The Dawn of the New World Chapter 1630

The side of Hao Xuan's lips cracked into a smile seeing such high-quality tools at his disposal.

"It pays to be useful..." he muttered under his breath.

"Sir?"

Che Yun poked his hide from the side ready to serve, "Did you need something? Water? Food?"

"No no, just sit down and relax man," he smacked the boy on his side and leaned back.

"Y-Yes..."

He had been jumping from one thing to another for so long that Hao Xuan couldn't even remember the last time he took some time for himself.

And given the current circumstances there wasn't much else he could do so why not take a little break?

"Wake me up when we get there, I'm going to rest my eyes."

"Yessir! I can do that sir!"

Che Yun jumped to his feet and stood guard next to Hao Xuan, throwing mean looks at the tired slaves who were barely hanging on by a thread.

Hao Xuan closed his eyes and almost immediately dozed off. His consciousness was being pulled towards a period he hadn't thought of in a long long while- about the times and the people of the Mei Kingdom.

He saw so many old faces but could hardly even remember their names anymore apart from a select few. At one point he felt quite strongly about them but now...

[What now?] a whisper burrowed into his ear.

[So far away and for what? So much suffering- FOR WHAT?! Why are you here?? Give up you fool, this is not your fight!]

[Go back sir-]

"Wake up sir-"

Hao Xuan opened his eyes to see Che Yun waving his hand in front of his face.

"Are we there?"

"Yes sir, it has been an hour already," Che Yun gestured towards the empty cages.

They were the only ones there apart from Ketillaug.

"That's the deepest sleep I have ever seen," Ketillaug joked, "Unfortunately I cannot allow you to doze off any longer."

"No no, this was enough. Thank you," Hao Xuan walked out of the cage to look at the map in the demihuman's hand.

"I reserved the opposing dig site for you this time but let me know if you have another in mind."

"Hmm, it should do just fine."

Hao Xuan walked around the mine from the left until he reached the dig site marked on the map. A small shelter had been set up with some supplies, which was a MUCH better start than the last time.

As ordered, Che Yun remained within the shelter while Hao Xuan ventured into the reinforced tunnel. He gave it a quick once over before taking out two pickaxes and using his spiritual threads to control their shadow from the Umbral Plane.

There was no need to dirty his hands with such menial tasks anymore.

All in all, it only took about 40% of his consciousness to handle the pickaxes with some finesse. And since it didn't require much forethought he could use that time to do other- more important things.

"Blessings!"

With a thought and a word, the Crown of Darkness was invoked followed by each of the other eight.

Countless lines of text dropped down in front of him.

"Psionic arts."

The blessings reorganized themselves to show what he had asked for.

Every blessing or gift that had anything to do with psionic abilities was put on display from the traditional ones like telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis to some of the more "special ones" like Compel, Dominate, Inspire, Probe, Mind Scan, Augury, Fulmination, etc.

Hao Xuan "scrolled down" the neverending list until he saw one that was not available for purchase despite showing up for him.

It simply read [Control].

'What's this?'

The word expanded to reveal more "details".

[Better Control]

'....'

'That's quite helpful. Better control of fuckin WHAT? Useless! Show me some basic abilities to buy with the cheapest prices!'

The list shortened considerably but the prices were not for the weak of heart.

[Basic Pyromancy]

Cost: 25,000 Favour

[Basic Biomancy]

Cost: 45,000 Favour

[Basic Telekinesis]

Cost: 20,000

Hao Xuan's mouth fell open. His total remaining favour was hovering around 29,000 so at most he would be able to buy ONE basic ability with no chance of making it stronger any time soon.

"Why the hell are these so expensive?!" he shouted aloud from frustration.

He had an affinity with several of the old ones, so the prices he was getting were probably several times less than what an ordinary Sanctum member would get, making it that much harder to believe this was the norm.

"Is this inflation or something?? Come on man..."

He recalled the marks out of frustration.

"Add another fucking thing to the list then, earning more favour somehow. Tsk, as if things weren't tough enough I have to do random shit for people now-"

In his anger, Hao Xuan lost control for a moment and the pickaxes smashed into the side of the tunnel with much more force.

*BANG*

*Crack*

*Treeeeeemble~*