So, its that time of the week again, when a trip to the heart of the jungle and the lava caves are required. As always, I start at the jungle. It seemed to take a lot longer than usual to get the water, however it has been obtained.

So I head to my usual spot in the lava caves. 1 full bar of energy, two small energy pack from friends, and about 3 bars of mana later, still no lava crystal.

Anyone else having issues, or does the RNG hate me?

I whack 1 bush in the area for the Water, then 1 bush in each of the 8 legal places for the lava ruby, lather, rince and repeat..., and I get both within a few hundred Energy. Or I get one when/if I'm working on Sparklies.
So you could spend a lot of time and get them and still have a lot of Energy, or you could just blindly mindlessly whack away forever to get 1 and then again forever to get the other and have no energy left.
Like puzzle pieces and CI's, the game seems to know what you are trying to get and sometimes taunts you, but you can easily confuse the game.