Chapter 378 - 366: Delving Deeper into the Old Mine Tunnel

Chapter 378: Chapter 366: Delving Deeper into the Old Mine Tunnel

Deep within the grotto, a dark red light flowed across the four walls.

Li Yuan stood before the opening of an old mining tunnel on the western wall, which was blocked by rubble. He planted his feet firmly on the ground, and the perception of his Earth Vein Spiritual Hub spread deep into the earth.

The last time he discovered this old mining tunnel, his senses had only reached a hundred zhang deep before hitting their limit. He had been busy with other matters since then and hadn’t found the time to explore further.

Today, he had made a special trip here.

Wrapping his hands in Spiritual Power, he pushed aside the rubble blocking the opening, piece by piece. He still only cleared a narrow gap just wide enough for one person to pass through, leaving the tunnel’s overall structure intact.

He squeezed sideways into the mining tunnel.

The air inside was stale and damp, carrying a musty, rotten odor that had accumulated over countless years. The walls had been polished, and the faint traces of Spiritual Power patterns were still discernible to his fingertips, their style clearly from the same lineage as the Array Patterns in the Profound Nether Sub-Palace.

As Li Yuan advanced, he continuously used his Earth Vein Spiritual Hub to probe the rock formations ahead. The tunnel was mostly intact for the first hundred zhang, after which sporadic collapses and fissures began to appear. He reinforced a few loose sections of the ceiling with Spiritual Power and pushed onward.

Two hundred zhang.

The tunnel’s path deviated slightly from its initial northwest direction, turning due west. The density of the Spiritual Power patterns on the walls increased, changing from simple reinforcement patterns to more complex guiding ones, their function seemingly to conduct some kind of Spiritual Power from one end of the tunnel to the other.

Three hundred zhang.

A massive collapse blocked the tunnel ahead. The entire ceiling had caved in, sealing the passage completely. The pile of rubble stretched for over ten zhang, making it impossible to see what lay beyond.

The perception from his Earth Vein Spiritual Hub penetrated the layer of rubble.

Behind the rubble was a small stone chamber, more than half of which had collapsed. The chamber was about two zhang square; three of its walls remained, while the fourth had completely caved in and merged with the rubble in the tunnel. A massive fissure had split the dome, and rock had pushed through the crack, cramming the interior of the chamber.

But the stone chamber was no natural cavern. The structural feedback from his senses showed that the walls had been finely processed, and the floor held the residual etchings of an Array.

Li Yuan carefully moved the rubble aside piece by piece with his Spiritual Power, clearing a passage just wide enough to fit through.

The inside of the stone chamber was a complete wreck.

The remains of a small Spirit Gathering Array’s Base lay on the floor. Most of the Array Patterns had been crushed by the collapsed rock, with only a few complete etchings preserved in a corner. Several shattered Array Stones were scattered around the Array Base, their Spiritual Mechanism completely dissipated, now nothing more than ordinary rubble.

Li Yuan crouched down and began carefully sifting through the rubble.

Most of the items had been crushed to fragments by the pressure of the rock. A jade bottle was flattened into a thin sheet, several bamboo slips were shattered into fingernail-sized pieces, and all that remained of a Magical Artifact was half of a metal rod.

His fingers touched something hard.

He dug out a palm-sized bronze disc from a crack in the rubble. The disc was round with fine gradations etched around the edge, and an extremely thin bronze needle was embedded in the center of its face. The disc’s material was exceptionally tough; despite being buried for an unknown number of years, it only had a few shallow scratches on its surface and was otherwise perfectly preserved.

The instant Li Yuan picked up the bronze disc, the needle quivered slightly, pointing toward the east, beneath his feet.

The direction of the Spirit Vein.

A Spirit Vein Guiding Disc. An ancient tool used to detect and guide the course of Spirit Veins.

The panel appeared.

[Detected Equippable Item: Spirit Vein Guiding Disc (Complete)]

[Equipment Trait Preview: Spirit Vein Affinity (Green)]

[Effect: Doubles perception range of Spirit Veins; cultivation speed is increased by an additional 20% when near a Spirit Vein]

[Permanence Condition Preview: Cultivate for more than twelve hours per day, for a cumulative total of thirty days (0/30)]

’A doubled perception range for Spirit Veins.’

’My Earth Vein Spiritual Hub already gives me extremely strong subterranean perception, but that sense is focused on rock structure, density, and vibrations. Spirit Vein Affinity, on the other hand, is an enhancement specifically for Spirit Veins themselves. With the two combined, my ability to detect underground Spirit Veins will far surpass that of other Cultivators at my level.’

’The twenty percent boost to cultivation speed near a Spirit Vein is also useful for me, but my Cultivation has already reached Foundation Establishment Perfection. I’ll have to wait until I form my Golden Core for it to be effective.’

’The permanence condition isn’t too demanding, either. Cultivating for more than twelve hours a day is already part of my daily routine. A cumulative period of thirty days isn’t short, but all it takes is steady progress.’

"Equip."

[Equipped: Spirit Vein Guiding Disc (Complete)]

[Spirit Vein Affinity (Green) is now active]

[Spirit Vein Affinity (Green) Permanence Condition: Cultivate for more than twelve hours per day, for a cumulative total of thirty days (0/30)]

The instant the trait took effect, his perception beneath his feet suddenly expanded. The course of the Spirit Vein, which he could only vaguely sense before with his Earth Vein Spiritual Hub, now became several times clearer. The location of the Spirit Vein’s main trunk, its thickness, the direction of its branches, and even the speed of its Spiritual Power flow were all reflected in his mind with perfect clarity.

Li Yuan sifted through the remaining fragments in the stone chamber one more time. After confirming he hadn’t missed anything, he returned the way he came, back to the grotto, and resealed the mining tunnel’s entrance with rubble.

Back in his stone house, Li Yuan took out the jade slip containing the "Annotated Basic Theory of Tier Three Arrays" from his storage bag and sent his Divine Sense into it.

This commentary was the work of an Array Grandmaster from the Profound Nether Sect and was extremely detailed. He had skimmed through it once before, but constrained by the ceiling of his Tier Two array proficiency, he could only grasp the literal meaning of many core concepts without truly understanding their underlying logic.

This time, he started from the beginning, meticulously reading the first three Chapters word by word, sentence by sentence.

The first Chapter explained the fundamental difference between Tier Three and Tier Two Arrays. The core of a Tier Two Array was the linear conduction of Spiritual Power and a planar layout, with the Array Patterns performing all functions on a two-dimensional level. A Tier Three Array, however, introduced the concept of spatial folding. The Array Patterns were no longer confined to a plane but could extend into the interstitial layers of folded space, forming a true three-dimensional array structure.

The second Chapter was dedicated to the foundational theory of spatial folding: how to identify foldable spatial nodes, how to calculate the extension paths of Array Patterns after folding, and how to maintain the stability of Spiritual Power conduction within folded space.

The third Chapter covered multidimensional nesting: nesting multiple layers of folded space within each other to form even more complex array structures. The three-dimensionally nested spatial lock Restriction at the entrance to the Profound Nether Sub-Palace was a classic application of this theory.

When Li Yuan had cracked that Restriction before, he had relied on the spatial perception of the Teleportation Stone and the precise control of five Divine Sense Lines—a victory of sheer power. But now, having read through the theory, he finally understood the Restriction’s design logic. The three-layer nesting wasn’t a simple case of stacking locks; it used the topological structure of folded space to make the "keyhole" dynamically shift its position along with changes in the outer space.

Without the Teleportation Stone’s spatial perception, a person trying to break it would have to track a constantly moving target using only the touch of their Spiritual Power, all without ever seeing the keyhole.

’Utterly ingenious.’

After finishing the three Chapters, Li Yuan put away the jade slip and closed his eyes to digest what he had learned.

His understanding of spatial folding and multidimensional nesting had taken a qualitative leap. Although there was still a considerable gap before he reached true Tier Three Array proficiency, the path forward was now clear.

In the days that followed, the marketplace’s expansion project officially began.

The steady growth in income had given Li Yuan ample financial reserves. Following the bountiful harvest of Soul-devouring Grass, the external sales of Condensing Evil Pills were bringing in a net profit of nearly a hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones each month. With the combined income from Fire Evil Stone exports, wholesale Talismans, and external pill sales, the Mist Forest Marketplace was already one of the most profitable marketplaces in the surrounding region.

The scale of this expansion was larger than the previous two. It extended eighty zhang to the south and sixty zhang to the east, and the new area was large enough to accommodate over forty shops and residences for more than two hundred people.

He didn’t plan to handle the infrastructure work himself. He hired three Loose Cultivators from the direction of Yunyang Marketplace who were skilled in earthworks, putting them in charge of tamping the foundations, erecting the walls, and digging the drainage ditches. This kind of labor didn’t require a high Cultivation level; Late-stage Qi Refining Cultivators were more than capable of handling it.

However, Li Yuan handled the Array deployment personally.

He laid out a Defensive Array along the outer perimeter of the newly expanded area, covering all possible invasion routes. Investigation Arrays were embedded at the marketplace’s main entrances and exits to automatically screen the Spiritual Power fluctuations and residual Demonic Qi of everyone coming and going. A Breath-Sensing Array was laid beneath the ground of the new district, overlapping with the perception network of his Dark Evil Insight to form a dual-layered monitoring system.

His Earth Vein Spiritual Hub made the array-laying process incredibly fast; work that would have originally taken half a month was compressed into just six days.

The outline of the marketplace had expanded once again.

His cultivation was not interrupted by these affairs. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Boosted by his various traits, his cultivation of the Demon Essence Skill progressed at lightning speed.

The final bottleneck between Great Success and Perfection shattered silently during a late-night cultivation session.

The panel appeared.

[Demon Essence Skill: Perfection]

The moment he broke through, the Demonic Qi deep within his Dantian underwent a fundamental transformation. The Demonic Qi, which previously had to be deliberately guided to circulate, now flowed as naturally as breathing.

Furthermore, the permanence conditions for both the Demon Transformation Bead and the Demon Spirit Bead had been met.

The permanence condition for both of these items was to cultivate a demon-type technique to the Perfection stage.

[Detected Equippable Item: Demon Transformation Bead (Complete)]

[Effect: Demon-type technique cultivation speed +30%, Demonic Qi absorption +30%]

[Demonic Cultivation Boost (Green) has become a permanent trait]

[Detected Equippable Item: Demon Spirit Bead (Complete)]

[Effect: Demonic Qi cultivation effectiveness +20%]

[Demon Essence Enhancement (White) has become a permanent trait]

The moment they became permanent, Li Yuan noticed a significant increase in his efficiency at drawing in and absorbing Demonic Qi. The demonic technique circulating within him also ran much more smoothly than before. From now on, whether he was cultivating the Demon Essence Skill or refining external Demonic Qi, his speed would be a notch faster than his already impressive base rate.

His Demonic Qi refinement efficiency also rose by another level. Every full circulation of his demonic technique yielded slightly richer returns than before. When stacked with traits like Demonic Cultivation Boost and Demon Qi Condensation, the pace of his Demon Dao cultivation became even more astonishing.

Li Yuan raised a hand, condensing a Demon Qi Cone in his palm.

The Demonic Qi flowed through his meridians without any sluggishness or obstruction, as if it had transformed from murky, muddy water into a clear stream.

With the Demon Essence Skill at Perfection, his Demonic Qi Cultivation had reached the limit of the Foundation Establishment Stage. At his current realm, there was no more room for this cultivation technique to improve.

To advance further, he had only one path: Core Formation.