Chapter 91: Undead Miner

“Zombie?” Xu Feng stared hard at the person opposite him. He saw the rotting skin on the other’s face and the corpse spots on the arms. Xu Feng cried out in surprise.

“No, wait, not a zombie. This is an Undead Miner!” Xu Feng shouted.

Back when Xu Feng first entered the mine as a miner, the monsters inside had already been cleared out dozens of times by the guilds that occupied the mine. There were no monsters left in the mine, so miners could dig deep into the mine without worry.

But Xu Feng had heard that mine caves like this, which suddenly appeared on Earth, usually had native creatures inside. Some turned into monsters, while others kept some instincts.

The most common in the mine were Undead Miners. They were a race similar to humans. Before the mine appeared on Earth, they were normal miners. But after the mine inexplicably came to Earth, they mutated and became undead beings, living in the mine by instinct.

The Undead Miners kept their old habits. When undisturbed, they kept digging nonstop, never feeling tired.

Some people even went to great lengths to capture a few Undead Miners to dig for them.

Xu Feng did not have a contract to capture Undead Miners, so he could not capture them. He could only kill them as monsters.

Because Undead Miners dug continuously, they always dropped high-quality ores when killed, making them quite popular.

Huff, huff~

The Undead Miner swung its pickaxe at Xu Feng. This Undead Miner was a Three-Star common monster. A red crystal was embedded in its forehead.

The Three-Star Undead Miner was very strong. After just one hard clash, Xu Feng’s arm shook, his wrist hurt a little, and he almost dropped his sword.

After seeing the Undead Miner’s strength, Xu Feng used the Drizzle Sword Technique to fight it. His sword moved like continuous rain around the Undead Miner, avoiding direct clashes. From time to time, Xu Feng used Swift Wind Thrust, taking away a lot of the Undead Miner’s life.

He fought with this Undead Miner for a long time before finally killing it.

Xu Feng felt that both the Undead Miner and the Swamp Lizard Beast were Three-Star beings, but the Undead Miner was clearly harder to fight. On one hand, the Undead Miner’s body surface had hardened, like it was covered in a hard shell, giving it strong defense. On the other hand, the Undead Miner had a pickaxe as a weapon, plus its great strength. Xu Feng could not fight it head-on and had to rely on skills to move around.

However, this was only a little troublesome, not a big problem.

After killing the Undead Miner, before he even used the Gathering Art, he heard a clinking sound. Several pieces of ore dropped from the Undead Miner’s body.

Xu Feng picked them up and looked. He could not help but feel happy.

“Quality 21 Black Iron Ore, Quality 23 Mithril Ore, hehe, not bad, not bad, Quality 25 Adamantite Ore…”

These few high-quality ores completed one-fifth of his collection task at once.

After storing these ores, Xu Feng glanced unwillingly at the Undead Miner’s corpse. He raised his hand and cast the Gathering Art on it.

This time, no more ores dropped. Instead, the pickaxe the Undead Miner was holding dropped out.

If Xu Feng did not have the Gathering Art, he could still pick up the Undead Miner’s pickaxe after killing it. But the picked-up pickaxe would only be an ordinary quality item, not even Black Iron Grade. However, the pickaxe obtained through the Gathering Art was at least a Black Iron Grade item.

“Hey, not bad, it’s actually a small top-grade item!” Xu Feng picked it up and saw it was a Bronze Grade mining tool.

Pickaxe, Bronze Grade, Attributes: Increase mining chance by 5%, Increase mining quality by 2%.

“Not bad, it’s a pretty good mining tool. If sold, it would be worth at least fifteen hundred Fate Points.”

He glanced at the pickaxe’s attributes, but it did not attract much of his attention. With the Gathering Art, he did not need mining tools to dig. He casually put it into his Storage Ring. Xu Feng walked to the spot where the Undead Miner was just digging and used the Gathering Art.

A white light flashed and went into the rock wall. After several dozen seconds, the rock wall automatically cracked open. A fist-sized ore with silver sparkles on the surface fell down.

“Starmetal?”

A look of pleasant surprise appeared in Xu Feng’s eyes. This was a necessary ore for forging top-grade weapons. Almost all top-grade weapons contained Starmetal.

“Quality 21 Starmetal Ore.” Xu Feng picked it up and took a look.

Just this one piece of Starmetal ore advanced his collection task by ten percent, equivalent to fifty ordinary ores.

And this was for the task. If sold to others, its value would be at least ten times higher.

“So it’s true, places where Undead Miners are found can yield high-quality ores.”

This was a rumor Xu Feng heard from others when he was a miner in his previous life. Back then, he just treated it as a joke and laughed it off. He never expected the rumor to be true.

He kept digging. Beams of white light continuously shot from Xu Feng’s hand into the rock wall. In return, pieces of ore rolled out from the rock wall.

“Quality 19 Gold Ore, Quality 23 Magic Iron Ore, Quality 29 Mithril Ore…”

Xu Feng grinned happily. He was really getting rich this time, with so many high-quality ores.

But unfortunately, after only digging seven or eight high-quality ores, the ones that came out afterward were all Quality 10-something Iron Ore and Copper Ore.

Xu Feng checked his Energy Value; only one-third remained. He looked at the large pile of iron ore at his feet and shook his head.

“It seems I need to change digging spots.”

…

For several days in a row, Xu Feng kept digging in this mine cave. Most monsters in the mine were One Star or Two Stars. Three-Star ones were rarely seen. Occasionally, a Three-Star monster appeared, but it was no match for Xu Feng. Apart from leaving behind a Three-Star Beast Crystal to improve his strength and some other loot, they could not harm Xu Feng at all.

The passages in the mine were dense, like a spider web. If not for being able to light up the map and remember the paths taken, Xu Feng would not dare to go deep.

The Giant Lizard Beast yawned boredly. These past few days had been incredibly dull for it. The mine passages were narrow, only wide enough for three people to walk side by side. If it returned to its full size, it would probably collapse the entire passage instantly.

The collection task issued by Earth’s Will was completed yesterday. Watching so many high-quality ores disappear from his ring, Xu Feng felt a pang of heartache.

He continued deeper into the mine. Xu Feng urgently needed to refill his now-empty Storage Ring.