Chapter 26: Mining and Civilization

Lu Zhiyu felt memories returning to him. He had been very proud when he was young. Because of his good grades, good looks and a well-to-do family, his actions had been rather arrogant. He had been somewhat of a bully.

Ai Shu had been very pretty when she was young as well, but she was shy, introverted and did not interact much with others. Lu Zhiyu was very interested in her, but that wasn't a good thing when you were a kid. Children could have very strange ways of expressing fondness. It mostly started with him bullying her.

At first it was just Lu Zhiyu bullying her, but because of Ai Shu's shyness and her reclusive nature, the rest of the class began isolating and bullying her as well. Once, Lu Zhiyu accidentally broke one of Ai Shu's belongings and angered her. A fight broke out between them. Lu Zhiyu used his backpack to hit Ai Shu, forgetting that he had a flashlight in his bag that day. The flashlight struck Ai Shu's head and injured her.

After the fight, Lu Zhiyu was punished by the school. Since he was close to graduating, his family took him out of school and sent him away to a middle school in the capital city of the province.

Seeing Ai Shu again brought back all the shame and guilt Lu Zhiyu had felt back then. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsure of what to do. He thought that he would have let go of his childhood stupidity as he grew up, but not sure why, maybe this incident was especially memorable to him, or maybe due to some other unknown reasons, Lu Zhiyu still felt uncomfortable till this day.

During the dinner, Lu Zhiyu repeatedly glanced at Ai Shu and caught her attention. Ai Shu stared at him, confused. Noticing the two looking at each other, the girl next to Ai Shu whispered something to her. Ai Shu frowned, then turned her head, no longer looking at Lu Zhiyu again.

"She still remembers the things I did to her back then!"

Lu Zhiyu lowered his head in shame. His mind was not fully on the reunion. Most of the people in the reunion were catching up on old times, exchanging contact information and asking about what they were doing recently. As most of his old classmates were already married, they all returned home after dinner.

As they bade each other goodbye, many of his classmates gathered around Lu Zhiyu and asked for his contact number as well as his current address. They agreed to meet up with Lu Zhiyu whenever they went to the city

"Sure, come find me if you ever come to the city!"

He was talking with a few of his female classmates when he noticed Ai Shu was about to leave by herself. He excused himself and immediately chased after her.

Lu Zhiyu stopped in front of Ai Shu. Ai Shu stopped in her tracks and looked at him doubtfully. Lu Zhiyu took a deep breath and asked, "Do you remember me? I-I'm Lu Zhiyu, I was in your class..."

She wore her hair short and stood with her back straight. She was tall. With her heels, she was almost as tall as Lu Zhiyu. She nodded but did not speak. Lu Zhiyu realized that he was very nervous. "I just want to apologize. I am very sorry for what I did to you back then. Even though this apology is very late, but I feel that I would be more comfortable after I say it aloud." He pulled a business card out of his wallet and continued, "This is my number and contact information. Please, if I can help you with anything, don't hesitate to call."

"Alright," Ai Shu said. That was the first words she said to him all night. She then turned to leave. Lu Zhiyu heaved a sigh of relief watching her walked away.

Wang Yi walked over and pat Lu Zhiyu's shoulder, "So? Have you made up? That happened so long ago, would Ai Shu be so petty as to still hold a grudge against you?"

"I don't know." Lu Zhiyu shook his head. "She only said alright, but she did take my card."

Wang Yi nodded. "Don't think too much about it," he said. "She's like that. She doesn't talk much, nor does she like to interact with people. She hasn't changed after all these years!"

Lu Zhiyu got onto Wang Yi's car and began his journey back. He was glad that he had came to the reunion. He had not only reconnected with his classmates and got back beautiful memories of the past, he was especially happy to see Ai Shu and finally apologize to her. What happened between the two of them had always been a sore spot for him.

—

In the dimensional castle, the bookshelves of the library were gradually being filled up with Lu Zhiyu's recent purchases. Because of the different flow of time, some of the books already appeared old and yellowed, as if they were ancient tomes.

It had been two hundred years since Lu Zhiyu made the first human. There had been human tribes appearing on the southern part of the Alen continent. Two hundred years was enough for a dozen of generations of humans to proliferate. The first few generations was long gone. The current humans, in their memories, all thought that they have lived on Alen continent since the beginning of time.

The number of humans had increased significantly, from the initial hundreds to now tens of thousands. The original small tribes split off and spread throughout the entire southern half of the continent. Like the ever-growing humans, the orcs in the north were developing as well. The tribes slowly developed into cities and civilization was formed. The humans, through their exploration, had already made contact with the orcs, and knew that they were not the only intelligent beings living in the world.

These two hundred years were only two weeks to Lu Zhiyu. Ten days ago, as he was observing the development of civilization within Maria's World, Lu Zhiyu realized that he had made a serious mistake. Even though Maria's World was rich in resources, it did have a fatal flaw - lack of mines.

When he created Maria's World, he had placed plenty of resources, but the distribution of the materials was too even. This meant that mines could not have developed underground. The tribes were content with using stones as their primary resource. The few metals ingots that were discovered were hailed as gods' rocks and worshipped. Without metal, civilizations couldn't enter the Bronze Age or Steel Age, delaying the advancement of civilization.

Seeing no other way round, Lu Zhiyu used Source Form again and changed the rules of Maria's World. He shifted the distribution of metal from within the earth and created mines for several different kinds of metals, such as gold, silver, copper, and iron. He also created other kinds of resources like coal and oil. Some of the mines were located near the tribes, exposed above the ground. The discovery of these mines would jumpstart the progress of civilization.

Lu Zhiyu had 108 units of Source Form before he spent three units of them on the dimensional castle. Lately, as the development of the civilization and the deaths of lives in the Maria's World, he had accumulated 176 units of Source Form. Creating the mines used up 47 units, leaving him with 129 units. However, it was all worth it. With the help of the mines and the copper smelting technology, copper started to be widely adapted to all the tribes. The civilizations grew very fast, which led to the rapid development of the orc cities. Soon after they entered the era of cities, the first king to ever exist was established: the Orc King of Sarga City.