In an open area within the forest, there was an oval-shaped pit that plunged about ten meters deep. Around twenty red beetles, each about one meter in length, were resting within the pit, their red carapaces nearly blending in with the reddish-brown soil.
The location indicated by the pale golden pillar of light was situated within a nearby cave beside the pit.
[Clay Mine]
[Scale: Small]
[Level: 1]
[Main production resource: Clay]
[By-product: None]
[Storage: 17500/17500 units]
[Maximum weekly production: 2100 units]
[Weekly Personnel Production: 50 units/person]
Ji Chen was delighted.
A small clay mine! The weekly output was as high as 2100 units!
Moreover, there was no loss of reserves at all. It was enough to mine at full horsepower for more than eight weeks.
After the resource points were emptied, the lord could choose two operations to recover the resources.
One was to temporarily close the resource point for a period of time and wait for the resources to slowly recover.
The other was to lower the level of the resource points and continue collecting them.
Shrinking a resource point through downgrading led to its gradual reduction in size, for instance, a medium-sized point would be transformed into a small-sized point, and a small-sized one would become miniature-sized, and so on.
Nonetheless, once it reached the miniature size, it could not shrink further, and the depleted resource reserves remained irretrievable.
This method allowed for maximum resource extraction from a point, but it was also exploitative. The red beetles present in the pit were most likely guarding the clay mine.
Abruptly, the attribute screen began to flicker.
[Clay Beetle]
[Level: 4]
[Tier: 2, 1 star]
[Skill: Hardshell (green skill, eating soil all year round to absorb a large number of minerals, causing its shell to harden and become quite strong)]
Turtle Shrinking (Green skill, retract limbs into the shell, greatly increasing defense)
Bash (White skill, can use a pair of short claws to clamp the enemy, causing crushing damage)
[Military characteristic: Slow movement (absorbing too many minerals causes its shell to be heavy and its movement to be slow)]
[Did you eat dirt today? I have a mine at home. Let's eat together.]
These beetles were wrapped in a hard shell, like a tortoise shell formation that was airtight and extremely difficult to attack.
With the Murloc's bone spear, it probably wouldn't even be able to break through the defense.
What should he do?
Ji Chen rubbed his chin and pondered.
When he saw the word " slow " on the beetle's panel, he had some ideas.
Then he would attack their defense with their own weapons!
Since their movements were slow, he had more room for maneuver.
Twenty-one Murlocs arrived at the pit from the other side of the slope and swaggered to the front of the Clay Beetle.
Following the actions he taught, they began to taunt, including but not limited to, wiggling their buttocks, throwing stones, hurling dirt, and making ambiguous mocking sounds.
Witnessing the scene, even the Clay Beetle, who was of a different species, was filled with rage. His head heated up as he stretched his tiny legs and began to move forward.
However, their heavy carapaces made every step seem painfully slow, and their speed was only marginally faster than that of a snail.
As shut-in beetles who remained underground all year round, they only emerged to feed on soil and slept when they were full. It didn't take long for them to feel the weight of gravity and the futility of the chase.
Glancing at the repulsive Murlocs who were constantly taunting but couldn't catch up to them, the Clay Beetle made a decision.
Rather than waste precious energy chasing after the enemy, he retreated into his shell. He realized that it was better to eat two more mouthfuls of soil instead.
After all, he couldn't break their shells, so it was futile to fight back.
That was it.
Ji Chen, who was observing the battle from the sidelines, was both shocked and dismayed by the Clay Beetle's pitiful display.
Despite this, he found himself filled with a sense of elation upon realizing the opportunity at hand.
"Quickly, flip them over!"
The Lord's orders were absolute.
Upon hearing this, the Murlocs rushed towards their designated targets. However, the Clay Beetle remained indifferent to this scene, choosing instead to retreat into its shell and observe the Murlocs.
The Murlocs formed groups of three and approached the beetle's side. Placing a stone on the ground, they inserted the bone spear into the gap between the beetle's shell and the earth, securing it on the stone. With a pull of the spear's tail, the once immobile beetle was lifted slightly.
The Murlocs, their dead fisheyes wide with excitement, exerted all their strength to raise a little at a time until it was flipped upside down.
The beetle was left dumbfounded by the sudden change in its world. It struggled to move its short legs but found itself pinned down by the very shell that had previously provided a sense of safety and protection.
It was now a heavy weight pressing down on it.
Despite their struggling, the beetles were unable to flip themselves back over.
Clay Beetle: You guys are such babies!
The Murlocs followed suit and flipped each of the twenty clay beetles onto their backs, allowing them to bask in the warmth of the sun.
They then proceeded to stab their soft underbellies with bone spears.
Amidst the pitiful cries of the beetles, the system prompt quietly sounded.
"Ding ~ The battle has ended. You have obtained a glorious victory…"
"... You have received 100 experience points. Current experience is [40%/100%]."
[You have gained control of the small clay mine.]
Ji Chen walked down the pit with a smile.
He looked at the already dead Clay Beetle with disdain.
This was what he called using a lever!
Knowledge was power!
After a thorough examination, he found that aside from their hard shells, the flesh of these clay beetles was also brightly colored, translucent, and had a white-to-red hue.
A thought occurred to him, "It looked like it could be used as food."
"You can eat it after removing the head. The protein is five times that of beef!" he suddenly remembered.
With this in mind, he instructed the Murlocs to perform a simple treatment on the beetles, removing the heavy shell and useless head, and preserving only the fleshy body parts.
He then packed the beetle corpses into his backpack, one by one, until he had collected sixteen.
"Ding ~ Your backpack is full. If you put more items in, you will be punished by the weight penalty."
Ji Chen was stunned. A weight punishment?
He took two steps, but immediately felt the weight of his backpack dragging him down, slowing his movements.
After some experimentation, he discovered the limits of the weight penalty system: as long as the total number of items in the backpack did not exceed 10 slots, there would be no penalty for movement speed.
However, once the number of slots exceeded 10, the player would begin to suffer penalties. At 11 slots, the speed reduction was 10%, increasing to 20% at 12 slots, and so on.
Once the backpack was full, with 20 items in it, the player could no longer add any more items and their speed would be reduced to zero. This limitation was designed to restrict players from carrying an excessive amount of items, forcing them to prioritize and strategize when it comes to inventory management.
Without the weight penalty system, players would likely stuff all their belongings into their backpacks for the sake of safety.
However, this restriction forced Ji Chen to abandon his plan of exploring all three resource points in one trip.
He called the Murlocs to collect the beetle corpses and began to make their way back to his territory via the path they had cleared earlier.
As they returned, the residents of the territory marveled at the sight of the beetle corpses.
Ji Chen handed them over to Wilus for further processing and cutting. After a brief rest, he led the Murlocs out once again, this time towards the third resource point.
Although it was the furthest away, located about three kilometers to the east and slightly north of the territory, they could reach it from the beach.
Along the way, they passed by the stranded boat and the reef where they had fished the day before. Without stopping, Ji Chen pushed forward with the Murlocs in tow.