40: Chapter 40 Grand Opening!

Lingran Illusion Realm, Cultivation Secret Chamber.

Bai Yunping almost rubbed his eyes blind.

"Where is the hoe?"

"Where is my treasure hoe?"

The hoe that was originally in front of him had just vanished into thin air.

"Damn it, have I really seen a ghost?"

This Cultivation Secret Chamber was built by a Nascent Soul True Monarch whom Bai Yunping had paid a fortune to hire.

Yet, with no warning triggered and the Formation unmoved, a hoe had vanished out of thin air; it was no wonder Bai Yunping suspected he was seeing ghosts.

"Dammit!"

"Who is it?"

"Who stole my treasure hoe?"

...

In the mine, Zhao Yi had no time to care about Bai Yunping's reaction.

He was looking at the handle of the great sumeru treasure hoe in his hand; the fifty lightning marks on it proved that this was indeed the one stolen by Bai Yunping.

"Just as I thought."

Only now did Zhao Yi understand the meaning of 'Sumeru'.

"Sumeru Mustard Seed, Size as one wishes!"

No matter where he was, as long as Zhao Yi willed it, it would appear.

As for where the great sumeru treasure hoe was hidden normally, Zhao Yi didn't know either.

"The items rewarded by the System are truly extraordinary."

Zhao Yi sighed with emotion and swung the great sumeru treasure hoe into the mountain rock.

After several hundred swings, even though he was using Golden Core Power, Zhao Yi was panting and drenched in sweat.

Mining Spirit Stones under tenfold gravity consumed Golden Core Power far beyond Zhao Yi's expectations.

"Should I use the Approximation Technique?"

Zhao Yi hesitated because the Golden Core Power in his Dantian was nearly exhausted; the Golden Core that had been spinning continuously was now visibly slowing down.

"Recover cultivation first."

Zhao Yi took out Spirit Stones to directly restore his Golden Core Power.

Half an hour later, Zhao Yi looked at the powder in his hand and fell into deep thought.

During the Qi Refining Stage, it took over twenty hours to completely absorb a Low-Grade Spirit Stone.

During the Foundation Establishment Stage, it took nearly half a day; now that he had reached the Golden Core stage, a Low-Grade Spirit Stone was absorbed in just half an hour.

What frustrated Zhao Yi even more was that the mung-bean-sized amount of Golden Core Power in his Dantian was all that had been converted from that Low-Grade Spirit Stone.

This tiny bit of Golden Core Power wasn't even enough for Zhao Yi to swing the great sumeru treasure hoe ten times.

"Use Mid-Grade Spirit Stones~"

Zhao Yi didn't want to waste time in the mine.

Sure enough, after using Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, his cultivation recovered much faster.

Over the course of a night, Zhao Yi's cultivation had recovered by seventy or eighty percent.

However, the pile of powder beside him made Zhao Yi's eyelids twitch.

"Five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones."

Since entering the third layer of the mine, he hadn't mined a single Spirit Stone, yet he had already consumed fifty-five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones.

Holding the great sumeru treasure hoe, Zhao Yi decided to learn from yesterday's lesson and use the Approximation Technique first.

"Approximation Technique,"

"Within ten meters,"

Zhao Yi chose a conservative distance.

"The Great Dao is Simple, approximations are divinely formed, numbers arise from the heart, and all things take shape. As a thought arises, heaven and earth become hazy; rounding off, the destiny of the universe is set."

"Approximate: Zero."

"Useless!"

Zhao Yi looked at the wall in front of him; half of his Golden Core Power had been consumed, and yet he hadn't approximated a single thing.

"Change direction~"

After digging a ten-meter tunnel, Zhao Yi gave up on this mine wall.

In the distance, Zhou Yan and Mi Yao were laboriously setting up a Formation; what used to be simple tasks like walking or placing a Formation Plate now required ten times the effort.

"What's wrong with him?"

Seeing that Zhao Yi wasn't mining Spirit Stones properly but was digging a tunnel instead, Mi Yao asked curiously.

"Ignore him. If you ask, he'll just say this direction is jinxed for him today and he can't mine any Spirit Stones."

"Let's just focus on our own work."

"Who knew that in the third layer of the mine, I wouldn't even be able to swing a hoe? I'm never coming back here again."

Mi Yao nodded in deep agreement; she felt the same way.

Bang!

[You have mined a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone, experience points +1.]

The System prompt finally appeared.

But experience points +1?

Wasn't it for Low-Grade Spirit Stones?

Zhao Yi pulled the Spirit Stone out from the mountain rock; it was the size of an egg and emitted a faint white light.

It was confirmed to be a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone.

"System,"

[Miner: Zhao Yi]

[Cultivation: Early Golden Core Stage (Insufficient experience, cannot level up)]

[experience points: 1/100]

[Reward: None]

At this moment, Zhao Yi finally understood how the System worked.

The experience points gained from mining Spirit Stones had changed from +1 per Low-Grade Spirit Stone to +1 per Mid-Grade Spirit Stone.

The experience points required for leveling up had decreased; following the doubling principle, the experience needed to go from the Early Golden Core Stage to the Middle Golden Core Stage should have been 10,240, but now it was only 100 points. These 100 points were equivalent to the previous 10,000 points.

"It decreased by two hundred and forty."

Zhao Yi wasn't happy at all; he didn't know if mining Low-Grade Spirit Stones still provided experience points. If not, the difficulty of leveling up in the future would increase exponentially.

Let's mine a Low-Grade Spirit Stone first to verify.

Zhao Yi swung his hoe.

After three swings, Zhao Yi's heart went cold.

Because right by his feet, a Low-Grade Spirit Stone lay within the mountain rock, which he had just dug out.

But the System gave no prompt, and the experience points on the System panel hadn't changed at all.

"I can't get experience points from mining Low-Grade Spirit Stones anymore."

"You bastard, you actually increased the difficulty."

If Zhao Yi hadn't reached the Golden Core stage, he would definitely be cursing up a storm.

With such high difficulty, when would he ever be able to Breakthrough his cultivation?

The reason he wasn't cursing now was that Zhao Yi had already reached the Golden Core stage and had a lifespan of eight hundred years; he had plenty of time to mine these Spirit Stones slowly.

In the Branch Mine.

Zhao Yi laboriously swung his hoe, and rocks fell. Since Low-Grade Spirit Stones no longer triggered System prompts, Zhao Yi didn't even know if he had mined any.

He just piled everything behind him.

This inevitably led to complaints from Zhou Yan and Mi Yao.

"Zhao Yi, you've gotten arrogant."

"Aren't you going to pick out all these Spirit Stones?"

Just now, Zhou Yan had almost pushed two Low-Grade Spirit Stones into the Teleportation Array along with the mountain rocks.

Zhao Yi...

"I didn't see them."

"I think you've just gotten arrogant."

"This never happened before."

Zhao Yi...

Previously, with System prompts, he naturally knew which swing hit a Spirit Stone and which didn't. Now that there were no prompts...

But he couldn't tell Zhou Yan directly.

"I know, I'll be more careful."

Zhao Yi agreed verbally, but in reality, nothing changed.

The great sumeru treasure hoe was swung so fast it left afterimages.

[You have mined a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone, experience points +1.]

[You have mined a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone, experience points +1.]

...

Five consecutive System notification sounds rang in Zhao Yi's ears.

Zhao Yi picked up those five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones and tossed them to Zhou Yan.

"See? Isn't it getting better?"

But Zhao Yi had celebrated too early; besides those five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, there were no other gains today.

Night.

Zhao Yi didn't dare use Spirit Stones to restore his cultivation anymore, so he could only wait honestly for his Golden Core Power to recover slowly.

"How strange. The Spiritual Qi in the third layer of the mine is actually thinner than in the first and second layers?"

"What's so strange about that? The Spiritual Qi here has all condensed into Spirit Stones, so the concentration of Spiritual Qi in the air is naturally lower."

Mi Yao's clothes were clinging to her body, and Zhao Yi couldn't help but steal a few extra glances.

"You're the boss, you're right."

After a night's rest, the Golden Core Power in Zhao Yi's body had only recovered by thirty percent.

With this little Golden Core Power, Zhao Yi didn't dare use the Approximation Technique at all.

So, today was another day of gambling on luck.

"Ptu!"

Zhao Yi spat on his hands and rubbed them together, gripped the hoe handle, and swung into the mountain rock in front of him.

"A prosperous start!"