28: Chapter 28: Spirit Stone Vein

"What about yourself?" Xiao Yuan asked.

"Me?" Luo Ziyan lifted her chin, deliberately putting on a relaxed expression. "My cultivation has already reached the Peak of Qi Refining Stage 6, and I will be able to Breakthrough to the Late Stage very soon. Besides, I am in the Spirit Herb Garden, so I am very safe. I just need to Cultivate slowly..."

These words sounded lighthearted, but Xiao Yuan could hear the underlying meaning.

Without him providing Medicinal Pills, Luo Ziyan's cultivation speed would be much slower. It might even... be stuck at the Qi Condensation Stage forever.

Yet, in order to give herself more self-preservation capability, she actually gave up her own opportunity.

Xiao Yuan looked at the Medicinal Pills in his hand, feeling a myriad of emotions in his heart.

Between him and Luo Ziyan, it was originally just a transaction of mutual benefit: he gave Medicinal Pills, and she provided "recharging" energy. It was clean and crisp, and neither owed the other anything.

But now...

"What a silly girl." Xiao Yuan sighed softly and put the Medicinal Pills into his bosom — which was actually storing them into the Creation Cauldron Space.

He didn't say thank you. Nor did he refuse!

Some things, when spoken aloud, would only seem pretentious.

Seeing him accept them, Luo Ziyan visibly breathed a sigh of relief, and the worry in her eyes faded a bit.

She leaned back into Xiao Yuan's arms and muttered softly, "When you get to the mine, don't push yourself. Run if you can't win, there's no shame in that..."

Listening to her nag and admonish him, a certain place in Xiao Yuan's heart softened.

Deep in the night.

Luo Ziyan fell fast asleep, her breathing steady.

Xiao Yuan gently got up, tapped her forehead with his fingertip, and a trace of gentle Spiritual Qi seeped in, allowing her to sleep more soundly.

Then he sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.

The Great Turtle Breathing Technique circulated.

A strange perception power centered around him quietly spread out — within a radius of a hundred meters, every rustle of the grass, chirp of insects, and falling of leaves was completely under his control.

With a Divine Sense strength equivalent to the Early Foundation Establishment stage, after confirming that no one was monitoring the surroundings, Xiao Yuan's thought stirred.

He took out the yin-yang creation cauldron from his body.

He took out the tattered animal skin scroll of the Five Elements Basic Breathing Technique from the cauldron's inner space and gently placed it into the cauldron.

"Refine and enhance."

The command was issued.

The creation cauldron vibrated slightly, and its body glowed with a warm white light.

The animal skin scroll floated and rotated in the light, the worm-eaten holes on its surface repairing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the yellowish skin surface becoming smooth and clean once again...

A quarter of an hour later.

The light receded.

A brand-new animal skin scroll lay quietly in the cauldron.

Xiao Yuan picked up the animal skin scroll.

The "Five Elements Return to One Technique"!

It was no longer a basic breathing technique, but a complete Five Elements concurrent Cultivation Technique that could be cultivated all the way to the Foundation Establishment Stage!

But the prerequisite was — one must first separately Cultivate the five basic attribute Cultivation Techniques of Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth, Cultivate the Spiritual Qi of the five attributes to a certain degree, and then according to the method of the "Five Elements Return to One Technique", fuse and transform the five streams of Spiritual Qi to form true "Five Elements Spiritual Qi".

"As expected..." Joy flashed in Xiao Yuan's eyes.

This was the true cultivation path of the Five Elements Spiritual Root!

Single-attribute cultivation would leak and dissipate, but simultaneous cultivation of the Five Elements, with mutual generation and assistance, could not only solve the dissipation problem, but the Spiritual Qi cultivated would also be much thicker and purer than that of Cultivators of the same rank!

The price was — requiring five times the Cultivation Techniques, five times the resources, and five times the time.

"It's worth it." Xiao Yuan gripped the animal skin scroll tightly.

With a clear direction, the rest was execution.

He needed to gather the remaining four basic attribute Cultivation Techniques.

And also — Medicinal Pills, Talismans, Magical Artifacts, and various resources for self-preservation and cultivation.

A place like the Xishan Mine was both a desperate situation and an opportunity. Far from the Sect's eyes and ears and mixed with all sorts of people, it was actually more suitable for him to develop quietly.

"Before leaving, I must make a trip to the market." Xiao Yuan calculated inwardly.

With the Spirit Stones and resources obtained from picking up Zhao Mingfang's corpse, it was enough for him to make sufficient preparations!

For the next two days, Xiao Yuan didn't go anywhere and stayed right in Luo Ziyan's small cabin.

"Recharging" until full.

The energy reserves inside the creation cauldron reached an unprecedentedly abundant state.

After all, once he left this time, he didn't know when he would be able to find a suitable "power bank" again.

Early in the morning of the third day, before dawn.

Luo Ziyan was still fast asleep.

Xiao Yuan stood by the bedside, looking at her beautiful sleeping face in silence for a moment.

He took out a Storage Pouch from the Creation Cauldron Space and gently placed it by her pillow.

Inside were fifty marrow cleansing pills of perfect quality, plus one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

These were the most practical things he could pull out at present.

Going to the Xishan Mine this time, he didn't know if he would still have the chance to see this lass again!

"Silly girl," Xiao Yuan said in a low voice, "Cultivate well."

After saying that, he turned around, pushed open the door, and his figure melted into the darkness before dawn.

The cabin door closed gently.

On the bed, Luo Ziyan's eyelashes trembled and she slowly opened her eyes.

In fact, she had woken up long ago.

Or rather, she hadn't fallen deeply asleep at all.

She sat up, picked up the Storage Pouch by the pillow, sensed inside, and her breathing hitched for a second.

The faint fragrance of the perfect marrow cleansing pills permeated the air, and the luster of the Spirit Stones was slightly dazzling in the dim light.

Luo Ziyan bit her lip, and her eye rims turned red bit by bit.

She hugged the items tightly to her chest, looking in the direction where Xiao Yuan had left outside the window for a very, very long time.

"Dumbass..." she said softly, "You must... come back alive."

Outside the Spirit Herb Garden, Xiao Yuan looked back one last time.

Then he turned around and stroded in the direction of going down the mountain.

...

At the entrance of the Xishan Mine, sand and dust filled the sky.

One hundred disheveled Outer Sect Disciples appeared here like a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Xiao Yuan mixed in the middle of the team, squinting to size up the extremely desolate mountain range before him — bare mountains, sparse dead grass, and the concentration of Spiritual Qi in the air so low that it made people doubt their lives.

What the hell is this, a Spirit Stone Mine?

He would even believe it if someone said this was an abandoned mine!

"Listen up, everyone!"

Ahead, a fierce-looking manager with a cultivation of Qi Refining Stage 8 roared at the top of his lungs, his voice buzzing in the wind.

"Old Master's surname is Wang, and from now on I am your immediate superior! Here, there is only one rule — hand over Spirit Stones! Hand them over once a year, one thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones! If you don't hand over enough, for every few stones you are short, the mining time will be increased by a few days. The time will accumulate and increase every year, and double year by year."

A gasp of cold air sounded among the crowd.

One thousand pieces? An Early Stage Qi Refining Outer Sect Disciple normally only receives a few dozen Spirit Stones as a stipend in a year, how long would they have to mine to get that? If they don't mine enough, their sentence will be extended, and if things go wrong like this, they might have to stay here forever and mine minerals for a lifetime!

"Of course—" Manager Wang dragged out his tone, a playful smile on his face, "If you have the guts and think you can hide and not come out, then fine. If you think like that, you can also come out and pay once every few years. The second year you pay two thousand five, the third year four thousand five, the fourth year nine thousand... And so on, doubling every year!"

"If you think you can stay here, go ahead and stay! Old Master won't stop you! Anyway..."

He chuckled with a grin, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth: "In this mine, there are dozens of people every year who starve to death, die of thirst, exhaust themselves to death, or are beaten to death by others. One more of you isn't much, and one less of you isn't missed."

Listening to this, Xiao Yuan sneered inwardly.

What a fine move of raising Gu.

Forcing everyone to kill and fight each other in a desperate situation.

One thousand Spirit Stones a year; in such a place with thin Spiritual Qi and an exhausted vein, relying solely on mining alone would probably make it completely impossible to complete.

The only way was to rob others.