Chapter 20
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Chapter 20: A Novice’s Troubles
“You, stop looking around—yes, you! Come here!” The supervisor at the cave entrance pointed at Yue Qianchou and shouted rudely. The latter then realized everyone in front had already gone in and hurried over.
The supervisor held up a bronze mirror and shone it on him, a white light flashing across the mirror’s surface.
‘Could this be the magical device?’ While still puzzled, the supervisor pushed him into the mine cave: “Dressed up all fancy. Next!”
He heard the supervisor’s words behind him but didn’t think much of it, looking around the mine cave. It was pitch black—he really didn’t know how to mine spirit stones in such an environment. He slowed his pace and walked in. After his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, he hadn’t walked far when he could already hear several people running into the cave behind him.
‘Did gold ingots drop up ahead?’ He really admired them—able to run in such an environment. While shaking his head, he suddenly noticed scattered points of light on the cave walls around him.
‘What is this?’ As he proceeded, the scattered lights became more numerous, densely covering all four walls and even the ground beneath his feet, making him feel like walking on a starlit avenue. Getting closer, he discovered they were actually fluorite stones. These obviously weren’t artificially installed—they were natural. This explained his earlier wondering about how people could mine spirit stones in caves without lighting.
Standing at several branching paths in the mine cave, he was choosing which way to go when more miners rushed urgently into various branch paths. Though he didn’t know why, since everyone was so urgent, there must be a reason. Thinking this, he no longer hesitated and randomly picked a cave entrance to walk into quickly.
The mine cave went deep underground. The further in he went, the more branching paths of various sizes he discovered, interconnected like a spider web. This place was like a maze—he really worried about going too deep and not being able to get out. Frowning, he shook his head and smiled, silently cursing himself for being stupid. Since the terrain sloped downward, when he wanted to exit, he just needed to walk toward higher ground.
Many cave entrances already had faint sounds of people digging. He didn’t know where to dig, so he picked a cave entrance with relatively loud sounds and crawled in.
“Ding ding ding…”
Following the sound around a bend, there was a basket on the ground already containing several low-grade spirit stones, including one mid-grade stone. A miner was swinging his pickaxe and digging hard.
“Hey! Not bad, not bad—already have some results.” Yue Qianchou smiled enthusiastically while speaking, also unloading the basket from his back and holding his pickaxe, looking around to find a place to start.
The ding-ding sounds suddenly stopped. He turned to look and saw the miner watching him warily. He nodded and smiled again, but the other clearly wasn’t welcoming—his smile became somewhat awkward.
“Get out! I discovered this mineral vein first.” The miner’s words were quite rude. Yue Qianchou got a bit angry.
‘Damn it! We’re all miners—why are you driving me out?’ But he couldn’t tell the other’s cultivation level, and clearly the other’s cultivation was higher than his Qi Refining Level 5.
‘Small impatience ruins great plans!’ Though unhappy in his heart, for the great cause of stealing spirit stones, he decided to swallow this anger. He glared once, picked up his basket with a dark face, and walked out.
The subsequent situations were identical. Each small cave had one person digging, and seeing him, they all rudely declared: “This is my territory—get out!”
What discouraged him most was that almost every person he encountered had cultivation somewhat higher than his. With a belly full of anger, he couldn’t even find someone to vent on.
Now he finally understood why those people all ran after entering the mine cave—they were all afraid their previously discovered spirit stone veins would be occupied by others, so they rushed to claim territory first.
In a fit of anger, he headed toward the deepest areas. Not knowing how many years the mine cave had been dug, he walked for a long time through countless turns before finally reaching the mine cave’s end.
“Damn it! There shouldn’t be anyone here to drive me away!”
After cursing, he put down his basket and gripped his pickaxe, unable to help getting excited. The dead end before him seemed to already show spirit stones beckoning to him.
He raised his pickaxe with both hands and struck down forcefully.
Ding!
“Holy crap!” Yue Qianchou cried out strangely, threw the pickaxe aside, and raised his numb hands with a gasp. After shaking his hands, he picked up his tool and tried the surrounding cave walls. Ding ding ding—everywhere was as hard as stone. No wonder the mining sounds all sounded like blacksmithing—he had been too hasty.
After trying again, he felt somewhat helpless.
‘This isn’t mining at all! It’s clearly digging holes in a stone mountain.’
He really hadn’t known before that spirit stones grew in such places. Azure Light Sect’s spirit stone consumption for so many people all depended on these people digging them out bit by bit here. Though he’d heard there were several other spirit stone mines elsewhere, he imagined the miners there weren’t much more comfortable.
He tried channeling true qi into the pickaxe. Ding ding ding—it finally worked! Yue Qianchou was extremely excited and threw himself into digging frantically.
Having enthusiasm for work is good, but when you can’t produce results, it’s often the most painful thing. He dug for most of the day—forget spirit stones, he hadn’t even seen a hair. His true qi was being consumed continuously like this, making ends not meet. At this rate, he’d exhaust himself to death before finding any spirit stones.
He wasn’t someone who worked blindly without thinking. He immediately stopped and decided to first figure out where the problem lay.
Based on his limited common sense from his previous life, one thing he was certain of: things like gold and gemstones all had mineral veins and directions. He believed spirit stones followed the same principle, and the fluorite everywhere should be associated minerals of spirit stones.
These spider web-like tunnels were definitely dug by previous miners. If they stopped digging here, did that mean there were no more spirit stones ahead? He really couldn’t judge this point without understanding. He wanted to find someone to ask, but the miners here would probably give the same result whether he asked or not—no one would tell him. What a headache!
“Damn it! How could I be so stupid?” Yue Qianchou slapped his forehead in frustration.
‘Wasn’t Sister Bai’s fox clan expert at digging holes? Just ask her and I’ll understand.’
He carefully checked his surroundings, confirmed no one was around, picked up his tools, and suddenly vanished.
“Sister Bai, save me! Uh…” Yue Qianchou, who had returned to his territory, had just started shouting when he stopped abruptly.
A forest had suddenly appeared before his eyes, with bamboo swaying among the trees and familiar melodies coming from within the forest. If he couldn’t still see the purple chaos around, he would really doubt whether he’d come to the wrong place.
Walking into the forest with uncertainty, an exquisite green bamboo house appeared before his eyes, its style very classical. The bamboo house was surrounded by a bamboo fence, with a small bamboo pavilion inside where a peerless beauty in snow-white clothes was playing the qin and singing softly—who else could it be but the white fox?
Relieved, Yue Qianchou looked around again and smiled with satisfaction! Looking at the playing and singing white fox, he had to admire her—truly someone in the arts, with aesthetic sense a cut above ordinary people.
The forest surrounded the bamboo grove, the bamboo grove surrounded the bamboo house—a quiet and secluded environment. He hadn’t expected that the things he’d thrown in a few days ago would be arranged like this by the white fox in just a few days. The layout was just right, pleasing to the eye.
He walked in with a grin. Though the white fox didn’t even lift her head, with her late Tribulation Crossing cultivation, she definitely knew he’d arrived. Yue Qianchou walked to the pavilion and called:
“Sister Bai!”
Unexpectedly, the white fox ignored him completely, not even lifting her head once. Yue Qianchou’s heart sank.
‘She has an opinion about me—I wonder what I did to provoke her. This isn’t good—I need her help right now.’
Yue Qianchou sat down beside her with a cheeky smile, craning his neck:
“Oh! Whose beauty is playing the qin here? Beauty, this young master greets you. Beauty, beauty, beauty…”
Honestly, after this brother threw her here, she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for several days, giving her the feeling of just escaping confinement only to be trapped again by someone else. How could she not be angry? But faced with this shameless person, there really was no solution—if she ignored him, he’d just keep calling “beauty” endlessly.
The qin music stopped abruptly. The white fox’s pretty face flushed slightly as she looked up angrily:
“Do you still know you have this sister? If you’re so capable, don’t come back… You’re mining spirit stones?”
The last sentence was said upon seeing the tools in Yue Qianchou’s hands.
Yue Qianchou was startled. The white fox’s words gave him a strange feeling, just like a wife living alone at home finally seeing her good-for-nothing husband after several days. The thought flashed by as he avoided the important and focused on the trivial:
“Sister indeed has divine eyes—you saw through it at a glance…”
He then told the white fox about being punished to hard labor in the spirit stone mines, though he concealed the part about framing Wu Baoru. This feeling was understandable—no one wants to publicize their despicable and shameless side.
What he told the white fox was that because he’d offended Azure Light Sect’s sect leader, and now with his master dead, he immediately suffered retaliation from the sect leader and was sent to hard labor in the spirit stone mines. Once he failed to complete tasks, he would face severe punishment.
“A dignified sect leader is actually so narrow-minded.” The white fox frowned, staring at the smiling face across from her:
“With the golden bead, if you wanted to escape Azure Light Sect, no one could stop you. Could it be you’ve come to ask for my help?”
“Haha! Sister is brilliant—you knew before I even said anything.” Yue Qianchou laughed.
The white fox showed mild annoyance but still took out the ‘Mountain-Piercing Claws’ from her waist pouch and threw them to him.
Yue Qianchou hugged the item with a grin that wouldn’t close, stood up to leave, then suddenly remembered something and asked:
“I saw Azure Light Sect disciples at the mine entrance holding a bronze mirror and shining it all over me. Do you know what it’s for, sister?”
“Just a very ordinary magical device—nothing special. If someone secretly absorbs spiritual energy or privately hides spirit stones on their body, it’s easy to discover with it. All major sects’ spirit stone mines in the cultivation world use it. Why do you ask?” The white fox asked strangely.
“Nothing much. Sister, if I put spirit stones inside the golden bead, could that magical device discover them?” Yue Qianchou asked again.
The white fox shook her head lightly:
“Generally, spirit stones placed in storage bags can’t be discovered by it. I imagine the space inside the golden bead would be even harder to detect.”
“Oh!” Yue Qianchou breathed a sigh of relief and nodded:
“I was worried to death. Since it can’t be discovered, I’m relieved. Sister, I’ll go first.”
“Ah… you…” The white fox was instantly stunned.
‘This dead fellow asking these questions is probably planning to steal spirit stones—wouldn’t that make me an accomplice?’
Just as she realized this and wanted to call him back to ask, the latter had already vanished without a trace.
