The Peerless Ring

Jaxon reappeared in the game world. At this moment, he was still near the back mountain. After being teleported, he didn't rush to leave but instead planned to explore the area.

Previously, Jaxon had not explored the back mountain in detail; he had only taken a cursory look, knowing that there was a vast expanse of open land here. However, he had not explored the nearby small hills and forests.

"Why is the back mountain of such a small village so large?" Jaxon climbed to the top of a small hill and looked around, speaking to himself. There were not only tens of thousands of acres of open land available for planting, but also mountains, water, and forests, all of which occupied a considerable area. Technically, this should just be a beginner's village, meant for players to familiarize themselves with the environment. As for the monsters needed for leveling up, they were all in the small forest in front of the village. This back mountain seemed entirely unnecessary.

However, not only did it exist, but it was also quite large. "Could it be that this place was specially reserved by the deity for me?" Jaxon wondered. Immediately, he found his own thought somewhat amusing. After all, his decision to take over the back mountain had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. The so-called "deity" had given him no hints. It didn't make sense to say that it was specially reserved for him.

"Forget it, whatever. As long as it's beneficial to me, that's what matters," Jaxon decided. Unable to figure out the reason, he simply stopped thinking about it. Whether he knew the reason or not, it didn't really matter.

"Huh? What's this? A Golden-haired Rat?!" Walking on the hillside, Jaxon suddenly spotted a familiar figure darting past not far ahead of him, disappearing in the blink of an eye. If it weren't for his improved eyesight, he might not have noticed it at all.

But why would there be a Golden-haired Rat here? If Jaxon remembered correctly, the introduction to the Golden-haired Rat mentioned that it liked to eat minerals. What would it eat outside of a mine?

Or could it be that there were minerals here?

At the thought of this possibility, Jaxon became excited. The village elder had said before that the only mine near the village was the one in front of the village, and the blacksmith Sun had said the same thing. So, if he discovered a mine here in the back mountain, it would be unclaimed. The imperial court wouldn't find out, and the villagers wouldn't know either.

It would be a mine that he could consider entirely his own!

The more Jaxon thought about it, the more excited he became, and he quickly ran in the direction where the Golden-haired Rat had disappeared.

"I remember it disappeared right here. Where could it have gone?" Jaxon searched around the spot where the rat had vanished for a long time but found nothing unusual.

"Did I just imagine it? Or does the Golden-haired Rat eat something other than minerals, so there's no mine around here at all?" After searching for a long time without finding any clues, Jaxon felt somewhat dejected.

At that moment, Jaxon's foot slipped, and suddenly his body dropped halfway, getting stuck at the entrance of a cave.

Jaxon quickly struggled out of the cave and looked inside. The cave was pitch black, and it was impossible to see how deep it was. If the entrance hadn't been so small, Jaxon might have fallen straight in.

"Why is there a cave here? Who dug it?" Jaxon realized that the entrance had been covered with fallen leaves, which was why he hadn't noticed it even after walking around the area several times. If he hadn't stepped on it by chance, the entrance would probably have remained undiscovered.

But how did the cave get here? Was it dug by humans or animals?

"Could it be that the Golden-haired Rat went in here?" Jaxon speculated. It was quite possible; otherwise, the rat wouldn't have disappeared so suddenly for no reason.

Jaxon quickly took out a shovel from his backpack and began to dig, lying on the ground to enlarge the cave entrance so he could see what was inside. He was no stranger to digging; he had previously dug traps to kill ferocious mottled tigers. So now, digging into the cave was also very skillful.

Soon, the cave entrance had been enlarged significantly. Jaxon stretched his head in to look, but it was still pitch black inside, and he couldn't see the bottom. Apart from the enlarged entrance, the rest of the cave was still very narrow, and Jaxon couldn't get in.

"I won't give up. I'm determined to see what's inside today!" Jaxon continued to dig, enlarging the interior of the cave. For the next while, he focused solely on digging, and the interior of the cave gradually expanded. What was originally too narrow to fit his body had now become a cave with a diameter of over a meter, large enough for him to enter.

The cave sloped downward, and as Jaxon kept digging deeper, a large pile of dirt accumulated outside the cave. After digging about ten meters into the cave, his foot slipped, and he fell.

"Thud!"

Jaxon fell about a meter and landed heavily on the ground, nearly splitting his bottom in half.

"Ouch, that hurts!" Jaxon struggled to get up, rubbing his bottom and muttering, "And it seems I landed on a pebble. Who would be so mean as to leave a pebble here?"

"Huh, wait! A pebble?!" Jaxon suddenly realized and bent down to search around where he had just landed. Sure enough, he found something shaped like a pebble.

Jaxon cast an Appraisal Spell on it.

Iron Ore Scrap: The residual ore left after a Golden-haired Rat gnaws on iron ore.

Without bothering to complain about the Golden-haired Rat's pickiness, Jaxon looked at the small pebble in his hand with delight. It was indeed ore!

Jaxon quickly looked around and realized that the space here was quite large, about ten or so square meters. The three sides around him were ordinary soil, but directly in front of him was something like a mineral wall.

Jaxon quickly ran over and touched it. Indeed, it was not soft soil but clearly metallic ore.

Jaxon quickly cast the Appraisal Spell on this "wall."

Good-quality Iron Ore, High-quality Silver Ore, High-quality Starlight Ore, High-quality Iron Ore, High-quality Obsidian...

As he continued to appraise, the joy on Jaxon's face grew stronger. This "wall" was indeed composed of various ores, not only the common ones but also many rare and uncommon ones. More importantly, the quality of these ores was very good!