19: Chapter 19: The Art of Approximation Suddenly Became Useless

Zhao Yi had no weapon, so he swung his fist directly.

He simply gathered his True Essence into his fist,

which was the Cannon Fist that paired perfectly with the Collapse Step.

Boom!

With an earth-shaking tremor,

Bai Chuanfeng was sent flying by Zhao Yi's punch, his entire body embedded into the rock, leaving only a human-shaped crater.

"Hmph!"

"Testing me?"

Knowing that his cultivation level was above Bai Chuanfeng's, Zhao Yi counterattacked without hesitation; to delay would be disrespectful to Bai Chuanfeng.

...

As mentioned before, the Lesser Strange Spirit Stone Mine has three levels.

The first level is above ground, where they mine the rock exposed on the surface.

The second level goes a hundred meters deep underground, and the third level is naturally even deeper.

When Zhao Yi reached the entrance to the second level, he was stopped.

It was because at the entrance of the mine, a glowing screen stated that a Foundation Establishment Early Stage cultivator needed to pay one Mid-Grade Spirit Stone to enter,

ten Mid-Grade Spirit Stones for Middle Stage, and twenty Mid-Grade Spirit Stones for Late Foundation Establishment Stage.

"What is this? Paying to mine?"

"How is this any different from paying to go to work?"

"Twenty Mid-Grade Spirit Stones to mine at Late Foundation Establishment Stage?"

"They must be crazy about Spirit Stones."

Zhao Yi could not understand this rule at all.

"New here?"

At this moment, an old man with white eyebrows and beard walked out of the mine.

"I am Zhou Mufa, the manager of the second level mine. This second level is different from the first; you only pay once to enter,"

"everything you obtain in the mine is yours, with a seven-day time limit. Compared to the first level, it's exceptionally free."

"How about it?"

"Do you want to go in and take a look?"

Unlike Bai Chuanfeng, this Zhou Mufa actually seemed to be trying to sell the second level mine to Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi...

He couldn't see through Zhou Mufa's cultivation, but his Aura was very similar to the lecturers at the Cultivation Academy.

You have to know that those lecturers were all Golden Core True Persons,

so, was this old man also a Golden Core True Person?

At the mine entrance, Zhao Yi hesitated.

He always felt that there was something strange here.

"Are you going in or not? Dilly-dallying like a female cultivator..."

"Oh, could it be that you don't have any Spirit Stones?"

"I'm going in, who said I wasn't?"

Zhao Yi hated it most in his life when others said he had no Spirit Stones,

even though he really didn't have any.

"I am Foundation Establishment Early Stage, here is the Mid-Grade Spirit Stone."

Zhao Yi felt a bit of heartache; this Mid-Grade Spirit Stone hadn't even warmed up in his hand yet.

"Good, good, good!"

Zhou Mufa hurriedly took the Spirit Stone from Zhao Yi's hand.

"Come over and go through the procedure."

At the mine entrance,

a mirror over two meters tall suddenly burst out with a golden light, shining through Zhao Yi inside and out.

"Alright, you can go in now."

Zhao Yi...

He was dazzled by the light and took a long time to adapt.

"This～"

"It's so deep!"

Even if he died, Zhao Yi wouldn't have expected that the entrance to the second level mine was actually a hole a hundred meters deep, dropping straight down.

Fortunately, Zhao Yi was now a Foundation Establishment Cultivator and could use the Cloud Gliding Technique, so a hundred-meter mine shaft was naturally no problem.

Watching Zhao Yi's figure disappear into the mine entrance, Zhou Mufa stroked his beard,

"He has decent courage, but it's a pity he is a Death Cultivator. Even if he survives this Lightning Tribulation, won't he fall during the next one?"

"What a pity~"

Zhou Mufa fiddled with the Spirit Stone in his hand, sighing repeatedly.

...

"Damn it!"

"Finally landed."

Compared to the first level, the environment of this second level mine was Hell.

Not only were there no heavenly light stones, but the Spiritual Qi in the mine was pitifully scarce. Even more exaggeratedly, Zhao Yi felt like there wasn't enough oxygen.

Fortunately, as a Foundation Establishment Cultivator, he could see in the dark; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to see a thing, let alone mine Spirit Stones.

The entire main mine was quiet, a stark contrast to the first level where the sounds of banging were everywhere.

"This～"

Zhao Yi was visiting the second level for the first time and hadn't done any research. Looking at the main mine that extended who knows where, Zhao Yi was already regretting it.

But he had already paid the entrance fee; if he didn't mine some Spirit Stones to take out, Zhao Yi was afraid he would die of frustration.

Time was unknown in the mine. Zhao Yi didn't know how long he had walked before finally seeing the first branch mine.

There was rubble everywhere inside the mine. Clearly, there was no Teleportation Array in the second level, so any rock dug out had to be handled by oneself.

But looking at that rubble, Zhao Yi felt very uneasy.

"Whose strange habit is this?"

It turned out that the rubble was undulating, high and low. Looking closely, wasn't it just like a grave mound?

In some unknown branch mine, seeing that there was less rock here, Zhao Yi went in.

"I have advanced to Foundation Establishment; the distance calculated by the Approximation Technique should be further now, right?"

"This second level is so much deeper than the first, and only Foundation Establishment Cultivators can come down, so there must be more Spirit Stones."

"Approximation Technique,"

"Within twenty meters,"

Before he could finish reciting the rest of the incantation, Zhao Yi suddenly felt palpitations,

"The distance is further?"

"Within ten meters,"

The palpitations persisted, but the intensity was much lighter.

"Within five meters,"

Still palpitations; Zhao Yi was going crazy.

"Within three meters,"

This time it was fine.

"The Great Dao is Simple, the approximation is naturally formed, numbers are born from the heart, all things take shape. With one thought, heaven and earth are blurred, rounding up or down, the universe determines the number."

"Approximate: Zero."

Zhao Yi...

Three meters was fine, 'zero' was fine, but what was with half of his True Essence being consumed?

Zhao Yi couldn't even be bothered to complain. What was this?

Can a Spell even upgrade in reverse?

This was a rare sight indeed.

Three-meter distance, half the True Essence consumption,

Zhao Yi found that this Approximation Technique had suddenly become useless.

"Hey, I don't believe it."

"Without the Approximation Technique, I still can't mine Spirit Stones."

Zhao Yi took out his hoe and dug into the rock.

"Bang!"

The hoe collided with the rock, actually emitting the sound of metal clashing against metal.

"Damn, can't dig it?"

Not only couldn't he dig it, but the blade of the hoe in Zhao Yi's hand was completely shattered.

"This is really exaggerated."

Zhao Yi looked at the rock and finally realized that it wasn't his Spell upgrading in reverse, but that there was something wrong with the second level mine.

"Do I just go up with my tail between my legs?"

Thinking of that Mid-Grade Spirit Stone, Zhao Yi hardened his heart,

"I don't believe it."

He took a new hoe from his Storage Pouch, used the True Essence in his body to wrap around the entire hoe,

and swung it.

The entire hoe plunged directly into the rock without making a sound.

He pulled outward with force, and a large chunk of rock fell off.

"I told you so."

Zhao Yi praised himself for his cleverness!

But before he was happy for three minutes, Zhao Yi was dumbfounded,

because he discovered that mining this way consumed his True Essence extremely fast. Based on the consumption just now, his Foundation Establishment Early Stage cultivation simply couldn't support the needs of a full day of mining.

Coupled with the thin Spiritual Qi in the mine, once his True Essence was exhausted, even recovering it became a problem.

"Surely I can't use Spirit Stones to recover my cultivation?"

Zhao Yi felt he had fallen into a vicious cycle. Using Spirit Stones to mine Spirit Stones?

In the darkness, Zhao Yi didn't know how long he had been mining.

When the True Essence in his body was almost gone, he stopped to recover it.

"Unbelievable, one hour of mining, three hours of cultivation recovery."

Zhao Yi was numb. Was there any point in continuing to mine?

Just when Zhao Yi was struggling with the decision, a beam of light came from afar and quickly arrived at the branch mine where Zhao Yi was.

"New here?"

"How come you don't understand any rules? Who let you dig for stones here?"