Alex stopped cultivating early in the morning and left the tavern room. His white mask still hung on his face as he walked through the crowd of people that looked at him with peculiar expressions on their faces.
Of course, not just anyone walked around with a mask on their faces.
The black robe he wore made it impossible for people to guess just what faction he belonged to. Not that it belonged to any faction as this was one of the few robes that his mother bought for him because she thought it looked good on him.
The city of Snowsoot was located near a volcano, but unlike the other cities that were located near a volcano, this one didn't get affected by the heat of it as the Spirit vein below the city was never ripped off.
Because of that, the city was clad in white snow, as well as some volcanic ash from time to time, giving it the name Snowsoot city.
The city was south enough that people could start growing crops in the summer, but it was still north enough that snow plagued most year-round.
There were no gates to check for exit or entry, so anyone could come and go as they wished.
Most cities that did this would have to start charging newcomers immediately since every year the mayor had to provide a tribute to the Frozen Heart sect in exchange for having their disciples protect the land.
However, this city was exempted from having to pay tribute, so the mayor did not bother setting up any form of entry fee.
Actually, setting up one would hurt them more than anything, so there weren't even any gates around the city.
Alex walked past a store that sold weapons and simply shook his head at the thought of the costs he had seen at the store when he first got there. He shook his head out of the city through one of the roads and arrived at the outskirts which lead to the mountains.
He continued up the pathway, which was filled with people coming and going as well. At the top of the road was a group of people lined up outside a cave that was either entering or leaving.
The ones entering needed no time to enter as the only thing they needed to do was to take a talisman with them.
The ones exiting, however, had to bring out a lump of stone and hand it over to the Frozen Heart disciples that were working there.
Alex entered the cave and looked at the giant opening that was filled with sparkling metals on either side. He followed the tunnel and made his way through the tunnels to one of the many forks that were created by the people here and were still being cleared.
However, none of those paths would ever come to an end. At least, not for a very long time as no one had any intention of ending the tunnel.
Which was why this place was known as the Endless Tunnel.
Even inside in the dim light, Alex could see the sparking walls and ceilings. Even the floor sparkled. The scenery, however, had already lost its novelty as Alex had come here for nearly a week now.
After leaving Dao mountain, Alex had a single thought in his mind. He needed to find a place where he could both cultivate, train, and be free to do whatever he wanted.
Of the information he had, Alex could think of only one place where he could improve himself by training.
That was obviously the Ancient Battlefield, where the aura and intent of ancient times were still available and one could train against them.
So, Alex had made his way south to go there. However, when he entered the Snowsoot city and learned of the Endless Tunnel being right next to it, he realized that it was a brilliant coincidence as he was in quite urgent requirement of a sword.
Given how good the weapons made up of Starfroged Tungsten seemed to be, he wanted to buy one, but the cost seemed too extraordinarily high. So, he wanted to mine some of it to make a sword out of it. It turned out that he could also buy the metal in the city, but why would he do that when he could simply mine it for free?
Besides, he didn't just want to make a single sword. With the 21 Sword Array technique with him, he would want at least 21 different swords to be used.
Since swords here were expensive and buying was out of the question, Alex had a different idea in mind. If possible, he would like to start getting his hands into artifact forging as well.
That way, he would be able to make any sword he wanted without having to worry about finding a forger or worry about having money for it.
With that in mind, Alex had started going into the mines to mine some of the ores. He had in mind how much he would require for 21 swords and then maybe a little extra.
Since it was just some mining, he had expected it to be done in a day or two. However, it was only after the first day that he realized just how stupid his expectations were.
There was a reason why Saint realms had to stop working on this mine. There was a reason why for the last 2500 years they had barely made such little progress.
The reason was simple. Starforged Tungsten, even as just an ore, was incredibly tough. So tough that the Frozen Heart sect didn't even take any ore from the True realm cultivators that entered. They only took Spirit stones.
It was only for Saint realm cultivator that they asked for 50 Kilograms of Ore for every day they spent in the mine.
50 Kilograms was quite an evil number for first-timers as it brought in waves of happiness and despair.
50 Kilograms was just a lot to simply give away after mining for a whole day, which would be what most newcomers would think, which would be their first wave of despair.
However, for Starforged Tungsten, even just a fist-sized ore weighed at least 20 to 30 kilograms. Two fist-sized ores were enough to pay the daily cost. So, when newcomers learned of that, they would get their first wave of happiness.
However, not long after, they would realize just how much energy they had to put into mining the ore for even just a fistful-sized ore. That would be their second wave of sadness.
Still, they would work on the mine and gather some ores and take it to sell. When they did sell the ores and learned that each fist-sized Ores cost around a thousand spirit stones, they would get their next wave of happiness.
The work was hard, but it paid well if you could do it. This was why this location was quite popular amongst those who were looking to make a quick buck.
The first day Alex mined, he barely managed to get about 150 kilograms of ores. At first, he was happy, but when he remembered the staff that was used by that one disciple he fought, he was depressed.
That single staff was about 5 tons in weight. So, if he wanted to make a single sword, he would need a weight that was close to that, which would be around 2 to 3 tons.
In comparison, the swords he had seen that weighed around this much were tended by a Saint realm cultivator and cost about 300 thousand Spirit stones or items of similar value.
On top of that, the sword wasn't even fully made up of Starforged Tungsten as it was usually an alloy of sorts where only 50% to 80% of it would be the actual tungsten.
Given how hard the tungsten was to work with, a sword that was entirely made up of the tungsten would go around to sale for over 500 thousand True spirit stones.
Alex definitely wanted a blade made up of 100% tungsten since he knew how tough it could be.
If Alex continued his first day's speed. He would need an entire week to get 1 ton of ore. When refined, that 1 ton of ore would change to about 400 kilos of the actual tungsten.
So, he would have to work about 5 to 8 weeks to have enough ore for a single sword.
That was incredibly tough for him as it would take 3 and a half years of constantly coming here to mine just to get enough ore for the 21 different swords.
That was without calculating how much time it would take to take the metal out of the ore, and then further processing would be required to turn a solid block of metal into a sword.
At some point, Alex thought it would be better to simply sell pills and earn enough money to have someone else do it all for him.
However, on the 2nd day, he found a method that worked really well and stuck with that for the whole week now.
Alex spread his spiritual sense as he searched for a place with not many people in it and walked there. When he arrived, he looked for a relatively empty spot where he put a small formation to cover up his portion of the working space so no one would be able to see just what he did there.
Once it was all set up, Alex began mining by first training his various techniques.
