The world was an unpredictable place. Wu Yu found it hard to imagine what would happen in the future.
Nangong Wei"s affection for him meant that he wanted to help her on his own accord. He would be willing to avenge her as well. At this point in time, however, even Nangong Wei did not believe that Wu Yu would end up exceeding her abilities.
Therefore, she wanted to rely on herself for this matter. As long as Wu Yu did not stop her, it would be fine.
Their journey toward the Yin Yang Mountain made Nangong Wei"s emotions undergo unsteady changes. Wu Yu deeply felt this. The closer they got, the more intense the enmity in her heart seemed to become. The large amount of love she had for her mother before directly corresponded to the intense amount of hatred she harbored towards demons today.
From close by to the side, Beishan Mo remarked with a strong sense of loyalty and decisiveness, "Big Sister Nangong, I will slaughter hordes of demons till their blood fills the sky on this journey of ours. I"ll avenge Sixth Master"s wife! There will come a day where I enter the Endless Demon Seas and send Ying Huang to the depths of h.e.l.l. I"ll make sure that even after death, he won"t be able to rest in peace!"
"Mm." Nangong Wei nodded.
They had grown up together after all, so they understood each other. In this respect, Beishan Mo"s showed more enthusiasm than Wu Yu. Beishan Mo was slightly more decisive.
Wu Yu seemed to falter sometimes. He was clearly a human, and a cultivator at that, so why did he sometimes seem to consider things from the demons" point of view? He did not know if this was a sign that he would consider betraying his own people, or let down the Shushan Immortal Sect that nurtured him.
It was just that when he was young, the intimate ravings of the Ninth Spirit had influenced him too much.
All living things are created equal.
They were actually quite tight on time. As they tried to be hidden during their travels, they also swiftly swept through endless mountain rivers and pa.s.sed through the mysterious depths of many mountains. After pa.s.sing through many small sects hidden across the heavenly land, they ultimately reached the rolling Endless Demon Seas of the north. This was an endless black ocean floating in mid-air. The pungent miasma surrounding it was enveloped by the demonic aura emanating from the place. No one knew for sure just how many demons were hiding in the Endless Demon Seas!
After these demons gained sentience, they would hear of the Endless Demon Seas and expend countless efforts in order to go there. This was the holy land in their eyes.
Not far below the boundless and gloomy black ocean was Yin Yang Mountain. The south face of the mountain was verdant lush with vegetation, whereas the north face was severely affected by the Endless Demon Seas. It was devoid of all life and was damp with darkness.
Yin Yang Mountain was extremely big. It was a thin and unbroken mountain range that stretched out endlessly. Apparently, the blue jade mines mirrored the mountain ridge"s path as well and were entrenched below the earth. There were far more minerals in these mines than early scouting efforts predicted. If the entire vein of ore in the mines was extracted, it would be a priceless a.s.set to Shushan. This was especially true of the core part where grand blue jade ores existed.
The miners from Shushan present there now were situated right above the core"s position. They were directly above the grand blue jade ores.
As Wu Yu and the rest approached, they found that there were dozens of miners within a deep and gigantic tunnel. They directly used immortal treasures to dig the walls. After digging out the blue jade ores from below, they stored them in their Sumeru Pouches.
To the side of the tunnel, there was only a dozen Shushan disciples armed with swords. From their clothing, it seemed like most of them were Xuan sword rank disciples. They were spread out around the tunnel and were in charge of defending the tunnel and looking out for danger.
When Wu Yu and rest arrived from the shadows, a slightly rotund elder emerged from the crowd. He was excited by their arrival and jogged over to them with his little steps. This old man was truly enthusiastic to see them and hurriedly got himself into a half-kneel position before sincerely greeting them. "Shushan Earth sword rank disciple Liu Jin at your service. It"s a great honor to meet the Shushan geniuses Nangong Wei and Beishan Mo, as well as Senior Sister Li Chuxue!"
Li Chuxue waved her hands and said, "You may stand. Don"t be too excited now."
There was no way for the elder to control his excitement. He had taken on this task quite some time ago and had brought a bunch of people to mine in these blue jade mines. These blue jade mines had been discovered way earlier by the Shushan disciples, but there were not that many minerals to mine at first, so they flew under the radar. Liu Jin originally took on the job just to earn some merits on the side, but he never expected that after further reconnaissance efforts, they would actually find that the blue jade mines were ten times larger than recorded and grand blue jade ores could even be found here.
Liu Jin was exhilarated at this discovery, but he was also worried about his lack of skill. If a strong demon appeared, he would have to deal with it. Hence, he sent a talisman back to the sect asking for a.s.sistance. However, never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that the helpers sent to him would end up being the two future pillars of the Shushan Immortal Sect. One was a daughter of a Sword Immortal and the other was the collective disciple of all Seven Immortals of Shushan. The fact that he could personally meet them in his lifetime thrilled Liu Jin to no end.
As Liu Jin stood up, he still lowered his head in deference to Nangong Wei and the rest. Li Chuxue gave the impression that she was leading the group as she said, "Calm down, just give me the details about the current situation. How long more till the digging is complete?"
Liu Jin had already prepared beforehand. He replied, "As of now we"ve been mining for a month. We only just found out about the presence of the grand blue jade ores, but what"s slowing us down is the fact that the grand blue jade ores are in the deepest part of the ore vein. If we want to dig it out directly, it will take us around two months or so. However, we don"t want to force our way in and destroy the other parts of the blue jade mines just to obtain the grand blue jade ores. The combined value of the minerals in these blue jade mines of Yin Yang Mountain is enormous. The entire mining process should take us about a year: however, orders from above have informed me that you all only need to stay till the grand blue jade ores are out of the earth. Your mission will be considered complete by then."
Of course, if time was of the essence, they could destroy mining paths indiscriminately. Doing this would allow them to forcefully dig out the grand blue jade ore. The downside to this was that it would simply be a great waste of other resources.
Li Chuxue nodded. She did not really care about the details of mining since all she was responsible for was sorting out the defenses of the place.
"How"s the secrecy of this mission coming along? Have any demons attacked thus far? Do any demons know that you are mining the ore vein here? And do any demons know that the precious grand blue jade ores can be found here?" Li Chuxue successively asked questions that everyone was concerned about.
Liu Jin gave a confident smile and replied, "We"ve caused very little commotion. There are diversionary spirit design arrays set up in the vicinity, so the demons obviously know next to nothing about our mining of the ore veins. However, this place is quite close to the Endless Demon Seas. There have been some small demons who"ve found their way here regularly, but we butchered them discreetly the moment we noticed them."
It seemed like the situation was rather optimistic here.
"Let us go down to take a look." Li Chuxue led the group to the tunnel in order to observe the blue jade mining situation first-hand.
As the group went down together, the bottom of the tunnel was a pitch black. However, the eyesight of the group was strong enough for them to discern the situation. At the beginning of the tunnel, all that was present was mud. The blue jade mines were in an extremely deep area. It was even comparable to the Subterranean Treasured Moon Furnace that Wu Yu had been trapped in last time.
On the way there, Liu Jin kept sneaking looks at Nangong Wei and Beishan Mo. His face was full of respect and admiration. All that was missing was a nodding head and wagging tail.
After heading deeper for about 15 minutes, Wu Yu finally found the s.p.a.ce around him widening. In the darkness, there was now a hint of smooth azure. As he opened his eyes and took a closer look at his surroundings, he found that he was surrounded by blue jade rocks. As the group looked across the place, it was as though they were under a sheet of green stars. It was a gorgeous sight indeed. These rocks were blue jade ores. Once they were brought back for extraction, they would become pure blue jade gold, which could be used directly in the smelting of immortal treasures.
At present, there were dozens of disciples working meticulously.
They used their swords to cut down these rocks, taking special care not to damage the spiritual marks in the process.
In the center of the area beneath their feet, one could feel a strong glow emanating from the distant depths below. The glow shone through many layers of blue jade, and it was clear evidence of the presence of grand blue jade ores.
With the arrival of such important figures, the Shushan disciples naturally stopped their work simultaneously. With gazes of respect, they looked at Nangong Wei and the rest. Nangong Wei and Beishan Mo were naturally the center of the crowd"s attention. Even Li Chuxue received far less interest than the two of them. It went without saying that they admired Wu Yu and the rest. It was easy to imagine that after enough time of nothing out of the ordinary happening, they would all end up as prominent figures of Shushan.
Li Chuxue took everyone around to get a vague understanding of how things worked. She did not bother to stay in such a dark place any longer. She saluted the crowd and left together with Liu Jin.
"Do a good job on the mining. Once you have succeeded, I"m sure there will be a large amount of benefits waiting for you all," Li Chuxue sternly instructed.
"Most certainly!" When faced with such a legendary Heaven sword rank disciple, the ordinary Xuan sword rank disciples were very respectful as well.
It took them quite some time to leave the tunnel. Li Chuxue was busy planning out some details in the meantime.
As the group landed on the side of the tunnel, Liu Jin smiled. "Actually this isn"t that big a matter at all. After all, the demons don"t know about our actions at all. Your ident.i.ties won"t be disclosed either, so you all can just relax in the vicinity for a few days and you"ll be done."
Before he could even finish speaking, Beishan Mo let out a light sigh from nearby. With a point of his fingers, an ice cube suddenly froze in the air 10 zhang away from the group. That ice cube flew into Beishan Mo"s hands in an instant. Beishan Mo"s cold expression made the others inquisitive enough to go take a look.
"What"s wrong?" Li Chuxue quickly hurried forward.
At this moment, Wu Yu saw that within the ice cube was what looked like a housefly. This housefly was in the middle of flapping its wings before it had suddenly been frozen mid-flight. It was probably frozen to death on the very spot.
"This is a demon that has gained sentience! Its level of dao is just too shallow, so it does not have much of a demonic aura. However, as long as it is sentient, it"ll be able to eavesdrop on the situation here! It can"t just be a coincidence that this young demon happened to be close by just as we"ve arrived. It"s very likely that the demons have long been suspicious about this place. Maybe the demons already know about the mining of these blue jade mines.
Furthermore, the demons could perhaps already know about our ident.i.ties as well!" Beishan Mo said in an incomparably serious tone.
"What!?" Liu Jin lost his voice. For so many days, he never cared about the houseflies and bugs in the vicinity. However, he did have a faint impression of many houseflies suddenly appearing within a short time. He just never gave it further thought…
With that being said, if the demons had really sent these over for observation purposes, then the matters regarding the blue jade mines had probably long been exposed. The scarier thing was if the group"s ident.i.ty had been leaked as well, then the hordes of demons that wanted to make a name for themselves would definitely come in great numbers for Beishan Mo and Nangong Wei"s heads.
The circ.u.mstances of the matter had suddenly become far more urgent.
The fact that Beishan Mo was able to discover such an insignificant young demon was a testament to his extraordinary skill.
After all, even Li Chuxue had failed to do so.
However, Li Chuxue was not anxious at all. She said, "We"re here for practical training. I was afraid that they would not come. We don"t need to care about our ident.i.ties being exposed. All we have to do is put our best foot forward and slaughter all the demons."