Chapter 39: Spiritual Vein Gives Rise to Water

As soon as it entered a backpack slot, this spiritual vein’s detailed information was scanned out by the life-bound artifact.

[Upper yellow-grade spiritual vein, with an emphasis on metal spirit and water spirit among the Five Elements. Congratulations. With this spiritual vein, mineral deposits will have a fairly high chance of forming within your territory.]

The spiritual vein shrank inside the backpack slot. Its entire body was golden and translucent, and at first glance it looked like a little worm. Only when Chi Yixuan looked closely did he discover that it had many roots on its body, like a tiny length of meridian. Its head and tail could faintly be distinguished, and the place that resembled its head bulged slightly with two small points, like two eyes that had yet to open.

After Chi Yixuan stared at it for a long time, he even had the illusion that those two eyes might open. Of course, it was only an illusion.

The teleportation array itself had been embedded inside the mountain. Chi Yixuan had forcibly pulled it out and fed it to the game as material to turn into a teleportation gate, which had already triggered tremors through the mountain. When he extracted the underground spiritual vein, the entire Half-Moon Gorge shook violently. The half-grown children inside the barrier did not seem afraid. They held one another’s hands, while Tie Di, Gang Qin, and the others who already had mid- to high-stage Qi Refining cultivation used themselves as array flags and temporarily propped open a small barrier to protect their younger sisters and brothers.

The Wuxing Sect disciples attacking outside the barrier sensed the commotion and mistakenly thought the barrier was about to be broken by them. They grew even more excited and increased their strength.

Chi Yixuan swept a glance over the surrounding situation, then had the children crawl out first through the small hole Wutong had used to enter.

Naturally, the half-grown children had no objections. Gang Qin went in front to scout the path, Tie Di stayed behind to cover the rear, and the other children lined up in the middle and crawled out one after another. Even the youngest two-year-old toddlers were obedient and quiet, and their crawling speed was even faster than that of the older children.

The first one out was Gang Qin. She was even taller than Tie Di, so crawling through the small hole was somewhat difficult for her. After she climbed out, she saw Chi Yixuan’s main body standing beside the fragrant grass and little stream, and she froze slightly.

No matter what Chi Yixuan was like in private, on the surface, he was still very good at bluffing people.

He was very good-looking, but not in the sort of way that made people want to get close to him. Instead, he was good-looking in a way that made people not dare approach. So even though his temper was not bad, and he was even gentler in front of children, he still failed to dispel the awe that Gang Qin and the others felt toward him.

Chi Yixuan waved his hand, and an ordinary-looking black-lacquered door manifested behind him. He said, “This is a teleportation gate. Open the door and go in, and you will reach Zhaoge.”

Gang Qin and the others’ pupils trembled. After they came back to themselves, the awe in their expressions deepened. They led the children who had come out first in giving him a bow, then carefully wiped their hands before cautiously pushing open the door.

Behind the doorframe was not the landscape of green mountains and clear waters near Half-Moon Gorge, but an endless expanse of hard, dry land. The coarse, arid wind of the desert blew against their faces, and Gang Qin and the others’ expressions trembled once more.

She stepped in first. The heavy pressure between heaven and earth completely confirmed to her that she was no longer on an immortal continent, but had arrived in the mortal realm the senior had spoken of.

Gang Qin’s fingers trembled. She could barely suppress the joy in her heart. She withdrew again and urged her younger sisters and brothers to hurry over, while she herself knelt down and kowtowed three times to that senior.

Chi Yixuan did not pay attention to them. He had opened the door in a remote place near Zhaoge, and put all his attention on Half-Moon Gorge.

Aside from the teleportation array and the spiritual vein, the most valuable thing in Half-Moon Gorge was this strange barrier.

If it only protected minors, there would be nothing remarkable about that. Chi Yixuan himself had studied array knowledge and had also adjusted Zhaoge’s array disk, so he understood that it only required altering the array patterns and adding a few conditions.

What made this barrier remarkable was that it could hide itself completely in front of cultivators. The immortal gates of Dongchen Continent were not limited to the Tyrant Blade Sect and Wuxing Sect. The Tyrant Blade Sect in particular had a Nascent Soul as its sect master and even Soul Transformation-level elders, yet after so many years, they had still failed to discover this place.

If the array patterns on the array flags had not been worn down by long years, then even if the Wuxing Sect cultivators collectively dropped like dumplings over Half-Moon Gorge, they likely would not have discovered anything unusual.

“This really is too miraculous. I have to take it back and study it.”

But before pulling out the array flags, he still had a few other things to do.

Not long afterward, Half-Moon Gorge’s barrier suddenly collapsed. After working hard for more than a month, the Wuxing Sect disciples finally broke through the barrier and could not help cheering aloud in wild joy. Only two high-stage Foundation Establishment senior brothers looked at their hands and felt that something was not quite right.

At their cultivation level, their control over spiritual power was several times higher than early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators. They could sense whether a strike of spiritual power had landed solidly, and how much effect it had after striking. At the moment the barrier collapsed, they naturally discovered that this barrier had suddenly collapsed on its own. It had not been dispersed by them, and it had not been dispersed by anyone else either.

But the other disciples were already rushing inside impatiently. The two were afraid the good things would be snatched first, so they had no time to fuss over this oddity and hurriedly charged into the secret realm as well.

However, after entering the secret realm, all the Wuxing Sect disciples were dumbfounded. What appeared before them was not some blessed grotto paradise, nor were there any treasures or secret manuals.

All that lay before them was an empty pit. Forget a blade of grass or a stone; not even a single grain of sand remained.

The wind blew past. A crow flew cawing over their heads, and was blasted into charcoal by a Wuxing Sect disciple in a fit of rage.

“What is going on? How could this be?”

Everyone could not accept that more than a month of hard work had gone to waste, and they refused to give up, searching everywhere.

With this search, they found the traces of spiritual power left here, as well as characteristics that clearly did not match the surrounding terrain.

When they realized that Half-Moon Gorge had been dug away in its entirety, everyone’s expressions turned uncertain and ugly.

“A trap! This must be a trap!”

“Someone deliberately lured us into a trap and made us waste time here for nothing!”

“Thinking about it carefully, this area has been stepped through by who knows how many people. If there really were some secret realm here, it would have been discovered by the major sects long ago. How could it ever be our turn?”

“Damn it. Who on earth created a fake secret realm to lure us into a trap?”

The Wuxing Sect disciples speculated darkly for a long time, then finally pinned the blame on another nearby sect.

“This is outrageous! Even if our Wuxing Sect cannot compare to the Nine Great Immortal Gates, we are still not some nameless, unknown sect. How can we allow them to bully us?”

“Let’s go! We’ll settle accounts with them!”

Anyone deceived into doing more than a month of hard labor for nothing would have a belly full of fire, let alone immortal gate disciples who were praised wherever they went. Besides, the sect master’s disciple was also here, hoping to obtain some good things from the secret realm to please his master, so he might be promoted from a nominal disciple to a final disciple. After suffering this hardship, how could they be willing to let it go? For a period of time afterward, they often made trouble for the neighboring sect. Whenever they caught a lone disciple from the other side, they rushed up together and beat the person with their heads down. But that was a matter for later.

At this moment, Chi Yixuan was using the teleportation gate to jump around all sorts of places in the Longevity Realm.

On the thirteenth jump, he accidentally recited the wrong place name. After he opened the door and stepped inside, what appeared before him was not the green grassland he had expected, but a place with a strange aura, gray and hazy everywhere.

As soon as Chi Yixuan stepped inside, he felt something was wrong. His divine sense could not spread out here. He asked the life-bound artifact what place this was, and after a moment, the life-bound artifact answered him, [The reconnaissance range has already been opened to its maximum, but no information has been scanned.]

Chi Yixuan was somewhat surprised. One had to know that even in places without any signs of life, the life-bound artifact could still scan out at least something, such as how old the stones there were, or how many years the underground bones had been dead, and so on. This was the first time he had received such an answer, and he could not help developing a thread of curiosity toward this place.

[Your Majesty, I suggest you return immediately. A place whose information I cannot scan is very dangerous.]

Chi Yixuan, however, was eager to try. “I’ll just take one look. Just one look.” Relying on the teleportation gate, he walked forward a few steps. This place was very strange. Because gray fog lingered everywhere, visibility was extremely low. The ground under his feet was very hard, yet rugged and uneven. He walked for quite a while, but did not see any plants or discover anything like stones. He wanted to dig up some of the stuff on the ground and bring it back to study, yet with his Foundation Establishment cultivation, he actually could not dig it up.

That was a little frightening. It meant that it was not some other thing isolating the life-bound artifact’s probe. Rather, this place itself could not be probed.

His prudence told him that he could not stay in this place any longer. Then he raised his head and met a mass of black shadow.

That mass of black shadow even moved. It was an extremely enormous, thick, and long strip, and it attacked toward Chi Yixuan.

His intuition told him that he could not beat this thing.

Chi Yixuan’s face remained calm, but his feet were extremely obedient to his heart as he sprinted wildly toward the teleportation gate. His lower body almost ran itself into a pair of wind-fire wheels. Finally, before that thing caught him, he rolled into the teleportation gate. With a bang, the door closed. Chi Yixuan arrived in another place, at least a hundred thousand li away from the previous location, and completely shook that thing off.

“Whew!” Chi Yixuan let out a breath. “As expected, Lady Luck is on my side.”

Life-bound artifact: ...

The newly arrived place was a remote alley. Based on the active spiritual qi here, Chi Yixuan judged that this was also within an immortal continent’s borders. He just did not know which continent it was.

“After more than a dozen jumps, plus the isolation of that strange place just now, even if there was some of my aura left at Half-Moon Gorge, they shouldn’t be able to track it, right?” Before Chi Yixuan left Half-Moon Gorge, he had, first, done it to erase the traces he had left behind, and second, acted according to the virtue of diligence and thrift. Therefore, he had dug away the entirety of Half-Moon Gorge.

After all, every blade of grass, tree, bit of soil, and stone inside Half-Moon Gorge had been soaked in spiritual qi for a long time and was already close to yellow-grade materials. Toss them into the artifact-refining furnace and turn them over a bit, and he could save quite a lot of money.

Furthermore, although he was certain that he had erased all traces, and although the one who had appeared inside Half-Moon Gorge was not his main body but a shadow guard, there were countless strange life-bound artifacts in the Longevity Realm. What if there was a life-bound artifact capable of rewinding the situation at a scene? If they discovered the treasure that was the teleportation array, would they not chase him to the ends of the earth?

“Now it’s fine. Even if they chase me, they won’t be able to catch up.” Chi Yixuan relaxed.

At this moment, the life-bound artifact also informed him of the information it had already scouted. [This is Canglang Prefecture of Beisheng Continent.]

At the same time, a map was projected before Chi Yixuan’s eyes.

Chi Yixuan had originally been about to go home, but after looking at the map, he changed direction and walked out of the alley.

He decided to take a look at a nearby magic artifact shop.

“Right now, because of its geographic location, Zhaoge doesn’t attract much attention yet. But once the spiritual vein is planted, it will definitely attract practitioners from all directions.” Chi Yixuan considered it. “It’s also time to arrange magic artifacts for my employees. Even just a disguise would be fine. Right now, every time they fight, they take out their life-bound artifacts. It’s too easy for people to target them.”

If the enemy really aimed at their life-bound artifacts’ weaknesses to attack them, that would be one thing. What he feared was that some cultivator might take a fancy to their life-bound artifacts and forcibly strip them away.

Chi Yixuan entered the magic artifact shop by the street. Not long afterward, he came out again.

The streets of the immortal continent were far broader than those in the mortal realm, wide enough for eight large horses to run side by side. Every stone slab laid on the ground was clean and level. The crowd bustled, and only he was alone, his figure desolate.

Chi Yixuan’s heart was filled with sorrow. The life-bound artifact asked him what was wrong.

Chi Yixuan said, “If you yearned for someone you could not obtain, then I expect you would understand how I feel.”

The life-bound artifact immediately grew nervous. [Please do not be sad!] After a while, the life-bound artifact began to gnash its teeth. [Who is so unable to recognize what is good for them that they actually dared reject you? They will definitely regret it in the future!]

Chi Yixuan said, “Really?”

The life-bound artifact swore solemnly, [You are the Emperor Star descended to earth. If in the mortal realm, you would be the future co-lord of all under heaven. If in the heavens, you would be king of the gods. That person dared reject you, which shows that they are blind! Your Majesty, this sort of person is not worth your sorrow. Please tell me who they are. One day, they will kneel on the ground and beg for your favor.]

Chi Yixuan said faintly, “He is... the God of Wealth.”

Life-bound artifact: ...

After that, no matter how Chi Yixuan teased it, it remained as quiet as a chicken, as though it had suddenly disconnected from the internet.

After hesitating in place for a long while, Chi Yixuan still turned back into the magic artifact shop and bought two upper yellow-grade magic artifacts.

Back when he had laughed at Song Dianlai for muddling around for so many years without even a single mystic-grade magic artifact, he had not known that a single upper yellow-grade magic artifact started at one thousand spirit stones. Now that he knew, he felt that he had already lost the right to laugh at anyone else.

After picking and choosing for ages, Chi Yixuan paid for his purchases and was just about to open the door home when the life-bound artifact, which had been “disconnected” for a long time, finally spoke again. As if nothing had happened before, it said in a steady tone, [Your Majesty, before returning to Zhaoge, I suggest you first modify the spiritual vein from Half-Moon Gorge.]

Chi Yixuan was somewhat surprised. “Spiritual veins can be modified?”

The life-bound artifact unfolded before Chi Yixuan a certain section of the Detailed Explanation of Spiritual Veins that it had just scanned and recorded inside this immortal continent city. After waiting for Chi Yixuan to finish reading, it said, [The Tie Di sisters never told you the origin of the spiritual vein. And although they clearly had a teleportation array, they were unwilling to borrow the teleportation array’s convenience to leave Half-Moon Gorge. Instead, they would rather risk seeking outside help. I think this was not only to guard that spiritual vein.]

Indeed. If the spiritual vein was more important than their lives, they would not have used it for a transaction. Chi Yixuan had asked them about this before, and they had said the teleportation array could not support that many people being teleported. But before Wuxing Sect discovered them, they clearly had plenty of opportunities to use the teleportation array to go out and gain experience. After all, that teleportation array was two-way. As long as the person being teleported was willing, they could be teleported back within a fixed time.

Yet at the age when they should have been most curious about the outside world, not a single one of them had left Half-Moon Gorge. They also held not the slightest hope of escaping. They would rather remain in place and wait for the barrier to be broken through by Wuxing Sect.

That meant they believed a force even stronger than Wuxing Sect was hunting them.

Was it the Three Great Sects, or the Nine Great Immortal Gates?

The more Chi Yixuan thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong. “The spiritual vein I got couldn’t be stolen goods, could it?”

But judging from Tie Di and the others’ appearance, they did not seem guilty either. However, the life-bound artifact was right. No matter what, he had to modify the spiritual vein to ensure it differed from its original form.

The life-bound artifact said, [Metal gives rise to water, and water gives rise to wood. There is a suitable spiritual vein available right now.]

Chi Yixuan instantly understood.

He summoned the teleportation gate and set the location in a remote corner of Fengcheng in Donglai Kingdom.

As soon as he landed, a roaring gale blew straight at his face. The protective spiritual light activated, and before the gale could scrape Chi Yixuan’s face, it was blocked outside.

Chi Yixuan casually raised his hand and caught an old man nearby who was about to be blown away.

Someone in the old man’s family was ill, and today he had taken the risk of gathering herbs in the place where the wind was strongest. In the simple understanding of mortals, the stronger the wind in Fengcheng, the denser the spiritual qi, and the more likely it was that precious medicinal herbs would grow there. If he could get one and bring it back to sell for a good price, he could treat his family member’s illness.

He had indeed found a good herb growing in a crack. However, while he was gathering herbs, his stone mill had disappeared. He did not know which thief had stolen it.

A stone mill was a very important thing. The common people near Fengcheng did not just use it at home. When they went out, they would also tie it to themselves to prevent being blown away by the wind. Poor people could not afford windproof weight-increasing talisman paper. Although this rustic method was a bit tiring, at least it could save their lives.

Without the stone mill, the old man could only risk going home. After going around a section of city wall, he lost the buildings that blocked the wind and, as expected, was blown away.

A mortal’s body was fragile, not to mention his old bones. If he casually hit anything, he would end up with his head broken and bleeding. The old man was so frightened that he shut his eyes. But when he opened them again, he discovered that he had landed on flat ground and had already left the stretch of road where the wind was strongest.

“Could there really be immortals?” The old man had vaguely felt someone catch him before. Thinking that he was someone who had received divine favor, he immediately stopped regretting the loss of the stone mill and happily returned home.

At this moment, Chi Yixuan was fighting with the spiritual vein beneath Fengcheng.

Unlike the spiritual vein that its owners had clearly used for a transaction, the spiritual vein beneath Fengcheng had no intelligence either, but instinctively knew that it was being stolen and began struggling with all its might.

It was not that Chi Yixuan could not beat a mere lower-grade spiritual vein. He was just worried about alarming Fengcheng’s imperial family and did not dare make too big a move, so he inevitably felt somewhat constrained.

By the time he finally extracted most of the wood spirit from this spiritual vein, night had already fallen.

Having lost most of its wood spirit, the spiritual vein beneath Fengcheng wilted considerably. The great wind that blew endlessly through Fengcheng all day also became a faint breeze. From now on, never mind adults—even children would be able to go outside freely.

Naturally, it would also be unable to support the port’s kun boats anymore.

As for whether the Tyrant Blade Sect’s people would come in the future to replenish the wood spirit in this spiritual vein, Chi Yixuan said he was very much looking forward to it. If they came to replenish it once, he would steal it once. Doing this sort of thing did not weigh on his conscience in the slightest.

The teleportation gate opened, and Chi Yixuan returned to Zhaoge.

The sky over the Nameless Desert had already darkened as well.

Qiu Ping’an had received his employer’s message in advance and brought the more than three hundred half-grown children who had suddenly appeared near Zhaoge into the city.

“Almost ten thousand people were only just settled in the valley, and there are no empty houses left. Right now, lots of people are squeezed into one house!”

Although Qiu Ping’an said these things, his face showed not the slightest worry. He led the group of half-grown children to the houses in the third row of Jia-One Alley on the west side of the valley. “These were newly built, and we haven’t had time to make furniture yet. You’ll have to suffer a little and squeeze twenty or thirty people into one house.”

Qiu Ping’an could tell that this group of half-grown children all had delicate skin and tender flesh, and were also dressed properly. They did not look like slaves, nor like ordinary commoners. Instead, they looked more like children carefully raised by good families. He was even worried they might look down on these houses.

Unexpectedly, when these children saw this row of houses, they were all extremely excited. They ran up and down, touching here and there, and their curious, joyful appearances made anyone watching unable to help smiling.

The Tie Di sisters were naturally very satisfied with this row of houses that had been specially assigned to them. After all, they had always lived in caves before and had never properly lived in houses.

Qiu Ping’an left, while Wutong brought his sisters and brothers around to tour the valley’s environment. He also proudly introduced them to his friend Lanlan and showed off the business he and Lanlan did together.

When night arrived, Wutong did not return to Lanlan’s place. Instead, he ran to the west side, planning to spend his family’s first night in Zhaoge with them.

Wutong said, “Back then, after I came to Easternmost Continent, all I wanted was to go back. Who knew my luck would be bad? Everyone I met was a bad person. I was sold all the way along, and in the end I became a human sacrifice. Fortunately, Big Sister Lanlan looked after me. Later, I met Immortal Master too. Sisters, you don’t need to worry. Immortal Master really is a good person. I observed him carefully.”

Not long after Wutong finished speaking, a pattering sound suddenly came from outside. He froze, then opened the window to look out, and was met head-on by moist vapor that dampened his face.

Today it was Guo Qianshan’s turn to stand guard. He was wiping Ghost-Slayer beneath the steps when the top of his head suddenly went cool. His first suspicion was that some blind bird had relieved itself on his head. When one cool sensation after another poured over his head, he began to suspect that a flock of birds had come to seek private revenge, until the torch not far from him was doused.

Guo Qianshan stood up in shock.

“It’s raining!”

In the night, someone suddenly shouted. Then excited voices rang out one after another. Many people ran out from their homes, bringing out every vessel in their houses and excitedly catching rainwater.

Rain was extremely rare in the desert, not to mention Zhaoge had always lacked water. Now that rainfall had suddenly arrived, everyone worried that this rain would vanish in the blink of an eye, and treasured the rainwater as though it were precious gold.

Shi Dahai’s family had not bathed in ages. While catching water, they could not help starting to scrub dirt off themselves through their clothes.

Granny Cai and her grandson filled all their vessels with rainwater, then began staring at the heavy rain and regretting that they had not bought a few more buckets.

Lanlan emptied out the wooden barrels used to store rice at home and used them to catch rainwater.

As Tao Xiuli caught water, she shouted to her neighbors on both sides, “My family fired a lot of clay jars! Come buy some! Catch more rainwater! Everything’s discounted!”

Where there were people rejoicing, there were also people worrying.

Xiao Haonü and the other members of the Dragon-Tiger Gang had only just finished work and lain down to rest when the rain drenched them thoroughly. After all, their houses had been converted from prison cells and were originally hollowed out.

Seeing the household belongings she had painstakingly saved during this period—a single roll of bedding—get soaked through, Xiao Haonü jumped around while cursing the heavens for being a bastard too.

This rain fell from night until dawn, then from dawn until night again. The area it affected was not limited to Zhaoge, but also included the land within a twenty-li radius of Zhaoge.

At first, some people worried that if the heavy rain continued without stopping, it might flood the entire valley. However, people quickly discovered that after the water flowed together on the ground, the water level dropped very quickly, as though there were a reservoir underground continuously absorbing the accumulated rainwater on the surface.

Only then did Zhaoge’s first group of residents remember the drainage system the stewards had explained to them back then.

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