Back in my world, I finally exhaled. Talks went great; now just wait a couple months for my first big info batch.
Handing cash to those students was easy, pre-electronic tracking. First, a big gold suitcase, registered as found treasure. US law takes only 20% of finds, so guys keep nearly all after sale—a huge cash sum.
But that trick works max a couple more times; then they'll be tailed—too suspicious constantly finding gold suitcases. So I offered two old, proven laundering methods.
First, acquiring and using automatic laundromats, like the mobsters did during Prohibition in my first life. And second, using the banking system. That is, they deposit huge sums in gold into a bank in another country on an anonymous account, and then simply get a loan from that bank, which will be their legal source of money.
Well, I hope these magazine enthusiasts succeed, especially considering that according to history, they were supposed to become the founders of one of the largest magazines in the USA.
I think they'll do great at the task of turning mages in the eyes of the general public into analogs of heroes from "My Hero Academia"—that's the anime from my first life that inspired me with the idea I suggested to them. And of course, such a goal will be excellent cover for searching for the information I need.
Pushing thoughts of the magazine out of my head for the next two months, I started searching for information on Thought Stones. Ah, I can't wait until all the necessary information is sorted and lying in my closet, and the closet is in a spatial pocket. Or maybe digitize it all?
Shaking my head, I pulled out my phone again and dove into studying the data available to me from the Hunters' League. The League used to issue missions to guard these stones, and naturally, the basic information on them was uploaded to the site. It's not everything I need, but I can build from this.
So, Thought Stones. A resource for raising spiritual boundaries originating from Peru, where the only vein for mining it was discovered. Considering that the Nazca Emperor is sealed relatively close to this mine and specialized, judging by what I learned in my past life, in spiritual attacks, I can assume that his dead body was turned into this rare mineral, and his soul was sealed in Nazca, which would explain why it's only found there. But these are just my unconfirmed guesses.
Mining of Thought Stones began in 1789 and ended in 1820. Aha, so the vein's reserves lasted only 31 years. But why didn't the Peruvian government realize this earlier and sell these stones quite freely at a relatively low price? Don't they have enough strong earth mages to probe the volume of future extraction? It was clearly a surprise to them how quickly the mineral was depleted. Hm, need to dig deeper.
The net only had info that a couple of these stones went through a regular auction, but no names or dates, so that data is useless to me. Selling stones for services directly by the Peruvian government also falls through—they only did it in their own country and in one place, so there must have been some guard there, considering the constant presence of big shots. At minimum, the presence of a High-level mage is guaranteed.
Hmm, yes. My information search skills are clearly insufficient, and Lin Lin is busy right now. Good thing I already took care of solving the problem, but for the next two months, I'll have to huff and puff on my own.
Ow, screw the net. I'll just jump, say, to 1880 to the location of the already empty mine—it's no secret in our time. I'll check the situation myself, maybe ask the locals. Someone must know something.
When I was already about to jump to a parallel world to poll the local natives, a smart thought finally hit me, and stopping, I slapped my forehead.
Why am I looking for ready-made Thought Stones? I can just go back to the time period before the mine was discovered and haul out all the ore. And for processing it into the resource I need, Master Pin might help—he won't mind taking a dozen stones as payment for silence, I think.
Why not? He has kids, grandkids. He won't use them himself, but he'll give them to family or make them a family treasure. In our time, even some High-level mages are ready to fight for them. Well, those who haven't reached the sixth spiritual boundary yet, since a Thought Stone is useless for breaking through to the seventh.
Since mining started in 1789, I think it's safe to jump there in 1600. If this mine had been in their possession for almost two hundred years, they would've started mining such a good resource much earlier. With those thoughts, I summoned my armor, focused, and jumped to the place I needed.
I appeared a bit north of the Nazca plateau, literally a couple dozen miles away. Around were desert hills, and with my spiritual sense, I already felt a couple dozen local monsters approaching me—three Chieftains of the pack, and the rest simple Servants.
Seeing them, I immediately recognized Sand Assassins. These are spiders living in small groups with characteristic sandy coloration and well-armored chitinous plate armor. They love attacking in crowds and are extremely aggressive. Apparently, in this time period, they own this place.
Without thinking long, I unleashed Bula on them and, turning away, returned to scouting the area. After looking around a bit and comparing the photos I'd seen on the internet with the surroundings, I approached a specific hill and used spatial telekinesis, starting to gradually dismantle it.
When I'd disassembled about half the hill, I finally found something besides sand and soil. It was beautiful ore with what looked like glowing silver inclusions. I sensed a very strong spiritual aura from it. Judging by the description I'd found online, I'd found what I was looking for.
The next forty-eight hours blurred into a series of repeated actions for me. Load Thought ore into the spatial ring, shift to a parallel world where it's currently the 1100s, and dump it in a vast, mostly uninhabited cave.
After two days, having filled almost the entire cave, I stopped. The collected ore would clearly be enough to create several dozen Thought Stones... probably. I don't know much about turning magical ores into cultivation resources. I think Master Pin will figure it out.
And by the way, I think I figured out where the Peruvian rulers went wrong when estimating their deposit's volume. Nine hours before finishing my excavator imitation, when I was digging in only one direction, I hit almost identical ore. Almost—that's the key word.
This low-quality ore looked no different from the normal stuff, except it glowed a bit dimmer, which isn't noticeable at first glance. But the spiritual aura... it was almost absent. In that concentration, it might at most benefit an ordinary person by improving concentration, and who knows how much ore you'd need to fill a room for that effect.
Apparently, the Peruvian government, as with evaluating all potential mines, invited a strong earth element mage, at least High-level, to sense the deposit's volume underground. And he sensed it, only counting the low-quality ore as normal, since in his seismic senses, they wouldn't differ. That must be why they were surprised back then when the resources ran out so fast. Just my guess, but considering all the factors, I'm almost a hundred percent sure.
Slightly raising my previously low opinion of the Peruvian government, I put some of the collected ore into the spatial ring and headed to visit Master Pin. Might as well pick up the artifacts from him. I can strengthen his body before he works on the ore. Considering his character and huge gratitude for extending his life, he won't rat me out to the government... I hope.