58 Preparation of War

However, with no color vision, it was difficult to determine what it was, so he could only determine it with other senses. That is smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Hearing was impossible, tasting was was a big no-no; if the substance was not water and instead, was poisonous, he would regret it.

First, he took a sniff and noted that it had an acrid smell. It smelled horrible.

Tang Ling then tried to touch the liquid but after a few seconds, he sensed that his finger was burning and immediately retracted.

"Sssiii..."

Tang Ling looked at his finger, a patch of skin was burnt, leaving only dead skin tissues.

"This has extremely acidic! Only a few seconds and it already corroded my skin, if I've drunk that, I would be half-dead!"

Tang Ling cried in fear, he was lucky that he wasn't stupid. If he had thought that it was a source of water, he would be in a state of hovering the realm of the living and the dead, a state easily weighted in the favor of death in this godforsaken place.

"God, if there's such a dangerous substance in the environment, why didn't the guide mention this?" Tang Ling muttered out of frustration.

Taking an overall look at the place, he saw that the liquid came from a crack, it seemed through the thin lines and corroded the rocky wall from the inside, making space bigger thus as time goes on, more of this 'water' would come out.

This small stream of being thirty centimeters wide and five millimeters deep will continue to grow until the source is depleted or the path is blocked.

"BZZZZZZZ!!!"

A sound of engines starting and buzzing started to come from the cracked wall. The vibration could be felt from another room and Tang Ling felt his hair rising, as though, a great opponent was waiting for him in the next room.

It was commonly understood that the hair rising happens the body sense a great danger coming. In ancient times, it is said that this phenomenon was used to try to intimidate predators, making humans look bigger.

What could it be?

Tang Ling wondered, there were now three choices he could make: return to the surface, continue his intended path or check out this unexpected machine roaring next door. A second later, Tang Ling tried to look through the cracks.

"Can't see anything..." Tang Ling muttered. So he decided to mine it up.

Clang!

Clang!

Even though the sounds of pickaxe hitting stones were loud, it was completely overshadowed by the noise emitted by the machine so Tang Ling was not too worried.

After a few minutes, with the strength he acquired in Heavenly Ascension, he was finally able to pierce the thick stone wall and could now see what's inside.

...

The worker on the left was checking the condition of the excavator and then turned his head to speak to the soldier: "Hey, what's the deal of extracting Excel that far from home? We were be demanded to be blinded and stay secretive about the operation but I pretty much know that we're about one to three hours from home. Excel isn't rare in these regions so why bother going so far to mine it?"

"..." The soldier remained silent. His cold gaze landed on the worker and he shivered, deciding not to ask again.

"Shush. You know how our soldiers work, why provoke them? If you paid more closely to the news, you would be able to guess what's going on. We're going to war! Second Prince Derrick has recently lost a few outer cities and has been quite upset about it so there's only another war as retaliation!"

The other worker on the right laughed at the worker at the left and explained the situation, continuing: "Excel is not just a fuel for high-tech airborne cars in the capital but it's also a precious component for Orderers as well. Did you see the impressive spell from Davis Jackson? The Great Firebomb? Yeah, it needs several precious materials with one of them being Excel. Also, Excel is very volatile and needs precious cases to contain it for a long time. Since we're preparing for war, it's better just to extract it right here to avoid the deterioration of the fuel and also accelerate the refueling of troops, right?"

After he finished his long-winded explanation, he turned around to the soldier, only to not receive a response.

"..."

At the awkward silence, the worker coughed and returned to work.

Click. Clang. BRUUUUUUU!!!

...

"Preparation of war, huh?" Tang Ling muttered silently, "Retaliation? Just a few days ago, there was a celebration of the Third Prince of the Mysterious Fire Faction gaining twenty outer cities and he rewarded every student at Bao Feng City a chance to become a Fluxer. Is it relevant?"

War wasn't so uncommon in Brokang Continent. After ruling the entirety of the continent (as per the name) for four generations, a sense of complacency has seeped into the higher-ups' mind and a few territories have used this chance to revolt and get their independence. When the Empire finally responded, an alliance between these kingdoms were already established and they formed a united front, defeating the advanced army and occupied a strategic location, making it hard for the Empire to invade.

Since then, the military has always been taken seriously and Princes aspiring to become the Emperor would need to be versed in civil and military matters. To accumulate experiences, they are given a city and will fight each other. However, it can only involve outer cities; inner and core cities are prohibited from being besieged since they are too important to be damaged. City administrators and mayors will just change factions and give part of taxes to the said faction after conquering the outer cities they are administrating.

So to say that war is coming to Bao Feng City with this slight discovery is not something inconceivable, especially if it's linked with the capture of twenty outer cities from the Third Prince.

However, Bao Feng City was in an unfavorable territory and would rarely be attacked by outside forces with the exception of Beast Invasions. In the hundreds of years of history the city had, it was only invaded once; by a group of bandits planning to make an independent city-state but swiftly repelled by the great military troop stationed in the region.

What would happen if the city knew about the incoming invasion? Tang Ling wasn't too sure. People will, that's for sure but how many? What would be the economic losses? Would certain weapons be banned?

Tang Ling really couldn't know and couldn't guess either. Even the war which brought the Third Prince 20 outer cities wasn't known until Intendant Mu Xie announced in the school gym.