The hovercraft was still flying fast on the road. It had been more than half an hour since it left Yuzhang City, and the actual distance was more than 100 kilometers away.
At this time, the hovercraft had entered the low-density area of Yuan Kou, which was also known as the relatively dangerous zone.
According to Yuzhang City's rules, the area within 30 kilometers of Yuzhang City was the absolute safety zone. There would be thousands of sword-bearers patrolling the area at all times to ensure that not a single Yuan Kou would survive.
According to the rules, a single Yuan Kou could not get within 30 kilometers of Yuzhang City. This was because there were hundreds of thousands of outsiders living in this zone. Even a single Yuan Kou would cause huge casualties.
However, this was obviously unrealistic. Every month, Yuan Kou would sneak into the absolute safety zone and attack the outsiders. According to statistics, the average number of people who died outside the city in the past ten years was 568. In ten years, that was 70,000 deaths. The death rate was as high as 15%. This was the result of humans strengthening the security of the surrounding cities in the past ten years. A few decades ago, the death rate was no lower than 30%.
Therefore, the people outside the city were really using their lives to exchange for survival.
The area beyond 30 kilometers to 100 kilometers was the relatively safe zone. According to Yuzhang City's rules, there should not be more than one Yuan Kou per kilometer. There were also thousands of sword-bearers patrolling the area.
However, the area was too large. It was impossible for the sword-bearers to completely wipe out the Yuan Kou in this area. Yuan Kou from 100 kilometers away would constantly enter the area, and it would be impossible to kill them all.
Therefore, in principle, outsiders were not allowed to live in this area. However, there were still some outsiders who seemed to live in the relatively safe area of 100 kilometers for their own benefit.
The area between 100 and 300 kilometers was the relatively dangerous zone. Yuzhang City no longer organized teams of sword-bearers to patrol the area continuously every day. Instead, they organized a major cleanup once or twice a month to eliminate the great threat of the ghost-level Yuan Kou. As for those below the ghost-level, there was no time to deal with them.
As for the area beyond 300 kilometers, it was a playground for Yuan Kou. Once they reached that area, humans would turn from hunters to prey, and from cleaners to the cleaners. Without a high-level swordsman to lead them, a low-level swordsman would be courting death.
Mei Ling Mountain was located outside of the relatively safe zone, which was about a hundred kilometers away from the area. It was about a hundred and twenty kilometers away from the safe zone. Although there weren't many Yuan Kou in this area, Mei Ling Mountain was located at the top of the mountain, which meant that there were lush forests and all kinds of complicated terrains. There were all kinds of hiding spots for Yuan Kou to hide in. It was almost impossible to eliminate Yuan Kou in Mei Ling Mountain.
Originally, because of the existence of the dimensional crystal mine, Yuzhang City had planned to turn Meiling Mountain into an absolute safety zone. The people outside the city would be responsible for the large-scale mining of the crystal mine, while the sword bearers would be responsible for protecting it.
It was a good idea, but after several years of trial and error, he realized that it was not realistic at all.
Even if the original Yuan Kou in Mei Ling Mountain had been eliminated, Mei Ling Mountain was located in an area that was prone to dimensional rifts. Every year, more than a hundred small-scale dimensional rifts would erupt.
Apart from bringing countless dimensional crystal ores to the Plum Ridge Mountain, these dimensional rifts also brought a considerable number of Dimensional Hubs. Every day, there would be new Dimensional Hubs entering this world through the dimensional rifts.
During the few years that Mei Ling Mountain had been designated as an absolute safety zone, there might have been over a hundred sword bearers stationed on Mei Ling Mountain. However, every day, hundreds of people outside the city would be killed by Yuan Kou who would suddenly jump out of the dimensional rifts. In a single month, there would be 3,000 casualties, which was even more than the death toll in the absolute safety zone that was thirty kilometers outside the city.
As time passed, even if the people outside the city were killed, they would no longer be willing to run to Mei Ling Mountain to work. Over time, Yuzhang City had completely abandoned the plan of using people outside the city to conduct large-scale mining. Instead, they had switched back to issuing missions for the sword bearers to conduct small-scale mining.
The hovercraft was unable to ascend the mountain. After alighting at the safety camp at the foot of the mountain, Guhan and the others were led by Luo Fan and officially entered Mei Ling Mountain. This was the first time in their lives that they had lived outside the city.
There were many dimensional crystal veins on Mei Ling Mountain, and they were also very messy. It could be said that the entire mountain could contain scattered dimensional crystal veins.
This was because when a dimensional rift opened, the sword essence leaked out from the dimensional rift and seeped into the surface. It would then fuse with ordinary soil and rocks to form a vein.
In other words, as long as a certain location had a dimensional rift, there would definitely be a dimensional crystal vein there. The only difference was the amount of the vein.
It was estimated that as an area with high occurrence of dimensional rifts, there had been several hundred thousand dimensional rifts erupting here in the past thousand years.
The frequency of these several hundred thousand occurrences was evenly spread out on Mei Ling Mountain. Almost every inch of land had experienced a dimensional rift eruption. The entire Mei Ling Mountain contained dimensional crystal veins, but most of the dimensional rifts erupting were too small. The dimensional crystal veins that were produced were not even worth mining.
Currently, there were about seven hundred mineral veins that could be exploited on Mount Mei Ling. Among them, more than four hundred were small mineral veins, more than two hundred were medium to small mineral veins, more than twenty medium to large mineral veins, and three large mineral veins.
Yuzhang City had set up official camps on the three large veins of Mei Ling Mountain. Luo Fan was now leading his students to the Luoting Camp, which was the closest of the three large veins. According to Luo Fan's plan, they would be staying at the Luoting Camp for the next five days. After all, he was leading a group of newbies with zero actual combat experience. He still had to do his best to ensure their safety and not do dangerous things like camping in the wilderness.
On the way to the Luoting Camp, after turning halfway up the mountain, an extremely impactful scene appeared in the eyes of everyone in Class 22694.
On the left side of the road, a sinkhole that was more than 100 meters deep and several square kilometers in size suddenly appeared out of thin air. This sinkhole looked like a semi-circular piece of ice cream that had been scooped out of a box of ice cream with a spoon.
However, it was different from other naturally formed sinkholes. The soil was not the red soil that was unique to Jiangxi Province. Instead, it was pitch-black like the black soil in the northeast.
It was reasonable to say that the black soil contained rich nutrients and was especially suitable for the growth of vegetation.
However, in this sinkhole, not to mention trees, not even a blade of grass could be seen. It was a perfect illustration of what it meant to be barren.
Seeing that his students were curious about this sinkhole, Luo Fan took the initiative to ask, "Students, do you know how this sinkhole was formed?"
In response to Luo Fan's question, the students shook their heads, indicating that they did not know the reason.
Luo Fan smiled knowingly. How could these students know the origin of this sinkhole? Now was the time for him to show off and show off his rich knowledge.
"I know!!"
Just as Luo Fan was about to open his mouth to explain, a very tactless hand reached out. When Luo Fan saw that it was Liunian Ling, he could only smile bitterly. "Student Liunian Ling, why don't you tell us how this sinkhole was formed?"
"Of course, this sinkhole was formed because of a battle. Look at this pitch-black soil. This is not naturally formed soil. This is all caused by evil magic.
Looking at the situation, this sinkhole was formed at least 500 years ago, and the color is still so pitch-black. It seems like the source of this evil magic is a very powerful Yuan Kou. "
"So, Liunian Ling only analyzed the soil and found out that this sinkhole was formed because of a battle. She didn't know the true origin of this sinkhole. Looks like I still have a chance to show off …" Luo Fan heaved a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to open his mouth to explain again, he was once again interrupted.
"It's a Medusa. There was once a Universe Medusa that fought with a sword wielder here …" Guhan silently looked at some rocks at the bottom of the sinkhole. "This was a really tragic battle."
"Medusa!
And a Universe Medusa!
Isn't that as powerful as an immortal sword wielder?! "A classmate exclaimed.
"Oh my god, that's too scary. I heard that Medusa has magic that can absorb human souls … That's too scary."
After hearing Guhan's words, the classmates instantly exclaimed. They didn't expect that a Medusa had actually fought here.
"Classmate Guhan and Classmate Ao Lin are right. There was indeed a Universe Medusa that fought with our sword wielder here." Luo Fan quickly followed up.
"561 years ago, there weren't three major ore veins on Mei Ling Mountain. There was only one large ore vein, the Yellow Peak Ore Vein.
One day, the sword wielder at the Yellow Peak Camp suddenly realized that the sky above Luo Ting's location had suddenly split open, and there was a giant rift that was dozens of kilometers long.
A blood-red radiance drifted out from the crack, and the sword-bearers at the Yellow Peak Camp knew that danger was approaching. It was a massive dimensional rift, and there would be thousands upon thousands of Yuan Worms pouring out from it. They would launch a terrifying attack on the Plum Ridge Mountain. "
"The sword wielder at the Yellow Peak Camp knew that the best thing to do now was to quickly escape for their lives and escape back to Yuzhang City.
However, there were tens of thousands of outsiders mining at the Yellow Peak Ore Vein.
At that time, hovercrafts hadn't been invented yet, and humans could only rely on modified super off-road vehicles to move around.
However, the number of off-road vehicles at the Yellow Peak Camp wasn't enough, and they could only transport 3,000 people at a time. In a short period of time, it was impossible to evacuate the outsiders from the camp.
"Therefore, the sword bearers of the Yellow Peak Camp decided to let all the children, only children, fathers, young power users, and women in the camp evacuate first. All humans above the age of thirty were to stay in the camp and use their lives to buy time for the retreat."