pounding on metal stairs. Voices calling out in alarm.
Six meters became four.
The geode was shrinking faster now, the process accelerating as it fed on itself. The purple light was almost blinding in his enhanced vision, so bright he had to squint even with his eyes glowing blue.
Four meters became two.
"Come on, come on, come on," Tòumíng chanted under his breath, his hand trembling against the stone. The shouting was getting closer. Someone was descending the shaft, probably security coming to investigate.
Two meters became one.
One became fifty centimeters.
The grinding sound reached a crescendo, a final massive shudder that knocked loose rocks from the ceiling and nearly threw Tòumíng to the ground. Then, abruptly, silence.
Complete, total silence.
The shaking stopped. The grinding ceased. The purple glow faded from his vision, replaced by the normal darkness of the mine shaft illuminated only by his headlamp.
Tòumíng pulled his hand back, breathing hard, and stared at where the massive geode had been.
A small indent in the rock face, roughly the size of his fist. And sitting in it, tiny and perfect and gleaming like a purple star, was a crystal about eight centimeters across.
That was it. That was all that remained of twelve hundred pounds of amethyst. A single piece barely larger than a ping-pong ball.
"Holy shit," he breathed, reaching out with shaking fingers to pick it up.
The crystal was surprisingly heavy for its size, dense in a way that regular amethyst shouldn't be. It fit perfectly in his palm, its facets catching the light from his headlamp and throwing purple refractions across the tunnel walls. It looked like a pebble made from purple diamonds, each surface so perfectly clear you could see straight through to the other side.
Tòumíng activated True Price, his eyes glowing blue again.
The information flooded his vision and his jaw literally dropped, hanging open in shock.
AMETHYST - ANALYSIS
Quality Grade: AAA - PREMIUM INVESTMENT GRADE
Weight: 89.4 grams
Clarity: Flawless - No visible inclusions
Color Saturation: Deep Purple - Maximum
Purity: 99.32%
Current Market Value: 208,838.4 yuan
Price Breakdown:
Per gram: 2,336 yuanPer pound: 1,059,636 yuanPer kilo: 2,336,000 yuan
Two hundred eight thousand, eight hundred thirty-eight point four yuan.
For a crystal the size of a large marble.
For something he could literally hide in his pocket, in his shoe, in his mouth if he had to.
Tòumíng stared at the numbers, reading them over and over, making sure he wasn't hallucinating from coal dust inhalation or oxygen deprivation or lingering brain damage from getting stomped on two weeks ago.
But no. The numbers stayed the same. The crystal in his hand was worth more than he'd made in his entire life combined
The giggle started again, bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. Not the manic laugh from before, but something higher, more unhinged, the sound of someone's sanity doing a little dance on the edge of a cliff.
"Ehehehehe."
His hand closed around the crystal, feeling its weight, its density, its impossible value compressed into such a small package.
"EHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"
The footsteps were getting closer. Someone was definitely coming down to investigate the shaking. But Tòumíng didn't care. He shoved the crystal deep into his fanny pack, his three-hundred-yuan designer fanny pack that was now carrying over two hundred thousand yuan worth of compressed gemstone—and zipped it shut.
"EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"
"You need to calm down," Cupid said, though his voice carried its own note of excitement. "Before you start screaming and give away that you just found a fortune."
But Tòumíng couldn't calm down. His entire body was vibrating with energy, with possibility, with the sheer absurdity of having turned twelve hundred pounds of rock into pocket change. Literally pocket change. The most expensive pocket change in the world, but still.
He looked around the tunnel, at the indent where the geode had been, at the scattered coal and worthless stone he'd spent four hours mining through. At the cart that had made eleven trips hauling garbage while the real treasure condensed itself into something he could swallow if necessary.
Two hundred eight thousand yuan.
That was enough to pay Hǔtān for six months. Enough to make serious dents in the other loan sharks' payments. Enough to live comfortably, to save, to actually breathe without the constant crushing weight of generational debt.
Or enough to buy a lot of really stupid shit and continue his descent into brainrot-induced financial irresponsibility. But that was future Tòumíng's problem.
Present Tòumíng had over two hundred thousand yuan in his fanny pack and nobody knew about it.
He threw his arms up in the air, pickaxe still clutched in one hand, his voice echoing through the tunnel in a shout of pure, unfiltered triumph.
"LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!"