Chapter 48 - Unexpected Meeting

It couldn't be helped but Tang Ling still could not resist the urge to sigh.

Without loot, he was naturally depressed but he knew that hunting was all about luck and skills.

The star duo hunters in the region, Gold and Silver, were rumoured to be Fluxers with an average daily income of 800 credits and they too sometimes had a bad harvest.

The walk was quite long but then he saw a man emerging from a hole. To more exact, after Tang Ling inspected it more closely, a mineshaft.

"Huh, where did you come from ?" the raven man asked in surprise but then recognize him. "Ah ! It's you, the formidable newbie who managed to hunt an Uruvian Bear, right ?"

Tang Ling nodded.

"Well, why are you here ? I remember that here's my spot." he said.

"Spot ?" Tang Ling frowned, it was quite unfamiliar.

"Yeah, it's my exclusive entrance to the underground ! You know, in our province, beasts are rare on the surface because of the extremely dry conditions the land offers. Alternative forms of income like plant foraging and ore extraction are subpar on the surface since plants do not grow without nutriments and water and it's rare to see open source of ores."

The conversation made Tang Ling understand the situation. The Uruvian Bear has managed to survive all this while and almost became BOSS-like beast not because of the lack of hunters or incompetence but because the main focus of the city was the underground.

The city of Bao Feng is under the juridiction of the Dread Wasteland with the inner city as its master. Although the climate wasn't friendly to the continent, it still did not compare to the Dread Wasteland. The empire did not have a population problem or a territory problem so Tang Ling has always wondered why did they set cities in the middle of nowhere. Not even the official citizens knew.

But then it all made sense ! If it's taken at face value, there is no value into investing so much ressources into this region; it should have at the maximum, the ressources put to the development should have been similar to Drought Stricken Region; only enough to create a small fortress to repel marine invaders to reach the mainland.

A fortress may be expensive but it's cheaper than building several cities; including an inner city. What is an inner city ? It's the military, cultural and economic center of several smaller cities which they pay tributes to. At the lowest, inner cities could house at least five hundred thousand persons and at the highest, could rival core cities with tens of millions as their citizens.

The Coral Sea City, although not in the top of the list, isn't at the lowest either.

"What's under ?" Tang Ling asked.

"It's the underground network of Bao Feng City. Although it's not comparable to the neighbouring dedicated mining town, it is a respectable location. There's iron, copper, gold and even Flux metals like Iodun can be occasionally found. However, it's pretty much mined out and there's only a few beasts which we slay in a patrol. They reproduce fast and if we can't deal with it, there would be a new addition of another force in the upcoming Beast Tide.

Although Bao Feng City isn't an important or endangered city, it is still a home for thirty thousand people so when the central government made deals with the private sector and new companies sprung out to "leech" off the new policy. They use the private sector's will to enforce regular extermination of these lands with contracted hunters, especially when it's an undeveloped and hard to control area."

So the half-excavated underground complex still has natural ressources ? And the mining job he was offered a few years ago was to excavate the new and rich mine ? If so, it would make sense that the requirement was so stringent and the pay so good. The state wouldn't care much of the individual salary of miners if they generates so much profit.

Tomorrow, he would get the Pauli's Root and put it inside his Inventory and then proceed to enter one of Bao Feng City's underground channel. At least, it was better than try his luck on the wilderness.

He told the black man his decision and he responded : "Well, that's good. Give me your phone model and number; Spicy Peppers 3S, XXXX ? That's an old and cheap model. Well, at least it can receive the data. Newbie, try changing your phone to a newer model. It's seems that in the upcoming year, this type model would be decommissioned and many of these functionalities would not be disabled. If it is so, it would be quite a hassle to transmit a message from a higher operating system to your crappy phone." After a minute of fiddling on his phone, Tang Ling received a message which had a lot of information in it. The poor little phone which he picked from rubbish four years ago was beginning to lag and the memory storage equipped was almost used up.

Tang Ling : "..." He would prefer not to talk about this.

Poorness limited my choices !

Tang Ling sighed as he thought about it while walking towards the city. He felt quite uncomfortable after the conversation. The rumours about hunters may not be true but it is undeniable that most people who became good at this trade has quite a good standard of living.

In fact, he learned a lot in this conversation. According to what he learnt, hunters definitely has a connection to Fluxers. To know about and get Flux materials isn't something that an average citizen can do. To sell restricted materials as a 'mortal' is a privilege in itself and maybe... maybe... Hunters could become Fluxers !