Chapter 20: Mining for Resources

Qu Yi flew alone in the air, while Bai Man, Qing Wu Gui, and Wu Yuan remained inside the Cun Jie Ball.
A few days later, Qu Yi arrived at the western region of the Lan Yue Mountains and landed on a mountain peak.
As soon as he landed, he asked, “Instrument God, what did you say just now? That I shouldn’t launch a surprise attack on the Fire Moon Sect’s training mountains first, but instead target their various mining sites?”
It turned out that the Instrument God had sensed the surroundings and discovered that the Fire Moon Sect had a deposit of yellow yuan jade in the nearby mountains, with hundreds of people mining there. So, he told Qu Yi to stop.
“Qu Yi, you’ve now reached the middle stage of the Golden Dan phase, and you must have true fire within you. It’s time to start learning artifact crafting. These yellow yuan jades are only mid-grade material for magic tools, but they’re perfect for you to practice with,” said the Instrument God with a smile.
So that’s how it is.
Qu Yi was momentarily stunned before smiling. Finally, the Instrument God was willing to teach him the art of artifact crafting.
Since Qu Yi had reached the middle stage of the Golden Dan phase, the flames of the Golden Dan within his five internal organs had merged into a single Golden Dan. Moreover, the color of the true fire in this merged Golden Dan wasn’t the red of the Samadhi True Fire, but rather a light blue—almost similar to the cyan-blue True Fire of the early Yuan Ying stage.
Qu Yi’s five-element true fire being light blue meant it was stronger than the Samadhi True Fire, but still weaker than the cyan-blue True Fire.
“Instrument God, thank you! I will surely promote your art of artifact crafting,” Qu Yi said cheerfully.
But as soon as he finished speaking, the Instrument God poked Qu Yi’s Yuan Shen, causing him to curl up on the ground in pain.
“Instrument God, why did you poke my Yuan Shen again? Don’t you know that for a cultivator, the Yuan Shen is the most important? If you pierce it, I’ll die! Do you understand?” Qu Yi grew angry and roared.
He had endured the Instrument God’s strange behavior—poking his Yuan Shen at the slightest dissatisfaction—for a long time. This time, he could take it no more and shouted angrily, disregarding death.
“Kid, don’t worry. I control my strength well. I won’t let you die. Otherwise, who will I poke next? I poked you earlier because I saw that you weren’t serious about learning artifact crafting. Is it just for show? As for ‘promoting’ it—I don’t want you to promote it for me. I just want you to study it sincerely and quietly,” the Instrument God replied indifferently, ignoring Qu Yi’s protests.
Qu Yi was stunned, realizing that his Yuan Shen had been poked again.

“Spirit of Tools, tell me where the Huang Yuanyu mineral deposits of the Fire Moon Sect are. I’ll go and seize them all.” Qu Yi was too lazy to argue with the Spirit of Tools and decided to vent his anger on the people of the Fire Moon Sect instead.
“A hundred li to the northeast. There’s a peak atop Bald Stone Mountain, and the sect’s mineral deposits are at the foot of the mountain,” the Spirit of Tools replied indifferently.
Qu Yi was stunned. With his cultivation at the mid-stage of the Golden Core phase, his spiritual perception could already reach about two hundred li. How come he hadn’t sensed that mineral area? Could it be that some array had been set up there?
Soon, Qu Yi arrived at Bald Stone Mountain’s peak and expanded his spiritual perception, but still found no minerals at the foot of the mountain.
“There’s a concealment array at the foot of the mountain, similar to an invisibility array. Since you’re not at the early stage of the Nascent Soul phase, you can’t detect what’s inside,” the Spirit of Tools said, as if knowing what Qu Yi was thinking.
Qu Yi nodded, then flew down and destroyed the concealment array.
Undoubtedly, the people of the Fire Moon Sect inside the array immediately noticed the intruder. Ten of them flew over and surrounded Qu Yi.
“Who are you?” shouted a middle-aged man in a Fire Moon robe.
Seeing that all ten of them were only at the Foundation Establishment phase and were pointing swords at him, Qu Yi couldn’t help but laugh.
“I ask you, who is in charge of these mineral deposits?” Qu Yi asked jokingly, completely unfazed by their encirclement.
At that moment, a middle-aged man in a red robe flew out of a cave. He was at the early stage of the Golden Core phase, with a gloomy expression, and sized Qu Yi up coldly.
“I am. Who are you, and how did you discover our mineral deposits?” the middle-aged man asked suspiciously.
From Qu Yi’s aura, he seemed to be only at the mid-stage of the Golden Core phase, so he shouldn’t have been able to detect the concealment array. But since he had intruded, they naturally wanted to find out.
“You, at the early stage of the Golden Core phase, dare to question me? How interesting,” Qu Yi said lightly.
Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man at the early Golden Core stage and the ten surrounding him immediately grew nervous, realizing that it would be effortless for Qu Yi to kill them.
“We’re from the Fire Moon Sect. This Lanyue Mountain Range is our territory, just like these mineral deposits. Since you’ve intruded, you must explain yourself to us,” the middle-aged man declared defiantly.
The people of the Fire Moon Sect had always been arrogant, and even after suffering some losses, these disciples hadn’t changed their attitude.
Qu Yi snorted and then called out Bai Man, Qing Wu Gui, and Wu Yuan.

Immediately, four Golden Core stage cultivators appeared, scaring the eleven members of the Fire Moon Sect so much that they sat down on the ground right away.
“Senior sister, let the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes come out and move around a bit,” Qu Yi said with a smile as he looked at Bai Man.
Upon hearing this, Bai Man promptly slapped her spirit item bag, and nearly two hundred Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes flew out immediately, attacking the eleven members of the Fire Moon Sect.
In an instant, the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes devoured all eleven of them, then rushed back into the mine to devour all the Fire Moon Sect disciples who were mining there as well.
“Qu Yi, why didn’t you just fly to the various cultivation peaks of the Fire Moon Sect? Why come here to steal their minerals?” Bai Man asked in confusion as she followed Qu Yi into the mine.
“Senior sister, the Artifact God said he wanted to teach me the art of crafting, so he asked me to steal some minerals first as practice,” Qu Yi replied unhappily, recalling the Artifact God’s actions.
After a while, the four of them entered the mine. The people from the Fire Moon Sect had already been completely devoured by the Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes; not a single trace of them remained. All that was left in the mine were a dozen or so storage bags, likely containing all the Huang Yuanyu that had been mined there.
“Artifact God, it depends on you how much Huang Yuanyu we can collect from this mining area,” Qu Yi said unhappily, not even bothering to pick up the storage bags.
In an instant, the Dimension Ball flew out and began circling throughout the mine. Wherever it passed, the hard rock layers fell apart and were sucked into the Dimension Ball, along with the Huang Yuanyu hidden within the rocks.
After some time, the Artifact God stopped the Dimension Ball from moving and returned to Qu Yi’s soul.
By now, the entire mine had expanded countless times over. What was originally just a few hundred meters long had stretched out to cover hundreds of miles. Mines had been dug all along the mountain range.
“Alright, let’s head to another mining area of the Fire Moon Sect and plunder it completely,” Qu Yi exclaimed excitedly, having forgiven the Artifact God for attacking his original spirit after seeing what the Dimension Ball could do.
Soon, Qu Yi arrived at another mining area of the Fire Moon Sect.
……
At that moment, in the underwater mountain range where the King of the Oceans, the Thunder Ice Crocodile, resided, all the monstrous beasts at the Golden Core stage and above from the four oceans had gathered there.
Ever since the Thunder Ice Crocodile agreed to attack human cultivators, the four great rulers immediately returned to their respective oceans, gathered all the monstrous beasts at the Golden Core stage and above, and brought them all to the Thunder Ice Crocodile.

In the Sea King’s Palace, in addition to the Thunder Ice Crocodile, Four-Eyed Electric Crab, Sea-Swimming Python, Two-Legged Qiu Ox, and Arctic Ice Bear, there were also twenty demon beasts at the Yuan Ying stage. Other demon beasts at the Golden Core stage simply did not qualify to enter the Sea King’s Palace. The number of these Yuan Ying-stage sea demons showed that even during the peak period when the four major cultivation sects of Green Wood Planet coexisted, there were not so many at this stage, highlighting the strength of the sea demons. Yet this was quite normal—after all, the ocean was vast, and the number of sea demons was countless, so it was reasonable for there to be about twenty at the Yuan Ying stage.

The Thunder Ice Crocodile sat on the warm bed and glanced at the Yuan Ying-stage demons in the four oceans below. “This time, we will mobilize all the power of our ocean to utterly destroy human cultivators and turn Green Wood Planet into a kingdom for us sea demons,” he declared loudly, his voice spreading out of the Sea King’s Palace and reaching the ears of the Golden Core-stage demons on various peaks. “Yes, Great King!” replied the four supreme lords and the twenty Yuan Ying-stage demons in unison. The Thunder Ice Crocodile nodded slightly, satisfied with the feeling of giving orders to an army, then said calmly, “The four supreme lords, take your followers and follow me to the Four Veins Continent right now.” The Four-Eyed Electric Crab, Sea-Swimming Python, Two-Legged Qiu Ox, and Arctic Ice Bear immediately replied, “Yes, Great King!” Soon after, the four supreme lords transmitted their commands through spiritual communication. The Golden Core-stage demons on the peaks surrounding the Sea King’s Palace all flew out and gathered together according to the regions of the four oceans. The Thunder Ice Crocodile scanned with his spiritual sense and, seeing that all the demons were ready, smiled easily and said, “Very good. Let’s set off now. Our target is the Guiyang Mountains.” The Guiyang Mountains, located to the east of the Four Veins Continent and stretching vertically from north to south, were the territory of the Xuanyang Temple. The Thunder Ice Crocodile chose this place as the first target for his conquest for a simple reason: the Guiyang Mountains were closest to the Sea King’s Palace, which was situated in the Eastern Ocean. In an instant, the Thunder Ice Crocodile flashed out of the Sea King’s Palace and appeared on the sea surface. The four supreme lords immediately followed and also arrived on the sea surface. The twenty Yuan Ying-stage demons, along with the Golden Core-stage demons, also rushed through the ocean and appeared on the sea surface. “Let’s go! The era of sea demons ruling Green Wood Planet is about to begin,” the Thunder Ice Crocodile said confidently, looking at the nearly five hundred demons behind him. “Yes, Great King!” shouted all the demons in unison.