Star Farming, the eldest lady relies on alchemy to counterattack

Chapter 316 Major
The thunderstorm lasted for a full three hours. As the dark clouds gradually dispersed, the overwhelming, apocalyptic thunder also disappeared.

Ning Xuan felt as if her meridians were about to burst, and the surging lightning caused her waves of pain.

"Commander Ning, what's wrong? You look so pale." No one asked with concern.

"It's nothing, just give me a basic report," Ning Xuan said.

"The second group hasn't compiled the statistics yet. The first group has a total of 500 people in the battle. Currently, 39 people are injured, 17 of whom are seriously injured. The medical team has been treating them, and there are no deaths so far." The person reporting the situation to Ning Xuan was Liu Linfeng, the captain of the E9 brigade.

Liu Linfeng is bold and meticulous in his work. He was appointed as the deputy commander by Ning Xuan yesterday after she took office, taking over her previous position as assistant.

"The injured should receive treatment, and the captains should immediately organize the rest to search for special ores," Ning Xuan ordered.

"Yes." The captains of each brigade immediately accepted the order and left.

"Commander Ning, are all these Thunder Beasts you captured? Why are they so small? Aren't Thunder Beasts supposed to be impossible to capture?" After Liu Linfeng finished directing his men to clean up the battlefield, he saw Ning Xuan fiddling with a fluffy little beast and asked curiously.

“These are the juvenile forms of the Thunder Beasts. They haven’t completed their first round of evolution yet, so of course they’re small.” Ning Xuan had just tried to channel the restless lightning within her meridians into the Thunder Beasts’ bodies. She discovered that the Thunder Beasts were actually able to absorb the lightning she channeled. Not only did they not experience any discomfort, but their fur even became brighter than before.

"How was the harvest?" Ning Xuan asked.

"We found eleven special ores in total, and they're all here." Liu Linfeng handed over a spatial button.

“Commander Ning, we heard rumors that the casualty rate for new recruits on their first mission in thunderstorms is extremely high, and that only three out of ten survive the first wave of lightning tempering.” Liu Linfeng looked at Ning Xuan with excitement. He knew that the rumors were not wrong, but that Ning Xuan had used special methods.

After all, many people could sense that Ning Xuan had drawn the lightning into her body, weakening its power.

Ning Xuan weakened the power of thunder, allowing almost all the warriors to withstand this wave. They would then be able to resist thunderstorms in the future.

In fact, when the new recruits faced their first thunderstorm, what threatened their lives was not only the power of thunder, but more importantly, the Thunder Beasts. The reason there were no casualties this time was because Ning Xuan had captured all the Thunder Beasts.

Even more fortunately, they did not encounter any fully evolved Thunder Beasts this time. If an evolved Thunder Beast had appeared, even if Ning Xuan could defeat it, it would have taken a lot of time, and she would not have been able to protect everyone.

Ning Xuan lowered her head and teased the Thunder Beast she had caught, replying casually, "Perhaps the rumors are too exaggerated, or perhaps we're just lucky. After cleaning up the battlefield, we can go back to rest and have the second group come over to relieve us."

The next wave of thunderstorms could arrive at any time, and the new recruits in Group Two need to be tempered.

After Ning Xuan gave the order, the two groups quickly completed the switch.

Just after the second group of soldiers arrived, the sky was suddenly split open by a purple-blue lightning bolt, followed by darkness as if the earth had been swallowed up by darkness.

With a deafening crash, a bolt of lightning as thick as a coiled dragon or python pierced down from the heavens, illuminating the entire mining area in a stark white light.

Before the second group of recruits could even cover their ears, a deafening thunderstorm exploded above them, the sound so powerful that several skinny boys fell to their knees.

"Form ranks!" Liu Linfeng's roar echoed through the gaps in the thunderstorm. The recruits staggered into defensive formation, gritting their teeth as they glanced at the lightning-streaked sky. Suddenly, the low-hanging dark clouds pressed down, and large raindrops pelted down, sparking eerie blue sparks on the soldiers' armor—these raindrops, imbued with the aura of thunder, danced across the armor.

The face, which was not covered by armor, immediately felt numb when it was wet by the rain.

The lightning that roamed through the clouds had transformed into bolts of electric pythons, each strike creating a crack in the earth. The ground in the mining area was incredibly hard, yet it was still cleaved into deep trenches.

When the weather changed, Ning Xuan evenly fed the lightning within her body to the dozen or so Thunder Beasts she had just captured.

At this moment, Ning Xuan felt that the blue meridians in her body were empty. She used all her strength to circulate the "Spirit Guiding Scripture". Strands of cyan-purple lightning struck straight down on Ning Xuan's head with such great force that it seemed to destroy the world.

Liu Linfeng and the others watched this scene in horror. Liu Linfeng felt his hands and feet go numb and he had difficulty breathing. He couldn't imagine how Ning Xuan could still be alive after being struck by such powerful lightning.

Just as Liu Linfeng was in despair and couldn't help but want to rush into the lightning, many black threads split off from Ning Xuan's body and pierced straight into the bodies of the dozen or so lightning beasts she had captured.

A trickle of blood appeared at the corner of Ning Xuan's mouth. She had underestimated the power of this round of lightning. She had just been using her cultivation technique at full power, which caused several violent bolts of lightning to rush into her body, causing some damage to her meridians.

However, she had already quickly taken the medicine to repair her meridians and channeled an excessive amount of lightning power into the bodies of the Thunder Beasts. Within just a few minutes, the size of those dozen or so Thunder Beasts doubled.

This wave of thunderstorms was fierce and even more powerful than the previous one. However, after Ning Xuan channeled the lightning into her body, the thunder gradually subsided, and the sky began to brighten.

"Everyone, focus on body tempering. Use your physical bodies to fight against the lightning. Do not dodge," Ning Xuan ordered.

"Attention everyone, focus on body tempering!" Seeing that Ning Xuan was alright, Liu Linfeng seemed to have come back to life and immediately relayed Ning Xuan's order.

The thunderstorm ended quickly, lasting almost half the length of the previous one.

Afterwards, a headcount was taken. Thirteen people were killed by lightning, and 32 were seriously injured. If Ning Xuan hadn't intervened in time, most of them would have had a hard time surviving.

The death toll in the Ninth Mining Area was 15, with a mortality rate of 15‰.

The death toll in the first mining area was 321, with a mortality rate of 321‰.

The death toll in the second mining area was 298, with a mortality rate of 298‰.

The death toll in the third mining area was 309, with a mortality rate of 309‰.

……

After the first thunderstorm ended, the new recruits in each area reported their casualties. The mortality rate in the Ninth Mining Area was far lower than in other mining areas, which immediately attracted the attention of the higher-ups. That afternoon, an investigation team entered the Ninth Mining Area.

When questioned by the investigation team, Ning Xuan calmly explained that her companion spirit was of the wind and thunder element, which allowed her to cultivate using lightning, and that their mining area was just lucky.