Chapter 179: Underground Spiritual Veins

The Spirit Mist Lake at the foot of the mountain was only a little over a thousand zhang away. Flying downward at high speed, it should have taken just a few breaths to reach it.
Yet, such a short distance was extremely difficult to traverse. After descending just a hundred zhang, Su Che and Yu Qing saw two blood-red figures rising ahead—clearly sent to intercept them.
“Golden Core elders of the Blood God Sect!”
Su Che immediately recognized them and sighed inwardly: “They overestimate us greatly, sending just two of them to confront us.”
“How ridiculous! Even within the Taiyi Gate, the Blood God Sect dares to act as masters,” Yu Qing sneered. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it…”
Attack!
There was nothing left to say in such a situation.
Unbeknownst to Su Che and Yu Qing, the order given to these Golden Core elders was to capture them alive if possible, avoiding killing whenever feasible.
Still, even so, Su Che and Yu Qing refused to become prisoners deprived of their freedom.
Soul Seize! Great Collapse!
The brothers unleashed their signature techniques once again. This time, there was no time for strategy—they immediately used the full power of their two divine arts.
The Blood God Sect elder facing Yu Qing was weaker, at the early Golden Core stage, while the other was at the middle Golden Core stage. Thus, they had to target the latter first.
That Golden Core elder was about to shout something like “Surrender, and you’ll live!” He never expected that two mere Foundation stage youths would dare to attack first. As a result, he hadn’t activated any defensive measures.
A blue light flashed, and a relentless Soul Seize was unleashed!
Buzz…
The Golden Core elder felt darkness ahead, his mind trembling violently. His spiritual essence was shaken violently, as if his soul had been punched hard. The pain was indescribable.
Great Collapse!
A phantom image of the Golden Armored War God suddenly appeared behind Yu Qing. Merging man and god, he delivered a punch.
Bang!
The Golden Core elder tumbled several times in the air before plummeting straight down.
Of course, given his cultivation level, even if caught off guard by a sneak attack, he wouldn’t die—only suffer minor injuries. Before hitting the ground, he stopped falling and roared, suppressing his slight injuries.
But taking advantage of this gap, Su Che and Yu Qing zipped past his head.
“Damn it!” The other middle Golden Core elder cursed under his breath as he chased after them from the other side.

“Damn it!”
The injured elder, with blood surging on his face, was now truly enraged. With a bang! He crushed a huge rock to pieces and transformed into a blood-red streak of light, chasing after Su Che and the other person.
But Su Che suddenly turned around, facing the two elders chasing from behind.
Yu Qing grabbed Su Che’s arm and dragged him forward as they continued flying.
Soul Capture!
Soul Capture!
Soul Capture…
With his face turned backward, blue light shot out from his forehead without pause, blasting continuously at the two Golden Core elders.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish…
One after another, the dazzling blue beams struck.
Against Golden Core cultivators, although the Soul Capture technique couldn’t inflict harm at this stage, its ability to bypass defenses alone was sufficient to create a highly effective barrier.
Buzz…
Although those two Golden Core elders were in a state of condensed spirit and their minds remained intact, resisting the power of Soul Capture greatly slowed their flight speed.
Moreover, the vertical plunge over a distance of a thousand feet was completed in the blink of an eye. They could only watch as the two youths disappeared into the thick spiritual mist, completely out of sight.
Above the Spiritual Lake, the Taiyi Sect had set up a protective formation that could block cultivators’ mental probes, preventing some from trying to investigate the spiritual vein at the bottom of the lake out of curiosity.
Thus, once Su Che and the other person entered the thick mist, the mental senses of the two Golden Core elders behind them became useless. They could only search for them visually through the dense fog.
They also had to be careful not to mistake anyone in the mist, as it would be disastrous if they accidentally harmed a disciple of the Taiyi Sect guarding the lake.
On the other hand, Su Che and the other person could fly around carefree. At this moment, any creature they encountered ahead was an enemy—destroying it was the only option.
“Who dares to invade the Spiritual Lake…”
A blurred figure flew toward them.
Soul Capture! Great Collapse!
That person plummeted downward and turned into sand before even hitting the lake.
It was just that with a cultivation level in the later stage of Foundation Building, a single strike was enough to kill!
Puff! Puff! With two soft sounds, Su Che and Yu Qing plunged into the lake like two silver needles.
The two Golden Core elders of the Blood God Sect searched for a while before communicating with each other, saying, “Forget it. This is a restricted area of the Taiyi Sect. Let them handle capturing them.”
The elder injured by the Great Collapse punch responded with a mumble, still somewhat unwilling.
In the lake, Su Che and Yu Qing dived all the way to the bottom and encountered no further obstacles. They didn’t see a single Golden Core elder from the Taiyi Sect who was supposed to be guarding this place.

Yu Qing’s guess was: Could it be that they’ve all been transferred inside the mountain gate to capture reinforcements from various sects? Su Che, on the other hand, thought, “Since this path was designated by Grandmaster Zi Xiao, it’s very likely he had already made arrangements. He must have sneaked in earlier and taken care of all the guards in this area…” At this thought, Su Che had another epiphany and remembered, “Seven days ago, on the day we first arrived at Tai Yi Gate, Grandmaster Zi Xiao didn’t allow any sect disciples to enter the gate and sent them all outside…” “In that case, in today’s sudden change, aside from myself and Yu Qing, all other disciples of Tian Xuan Zong can stay out of it and avoid being implicated.” “Could it be that Grandmaster Zi Xiao had already sensed something wrong with Tai Yi Gate and made such arrangements…” In comparison, the reinforcements from the other sects were all inside Tai Yi Gate, and their situation was likely dire. Now, in Su Che’s eyes, Grandmaster Zi Xiao, who was already unfathomable, became even more mysterious… Of course, this wasn’t the time to explore such things; the most important thing was to escape unharmed and get out of danger quickly. “Dive down!” Su Che and Yu Qing said these words almost simultaneously. Both swallowed Earth-Diving Pills and descended through the rock layers at the bottom of the lake toward the underground spiritual veins. Moments later, Su Che exclaimed in amazement, “Is this a spiritual vein?” The underground spiritual veins resembled rivers beneath the earth, but these crystal-clear “river waters” were actually liquidized spiritual energy, equivalent to endless piles of spiritual stones right before their eyes. It was spectacular! Su Che dived into the spiritual vein and instinctively absorbed a large amount of spiritual fluid to send to Immortal Prison. Whoosh! Lao He could receive this pool of spiritual fluid. He brought it to his nose, took a deep breath, and then shouted, “Master, this is a rare opportunity. Let’s go all out—sever Tai Yi Gate’s spiritual vein!” “Good!” Su Che also grew bold. In contrast, Yu Qing remained extremely calm, as if he had seen countless even more extraordinary spiritual veins before. “Senior brother, you retreat first. I want to stay here and take advantage of the situation,” Su Che transmitted through telepathy. “You mean to…” Yu Qing thought for a moment and guessed Su Che’s plan. Staying behind to seize Tai Yi Gate’s spiritual vein was undoubtedly an extremely risky move. It wasn’t that Yu Qing lacked the courage; rather, he had no need for it.

After a brief hesitation, Yu Qing took out a transparent bead shrouded in mist and handed it to Su Che. “This is the Spirit Concealing Pearl. Place it on your chest and activate it with your vital energy to enter a state of complete invisibility. Theoretically, even those at the later stages of the Golden Core realm would find it difficult to detect you.”
“Oh?”
Su Che immediately remembered how, in the Ink Crystal Cave of the underground demon realm, he had appeared silently behind him, undetected even by Lao Hei’s detection abilities.
“The Spirit Concealing Pearl is an ancient marvel,” Yu Qing explained. “I’m lending it to you temporarily; you’ll have to return it later.”
“What if I lose it?” Su Che asked casually as he took the pearl.
“Then give me two!”
Yu Qing gave him a cold glance, said nothing more, and disappeared deep into the rock layers.
“Senior brother has quite a few treasures,” Su Che smiled silently. He knew well that it wasn’t because Yu Qing was afraid of danger and unwilling to accompany him in his actions, but because the Spirit Concealing Pearl could only enable one person to become invisible. If he stayed behind, he wouldn’t be of any help and might even cause bigger trouble.
After Yu Qing left, Su Che activated the Spirit Concealing Pearl, becoming invisible, and began to absorb the underground spiritual vein before him frantically.
Swallowing! Absorbing! Consuming wildly!
Su Che exerted all his strength to maximize the absorption capacity of the Immortal Prison. With each breath, thousands of pounds of spiritual liquid flowed into it.
In fact, the Immortal Prison had an extremely impressive absorption capacity. Under normal circumstances, it could easily absorb a huge rock weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds. But this spiritual vein, like a living giant serpent, made absorbing spiritual liquid feel like cutting flesh from its body—each absorption encountered tremendous resistance.
This spiritual vein was enormous, sustaining over a hundred thousand disciples of the Taiyi Sect for more than twenty thousand years without showing signs of depletion.
To be honest, Lao Hei’s claim of “severing the spiritual vein” was nothing but arrogance. Su Che didn’t have the ability to “sever” it; he could only “steal a little” like this.
Perhaps only true immortals of the immortal realm had the power to extract such a massive spiritual vein from the earth…
The spiritual liquid sent into the Immortal Prison was pumped back underground unchanged by Lao Hei, effectively creating a miniature underground spiritual vein within the Immortal Prison’s space.
At first, Su Che felt guilty, constantly worried about being discovered. But as time passed, his nerves settled down.
An hour passed, and Su Che continued to absorb the spiritual liquid frantically…
Half a day went by, and still no one came to disturb him…

A whole day passed…
Three days…
The miniature spiritual veins in the Immortal Prison kept growing larger, but the massive spiritual veins beneath the Taiyi Gate showed no sign of decreasing at all.
It could only be said that these spiritual veins were simply too huge!
Su Che couldn’t help but think again and again, “Taiyi occupies such a precious place yet still doesn’t know contentment. Why create trouble and turn against the entire cultivation world?”