89: Chapter 89 Breaking the Ice and Digging the Ground

Before dawn, Lin Ye opened his eyes.

A layer of thick embers remained in the fire pit, the red glow suppressed by ash.

Zhao Mengmeng was curled up on the other bed, wrapped tightly in her cloak, clutching her crossbow for dear life.

The two people who had tried to raid their home last night had made the entrance to this cave no longer absolutely safe.

Lin Ye got up to check the door panel.

The bolt was intact, and there were no unusual movements outside the cave.

He walked to the fire pit, pushed aside the ashes, and added some thin firewood.

The flames suddenly shot up.

The cracking sound of the firewood startled Zhao Mengmeng awake; she bolted upright, her crossbow pointing wildly.

"Awake?"

Lin Ye tossed a piece of half-frozen dried meat over to her.

Seeing that it was Lin Ye, Zhao Mengmeng's tensed shoulders finally relaxed.

She caught the dried meat, took a hard bite, and mumbled indistinctly, "Up so early? Afraid the treasure will run away on its own?"

"I'm afraid the snow will cover the path."

Lin Ye brought the captured folding shovel over to the fire pit to melt the ice crystals off the blade.

Zhao Mengmeng gulped down two mouthfuls of hot soup.

"How are we dividing the work today?"

"You keep watch."

Lin Ye grabbed twenty wooden arrows and stuffed them into the quiver on her back.

"I'll dig."

Zhao Mengmeng pursed her lips.

"Who are you looking down on?"

"Frozen soil takes a lot of energy; save your strength for emergencies."

"That's manual labor; you'll overexert yourself."

Lin Ye fastened the bone buttons of his cloak.

"I have more stamina than you."

Zhao Mengmeng said nothing more.

That was indeed the truth.

The Great Xia Live Stream had already been flooded with a large number of night owls and early-rising viewers.

[He's here! Brother Eye is heading out with the shovel!]

[Thanks to our French bro for sending the folding shovel across borders; it's officially on the job today.]

[I've never seen this guy stay idle; out digging the ground at the crack of dawn in sub-zero temperatures.]

Lin Ye extinguished the extra oil lamps, leaving only the embers in the fire pit.

The water reservoir had frozen over.

He broke the ice, filled two small canisters with water, and placed them against his body in an inner layer to keep them from freezing with his body heat.

Zhao Mengmeng stuffed the Snow Cave Hog dried meat, coarse salt, and waterproof cloth into her backpack.

She checked the Wind-Chasing Claw again.

After two dangerous situations yesterday, she had mixed feelings about this piece of iron.

"I'll handle the descent down the cliff myself this time."

Lin Ye glanced at her.

"Don't scream if you fall."

Zhao Mengmeng pulled her hood tight.

"I'll scream to remind you to watch out for your teammate's safety."

The two squeezed out of the ice crevice passage.

It was bone-chillingly cold outside.

The Ice Waterfall was thicker than yesterday; the eaves were bearing the heavy ice layer, and the wooden frame emitted faint creaking sounds.

Lin Ye used the back of his axe to knock off the newly formed icicles by the passage.

He raised his right arm slightly.

The Dark Weaver shot out and nailed into a rock crevice.

Lin Ye landed steadily at the bottom of the cliff.

Zhao Mengmeng followed using the Wind-Chasing Claw.

This time, she didn't crash into a snowdrift.

The grapple caught a protruding rock on the cliff face, and she controlled the retraction speed, sliding down bit by bit.

She stumbled a bit upon landing, but managed to stand steady.

She immediately lifted her chin.

"See that? My technique is improving."

Lin Ye brushed some fallen snow off her shoulder.

"Evolved from a suicide-style descent to a disability-risk descent."

Zhao Mengmeng raised her foot to kick him.

Lin Ye had already turned and disappeared into the snowy forest.

The footprints left yesterday were completely covered.

Lin Ye walked with a steady gait.

The broken branches on tree trunks, the undulations of the slopes, and the snow ridges formed by wind pressure were all signposts in his eyes.

Zhao Mengmeng walked in his footprints, the snow reaching past her knees, forcing her to pull her legs out with every step.

Every so often, Lin Ye would activate his left eye to quickly check the surroundings.

Half an hour later, the two arrived at the slope where they had encountered the beast tide yesterday.

The snow surface had returned to being flat.

But Lin Ye probed downwards with his axe handle; underneath, it was all crushed ice crust and mud.

After crossing the slope, the trees became sparse.

The contour of the depression ahead gradually revealed itself.

The snow surface was excessively flat, with shallow arcs carved out by the wind in the center.

A few black rocks were half-buried at the edges.

Lin Ye walked toward a short tree.

On the leeward side of the bark, the thin rope knot was still there.

He then cleared away the snow on the back of the rock.

Three indentations were clearly visible.

The coordinates were correct.

Zhao Mengmeng raised the crossbow and stood on higher ground.

"Which side should I watch?"

"Focus on the northwest wind gap and the path the beast tide came from yesterday."

Lin Ye unfolded the folding shovel and locked the blade.

Zhao Mengmeng immediately changed positions.

She hid behind a black rock, her crossbow covering the edge of the tree line.

"Dig with peace of mind; if anything shows its head, I'll drill a hole in it first."

Lin Ye stood at the edge of the depression, and the folding shovel in his hand slammed down violently.

"Clang!"

A dull sound of impact spread out.

The vibration traveled up the shovel handle straight to his shoulders.

Only a shallow mark was cut into the surface of the frozen soil.

Lin Ye did not pause.

The second strike, the third, the fourth.

The shovel blade continued to hack into the frozen layer.

Each strike erupted with the crisp sound of hard meeting hard.

Fragments of frozen soil splattered, making faint sounds as they landed on the snow.

Zhao Mengmeng watched for two minutes, her expression becoming serious.

Just from the sound, you could tell this frozen soil was absurdly hard.

An ordinary person would wreck their wrists after a dozen strikes.

The comments in the Great Xia Live Stream scrolled by rapidly.

[This soil is as hard as rock!]

[The shovel blade is almost sparking; can he really dig through it?]

[If he hadn't gotten this shovel yesterday, he wouldn't even be able to break the surface today.]

Lin Ye maintained a steady rhythm.

The blade would first hack through the frozen crust, then he would use the pick tip to pry apart the ice-embedded layer underneath.

He changed angles every twenty strikes.

Every time he dug a circle, he shoveled all the loose soil out of the pit.

A ring of blackened frozen soil chunks quickly piled up at the edge of the depression.

Zhao Mengmeng kept watch while occasionally glancing back.

Lin Ye's movements did not slow down at all.

His breathing was steady, and the force from his shoulders and back was extremely crisp and efficient.

A 100% pure Spirit Grid was not eroded by high-dimensional pollution, keeping his physical functions at the absolute peak of human capability at all times.

There was no explosive, brute-force hacking.

The force of every strike was precisely delivered to the breaking point of the frozen layer.

The blade fell, and the frozen soil shattered.

The pick tip pried, and the hard chunks flipped up.

The first twenty minutes passed.

The pit was nearly twenty centimeters deep.

Lin Ye took off his outermost windproof cloak and hung it on a nearby branch.

The cold wind rushed in instantly.

But the high-intensity labor caused his body temperature to soar.

Zhao Mengmeng panicked.

"Don't get frostbite!"

"If the sweat freezes, it'll be even more trouble."

Lin Ye didn't even lift his head, the folding shovel in his hand falling once more.

Zhao Mengmeng fell silent, wrapped her cloak tighter, and stared fixedly at the tree line.

Occasionally, the sound of breaking branches came from the distance.

It was unclear whether the snow had crushed a dead tree or if something had stepped on it.

Every faint sound made her crossbow pivot quickly toward it.

The deeper Lin Ye dug, the quieter the surroundings seemed.

This deathly silence made one's skin crawl.

An hour later, the pit was over half a meter deep.

The blade of the folding shovel had been worn to a shine.

The palm of the glove Lin Ye was wearing had torn.

He tore off the loose leather and wrapped his palm directly to the shovel handle with strips of animal hide.

Zhao Mengmeng jumped down from the black rock and ran over to hand him water.

Lin Ye took the water canister.

The water was half-frozen.

He knocked away the ice shards, took two large gulps, and tossed the canister back.

"Go back up."

Zhao Mengmeng glanced at the bottom of the pit.

"Still not at the bottom?"

"Just warming up."

Lin Ye gripped the shovel handle again.

The second hour began.

His speed increased rather than decreased.

Once the hard frozen crust on the top layer was broken through, the ice-embedded layer below became brittle.

Every time the blade hacked down, he could pry up large chunks of frozen soil.

By the time the second hour was halfway through.

His speed did not drop; instead, it got faster.

Because after the hard frozen top layer was broken, there was more ice-embedded layer below, and the structure was more brittle.

As the blade hacked down, large swathes of frozen soil could be pried up in whole chunks.