Ch.222222. Golden Birds

The Golden Bird is a bird covered in gold.

It can be considered a type of gargoyle monster, but since it’s much more expensive than stone gargoyles, it’s quite famous among Farming World players.

– I wonder how much it would sell for.

– If I catch just one and melt it down to extract the gold…

– Probably not pure gold. The color is a bit dull.

– The fact is that even in Farming World, gold is a rare material. Find one Golden Bird territory and you won’t need a gold mine.

Gold was actually a material used to upgrade tools in Farming World.

Starting with copper, then iron, silver, and gold, these ores were needed to advance resource technology, so after breaking through several biomes, players would begin the arduous journey of searching for gold mines.

Just as I initially struggled to find copper mines, mines don’t appear easily in most biomes, requiring significant time investment to locate them.

But now one appears right before my eyes.

“This one looks catchable.”

I had been curious about how far I could handle monsters in the current Rift Dimension.

As I steadily progressed, collecting every reward without missing any, I never once felt endangered in biomes of the same level.

Even when facing the “Dense Chaotic Energy” difficulty that was meant to be intimidating, I found nothing particularly challenging except for feedback that I needed to improve my defensive abilities.

That’s partly why I skipped Level 3 and proceeded with Level 5 biome quests.

How far can I go with my current abilities?

[Monster]

– Name: Golden Bird

– Grade: SS

– Level: 70

– Stats: Strength (SS-), Agility (SS), Stamina (SS-), Magic Power (C)

– Body: 519cm / 359kg

– Abilities:

1. Ultra-high-speed Flight (SS)(A)

2. Magic Absorption (SS-)(P)

“Its stats are almost at the level of a Big Guava Snake.”

The monsters in a Level 5 biome have stats equivalent to a boss monster infused with Dense Chaotic Energy from a Level 2 biome.

Of course, these are also infused with Dense Chaotic Energy, but it seems that in a Level 5 biome, boss monsters from Level 2 biomes with Dense Chaotic Energy roam around as regular encounters.

I butcher the Golden Bird after cutting its throat.

This is where raising my butchering skill to SS grade pays off.

Without a high butchering level, you either can’t butcher a gold-made Golden Bird at all or can’t properly harvest the gold covering it.

Even a small loss would be a huge waste—if I had tried to butcher it with an F-grade skill, I might have given up on the Level 5 biome and returned only after leveling up my butchering skill.

“I should raise my butchering skill to SSS+ as well.”

Even with SS-grade butchering, it wasn’t perfect.

Since the Golden Bird’s grade was SS, I could obtain almost all rewards without loss, but even that wasn’t 100% probability with 100% rewards.

Gold falls off in abundance.

Farming World users often said this gold wouldn’t be pure, and indeed, the gold visible on the Golden Bird’s exterior isn’t perfectly pure.

The Golden Bird isn’t a monster made entirely of gold, and amusingly, the gold content in these birds’ bodies affects their stats—the ones with more gold are stronger.

The amount of pure gold from the one I just caught is about 18kg. Considering its overall weight, it contained about 5% gold, making it not particularly strong by their standards.

“The weakest one is about as strong as a Big Guava Snake.”

I should probably put aside the thought that the Level 5 biome might be manageable.

According to research in Farming World, the gold content of Golden Birds is divided into 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and over 30% categories. The perceived combat power difference between a 5% and a 20% bird is said to be more than double.

Those with over 30% are considered boss-level.

Well, this level of challenge is appropriate for a Level 5 biome in the Rift Dimension.

Looking at the 18kg of gold piled up in my spatial inventory, I felt more excited than worried.

“How much is this worth?”

I happen to know the recent gold prices.

I didn’t look it up out of curiosity—Kim Sujeong, who was seeking funding sources for the Farming Company, had mentioned it to me.

“Oppa, gold. When are we going to mine gold? Wouldn’t a gold mine be profitable? Pure gold is about 170 million won per kilogram right now.”

“You think gold mines just drop gold everywhere? It’s all rocks. You extract tiny amounts of gold by mining and melting those rocks.”

“I know that. But the Rift Dimension is different, right? Resource deposits rated SSS+! Immeasurable!”

“That’s true. Finding a gold mine would be quite profitable.”

The truth is, I make more money crafting and selling a single item than I would mining gold diligently, so I hadn’t seriously considered finding a gold mine to sell its contents.

But when it appears right in front of me like this, that’s a different story.

“Even the weakest Golden Bird is worth 3 billion won…”

If I hadn’t sold that 7 trillion won item before, I might already be frantically searching for Golden Birds in the fog with crazed eyes.

Even with some financial cushion, I couldn’t help but grin at the prospect.

The Golden Bird isn’t the main attraction.

The main feature of this Level 5 biome, the Ore Mountain Range, is the numerous ore deposits and mines spread throughout the massive mountains.

The entire mountain itself is one giant mine, with deposits stretching across the range like a mountain chain, with an immeasurable SSS+ grade deposit.

If I were to sell just this, the value of all resources on Earth might crash to less than half overnight.

I felt motivated.

“I’ll search every corner.”

The difficulty level also matches my current abilities. It’s time to hunt like in the old days of Farming World.

——————-

It was morning when I returned home.

“What? Did you just get back, oppa?”

Kim Sujeong, returning from working in the fields, asked.

“Yeah. Wait, has it been a whole day?”

“I think so? You left yesterday saying you were going to find the mountain range.”

“I see.”

In biomes filled with chaotic energy, it’s impossible to distinguish between day and night.

Even at midday, the chaotic energy makes visibility poor and blocks sunlight, creating darkness. This Ore Mountain Range in particular was filled with a deep red chaotic energy covering the entire range, creating a blood-red view with fog that prevented seeing even a step ahead, making it impossible to keep track of time.

If only certain areas were dungeon-like, I could wander around by luck and find the concentrated core of chaotic energy, but here the entire biome was a foggy area, making it difficult even with my mana detection ability.

Above all, it was a continuous series of moments where I couldn’t let my guard down for a second, making it hard to think, “How long have I been hunting? Should I head back?”

Starting with the first Golden Bird, as I moved around, I must have entered their territory properly because I had to use predictive leaps to avoid attacks from Golden Birds coming from all directions.

It seemed too dependent on luck, so I used some divine power to restore my agility to normal, and when divine power ran low, I continued using leaps to buy time for recovery.

I can’t remember the last time I hunted so tenaciously, which probably made me lose track of time even more.

Thanks to that, I was able to level up rapidly and hunt quite a few Golden Birds before returning.

“Did you find anything?”

“I did.”

I opened my spatial inventory in front of Kim Sujeong and poured out the gold.

“…Wow! What is this? Is this all real gold?”

I caught over 50 Golden Birds throughout the night.

Though their gold content varied, the total accumulated gold amounted to 1.3 tons.

It wasn’t stacked neatly like gold bars, but the sparkling pure gold piled in front of the cabin was a breathtaking sight.

“This is insane. Amazing.”

While I was mining, I thought of it as just earning 3 billion won per bird as a side income, but seeing all the gold I’d gathered after hunting all day made me realize how incredibly profitable it was.

This amount alone exceeds 200 billion won.

An amount impossible to earn with mediocre items.

“Where did all this gold come from?”

Kim Solyi, who had woken up and was about to go for her morning run, asked with a surprised expression.

Then, with sparkling eyes, she asked:

“Did you find it? A mine? If there’s gold, there might be bratrium too?”

In Kim Solyi’s eyes, bratrium that could be used for construction was more valuable than gold.

Though gold would be nice to have too.

“There is bratrium, but I haven’t found it yet.”

“That’s amazing!”

Seeing everyone so happy made me feel that the trip to the Level 5 biome was worthwhile.

I should grind for a few more days and find some bratrium too.

I called for Kukum while looking at the displayed gold.