26: Chapter 26 The Secret in the Mine

Li Zhengyang tucked the note away and walked inside.

The tunnel was much quieter than the canyon outside, with his footsteps crunching on the gravel.

After walking less than fifty meters, the ground changed.

The gravel had turned into a smooth stone slab path.

Someone had paved it.

And it was laid out with great care; the joints between the slabs were seamless, not some slapdash, makeshift job.

Moving further in, lights for illumination appeared on the walls, one every ten meters, with a few still shining.

Li Zhengyang turned off his phone's flashlight and pushed forward, relying on the existing lights.

This road was built too professionally; it didn't look like it was dug temporarily, but rather like an underground passage that had taken a lot of effort to create.

After walking about a hundred meters, the path split into left and right branches.

The one on the right had tracks.

Rails.

The kind used for narrow-gauge mine carts.

An empty mine cart was parked on the tracks, with mineral dust still remaining in the cart bed.

Li Zhengyang pinched a bit of the mineral dust and rubbed it between his fingertips.

It was dark purple, slightly hot, and a faint fluctuation of spiritual energy came from his fingertips.

Low-grade spirit ore.

It was an auxiliary material for martial artist cultivation, a controlled military supply, hard to find even a gram of on the market, with a black market price of one hundred great xia currency per gram.

The powder remaining in this cart bed could easily yield at least a few dozen grams if shaken out.

Li Zhengyang continued walking along the right track.

The tracks extended for about three hundred meters before the area ahead suddenly opened up.

A natural cave had been converted into a warehouse.

The area was at least three or four hundred square meters, with a ceiling height of over ten meters.

Lamp holders were densely hung in a circle, illuminating the cave.

In the center of the cave, over a dozen iron boxes were stacked neatly, covered with tarpaulins.

Li Zhengyang walked over and lifted the lid of the nearest box.

Spirit ore.

A whole box of spirit ore, each piece the size of a fist, processed and polished finished products, sorted by grade.

He lifted the lid of the second box.

Pills.

Battlefield emergency pills, healing pills, and blood-recovery pills issued by the military.

Bottles and jars were packed into a full box.

The bottles were stamped with the serial numbers of the Fortress No. 13 Quartermasters Office.

The third box contained standard weapons: alloy daggers, standard battle crossbows, and a few finely forged long spears that looked quite expensive.

The fourth box contained beast cores, packed separately in bags.

Li Zhengyang went through the boxes one by one, stopping when he reached the seventh one.

A shipping invoice was stuck to the side of the box.

The recipient used a code name, so no name could be identified.

But in the sender column, it was written in black and white: Fortress No. 13 Quartermasters Office.

The stamp was the seal of the Quartermasters Office.

The person who signed it was Vice Commander Zhang Jianbiao.

Li Zhengyang took a photo of the shipping invoice.

He suddenly remembered something.

The day he reported to the fortress, the logistics warehouse administrator had mentioned in passing that the fortress's pill reserves had always been tight, and last month, over thirty soldiers injured on the front lines had been forced to drag on for half a month before barely recovering because there weren't enough healing pills.

Two of the severely injured ones were still lying in the infirmary, their meridians damaged and not repaired in time, making it questionable whether they could ever return to the battlefield.

So that was it.

It wasn't that the supplies were unavailable.

It turned out they had been intercepted by this Vice Commander.

Zhang Mang's Fierce Tiger Squad monopolized high-reward missions and prevented others from entering the area near the canyon, partly to grab money.

On the other hand, it was to prevent newcomers from having the chance to penetrate into the peripheral areas of the fortress.

Li Zhengyang stuffed the shipping invoice into his pocket.

Since it was black money from smuggling, he would have no psychological burden in robbing it.

Just as Li Zhengyang was preparing to put the items into his space ring, he glanced back in the direction of the left passage.

Voices were coming from that side.

More than one person.

The sound of conversation mixed with footsteps was approaching.

Three auras.

Two were Great Martial Master rank, not worth mentioning.

The one in front was a Level 3 Martial Spirit.

Li Zhengyang withdrew his hand from the box, gripped his mountain-piercing spear, and retreated behind a pile of empty boxes in the corner.

The voices got closer and closer.

"What's the rush? That shipment from above won't arrive at the pickup point until the day after tomorrow, what the hell are you rushing for?"

The leader's voice was hoarse and spoke slowly.

"Boss, Vice Commander Zhang sent two signals today, telling us to speed up loading. He said a troublemaker came to the fortress recently, and he's worried something might go wrong."

"A troublemaker? What kind of troublemaker could find their way here? The outside of the canyon is full of Level 4 demonic beasts; except for my men, who could make it here alive?"

The three people walked into the cave.

The leader was a man in his forties, lean and thin, with an old scar running horizontally across his face from his temple to his chin, wearing a black training uniform with two short blades hanging at his waist.

A Level 3 Martial Spirit.

His aura was restrained but couldn't hide his foundation; Li Zhengyang gauged his strength with a single glance.

The two Great Martial Masters behind him, one carrying a box and one pushing a mine cart.

Two small fry.

The scarred man walked to the front of the pile of boxes, pulled off a piece of tarpaulin, and began counting the quantity.

"Five boxes of spirit ore, four boxes of pills, three boxes of weapons, two boxes of beast cores. This doesn't match last time's list; two boxes of pills are missing."

"Vice Commander Zhang took two boxes himself last time, saying it was for his nephew's conditioning."

"Alright, mark it down. Load the cart, first transport the spirit ore to..."

Just as they were about to reach the boxes where Li Zhengyang was hiding.

A silver light shot out from behind the pile of boxes.

A spear strike infused with full blood energy, the Collapse Technique.

A Level 5 Martial Spirit against a Level 3 Martial Spirit—a difference of two ranks.

The scarred man's reaction was already considered fast.

The moment he heard the wind, he drew both blades simultaneously, crossing them to block.

It was useless.

The instant the spear tip hit the blades, they shattered directly.

The spear's momentum didn't diminish, piercing through the scarred man's left shoulder and out his right waist.

He was sent flying backward by the spear, pinned to the back wall of the cave.

The scarred man looked down at the spear shaft in his chest, his mouth opening.

"Who... are... you..."

Li Zhengyang walked over and pulled out the spear.

"The one taking your life!"

As he pulled the spear out, it dragged out half his intestines; the scarred man's head lolled to the side, and he stopped breathing.

The two Great Martial Masters behind him saw this scene and dropped the boxes and the mine cart simultaneously.

One drew his blade, while the other turned and ran.

The one who drew his blade charged up, raising it above his head.

Li Zhengyang thrust the butt of the spear forward.

The iron ferrule at the tail of the spear smashed into his forehead, causing his skull to cave in.

He fell backward, his head hitting the rails and bouncing once before becoming still.

The one who ran had already dashed more than twenty meters away.

He threw the long spear like a javelin.

The spear tip pierced through his back and out his chest, and he slid three or four meters on the ground before stopping.

Three people, in less than five seconds.

Li Zhengyang walked over to retrieve the spear and wiped the blood off with the dead man's clothes.

He took out his phone and took a few photos.

A panoramic view of the warehouse, the shipping invoice, the Quartermasters Office serial numbers in the boxes—he kept the evidence, as it might come in handy later.

Then he started moving the goods.

The capacity of the space ring was limited, but fortunately, he had cleared out a batch of miscellaneous items earlier.

He prioritized loading the spirit ore; this stuff was the most valuable.

After stuffing the five boxes of spirit ore inside, the space in the ring became tight.

The pills were small in volume, so he stuffed two more boxes in.

Of the remaining weapons and beast cores, he picked the valuable ones and loaded a portion.

There were still a few boxes that really couldn't fit, so Li Zhengyang thought for a moment, dragged the boxes to a corner, and covered them with gravel and tarpaulins.

He would wait until he went back to get a larger storage device before coming back to move the second batch.

After clearing the scene, he dragged the three corpses into a dark passage deep in the cave and dumped them.

Not many living people knew about this place anyway, so with the corpses hidden inside, they wouldn't be discovered for a short time.

Li Zhengyang crawled out of the mine tunnel along the original path and returned to the canyon.

The sky had already darkened.

He checked his phone; it was eight in the evening.

From entering until now, it had been over four hours.

Was the mission completed?

The mission requirement was to investigate the source of the demonic beast tide anomaly.

The source had been found; there was no demonic beast anomaly at all. It was Vice Commander Zhang Jianbiao transporting goods inside, and the commotion he created had attracted the nearby demonic beasts.

But he didn't plan to report this conclusion yet.

If he reported it, the military would intervene to investigate, and all the spirit ore and pills would be confiscated and turned over to the state.

Not a single cent would end up in his hands.

What he needed to do was to cash in the items first; he would worry about the money after it was in his hands.

Li Zhengyang walked back along the canyon, killing a few stray Level 3 demonic beasts along the way and stuffing their beast cores into his pocket.

When he reached the entrance of the canyon, he called for the fortress's support transport plane.

During the twenty minutes he waited for the plane, Li Zhengyang leaned against the rock wall and totted up his haul from this trip.

Spirit ore, conservatively estimated at two million.

Pills, plus the scattered beast cores and materials, were another few hundred thousand.

Adding the batch he had accumulated from killing demonic beasts earlier.

This trip to the Bloody Canyon brought in about three million.

The engine sound of the transport plane came from the distance.

Li Zhengyang stood up and patted his pants.

Turning these things into money.

Would be enough to help him reach the next level.

But before reaching that level, there was one more thing he wanted to do.

Those pills, like the emergency pills and healing pills.

He couldn't use them himself; his Martial Spirit Rank self-healing ability didn't need these low-grade goods.

But the injured soldiers in the fortress infirmary who were protecting the country could use them.

Li Zhengyang made up his mind.

The transport plane landed, and Li Zhengyang jumped onto the gangway.

"Back to the fortress."