Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-249

NETS – Chapter 249 – All To Himself

“The Three Clans Island and Northern League would never have expected to see, not only Hundred Flowers Land on this barren island, but also a medium-size spirit stone vein, right Senior Brother Wen?”

“Haha, that’s right. Great Ancestor Cang Qiong is a grandmaster in divinations. Through his analysis, he had long ago determined that there’s a spirit stone mine in the Three Clans Alliance’s territory. However, this area is under the Northern League’s shelter, so we had to find a way in, specifically the Wang Clan. But who knew that before we could begin scouting the area, we would actually find the spirit stone mine underneath Hundred Flowers Land. Luckily, Enlightened Master Kun Shan’s wisdom helped us secure the island from the Wang Clan’s Enlightened Master Wang Hua.”

“He may be an Enlightened Master, but the Early Core Forging Realm is already the furthest he can reach with his poor knowledge. Speaking of this, there was another ignorant bastard who came before Qi Shi-Min and the others. He scavenged the place, took the King of Flowers, but left without noticing the spirit stone mine right beneath him. What a poor dude.”

… Well, he’s not wrong…

Lu Ping smiled bitterly. Only now did he realize what he had missed before.

Initially, he thought that the spirit veins were formed by the Hundred Flowers Land to nurture the King of Flowers. But thinking back, the Hundred Flowers Land didn’t have sufficient spiritual energy to condense the pond of Kui Water and the spirit veins at the same time.

Now, it all made sense. The spirit veins were formed by the spirit stone mine underground, not from the flowers.

Lu Ping rubbed his chin and pondered about how he could make the best out of this situation without getting noticed. There was no way he could leave empty handed, right?

But to get into the mine, the two cultivators guarding the end of the tunnel were an obstacle.

At that moment, a voice called out from outside the tunnel, “Senior Brother Wen, Senior Brother Tian, did anything happen down there?”

“No, it’s all fine. What’s happening up there?”

The two cultivators immediately realized that something had happened on the other side. Otherwise, the twelve cultivators on the surface wouldn’t have asked if they were alright down here.

So, they hurriedly replied back while traversing the tunnel back to the surface.

This is my chance!

Lu Ping was overjoyed. He grabbed Dabao’s whiskers and disappeared into the tunnel walls. The two cultivators were in a hurry and didn’t notice them hiding within the wall..

After the two cultivators passed, Lu Ping and Dabao moved out from the wall and quickly walked out of the tunnel.

Spirit stone mines were unique. Under normal circumstances, they could replenish their reserves around every five hundred years.

Therefore, cultivators often paced the mining speed according to the cycle of replenishment. This meant that they would never run out of reserves and would have a constant supply of spirit stones.

However, spirit stone mines weren’t eternal.

Spirit veins were special locations that attracted a large quantity of spiritual energy from the surroundings. As the concentration of spiritual energy increased, the spiritual energy would condense into spirit stones. As more and more spirit stones were formed, they would become spirit stone mines.

As spirit stones were mined, the total spiritual energy in the spirit veins would decrease. Eventually, spirit stones would no longer form, the mines would deplete, and the spirit veins would be drained.

In time, the spiritual energy would eventually return to nature through various means. The spiritual energy would gather at other locations forming other spirit veins, and possibly another spirit stone mine.

The mini spirit veins below Hundred Flowers Land had formed a medium-sized spirit stone mine. This spirit stone mine had twenty spiral arms, each with a high density of spirit stones, only four of which had currently been mined.

It seemed that Crystal Palace was planning on a mining rotation of four spiral arms every hundred years. This way, a full cycle would take exactly five hundred years, at which point the first four spiral arms’ reserves would be replenished and ready to be mined once again.

The miners were all Blood Refining Realm cultivators, so Lu Ping was not afraid that they would notice him.

Without further instruction, Dabao went forward and selected one of the sixteen unexplored spiral arms that he considered to be of the highest quality, and dived in.

Just as the two Crystal Palace cultivators were returning from the surface, Dabao finished his inspection and led Lu Ping into the spiral arm.

…

“Useless! How did they only notice the intruder when he was at our doorsteps? The spirit stone mine has not been exposed yet, but it won’t be long until then. Everyone will know that Crystal Palace is onto something on the island and news will spread quickly in the Fallen Rift.”

Senior Martial Brother Wen spoke while holding a gloomy expression.

“The Wang Clan is bold, how dare they set us up. Aren’t they afraid of the consequences from Crystal Palace?”

Senior Martial Brother Tian added viciously.

“The Wang Clan may not have the guts to go against us. It could be a disciple’s personal act. But still, we can’t rule out the possibility of a scheme from other people.”

Senior Martial Brother Wen analyzed the situation calmly.

Suddenly, a message charm flew to Senior Martial Brother Wen. He listened to the message and his expression changed. He snorted coldly and passed the charm to Senior Martial Brother Tian beside him.

After listening to the message, Senior Martial Brother Tian muttered, “How did he escape? Even if he had a helper, there were more of us. How were our martial siblings not able to stop them?”

Senior Brother Wen said coldly, “The two of them didn’t return to Wang Clan’s Moon Prosperity Island, they are heading towards the 27 mini islands. The junior siblings are in pursuit, and Senior Brother Ma should’ve notified Enlightened Master Kun Shan by now, who will be there in no time. We’ll see what the Wang Clan has to say when we capture those two rats!”

Senior Brother Tian said gleefully, “What a pity. I heard that Senior Brother Ma had been eyeing one of the four slots to condense his Hundred Flowers Aegis Energy. Enlightened Master Kun Shan was also considering letting him have the chance.

“But now, not only did he let a spy sneak in, he also failed to capture the spy. This means that not only does he not have a chance anymore, he will also be punished with 10 years of house arrest; or worse, if the spirit stone mine is exposed, he will be sentenced to death!”

…

Dabao sure was a good digger. Within a few moments, he had dug out a space large enough for Lu Ping to crouch down in. Although the earth layer greatly obstructed his divine sense, Lu Ping still heard the conversation clearly.

However, Lu Ping’s focus wasn’t on them. His attention was attracted to the spirit stones all around him.

Spirit stones in medium-sized mines were generally a mix of low-grade and mid-grade spirit stones. Although, there was also a small chance of finding one or two high-grade spirit stones.

Whilst cultivators would carefully plan a mining schedule, in times of need, the mines were overmined for a short period of time. In these situations, there would be a huge production of spirit stones, but the downside was that the mines would be depleted in less than a hundred years.

This was exactly what Lu Ping wanted to do right now. After all, he couldn’t take the mine away nor was he entitled to share the production. As a result, all he could do was to mine as much as he could, while he still could.

Since it wasn’t his mine, he naturally didn’t care about the damage that this would bring to the spirit stone mine.

Lu Ping’s plan was simple.

First, he instructed Dabao to open up several underground caves along the spiral arm. Then, he released all his spirit pets into the caves to mine the stones. Two spirit pets per cave, each mining in a different direction for maximum efficiency.

Just like that, the six spirit pets and Lu Ping, all started working non-stop mining spirit stones every day.

In order to avoid alerting the Crystal Palace cultivators, Lu Ping deliberately ordered Dabao to dig the caves deep underground. This way, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting detected, as not even an Enlightened Masters’ divine revelation could reach this deep.

Lu Ping also summoned the Tome of Thousand Millets, so the spirit pets could store the spirit stones inside the mystic instrument.

He also specially instructed them to pass him any high-grade spirit stones, so that he could keep them inside his interspatial ring.

In the blink of an eye, half a year passed in that trance.

Suddenly, they felt the earth quaking as a strange force was transmitted out along the spirit vein. The force felt as though it was locking down the area!

——