Venti clung to Arkz's leg, pleading earnestly, "Brother, can we switch to someone else?"
Arkz pretended not to know the relationship between Jean and Barbara, and asked doubtfully, "What's wrong? Does that nun named Barbara have a problem?"
"For example, is she sweet and cute on the surface, but actually fierce and shrewish behind the scenes, capable of any evil?"
Venti quickly shook his head vehemently, "Of course not. Barbara is a very good, very cute child."
Arkz clapped his hands, "Then it's settled. My happiness for the day is entrusted to you."
Watching Arkz's retreating back, Venti walked out of the gate of Springvale Farm with a conflicted expression. If you wanted to befriend Jean, he could try to fool her somehow. If you wanted to have a meal with Barbara, he could sacrifice himself to achieve the goal.
But asking both sisters out for a meal at the same time... this...
Venti sighed, thinking to himself, "If I didn't know you just arrived in Mondstadt, I would think you were trying to have your cake and eat it with both sisters."
Arkz's request was extremely difficult. Asking Jean or Barbara out alone, he could still try hard and find a way to trick them. But with these two sisters together, if they put their heads together, the difficulty level would increase tenfold!
Venti was worried, but he was unwilling to give up the chance for freedom and fine wine. So he walked towards Mondstadt while thinking it over repeatedly.
Recalling the expression on Venti's face when he left, Arkz couldn't help but chuckle gleefully.
Although Venti could drink a lot, Arkz already considered him a friend. What was the big deal about treating a friend to some alcohol? Moreover, although Venti seemed unreliable, he was actually a seasoned socialite who knew exactly how to maintain appropriate boundaries in social interactions.
He wouldn't actually drink all the wine he had painstakingly brewed, would he?
He wouldn't actually drink all the wine brewed on the farm, would he?
Arkz remembered Venti's behavior in the game and suddenly felt a little unconfident.
As for asking Venti to help create an opportunity to invite Jean and Barbara to dinner, that was completely teasing Venti. After all, Venti's current identity was just an ordinary Bard, with absolutely no connection to Acting Captain Jean or Barbara. He wouldn't expose his identity as the Anemo Archon just to help him flirt with girls, would he?
Arkz still believed in the principle that pursuing girls should rely on oneself, although he did have a good impression of the sisters, Jean and Barbara.
While Arkz and Venti were chatting, Amu, Ellin, and the others had already cleared the farm with the wooden dummies and were continuing their morning treasure hunt game.
Arkz walked over and looked at the pile of "treasures" they had dug up.
A stone slab with strange patterns—useless.
A broken sword—an antique?
Strange bones—fossils of prehistoric animals? Sucrose should like them, I'll keep them.
A dried starfish—how could this be dug up?
A mask with strange carvings—was it a Hilichurl mask? Wait! This is...
A mining teleport waypoint!!!
This was a good item, a real treasure. It allowed teleportation directly into a mine, which was perfect since Arkz needed a large amount of ore for Ellin's new training plan.
The only problem was that this teleport waypoint was single-use.
Simply put, it was a one-way ticket to a mine. If the mine was within Mondstadt's borders, Arkz could find a way to run back. But if the mine was located in some strange place, like Liyue's The Chasm, the ruins of King Deshret in the desert, the Fatui headquarters in Snezhnaya, or even inside some Domain, returning to the farm would be very troublesome for Arkz.
Fortunately, the system intervened at this moment.
[Ding! teleport waypoint detected. Mining Cave, teleport waypoint Creation Quest initiated.]
[Friendly reminder: Reaching a certain level in Foraging will unlock the teleport waypoint creation recipe!]
Foraging level! Arkz looked at his pitiful Level 1 Foraging skill and silently decided that starting his journey of digging up the land in Mondstadt, the materials in the wild were not the most important thing; what mattered was raising his Foraging level.
Whether it was sweet flower, windwheel aster, Cecilia, dandelion, little lamp grass, or Valberry, Wolfhook, none would escape his grasp.
Arkz looked at the teleport waypoint in his hand, and his interest in treasure hunting ignited. It seemed luck could still unearth good things.
Since he had nothing else to do, Arkz joined the treasure hunting work of the three.
According to the system's explanation, these blocks of soil randomly generated on the farm, whose surfaces looked like wriggling earthworms, were actually called—Ancient Spots.
[Ancient Spot: By digging these spots, various ancient relics can be obtained, such as Ancient Seeds.]
Ancient Seeds! If he could dig up Ancient Seeds by digging Ancient Spots, that would truly make him an 'European Emperor' (extremely lucky).
In the game, Ancient Seeds could be exchanged for Old Seeds at the museum, and Old Seeds were the most outstanding crops in this game. Whether selling the Old Fruit grown from Old Seeds directly or using them for brewing, one could earn huge amounts of Mora.
If he could really obtain Old Seeds, it would mean Arkz would never have to worry about Mora again.
Unfortunately, Ancient Seeds were not that easy to obtain. Moreover, even if he obtained Ancient Seeds now, Arkz had no way to awaken them from their slumber to become Old Seeds capable of growing Old Fruit.
After all, there was no museum in Mondstadt yet, only the Knights of Favonius Library, managed by the very well-built and dangerously charming librarian, Lisa.
Arkz speculated, "If he builds a museum in Mondstadt, puts all these ancient junk dug up from the farm into display cases, and then recruits a curator, will the system grant this curator the ability to transform Ancient Seeds into Old Seeds?"
A moment later, Arkz shook his head. The Ancient Seeds were nowhere in sight, yet he was already planning to build a museum. Building a museum was not a simple matter.
Shaking his head, Arkz cast the miscellaneous thoughts out of his mind and continued searching for Ancient Spots with Ellin and the others, looking forward to digging up treasure.
"Ah—!!! Look what I dug up!!!"
Suddenly, an excited, high-pitched female voice rang out. Siegfrieda was waving a shiny object excitedly in her hand.
Arkz, Amu, and Ellin immediately squeezed forward excitedly to check. They saw a pigeon-egg-sized, sparkling ruby in Siegfrieda's hand, emitting a beautiful glow under the sunlight.
Arkz looked at the ruby in Siegfrieda's hand and felt dejected, "It's just a gem, useless. Keep it as a toy."
"Ah!!!" x 2
Siegfrieda quickly grabbed Arkz, who was turning to leave, and urged him anxiously, "Mr. Arkz, look closely! This is a gem! Such a high-quality ruby can sell for at least over a hundred thousand Mora!"
Ellin also tugged at Arkz's sleeve, nodding repeatedly in agreement.
Ellin: "Yes, yes, this ruby is very valuable."
Arkz: "Over a hundred thousand Mora!"
Arkz suddenly realized that this was Teyvat, not the strangely priced Stardew Valley, where a ruby could only get you three Survival Burgers.
Arkz immediately became excited, "If I could find a gem duplication machine and copy several more rubies, wouldn't Mora just pour into my pockets!"
"Right! Gem duplication machines have a chance to appear in treasure chests in mines. Mining! I need to mine!"
Although they didn't understand what a gem duplication machine was, hearing that Arkz wanted to go mining, Ellin and Siegfrieda quickly tried to stop him.
Ellin: "Uncle, no!"
Siegfrieda: "Once you enter the mine gate, the sea is deep, and Mora becomes a passerby forever!"
Arkz rubbed his head and asked doubtfully, "Is it that exaggerated?"
Ellin and Siegfrieda nodded fiercely, their expressions as sincere as possible.
It turned out that in Teyvat, being a miner was a high-risk profession.
Miners in Teyvat not only had to endure the hardship of mining and the dangers of the caves but also constantly guard against monster attacks. Especially in the Liyue region, young Geovishaps that fed on rock often hid in the ore veins, and it was common for miners to dig out a large lizard while mining.
Furthermore, Mondstadt's mineral veins were not developed, and many only had small reserves of ore. This resulted in the Mora earned from selling the ore not being enough to cover the operating costs of equipment and workers' wages.
Liyue's mining industry held a dominant position in Teyvat's mining sector, with minerals dug out from The Chasm accounting for about 60% of the entire Teyvat mineral trade market.
However, a few years ago, The Chasm was sealed off by Liyue for reasons unknown to the public, only rumored to be due to monster unrest inside.
With The Chasm sealed, Liyue's mineral export volume sharply decreased, causing mineral prices to skyrocket at the time. Many speculators saw this business opportunity and invested in purchasing mining equipment. In Mondstadt at that time, venturing out to find mineral veins and striking it rich overnight by mining became the dream of many people.
For this reason, quite a few people bankrupted themselves to buy a set of mining equipment so they could catch the wave of soaring ore prices.
However, the wave was an illusion; the deep pit was the reality.
The people selling mining equipment made a fortune, while those who actually went mining ended up losing everything.
The young Ellin and Siegfrieda had personally witnessed this storm that swept across all of Mondstadt, which is why they reacted so strongly to Arkz wanting to choose mining.
Ellin: "Mr. Arkz, if there were good ore veins in Mondstadt, they would have been discovered long ago. So, mining in Mondstadt is really not a good choice."
Siegfrieda: "Yes! Mondstadt might lack mineral resources, but there are plenty of wild vegetables!"
"Like Valberry and Wolfhook, these Mondstadt specialties, people buy them in the Mondstadt market every day. They are completely easy to sell."
"As long as you are lucky enough not to encounter monsters, you can earn 300 Mora for a hard day's work."
Arkz: "300 a day, 9000 Mora a month. That salary is decent. Isn't the average salary for Mondstadters only 4500 Mora?"
Siegfrieda shook her head, "It's not calculated that way. Monsters appear frequently in the wilds of Mondstadt, making it very dangerous. Moreover, once the wild vegetables in one area are picked clean, you have to venture into more desolate places, increasing the probability of encountering monsters."
"And once you encounter a monster, the result is minor injury at best, or losing your life at worst."
"If you get injured while picking wild vegetables, the treatment fee alone can cost several thousand Mora."
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