This chapter is updatd by f(r)eewbn(o)vel.com
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Starting from the eighth tunnel, a small percentage of the Spirit Stones Lu Ye excavated were High Grade Spirit Stones, less than ten percent to be exact. However, one High Grade Spirit Stone was worth ten Middle Grade Spirit Stones in the market, so it was very valuable even in small numbers.
They entered a new tunnel. Two hours later, Lu Ye swallowed a Healing Pill and pulled out a clean bandage from his storage space. He then wrapped it around a bone-deep wound on his arm.
It had taken him two whole hours to win this battle. His vitality hadn’t even fully subsided yet. Lying dead not far away from him was the corpse of a fat insectoid.
Strength wise, the insectoid was almost at the level of a Seventh-Order Cloud River Realm cultivator. Despite Yi Yi’s help, Lu Ye still had to give it his all to finally slay the enemy. He was unable to avoid taking some injuries either.
Lu Ye would’ve lost no matter what, had he been facing a true Seventh-Order cultivator. Lu Ye was powerful enough to slay enemies who were two or three minor realms above him, true, but he was hardly omnipotent. There was only so much he could do to bridge the chasm that was sheer power.
Luckily, most insectoids only had one or two ways to kill the enemy.
He took a short rest before he started mining the Spirit Stones in the tunnel with Yi Yi. They were still in the middle of mining when suddenly, the golden light enveloping his body extinguished entirely.
Lu Ye immediately stopped what he was doing and expanded his perception. He had been curious about the golden light since the beginning, but he had not been able to find out its function. [Something should happen now that it is gone, right?]
He was just thinking this when he felt a wave of invisible energy pushing at him from all sides. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of a wall once more—the cave entrance.
Lu Ye was speechless for a moment. Yi Yi looked flabbergasted as well. She was trying to pry a High Grade Spirit Stone loose when she suddenly found herself standing in the open once more.
“I see!” Lu Ye exclaimed in realization. The golden light was some sort of temporary identity pass that allowed him to stay within the tunnels. No wonder it faded over time. Once his time was up, he would automatically be returned to the outside world.
[Dammit, we weren’t done mining the Spirit Stones…]
Yi Yi clearly thought the same thing as him because she abruptly dove head first into the wall. While waiting, Lu Ye checked out the recess on the wall. The copper plate that was supposed to reside in it was gone.
He did not think it would be possible to reenter the ore vein without the copper plate.
As expected, Yi Yi returned a while later and shook her head. “There’s nothing behind the wall. Nothing at all.”
At first, she thought that the ore vein was just behind the wall. Since she was an apparition, she could just pass through the walls and return to the tunnels. She did not need the copper plate at all.
She quickly discovered she was wrong, however. The only thing she found behind the wall was solid rock and earth. It was as if the ore vein never existed in the first place.
Lu Ye explained, “The copper plate we used to open the entrance probably has some sort of teleportation effect. The tunnels we entered and the ore vein itself are elsewhere.”
It was a shame they didn’t manage to collect all the Spirit Stones before they were expelled, but they still obtained over ten thousand Middle Grade Spirit Stones and a couple hundred High Grade Spirit Stones. He should not run out of Spirit Stones for the foreseeable future.
A quick rest later, the group resumed their journey once more.
On the way, Lu Ye activated his Battlefield Imprint and asked Ju Jia his current location. The body-tempering cultivator quickly responded, but his answer caused Lu Ye to furrow his eyebrows. It was because he noticed that Ju Jia was, for whatever reason, moving further and further away from him…
This made no sense before he had specifically told Ju Jia beforehand to buy a 10-point map and use it as a reference. If Ju Jia really was traveling in his direction, it was impossible for them to stray further and further away from each other.
He thought for a moment before asking, “Are you traveling according to the annotations on the 10-point map?”
Ju Jia replied, “Yes!”
[Like a hammer you are!]
At this point, Lu Ye was one hundred percent certain that Ju Jia was misreading the 10-point map. Ju Jia wasn’t stupid, but he was a little simple. It was possible that he wasn’t able to understand the 10-point map. Not only that, Lu Ye had a strong suspicion that Ju Jia was a little road blind. There was no way he would still be on the road otherwise.
“Just stay where you are. I’ll come to you!”
At this rate, they were never going to meet up with each other. He might as well tell Ju Jia to stay put and wait for him.
“Aang!”
On a certain Spirit Peak of the Cloud River Battlefield, a brawny man was holding up a 10-point map and looking it over. A while later, he scratched his head with a look of utter incomprehension on his face…
After wrapping up his exchange with Ju Jia, Lu Ye tried messaging his fourth senior brother, Li Baxian next. Previously, he had not been able to contact him probably because he wasn’t in the Cloud River Battlefield. He could’ve been exploring a Hidden Realm at the time.
His message went out successfully this time. It wasn’t long before he received a response from his fourth senior brother.
“You’re in the Cloud River Battlefield, junior brother?” His fourth senior brother asked in a pleasantly surprised tone. He clearly wasn’t expecting Lu Ye to ascend to the Cloud River Realm so quickly.
“Yeah. I’ve been here for a while,” Lu Ye replied.
“Good, good!” Li Baxian praised him. “I’m a little busy at the moment, so please focus on your own adventure for the moment. I’ll come to you when I’m finished with my business.”
“Do you need my help?” Lu Ye offered.
“It’s fine. I can handle this myself!”
“Very well. Take care, senior brother.”
Li Baxian had carefully omitted all the details from his response, but Lu Ye still noticed that his fourth senior brother was probably in some sort of difficult predicament. Otherwise, he would’ve sought him out no matter what.
At a hidden location in the Cloud River Battlefield, Li Baxian ended the message while grinning from ear to ear. “They grow up so fast these days.”
“You look happy. What is it?” A gentle voice rang beside him. It was none other than his companion, Feng Yuechan.
Li Baxian declared in a proud voice, “My junior brother has come to the Cloud River Battlefield.”
Feng Yuechan looked surprised. “Already?”
She didn’t bother asking who. There was only one person in the entire Jiu Zhou whom Li Baxian addressed as junior brother, and that was Lu Ye.
“His cultivation speed is impressive.” 𝑓𝓌𝘯ℴ𝑣.𝒸ℴ𝘮
“But of course! He’s my junior brother!”
“You didn’t ask him to join us, did you? We’re not exactly in the best of situations right now.”
“Of course not. I told him we’ll go look for him once we’re done with our business.”
“I see.”
Suddenly, a grimace crossed Li Baxian’s expression before he grabbed Feng Yuechan’s shoulder. “They’re here. Let’s go!”
They immediately leaped on their swords and shot into the sky.
Not a moment too soon, a dozen cultivators appeared from the horizon and gave chase. The leader of the group shouted angrily, “Surrender it now, Li Baxian!”
The sword cultivator merely laughed loudly. “You want it? Come take it!”
Earlier, while Feng Yuechan and Li Baxian were exploring a Hidden Realm, they had stolen its biggest reward from right under a bunch of Eighth and Ninth-Order cultivators’ noses. Since then, the group had been hunting them down like bloodhounds.
Lu Ye’s prediction was spot on. If Li Baxian wasn’t in a tight spot, he would’ve met up with Lu Ye as soon as possible.
After wrapping up his exchange with Li Baxian, Lu Ye continued to travel toward Ju Jia’s location.
Suddenly, he sensed something and looked behind him. He immediately saw a cultivator heading toward him at high speed. Judging from their speed and aura, they had to be a Seventh-Order cultivator or higher.
Lu Ye immediately concentrated on the person until he had a clear view of their appearance. The incoming cultivator was a young man in his twenties. His hands were folded behind his back, and he wore a small but confident smile on his face. His attire marked him as a combat cultivator, but Lu Ye did not dare trust in his assumption until he saw something concrete. After all, most cultivators would make an attempt to disguise their true cultivation faction. Generally speaking, it was difficult to determine one’s cultivation faction based on their appearance alone.
Pang Dahai was the best example of that. Lu Ye had always believed that the fat man was a spell cultivator, and he was. However, he was also a superbly durable body-tempering cultivator! Anyone who thought they could defeat him just because they had tactics that were specifically meant to counter a spell cultivator were going to have a bad time. Anyone who underestimated a cultivator’s cunning was going to have a bad time in general.
In Lu Ye’s case, it didn’t matter what the mysterious man’s cultivation faction was. At his current strength, there was simply no way he could go up against a Seventh or even Eight-Order cultivator.
That was why he empowered his Spirit Boat with Windwalk and sped off after observing the cultivator for a bit. At the same time, he abruptly steered his Spirit Boat in a different direction.
Unfortunately, the young man behind him changed directions as well.
“He’s chasing us, Lu Ye!” At this point, even Yi Yi noticed that something was wrong.
“I know,” Lu Ye replied grimly. Under any other circumstances, there was no way the young man would pursue them so doggedly.
He was certain that he didn’t know the young man, and the young man didn’t know him. If the guy was just hoping to ask for directions or something, he would’ve gotten the hint and stopped chasing them by now. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. It could only mean that the young man bore him ill will.
It was quite common for a low level cultivator to be robbed on the Cloud River Battlefield. It was why most of them avoided flying carelessly in the open or found safety in numbers. Otherwise, it was almost always going to end badly for the weaker cultivator. If they belonged to the same faction, then the robber might still let them go. But if they were enemies, then the weaker cultivator was going to lose not just their possessions, but also their lives.
“Wait, fellow cultivator!” The young man chasing after them shouted, “You misunderstand my intentions! I mean no harm!”
Lu Ye did not bother to answer. The young man had homed in on them like an eagle chasing after a rat. Only a complete idiot would believe that he meant well.
“I’m going to get angry if you keep this up, fellow cultivator!” The young man hollered again.
Lu Ye ignored him again. Unfortunately, he was unable to shake off the young man despite having empowered his Spirit Boat with Windwalk. Not only that, the distance between them was shortening bit by bit.
They were four, maybe even five minor realms apart. Naturally, the difference between their flight speed was night and day as well. If Lu Ye didn’t have Windwalk, he would’ve been caught a long time ago.
Meanwhile, the young man was incredibly surprised that Lu Ye managed to elude his grasp for so long. From his perspective, Lu Ye was just a Third-Order cultivator, while he was a Seventh-Order cultivator. Normally, it should be impossible for Lu Ye to escape him for this long.
Greed flashed across the young man’s eyes. From his perspective, the only way Lu Ye was able to stay ahead of him was the Spirit Boat. It had to be an exceptional flying Spirit Artifact!
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