8: Loot the Wolf Cave, Ice Crystal Fragments and Mysterious Elemental Stones

“Stop!” The two Soldiers guarding his side reacted extremely quickly; one shield slammed fiercely into the side of the alpha wolf, while another spear seized the opportunity, piercing precisely into the alpha wolf’s soft underbelly with a squelch!

“Howl—!”

The alpha wolf let out one last mournful howl, its massive body collapsing heavily onto the snow, its limbs twitching a few times.

Blood quickly stained the white snow beneath it, and it finally took its last breath unwillingly.

With the alpha wolf dead, the remaining wolves scattered, but they had already been surrounded by the Soldiers and were quickly killed one by one.

A moment later, the snowstorm continued, but the battle in this low-lying area was completely over.

The scent of blood in the air grew stronger.

“Clear the battlefield, maintain vigilance.” Mo Yan’s gaze swept over the wolf corpses littering the ground.

“Yes, My Lord!”

The Soldiers responded in unison, looking at the wolf corpses covering the ground with expressions of vengeful satisfaction and excitement.

One Soldier, whose arm had been scratched, winced as he tended to his wound, excitedly saying to his companion, “Hey, did you see that?”

“These beasts were so arrogant yesterday! But today, they still fell into our hands! Our Lord is brilliant!”

“That’s right! Follow our Lord, and we’ll be fine!” Another person nodded vigorously, looking at Mo Yan with eyes full of awe.

These monsters were completely vulnerable before their Lord!

Mo Yan’s gaze turned to the wolf corpses, then looked in the direction from which the resource perception had come earlier, deep in thought.

It seemed there were still good things nearby.

He then activated Value Insight to examine the wolf corpses.

Icefield Wolf Leader Corpse (Tier 1, LV 3)

Common Materials: Wolf teeth, wolf claws, fur, flesh and blood

Special Materials: May contain an Ice Core (rare Materials) internally, contains a relatively large amount of ice Qi, can be extracted as ice crystal shards (requires a Disassembler)

Overall Value: Medium

“Ice Core?” Mo Yan’s eyes lit up; it was another new Material!

He approached to inspect it and indeed found a faint blue light emanating from the alpha wolf’s heart, unlike ordinary Icefield Wolves.

“Good harvest, this wolf’s Value far exceeds the ordinary.”

He ordered the Soldiers to collect the wolf corpses, especially protecting the alpha wolf’s corpse.

Just as the Soldiers began to clear the wolf corpses, a sharp-eyed Soldier pointed to where the alpha wolf had fallen and exclaimed:

“My Lord, look! When this wolf struggled, it seemed to have dug away a lot of snow here, and below… there seems to be a cave entrance!”

Mo Yan’s eyes narrowed, and he quickly approached, pushing aside the messy snow dug up by the alpha wolf in its death throes, revealing a mostly obscured, dark cave entrance.

A strong, pungent odor, mixed with blood and the musky smell of wild beasts, faintly emanated from within.

“Wolf den?” Mo Yan raised an eyebrow; this was truly an unexpected discovery.

He squatted down to carefully observe the traces around the cave entrance, confirming it was a passage formed by long-term entry and exit.

“Two of you guard the entrance, the rest follow me inside, stay alert, and don’t make too much noise.” Mo Yan lowered his voice.

The cave was wider than expected, and the musky odor in the air grew even stronger, almost suffocating. With the faint light filtering in from the entrance, one could distinguish thick frost congealed on the stone walls.

The pungent, musky smell grew even stronger and more suffocating, almost choking him.

Underfoot was hardened dirt, mixed with scattered wolf fur and gnawed bone fragments.

Mo Yan squinted slightly, cautiously observing his surroundings, confirming there were no other living creatures lurking, then he lowered his voice: “Be careful.”

The cave was not very deep and soon reached its end.

This was clearly the wolves’ true lair.

In the corner, some frozen, blackened meat chunks and the remains of unknown beasts were haphazardly piled, clearly the wolves’ food reserves.

But what attracted Mo Yan’s attention more were the small piles of crystals shimmering with a faint ice-blue light scattered next to that pile of food, and a few inconspicuous white stones.

His heart involuntarily quickened a few beats.

His intuition told him these things were not simple!

Value Insight activated!

[ice crystal shard]

Description: Contains trace amounts of ice Qi, can be used to craft ice-element Dao items, and is also a Material for certain buildings.

Overall Value: Low

[Elemental Stone]

Description: Contains pure elemental energy, an essential Material for Advanced buildings, technology, and equipment, extremely scarce.

Overall Value: Extremely High

“Elemental Stone!”

Seeing these two words, Mo Yan’s pupils suddenly constricted, and he held his breath!

This was precisely the crucial Material urgently needed to build the Butchering Platform and Tavern!

This was simply a godsend!

He suppressed the excitement in his heart, quickly stepped forward, and carefully collected the ice crystal shards and Elemental Stones scattered in the corner, not missing a single one, into his Talent Space.

[Obtained: ice crystal shard x 37!]

[Obtained: Elemental Stone x 8!]

The System prompt popped up, but Mo Yan noticed that the illustrations for the Elemental Stone and ice crystal shard did not light up like the wood and stone before.

“Hmm? Have the conditions for automatic production not been met yet?”

His heart stirred slightly, and he secretly guessed: “It seems this automatic production either has requirements for the quality of the item, or it needs a certain basic quantity to be collected before it can be activated.”

Rare resources were indeed not that easy to obtain for free.

However, this did not affect his current mood.

A full eight Elemental Stones!

This unexpected joy was enough to elevate the territory’s development to another level!

Mo Yan said excitedly: “Continue searching! Don’t miss any corner!”

The Soldiers immediately dispersed, carefully checking every crevice in the cave.

Soon, a Soldier discovered a damaged metal box behind an inconspicuous rock crevice.

The box looked old, its metal surface already rusty, and the lock had been violently pried open, revealing its interior.

Mo Yan walked over, his gaze falling on the scattered items remaining inside the box.

[Damaged Map Fragment]

Description: Records part of the topography of a certain area, but it is incomplete and the information is blurry.

Overall Value: Low

[Rusty Key]

Description: Unknown purpose, may open a lock somewhere.

Overall Value: Unknown

[Worn Notebook]

Description: Records someone’s exploration log, but most of the content is already unclear.

Overall Value: Low

Although the Value was not high, and even the purpose was unknown, Mo Yan adhered to the principle that even a mosquito is meat, and collected these three items into his Talent Space as well.

These inconspicuous small things might have unexpected uses in the future; accumulating them would ensure preparedness.

“Reporting, My Lord, search complete, no other discoveries.” A Soldier came to report.

Mo Yan nodded slightly, quite satisfied with the gains from this wolf den exploration.

“Very good, retreat, return to the surface.”

The group quickly left the musky wolf den.

Outside the cave, the other Soldiers had already collected and piled up the Icefield Wolf corpses scattered on the snow, including the most valuable alpha wolf corpse.

Mo Yan said nothing more, just waved his hand.

Buzz—

An invisible fluctuation swept over, and the ten wolf corpses on the ground instantly vanished, all taken into his Talent Space.

Awaiting further processing after the Butchering Platform was built.

He glanced at the time on his Lord panel.

There was still about an hour until the agreed transaction time with Xie Yufeng, plenty of time.

“Continue forward.”

The Soldiers responded in unison, re-forming their ranks, and continued marching towards the highest isolated ice hill to the south.

The cold wind still howled, but Mo Yan’s mood was much lighter than when he arrived.

Having cleared a potential threat and unexpectedly obtained the urgently needed Elemental Stones, this trip’s gains far exceeded expectations.

Next, it was that exploration notebook; he hoped it would contain more clues about Elemental Stones or other resources.