Chapter Twenty-Three

After leaving the aquarium, Li Feng and Lam Bai get lunch from a nearby restaurant. The price is good, and it only takes a few minutes for them to get their food. Once they’ve eaten they head for the museum across the street. It doesn’t take more than a minute to arrive, but the wait is much longer than in the aquarium. In a city dedicated to their mining operation, Li Feng is surprised how many people are paying to look at rare rocks and stones.

Once they reach the counter with a woman behind it, Lam Bai pays fifty coins each for her and Li Feng to enter the museum. She would have tried to barter for a lower price, but the line behind her made Lam Bai not want to take up too much time. After paying, Li Feng and Lam Bai go into the room behind the counter and look at the rocks there.

Unlike in the aquarium, the museum is packed with people. There are more displays in the museum, but they are smaller than the tanks used to hold fish, and allow more objects per square foot of wall space. Worse, because Li Feng is a mere child, he has a difficult time getting a chance to look at certain displays.

The first floor of the museum is a mix of ores and minerals. Raw and refined examples of each material are available, except for a material labeled Heavenly Steel, which has no unrefined example. According to the description, heavenly steel is made by a cultivator imbuing regular steel with spirit energy, but it can only be made by someone of the Ascendant stage or higher.

The second floor of the museum has gems, crystals, and the most expensive ores and minerals. Li Feng is interested in the contents of the museum, but it’s mostly the same stuff he’s seen in his previous life. With ground magic, a magician can burrow deep into the earth, reaching hundreds of miles in just a few days.

Life evolves differently all around the world, but rocks vary only slightly between regions. Still, there are a few things Li Feng has never seen before on either floor, and those get the majority of his attention.

On the third floor of the museum are pieces of art made from gems and crystals. The decorative statues and masks interest Li Feng, but the rock in the center of the room has most of his attention. The rock is about half the height of Li Feng and three times his width, but the sword stuck in the center reaches two feet above Li Feng’s head. A sign plate on the side of the rock says Ping Feng’s Demonic Dynasty Destroyer, and many more signs say Do Not Touch.