Chapter 358 - 356: Large Spirit Stone Ore Vein

Chapter 358: Chapter 356: Large Spirit Stone Ore Vein

Years ago, when Blood God True Monarch returned to the Liang Country, Fang Tiancheng took the initiative to pledge allegiance to him, hoping to avoid the destruction of his Sect.

As they had been rival Sects, this sudden change of heart was naturally met with distrust.

Before long, Blood God True Monarch threw a pile of evidence—collected by his disciples—in front of Fang Tiancheng, proving that Master Hei Feng harbored ill will toward the Blood Demon Sect. He told Fang Tiancheng to deal with it himself.

Fang Tiancheng returned to his Sect and gathered all the Core Formation True Men to discuss a solution. He proposed expelling Master Hei Feng from the Sect, a move that would both save Master Hei Feng’s life and appease Blood God True Monarch.

Unexpectedly, Master Hei Feng, who had always been gentle and cheerful, broke down and wailed in the great hall. He declared he would rather die to ensure the Sect’s safety than to be cast out and live in disgrace.

"I would rather die a disciple of the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect than live as a rootless wanderer!"

Before his fellow Sect members could react, Master Hei Feng struck his own Dantian, shattering it and rupturing the meridians around his heart. He died on the spot, right there in the great hall.

Fang Tiancheng beat his chest in anguish, old tears streaming down his face.

He had personally watched over the growth of every Core Formation True Man in the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect. Though they called each other brothers, their bond was more akin to that of master and disciple.

After his grief subsided, he cut off Master Hei Feng’s head and presented it to Blood God True Monarch, earning a sliver of his trust.

Subsequently, he led a large contingent of disciples into the sect wars, while the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect sealed its mountain and cut off all contact with the outside world.

For decades, Fang Tiancheng buried his hatred deep in his heart, acting as if the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect were truly a vassal of the Blood Demon Sect, aiding the tyrant in his evil deeds.

At last, his scheme succeeded. He lured Blood God True Monarch into a trap from which he could not escape.

"I am incompetent. If I had Ge Cang’s talent, I wouldn’t have had to sacrifice the lives of Junior Brother Feng and thousands of disciples..."

Inexpressible grief filled Fang Tiancheng’s eyes. If he had been confident in reaching the Nascent Soul True Monarch realm within a few decades, the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect would have had much more room to maneuver.

They wouldn’t have had to pay such a terrible price: Master Hei Feng’s suicide, and the deaths of thousands of elite disciples in a meaningless sect war.

And for the sake of the Five Crystal Divine Iron, they had boarded a pirate ship, sinking deeper and deeper into the mire.

"Senior Brother, don’t blame yourself. This is all the evil sown by the Blood Demon Sect!"

Master Huoya glanced at the underground tomb, a flicker of lingering fear in his eyes.

"That Blood God True Monarch won’t escape, will he? If he sees that all his disciples are dead, I’m afraid he’ll immediately come to slaughter everyone on Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain."

"That demon’s power is astonishing, and he possesses an Exotic Treasure... After refining the Blood River, Blood God True Monarch is indeed difficult to kill, but escaping won’t be that easy for him either."

Fang Tiancheng ignored the struggle between the Demonic Qi and the Blood River in the tomb below and began issuing commands directly.

"If he wants to advance his cultivation, devouring a Nascent Soul True Monarch is a necessary step, so he’ll certainly fight to the death... Leave a team of disciples to monitor the tomb. The rest of you will annihilate the Blood Demon Sect as quickly as possible and bring all the spoils of war from these past years back to Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain."

"Once the Blood Demon Sect falls, the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect will become a public enemy. We have killed far too many cultivators from other sects; there’s no possibility of resolving this hatred."

Fang Tiancheng rested a hand on his forehead. His imposing, mountain-toppling aura suddenly collapsed. A heavy burden he had carried for many years was finally lifted, and his entire body relaxed.

"The accumulated wealth of all the sects we’ve destroyed is enough to support our Sect in isolation for a hundred years... I will go find Ge Cang. I hope he will help us for old times’ sake. Otherwise, if the Demon Extermination Alliance besieges us, our Sect will truly be trapped with no way out."

After the orders were given, the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect cultivators split into two groups. They summoned their Flying Spiritual Artifacts or mounted their Spirit Beasts, a dense black mass that blotted out the sky.

In the underground tomb, bloody light roiled one moment, and monstrous Demonic Qi surged the next.

Overall, however, the mysterious cultivator who had manifested a colossal demonic shadow seemed to have the upper hand.

...

’Looks like the Flame Mountain Dojo will begin to take shape in a few more months. Brother Ge and I will be able to officially move in then.’

After Bai Zichen came out of seclusion, he found that the Cyan Simurgh’s former nest had been almost completely renovated.

The next step was to develop the Spirit Land in the volcano’s crater and carve out a row of Cave Mansions halfway up the mountain.

Along the way, disciples who saw Ancestor Bai fell to their knees in deep reverence.

Bai Zichen swept the area with his Divine Sense and, noticing that Zhou Suqing didn’t seem to be on Flame Mountain, decided to make a trip back to Celestial Thunder Cliff.

He planned to reinforce the Holy Beast Aura on the Bai Clan Members and also check if any new Spiritual Bamboo had mutated and ascended into Thunder Sound Bamboo.

He left Flame Mountain via Sword Control. After flying for several hundred miles, he was struck by a sudden whim and veered off in a wide arc, heading toward an active volcano he had explored back in his Foundation Establishment Stage.

In a mere moment, his Moonlight Sword Light landed on the volcano’s summit, the scene just as he remembered it from years ago.

’The poisonous fumes here are too thick, otherwise it would be a good spot to build a branch... At the very least, it could solve the Artifact Refining Hall’s need for an Earth Fire source. With so much ore and no shortage of fire for smelting, this is practically a heaven-sent location for Artifact Refining.’

Bai Zichen strolled through the poisonous smoke, which was thick with the acrid smell of sulfur. He rarely saw even Demon Beasts; under the sweep of his powerful Divine Sense, he only detected a few Fire Centipedes and Fire Scorpions living tenaciously in the crevices of the rocks.

Arriving at the crater, he subconsciously compared it to the one in his own Spirit Land on Flame Mountain.

’It’s all lava, but the lava on Flame Mountain is terrifying to even look at. Is it really just a matter of the Spirit Vein’s grade...?’

He plunged his hand directly into the lava. With a SIZZLE, a plume of white smoke rose.

A few breaths later, he withdrew his hand, completely unharmed. A few drops of lava dripped from his fingertips, instantly solidifying into reddish-brown rock upon hitting the ground.

An ordinary cultivator’s flesh and blood would have long since melted away, leaving only a hand of white bone.

Even a Body Refining Cultivator could not have done it with such casual ease.

Aside from the powerful physique granted by his Five Crystal Glaze Body, it was also related to his immense resistance to fire.

He could enter directly or even transform into a Fire Flood Dragon, but he considered that although his Daoist Robe was said to be Immune to Water and Fire, it could only fend off ordinary Mortal Fire.

Deeper in the lava, the temperature rose steadily, and there were already traces of Earth Core Poison Fire.

Even the best Magical Robe couldn’t withstand such heat; it would surely be ruined by the time he returned to the surface.

With this in mind, the colorful ribbon on his wrist transformed into a stream of red light that flowed around his body, and he leaped into the lava.

After absorbing the Cyan Simurgh Essence Blood and having its Forbidden Seals undone, the Rainbow Feather Robe had already become a Top-Grade Magical Treasure.

It protected him as he advanced through the volcanic lava with absolute ease.

After descending for a few thousand feet, he sensed massive black shadows, suspended motionless in the lava.

Only when they were hit by magma erupting from the earth’s core would these black shadows be propelled upward, tumbling a few times.

’When the volcano erupts, the topmost ores will be carried out by the lava. This is how various ores from the earth’s core come to the surface... Without manual intervention, this process could take hundreds or even thousands of years. Since I’ve stumbled upon it, I should naturally take it.’

Previously, when he was in the lava, Bai Zichen hadn’t dared to extend his Divine Sense in the slightest.

He had tried it once, and the moment his Divine Sense touched the lava, his Sea of Consciousness felt like it was being directly incinerated by a ball of Celestial Fire, nearly causing him to pass out from the pain.

Now, his Divine Sense was countless times stronger than before. With a single sweep, he discovered that these massive black shadows were Red Fire Elemental Copper.

The only problem was that they were each the size of a pavilion, making them extremely troublesome to store even in a Top-Grade Storage Bag.

He opened his mouth and spat out a strand of Moonlight Sword Silk, which shot out and circled the Red Fire Elemental Copper several times.

The Red Fire Elemental Copper, which had withstood the calcination of the Earth Fire and lava for millennia, cracked into several hundred pieces. Its impurities melted away, and the remaining ore emitted a red glow that was impossible to ignore even within the lava.

The Sword Silk expanded, transforming into a streak of moonlight that swept up all the pieces of Red Fire Elemental Copper and brought them back.

He continued downward, repeating the process, and collected at least ten thousand jin of refined Red Fire Elemental Copper.

As a Tier Three Low-Grade Spiritual Material, its effectiveness for crafting Magical Treasures was average, but it was more than enough for refining Top-Grade Spiritual Artifacts.

If he remembered correctly, the main material for two of the Top-Grade Spiritual Artifacts in the Artifact Refining Hall’s schematics was Red Fire Elemental Copper.

The amount he had harvested was enough to craft three Top-Grade Spiritual Artifacts for every Foundation Establishment Cultivator in the Qingfeng Sect, with plenty to spare.

When he reached a depth of eight hundred zhang, the pressure around him suddenly intensified as he entered a narrow channel.

The lava here was compressed to a near-solid state, and every step forward consumed a massive amount of True Essence.

In addition to the red, rosy glow from his robe, a streak of moonlight appeared before Bai Zichen, finally stabilizing his body.

The channel was only a few dozen zhang long, but it took him nearly two hours to pass through with great difficulty. Suddenly, the pressure vanished, and he entered a completely new space.

’This isn’t the Earth’s core, just the bottom of a normal volcano... No, that’s not right. The Spiritual Qi here is almost as dense as on Flame Mountain. It’s just a sliver away from being a Tier Four Spirit Land.’

Before him was a world of fiery red. Below were rivers of lava and burning Earth Core Poison Fire—a world of flames completely devoid of life.

Overhead, the ceiling was densely covered with red crystals arranged in bands, the very source of the astonishing Spiritual Qi.

’A Spirit Stone Ore Vein... It’s at least a medium-sized, and most likely a large-scale ore vein!’

Bai Zichen finally understood where that Fire Element Top-Grade Spirit Stone from before had come from.

Beneath this volcano lay a Spirit Stone Ore Vein, but because it was blocked by lava that even the Divine Sense of a Core Formation True Man could not penetrate, it had remained undiscovered.

’Even if a cultivator were hiding here, no one would ever find them. Not even Genggeng sensed the Spirit Stone Ore Vein last time... Then again, it hadn’t grown up yet. Now that it’s a Tier Two Mid-Grade Spirit Beast, maybe it could smell the Spirit Stones.’

Bai Zichen pried off a rough, unpolished Primordial Spirit Stone and found that it actually met the standard of a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone.

’The ratio of Low-Grade Spirit Stones to Mid-Grade Spirit Stones is nearly one-to-one. The total value of the Spirit Stones that can be mined from this ore vein might be even higher than I imagined... It might even surpass the most productive ore vein we seized from the Ghost Spirit Sect.’

Hejian County was rich in Spirit Stone Ore Veins. When the Qingfeng Sect took over the Ghost Spirit Sect’s territory, they acquired six active ore veins of various sizes.

In contrast, the ore veins discovered in Black Mountain in the past had mostly been micro or small-scale.

This had led to the saying that Black Mountain’s output was poor, and that it couldn’t compare to the natural abundance of Hejian County.

’So it’s not that there were no ore veins, they were just hidden too well to be discovered. The problem is, how are we supposed to excavate a place like this in the future...’

As Bai Zichen was pondering how to arrange for disciples to enter the volcano’s depths, alarm bells suddenly screamed in his mind. His Moonlight Sword Light, moving faster than thought, stabbed out behind him.

The seemingly empty air behind him rippled, and a sharp claw shot toward the back of his head.

It collided with the Moon Xuan Sword, sending sparks flying and knocking the claw away.

It was a Fire Demon, about a zhang tall, with a humanoid build and covered in brown fur.

Its sneak attack having failed, the Fire Demon cried out in pain, clutching its claw. It took a step back, and its form gradually vanished.

It didn’t just disappear from sight; even with his Divine Sense blanketing the entire area, he couldn’t find a single trace of the Fire Demon, not even a wisp of its aura remained.