"I sense that your material has been replaced, friend. Are you a sacrifice?"

The voice was faint, but Mo Ling heard every word clearly.

’A sacrifice?’

Mo Ling had always wondered something. Why did these Mineral Races, who looked nothing like a Block, always consider him one of their own?

He was clearly just a Block.

It seemed they didn’t care about appearance, but about material. They held an almost obsessive view on the matter.

But then again, they didn’t treat the common ores found by the roadside as kin. It was a very strange way of judging things.

Besides, Shibeng had also said that the Block felt like its material had been replaced. Perhaps these Mineral Races had a unique perception of materials.

’But what is a "sacrifice"?’

Li Luo asked the ghost the same question. The ghost didn’t hide anything, replying gently, "A sacrifice to stop the war. The abandoned ones."

’The abandoned ones?’

’What does that mean?’

Li Luo pressed on with her questions. The ghost, much like Shibeng before it, didn’t conceal what it knew and told them everything.

It seemed these Mineral Races weren’t very good at lying.

Mo Ling had thought a fight might break out when they arrived. He had been looking forward to getting familiar with his newly expanded Block Space.

But to his surprise, the ghost directly admitted to what they had done.

The ghost was a member of the Natural Gas Race.

Their race was peaceful and kept to themselves. Ever since their birth, they had lived only within the pores near their place of origin.

They actually had a large population, but they were all gaseous. After being compressed, they could also become liquid. The crevices within the stone pillars were more than enough for them to survive.

They didn’t artificially expand tunnels like the solid Mineral Races. The hollows beneath the stone pillars had also been carved out by other solid Mineral Races.

They had no opinion on the warring behavior of these solid Mineral Races.

Even if the fighting below shook the heavens and plunged the world into darkness, it had nothing to do with them. They certainly weren’t about to try and stop the war.

Because they all stayed hidden in the pores, the solid Mineral Races thought their numbers were small and that they were relatively peaceful, so they never attacked them.

Avoiding the war should have been a wonderful thing, as their combat strength was very weak to begin with.

After expanding, they would become increasingly thin and lose all offensive capability. Hiding in the pores was the best choice for a weak race like them.

However, things did not go as they wished. In a time of great crisis, no one is safe.

The great war in the Thorn Stone Forest finally spread to some of the Natural Gas Race’s stone pillars.

In the midst of battle, some Mineral Races broke open the passages connecting the stone pillars to the outside world.

After these passages were opened, some of the clueless members of the Natural Gas Race simply flew away.

That’s right, they just flew away. Their gaseous density was lower than air, so some members who were still in a gaseous state simply drifted out of the openings.

At first, they couldn’t figure out why this was happening.

By the time they investigated and understood, many of their kin had already turned into gas and drifted away through the holes in the pillars.

It was then that the Natural Gas Race realized the destruction of war was inevitable.

But they couldn’t think of a good solution, so they could only try to maintain their liquid state and drill into deeper crevices.

This was the first time they had felt fear.

But as the war spread, the battles beneath the stone pillars grew more and more brutal.

Once, when two Mineral Races were fighting fiercely below, the stone blades they unleashed plunged deep into the pores.

A single spark erupted.

With a crackling explosion, a wave of fire spread along the pores throughout the entire stone pillar, incinerating every member of the Natural Gas Race inside. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Some tried to turn into gas and escape, but this only intensified the flames. In their mixed gas-liquid state, the fire on their bodies burned even more fiercely.

An entire stone pillar was destroyed, just like that.

News of this pillar’s destruction threw the Natural Gas Race in the other pillars into a panic.

The once-peaceful race now anxiously searched for a way to prevent such a thing from happening again.

They even considered joining the war to defend their stone pillars, but their weakness made them shrink back from the idea.

Things were at an impasse.

In their extreme fear, a turning point finally arrived. A member of the race proposed a method: "We don’t have to drive the enemy away ourselves. We just need to make them too terrified to fight."

This proposal was met with unanimous agreement, but they had no idea how to make the enemy panic.

At this crucial moment, a member of the Natural Gas Race who had been out returned from the pillar that had been burned to ash, having retrieved an item.

As the ghost reached this point in his story, Li Luo couldn’t wait any longer and blurted out, "Was it a pair of gloves?"

"Gloves? You mean the tool humans use to protect their hands? It wasn’t that sort of thing," the ghost replied, confused.

’Not gloves?’

Mo Ling couldn’t help but feel skeptical. If it wasn’t the Golden Touch Hand, how could it have such a powerful effect?

His theory was that the Natural Gas Race, wanting to end the war, had used the gloves and their ability to turn gaseous to secretly create the "Altered Vein Disease," thereby plunging the entire Mineral Race into fear.

The logic was sound.

’But now he’s saying there were no gloves at all?’

Li Luo was also very confused. She took out an electronic screen from her bag and showed the ghost a picture of a glove.

"Are you sure it wasn’t this sort of thing?"

"I know what gloves are, but our race has no need for such things. Only humans do," the ghost explained patiently.

Li Luo grew even more puzzled.

"Then what exactly did you find?"

The ghost gestured with his hands to indicate a small area and said, "A piece of cloth this big. A red cloth."

This answer left Li Luo stunned on the spot.

’Why a piece of cloth?’

She quickly took out her electronic screen to search, but after scrolling through pages of information on relics, she couldn’t find anything similar.

"What could that cloth do?" Li Luo asked.

"It could replace a sacrifice’s material, changing it into something else. That way, they would think they had contracted the Altered Vein Disease."

The ghost continued its story.

At first, they didn’t know what the cloth was for, but its red color was simply too vibrant and strange.

It seemed to constantly draw one’s gaze, making it impossible to look away.

They asked the clansman why he had brought the cloth back. His answer was, "It was just too eye-catching."

It was so eye-catching that it managed to pique the interest of a race that was usually completely devoid of curiosity.

Soon, the entire Natural Gas Race was captivated by the red cloth. They gathered together to observe it constantly.

Finally, an accident occurred. A member of the Natural Gas Race who put the red cloth on his head discovered that it suddenly merged with him. The red color vanished, and the cloth became a transparent gas.

He could feel something on his head but couldn’t see the red cloth. There was only a misty object on his head, made of the exact same material as his own body.

The cloth had adapted to his body.

In his excitement, this member of the Natural Gas Race touched a companion and casually solidified a part of his companion’s body.

The solidified part slowly spread, covering his entire body. Soon, this companion had turned into a piece of fluorite.

But he could still move. He had completely become a member of the Fluorite Race.

Not only that, but this transformation could also be spread to others through touch.

This discovery was beyond their wildest expectations.

"This is something that can create panic!"

And so, a plague called the "Altered Vein Disease" began to spread throughout the Thorn Stone Forest.