Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 354

Chapter 354: Crystallized Sandworm

Once the negotiations were over, Tang Jie followed Xi Canhen into the mine. As for Qiu Shuyu and the others, the rules prevented them from following him in.

Some miners were still carrying baskets back and forth in the mine, the narrow tunnel extending into the unfathomable depths of darkness.

It was said that the Stone Gate Sect had practically excavated out the belly of the mountain for this spirit stone vein. Currently, the outer edge of the mine had already been mined out, and was so spacious that it seemed like a great hall. The miners had to walk quite a stretch of tunnels to mine a sufficient number of spirit stones.

The walls of the mine were reinforced by Earth spell arts from cultivators. Once they had confirmed that the ore in an area had been mined out, the cultivators would use their spell arts to solidly seal everything so that it wouldn’t collapse. But the rules also made it so that an opening was left between the seals so that Spirit Masters could inspect the area.

As Xi Canhen took several steps into the great hall, Tang Jie went up to a stone wall, placed his hand on one of these openings, and inserted his spiritual energy. Slivers of spiritual energy entered through the opening and began to seek out any energy pulses that might be behind this wall.

After sensing for a few moments, Tang Jie could only feel extremely weak pulses. He could tell that these were from worthless dregs and that this wall truly had been mined out.

This wasn’t strange. This was the entrance to the cavern and the least likely place for something to be missed. Tang Jie inspected here primarily to get a feel for the soil quality and the spiritual energy feedback of this place.

After performing this test, Tang Jie took out a map of the mine, made a few strokes on it, and said to Xi Canhen, “Let’s go.”

This was an early version of the map. As the tunnels branched, the map gradually lost its usefulness. Thus, even with a map, Tang Jie still needed a guide.

He wasn’t afraid of getting lost. However, if he lost his bearings and couldn’t even remember where he had gone and ended up missing a spot, and that spot just so happened to have a batch of ore, the Basking Moon Sect would lose out.

Tang Jie’s order to Xi Canhen was this: take me through every tunnel in the mine using the shortest path.

As the two of them proceeded, Tang Jie would stop at intervals and carefully inspect a wall, not leaving any spot.

The two of them made their way in the dim light of the lanterns.

The deeper they went, the more difficult the path became, the more numerous the branches, and the fewer people they ran into. At the start, they could still see some miners squatting over piles of debris and flipping through them for ore. Whenever someone got close, they would view them with cautious gazes. But the number of miners dwindled, and on occasion, they could hear the sounds of picks striking rocks in the distance.

“Shouldn’t it be that there’s more ore the deeper you go? Why are most of the miners concentrated in the middle and there are so few deeper in?” Tang Jie asked.

The youth replied without turning his head, “Because there are fiends in the depths.”

“‘Fiends’?” Tang Jie was alarmed. “There are fiends in the mine? Then why didn’t you have a Spirit Master of the Stone Gate Sect take care of them?”

“They did,” Xi Canhen replied. “But it was no use. Those fiends disappear the moment they come. They don’t show up at all, as if they can sense the Spirit Masters.”

As Xi Canhen continued to speak, Tang Jie came to understand what was going on.

The fiends had started causing trouble around two years ago.

That day, the miners were mining away in the depths of their tunnels when they heard a scream. By the time the miners arrived at the site of the scream, all they saw was a bloodstain. The miner had disappeared.

Not long afterward, another three miners disappeared.

The Stone Gate Sect sent someone to investigate, and this was their first visit.

But the Stone Gate Sect’s people turned up nothing.

Once the Stone Gate disciple was gone, the fiends started causing trouble again, and with even greater ferocity.

This time, they showed themselves—someone saw a fiend with their own eyes.

Tang Jie asked, “You’re saying someone saw the fiend and didn’t die?”

“Mm.” The youth nodded. “And it wasn’t just one person. Ten-some people saw it. It was long and covered in long, dense fur. It was about three meters tall and incredibly powerful, possessing sharp claws that could tear through rock. It could dig through the earth, right, and it also ate ore.”

“Long fur, three meters tall, sharp claws, powerful, able to dig, eats ore… What fiend is this?” Tang Jie pondered this question, but he couldn’t recall any fiend like this. But the world was host to all sorts of strange things. Plants could become sprites and stones could become monsters. It wouldn’t be strange if this was something he hadn’t seen before. Let alone him, even a Basking Moon Titan wouldn’t dare to say that they had seen all there was to be seen in the world.

“And after that?” Tang Jie asked.

The youth shrugged. “What else? We informed the Stone Gate Sect again. But that fiend was truly cunning. So long as the Stone Gate Sect sent someone, it would immediately hide. This is a big mountain, and it can burrow wherever it wants. If it doesn’t come out, the Stone Gate Sect wouldn’t be able to do anything unless it flipped over all of Mount Eternal. Later on, the Stone Gate Sect decided to have its disciples pretend to be miners, concealing their energy to lie in wait for the fiend. It turned out that one really did show up, and a Stone Gate disciple battled with the fiend. Alas, the fiend wasn’t killed, and by the time reinforcements arrived, the fiend had run off. But from that battle, the disciple came to understand that this fiend had an ability to mark its territory and detect any lifeform that entered it. This was exactly why eliminating this fiend was so difficult. And given that the disguise strategy had already been used and the fiend had tasted some bitterness, it probably wouldn’t fall for the trap a second time, making it basically impossible to catch again. But so long as one stayed outside of that fiend’s territory, the fiend wouldn’t move against them.”

“Is that why the miners stopped going deeper to mine ore?”

“Yes. Fortunately, this fiend showed up rather late, when most of the ore deeper in had been mined out, and its territory isn’t large. Thus, while we miss out on some ore, the loss isn’t too great. Moreover, some of the bolder miners sneaked in to mine some ore. So long as they don’t make too much noise, the fiend doesn’t mind.”

Xi Canhen turned to Tang Jie and said, “I’m able to get more ore because I’ve sneaked in the most times. Perhaps because I’m too small, the fiend doesn’t try to eat me.”

“I seeeee…” Tang Jie’s voice trailed off, his eyes narrowing.

After walking some more, Tang Jie and Xi Canhen arrived at the deepest part.

The end of the tunnel was a bottomless abyss. Looking down, it was impossible to see anything but blackness.

“This is the end,” Xi Canhen said. “The ore vein stops there. There’s still some ore in the walls, but down below is that fiend, so the miners don’t dare come here lightly. If you weren’t here, I also wouldn’t be standing around. Normally, I stay on the edge of its territory and mine a little before running off.”

The walls here hadn’t been sealed, so Tang Jie extended a hand and surveyed the area. He found that there truly were a large number of energy pulses coming from behind the wall, proving that there was still a lot of ore here.

This was the last area of plenty in the ore vein.

The Stone Gate Sect had said that once the ore in the other areas had been mined out, it would send disciples to stand guard here while the rest of the ore was mined out. Tang Jie’s job was to report the amount of the remaining ore. Once the Basking Moon Sect received its due from this remainder, it was free to ignore the ore vein.

Confirming that there was some remaining ore was simple, but getting the exact amount took a cultivator’s full focus. But Tang Jie had grasped Wisdom and Insight, so surveying the ore was a trifle. After a simple sweep, he already had a rough estimate of the ore behind the wall.

After noting down the number, Tang Jie produced a black rock and asked, “So what about this?”

This black stone was the item that Xi Canhen had given him earlier, the key to the youth’s ability to unlock his Jade Gate, and the crux of Tang Jie’s motivation to help him.

Xi Canhen pointed at a nearby wall. “It’s over here. When I was secretly mining some ore, I saw some exposed ore over here. For a miner, exposed ore is like a gold coin on the ground. Thus, ignoring the danger, I went over and grabbed the ore, and it ended up coming out with this stone. I found this stone rather weird, so I brought it back with me. But that night, my entire body became hot, as if something was rampaging in my body. Later on, I found that I had gotten much stronger…”

“Just as expected,” Tang Jie muttered.

“You know what this is?” Xi Canhen asked. Ever since getting the black stone, he had felt a substantial change in his body, and he became curious to know what it was. But he knew that he didn’t have the ability to keep this secret forever, so he didn’t dare to speak about it. It was only when Tang Jie saw through him that he confessed. And since Tang Jie knew, he naturally wanted to get this question answered.

Tang Jie didn’t hide it from him. “This is Crystallized Sandworm.”

“‘Sandworm’? So it’s not a rock, but a creature?” Xi Canhen said in surprise.

“Mm.” Tang Jie nodded. “To be more precise, it’s a sandworm that turned into rock, a rare material in the cultivation world.”

The actual name of the sandworm was the Spiriteater Sandworm, an extremely rare kind of fiend insect. Its greatest attribute was that it ate spirit stones. A sandworm normally lived around five hundred days, and in these five hundred days, it devoured spirit stones at the rate of two catties per day. In a lifetime, it normally ate around one thousand catties of raw spirit stone ore, which was the equivalent of one hundred pieces of processed spirit stone.

It was such a terrifying appetite, but the sandworm didn’t waste any spiritual energy. Other than some negligible dregs, each point of spiritual energy remained in its body. The reason for this was that the sandworm had the special ability to crystallize spiritual energy. But as the sandworm ate more and more, the crystallized spiritual energy grew fiercer and fiercer, and ultimately, the sandworm’s entire body would be crystallized, turning into the black rock in Tang Jie’s hand.

For a cultivator, it was a supreme treasure.

This was a vital material for improving a cultivator’s ability to store spiritual energy.

A cultivator had the natural limitation of only being able to use spiritual energy in liquid form.

For example, a peak Spirit Sea had ten thousand drops of spiritual liquid, which was a form of liquefied spiritual energy. Even a Mortal Shedding cultivator was simply able to use the spirit in his body to draw on the spirit of the world. The amount their Spiritual Space could hold was still exactly the same as that of a peak Spirit Sea student. This was just the limit of the human body.

If spiritual energy could be crystallized, a cultivator would be able to hold much more power. Alas, the limitations of the human body meant that cultivators found it basically impossible to crystallize spiritual liquid.

Crystallized Sandworm was a treasure that could make up for this flaw, helping a cultivator develop structures in their body that could crystallize spiritual energy. By crystallizing some of the spiritual liquid, one could increase one’s spiritual energy reserve.

Of course, a cultivator couldn’t crystallize all their spiritual liquid because of this. This would be like a mortal consuming gold, causing a collapse of the Spiritual Space and subsequently death. Thus, the Spirit Sea remained the foundation, with the crystallization as a support, an iceberg in the ocean.

Even though it was a limited boost, it was still a total increase in spiritual energy, which was of incredible value!

This was why Crystallized Sandworm was an existence a hundred times rarer than spirit ore. Each piece sold for an astronomical price on the market.

The Crystallized Sandworm in Tang Jie’s hand, if used properly, could help Tang Jie crystallize around three hundred drops. A cultivator could tolerate about 30% of their spiritual energy being crystallized, which meant that ten pieces of Crystallized Sandworm could increase his total amount of magic power by 30%, which was simply amazing.

Given the shocking quality and quantity of spiritual energy in this rock, that Xi Canhen had been able to break through his Jade Gate because of it was quite normal. But this kid had also been lucky. While the Crystallized Sandworm had helped him charge through the Jade Gate, the danger level hadn’t been lowered at all. He hadn’t died only because he was lucky. Yet without anyone’s guidance, this kid had managed to reach six cycles. Tang Jie had questioned him and found that this kid was naturally stubborn. Even though his entire body had been wracked with pain, without anyone instructing him, he had managed to not make a sound, wasting none of his innate talent. Tang Jie couldn’t help but sigh in praise.

After hearing about the sandworm’s use, Xi Canhen said in shock, “Then isn’t this thing very valuable?”

This was the first thing that occurred to him.

“Yes. In the cultivation world, a piece of Crystallized Sandworm could command a price of one hundred thousand or more, but there’s simply no product to satisfy the demand,” Tang Jie replied. “But you didn’t preserve this piece well, and since you were absorbing energy from it night and day, its value has dropped a lot… Using Crystallized Sandworm to charge at the Jade Gate is a rather extravagant use, but it wasn’t a complete waste. At least your constitution is much stronger.”

Xi Canhen didn’t practice any cultivation mantras, so the excess spiritual energy had nowhere to go except to nourish his body, making him much stronger. Otherwise, there was no way he could have beaten four strongmen on his own.

“One hundred thousand spirit coins.” The youth stared at the black stone, his eyes almost spitting flame.

“What? Feeling some regret?” Tang Jie smiled.

The youth thought about his answer before he replied, “Only a little, but it’s nothing. I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you, so I would have just ended up wasting a good thing.”

“You’re quite sensible.” Tang Jie nodded in satisfaction, and then he tossed the Crystallized Sandworm back to Xi Canhen.

Xi Canhen looked at Tang Jie in confusion, to which Tang Jie explained, “So long as one lives, one cannot live alone. If there is one, there will often be two. Thus, if there is one Crystallized Sandworm, there will be a second, a third… I only needed their locations. As for this piece, you can have it back so that you don’t think a mighty cultivator like me would want to take from a kid like you.”

Xi Canhen shouted, “I’m not a kid!”

But he quickly put away the Crystallized Sandworm, gratitude in his eyes.

Tang Jie continued to search the mine wall for the Crystallized Sandworms.

But despite his best efforts, he couldn’t find a single one.

This left him baffled. Crystallized Sandworms rarely leaked energy because of the crystallization, and there were spirit stones to be found all throughout this wall that could further interfere with energy pulses, but Tang Jie had comprehended Insight and was confident that he could find any sandworms that were in this area.

Could there really only be the one sandworm?

This wasn’t impossible. Sandworms were good at burrowing through the earth and could often travel one hundred kilometers in a day in pursuit of spirit ore. If it was just one sandworm that had found this ore vein and come to eat, though the chances were small, it wasn’t completely without precedent.

Or had someone already taken them?

This also wasn’t impossible.

In the cultivation world, it was also common for supervisors to steal from their workplace. Even the Basking Moon Sect didn’t think that the Stone Gate Sect was clean. But everything had its tolerance level, and so long as one didn’t go overboard, the Basking Moon Sect would close its eyes. It was just like how the Stone Gate Sect had overlooked the actions of that Scholar Wu.

But sandworms were much more important. If news got out that someone had stolen them for themselves, the entire sect could be exterminated.

And such a thing would be very difficult to keep secret. After all, once one had the Crystallized Sandworms, one either used them or sold them. Regardless of the choice, it would be major news if it got out, and if there were no clear origin to them, the major sects would investigate, and the Stone Gate Sect would find it hard to keep things under wraps.

But once the fiend had started causing trouble here, nobody had mined this area, and the wall was unharmed. If someone had furtively mined out the Crystallized Sandworm, the walls wouldn’t be this intact, and besides, the miners would have realized that something was going on.

Then… could this not be the sandworm nest?

Tang Jie looked over to the abyss at the end of the tunnel.

He slowly walked to the abyss and thrust out his right hand. An eyeball manifested in his hand: the Illuminating Eye.

The eyeball flew over the abyss and began to inspect the area. While the Illuminating Eye offered a 360-degree view, it couldn’t see through obstructions. All it could see was darkness and sturdy stone walls, with no clues to speak of.

Tang Jie furrowed his brow, standing still and pensively thinking.

Finally, a light appeared on the center of his forehead, a vertical eye gradually revealing itself.

The moment the eye appeared, a pillar of light shot out from it. It lit up the opposite wall and then began to randomly whiz around like a flashlight.

Alas, even the Celestial Eye couldn’t find anything. Tang Jie couldn’t help but reconsider. Perhaps he was wrong and the sandworm was alone.

At this moment, he heard a cry of shock behind him.

Xi Canhen!

The vertical eye disappeared as Tang Jie turned his head and saw Xi Canhen flying toward him.

Tang Jie reached out and grabbed Xi Canhen, upon which he heard a furious roar and saw a giant silhouette lunging at him.

Long fur!

Tall!

Sharp claws!

In the dim light, Tang Jie saw that the silhouette coming at him was none other than the fiend that Xi Canhen had spoken of.

It had really appeared.

But as Tang Jie had grabbed Xi Canhen, his hands were occupied. Of course, he could have lifted up Xi Canhen and used him as a shield to block the claw, but at that moment, Tang Jie let Xi Canhen go so that he wouldn’t get hit.

At the same time, the fiend’s sharp claw savagely struck Tang Jie in the belly. With one strike, it sent Tang Jie sailing into the abyss.