CH 49.3

By the time Bai Jing returned home, it was already late in the afternoon.

And he had received a message on his light brain that he was to choose rough stones at the Gu Conglomerate’s Rough Stone Warehouse at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.

With his mecha sent for modification, he couldn’t continue to participate in mecha battles, so he went to his studio instead.

Having not worked on rough stones for some time, Bai Jing planned to solve the last two rough stones he had bought from the Gambling Street tonight.

Of the five rough stones he had purchased from the Gambling Street, three had been solved and the energy fluid extracted. They were of the glutinous variety, egg white variety and the hibiscus variety.

Now, only a rough stone with large vicious cracks that he bought for 600,000 starcoins, and another round black rough stone were left, with the jadeite inside the latter unknown.

With the help of the handling robot, Bai Jing placed the large rough stone with the vicious cracks on the stone cutting machine.

The rough stone was more than half a meter long, flat and oval in shape and weighed over a hundred kilograms. It took a while for the stone cutting machine to secure it properly.

The large cracks were distributed in the center of the rough stone, as if a large axe had been used to cleave the stone in two, separating it into two parts, the opening in the upper left corner showing jadeite of the coarse bean variety.

Bai Jing had previously used his sense perception ability to find out that the part close to the opening on the left half undoubtedly had jadeite of the coarse bean variety, that it wasn’t very large, was only four or five kilograms, and that the rest was white stone.

However six or seven centimeters further in, apart from the fragmented jadeite near the cracks, the rest was all sunny green jadeite of the icy glass variety that weighed at least ten kilograms.

After confirming the distribution of the jadeite inside with his sense perception ability again, Bai Jing pressed the button to activate the laser knife and the blue laser, like a sharp sword, split the entire rough stone in two from the crack.

The weight of the split rough stone was still considerable, as each piece weighed fifty to sixty kilograms.

At its master’s request, the handling robot set the right half of the rough stone aside then placed the left half with the opening on the stone cutting machine.

Then Bai Jing began to solve the jadeite of the coarse bean variety on the left half.

He made a cut three inches from the crack, which separated the jadeite of the bean variety completely from the white stone, the other half of the cut surface over forty kilograms of waste.

Then, he made two slanted cuts near the opening, revealing the entire outline of the jadeite of the bean variety.

The laser knife was replaced with an abrasive grinding wheel and as the rubble fell away, a hemispherical jadeite of about five or six kilograms was finally laid on the stone platform.

It was grayish green throughout, with a very prominent granular texture and of poor quality. It was a lower to middle grade jadeite of the bean variety.

However Bai Jing didn’t mind, because the real highlight was in the right half of the rough stone.

He put the approximately sixty kilogram grayish white stone on the stone cutting machine and the mechanical arms on both sides secured it firmly.

Using the laser knife, Bai Jing made a clean cut about seven or eight centimeters from the vicious cracks, to reveal a half fragmented jadeite of the ice variety just below the cut surface!

The other half was an intact jadeite of the ice variety, with a transparent as ice, crystal clear and lustrous texture, its green color vivid but not overly intense, distributed very evenly, showing a wonderful sunny green color!

His fair fingers gripping the black handle of the laser knife, each move he made was just right, not a bit off as he cut off all the outer shell of the rough stone, then he replaced the laser knife with the abrasive grinding wheel.

About ten minutes later, the jadeite, which weighed more than ten kilograms, was solved completely.

It was a flat sphere of about fifteen centimeters in diameter, with a slightly protruding edge on one side and very rounded everywhere else, looking extremely beautiful.

On the outside was a six or seven kilograms of sunny green jadeite of the ice variety, shimmering like a wave of light while on the inside was jadeite of the imperial glass variety of the same color, but with even higher transparency!

Bai Jing placed it carefully on the blanket covered stone platform, then started to solve the black rough stone.

This rough stone was only about the size of an adult fist, weighed at most two kilograms and had a surface similar to that of the dark ebony skin rough stone, yet wasn’t one.

The exterior of the rough stone was as black as ink and covered with a thick layer of wax skin, indicating a high degree of weathering, a typical of the rough stones from an old pit which must have been formed a very long time ago.

A rough stone this size didn’t need to be cut. It could be solved directly with a grinding wheel.

And he didn’t know if it was an illusion or not, but Bai Jing felt that the usually sharp abrasive grinding wheel gave the feeling of having hit hard particles when it came into contact with the crust of the rough stone, the collision sound loud, like a clash between metals.

It took him a full half hour to rub off two finger widths of the crust, and his arm was somewhat sore and weak.

At this rate, there was no telling how long it would take to solve this rough stone completely.

He thought for a moment then simply replaced the abrasive grinding wheel with the laser knife, drawing four cutting lines diagonally close to the crust.

The mechanical arm of the stone cutting machine secured the rough stone firmly in place, then the blue ‘blade’ fell abruptly, finally slicing off the crust of the rough stone.

The exposed opening revealed jadeite that was darker than the shell, almost impenetrable to light, making it so that it reflected in the eyes like a thin outline, with only endless darkness inside.

Bai Jing continued with the cutting, removing the four corners off completely, after which he drew new cutting lines closer to the jadeite.

This time, the lines were less than a centimeter from the flesh of the jadeite, roughly the width of the blue laser beam, something which was difficult to do, but not a problem for Bai Jing.

With one cut, the laser beam disappeared into the rough stone, accurate to 0.01 millimeters, as precise as an infrared system’s automatic recognition, separating the jadeite inside from the shell perfectly.

The black crust fell away in one piece, with only a few small edges left on the top half that required some rubbing.

Flipping the rough stone 180 degrees, with the bottom facing up, Bai Jing redrew the cutting lines then began cutting.

The entire cutting process took twenty minutes, then he switched to the abrasive grinding wheel.

This time it was much easier, because in less than an hour, he had cleared all the rubble, revealing the black jadeite inside.

He rubbed his wrist, which was slightly sore, before starting to observe the piece of jadeite.

It was only the size of an egg, with no edges or corners around it, smooth and round, like a boiled egg encased in its soft shell.

Apart from the outline, it was pitch black, with no luster or transparency, almost like a miniature black hole.

In short, only the outline could be seen.

If one had to express it with words, it was like a bubble, where only the outer membrane, its boundary, could be seen.

Holding it, Bai Jing observed it for a while, not even sure if it could be considered a jadeite.

However his sense perception ability could sense an extraordinary activity, several times more intense than one that came from an imperial green glass jadeite, showing that it contained abundant energy.

It was as if countless energy had been compressed into a black container, continuously compressing and fusing, forming a huge suction force to prevent the energy from escaping.

If a black hole was a black hole because the gravitational force was so great that it prevented even light from escaping, then this piece of jadeite was a suction force so powerful that it prevented energy from escaping.

Seeing the black jadeite, the mental power within Bai Jing became restless, radiating a deep desire yet fear.

If it were normal, the white thread of his mental power would have been so bold that it would have already reached into the jadeite.

But now, it didn’t dare and could only ‘look’ at it.

There was only one possibility, and that was: with his current mental power, he couldn’t absorb the energy inside.

So opening an empty silver box, he put the jadeite inside, sealed it, then put the box into his spatial button.

With two layers of space separating them, his mental power immediately returned to calm.

After resting for a while, Bai Jing began the extraction of energy fluid from the sunny green jadeite of the ice variety.

This was his first time extracting energy fluid from a grade five jadeite. Although he had previously extracted grade five energy fluid, all the raw materials used had been grade four jadeites.

He didn’t know if his current mental power could extract it fully.

The white thread of his mental power poked out from within him, but didn’t enter the jadeite of the ice variety directly. Instead, it looked around for a while, as if seeking the aura of the black jadeite.

After finding none, it attached its tip obediently onto the outer layer of the sunny green jadeite of the ice variety. At the same time, his sense perception ability intertwined with it, forming a dazzling golden thread, then the extraction started.

The mental power required to extract energy fluid from the jadeite of the ice variety was much larger than before, however it wasn’t too difficult for Bai Jing, whose mental power had already reached the S level.

However, the time it took to extract one box of energy fluid couldn’t be improved.

One drop, two drops, three drops….. After an hour, the clear and transparent liquid barely filled the silver box and the extraction of a box of energy fluid was completed.

Feeling that his mental power was nearly half depleted, Bai Jing continued to extract a second box of energy fluid.

By the time this extraction was completed, it was already late in the night.

He put the energy fluids on the detector to check their purity level, and it showed a purity of 59.85%, the highest quality in the grade 5 level energy fluids.

This was close to reaching the purity level of a grade six energy fluid!

He put the two boxes of energy fluid from this time’s extraction along with the fifteen boxes of grade five energy fluids from the last time on the table, sent a message, then waited for Gu Yuanzhao to come and pick them up.

When Gu Yuanzhao came back, the teenager had already gone to bed early.

Seeing the seventeen energy boxes on the table, Gu Yuanzhao was surprised. The time was even shorter this time, and the quantity was more than ever!

His Ah Jing was really amazing.