Chapter 717 - 360: Fifteen Spirit Veins

Chapter 717: Chapter 360: Fifteen Spirit Veins

But even First Grade Spiritual Veins weren’t a dime a dozen in the Cultivation Immortality Realm. If one were discovered, numerous Low-Star Level factions would still fight over it.

Concealed by the Tier Six Array, the Earth Treasure Gourd’s collection process went exceptionally smoothly.

The Spiritual Qi from the Spirit Vein flowed into the Gourd like a rushing river, yet the surrounding environment remained utterly unchanged, as if nothing was happening at all.

But only Cheng Zongyang could clearly sense the rapid drop in the area’s Spiritual Qi concentration.

The small family that owned this First Grade Spiritual Vein seemed to have also noticed the declining Spiritual Qi concentration in their estate, but it didn’t attract much attention at first.

Cheng Zongyang watched the Earth Treasure Gourd nervously, his heart filled with anticipation and excitement.

As time slowly passed, the Spirit Vein’s Spiritual Qi dwindled. Eventually, the entire First Grade Spiritual Vein vanished completely, like a pool drained dry, fully absorbed into the Earth Treasure Gourd.

’That was pretty fast.’ Cheng Zongyang glanced at his watch, surprised.

It only took one hour to collect a First Grade Spirit Vein.

Cheng Zongyang carefully put away the Earth Treasure Gourd and the Teleportation Array. The Teleportation Array was meant as an escape route in case he was discovered.

Since he hadn’t been discovered, there was no need to waste it.

After retrieving the Tier Six Array, Cheng Zongyang quickly left the scene.

Once out of the cave, he quickly flew away on his Flying Cloud Shuttle.

Without a sound!

After successfully collecting the first First Grade Spirit Vein, Cheng Zongyang’s confidence surged.

He returned to the County Town to pick up the corresponding Teleportation Array, then continued to the second location.

As for the Spirit Vein inside the Earth Treasure Gourd, Cheng Zongyang already had something to store it in. It was an item Luo Dingran had purchased after making some inquiries, called the Spirit Storage Dharma Pearl.

It was specifically used for storing Spirit Veins. A First Grade one only cost Five Thousand Points, which wasn’t expensive.

It was through this inquiry that he learned people at the Jade Stone Market dealt in Spirit Veins, and that they could be purchased.

A First Grade Spiritual Vein was worth 100,000 Points and was stored in a First Grade Spirit Storage Dharma Pearl.

When a Spirit Storage Dharma Pearl was placed underground, it would gradually release the Spirit Vein’s Spiritual Qi. A Spirit Gathering Array could then be used to supply an area, making it far more efficient than a natural Spirit Vein.

But the higher the Grade, the more expensive the Points. Naturally, Cheng Zongyang wasn’t about to spend Points to buy something he could get for free.

Unless all the Spirit Veins dried up in the future.

However, he also knew that his predecessor from the Realm of Ten Thousand Races had purchased Spirit Veins to transform the underground world into the Ice and Fire Cultivation Immortality Realm.

Over the next few days, he followed his plan, using the two Mole Beasts and the Small Concealing Array to collect other First Grade Spirit Veins one by one. He even tried not to set up the Tier Six Array, since it was too time-consuming and the factions at his target locations weren’t particularly strong.

With each collection, he was extremely careful and cautious, ensuring the utmost secrecy so that no one would discover his covert operations.

Throughout this challenging and exciting process, Cheng Zongyang continuously gained experience and improved his collection efficiency.

Some families only discovered that their Underground Spiritual Vein had been depleted two or three days later.

After all, the Spiritual Qi of a First Grade Spirit Vein wasn’t very stable, and since the family’s defensive Arrays hadn’t been triggered, they didn’t pay it much mind.

By the time they discovered it, two or three days had already passed.

And in those two or three days, Cheng Zongyang had already finished collecting fifteen Spirit Veins of the First, Second, and Third Grades!

Collecting these Spirit Veins took an average of two hours each, for a total of thirty hours—a little over a day.

As for the three locations he didn’t touch, it was because he discovered that members of the local families had carved out cave residences at the sites of the Underground Spiritual Veins, specifically for secluded Cultivation.

For a Cultivation Immortality Family, a Spirit Vein is one of the most vital Cultivation Resources. The rich Spiritual Qi contained within a Spirit Vein can accelerate a Cultivator’s progress and raise their Cultivation Realm.

When a Cultivation Immortality Family builds cave residences near a Spirit Vein for their talented disciples or old ancestors to absorb its Spiritual Qi, their Cultivation effects are often several or even dozens of times better than cultivating in a normal location.

That was why he gave up on collecting those three Spirit Veins, lest he alert the occupants and invite unnecessary trouble.

But overall, he had perfectly completed the first phase of his Spirit Vein collection plan.

Fifteen Spirit Storage Dharma Pearls!

Five First Grade, six Second Grade, and four Third Grade.

The original plan had been to collect six of each Grade, but he ended up three short.

But that didn’t matter to him; the operation was still a perfect success.

’According to the prices at the Jade Stone Market, a First Grade is 100,000 Points, a Second Grade is 200,000, a Third is 400,000, and a Fourth is 800,000, with the price doubling each time. This means this haul earned me 3.3 million Points!’

Cheng Zongyang looked at the fifteen Spirit Storage Dharma Pearls, feeling incredibly pleased.

Although by this calculation, a Ninth Grade Spiritual Vein would reach the terrifying price of over twenty-five million Points, the higher a Spirit Vein’s Level, the greater its concentration, purity, and stability of Spiritual Qi, making it more helpful for a Cultivator’s training.

Not to mention the possibility of it nurturing precious Heaven and Earth Spiritual Items, making it a Spirit Vein that even Super Large Sect Influences dreamed of. Even an Eighth Grade vein couldn’t compare.

’I should lay low for a while before going again. Infrequent operations like this are less likely to attract the attention of major powers.’

Cheng Zongyang didn’t plan to continue collecting for now; acting too frequently would make him easy to discover.

Even the fifteen Spirit Veins he had collected were each thousands of miles apart.

He had more than two years left, and he planned to collect as many of the First, Second, and Third Grade Spirit Veins as possible during that time.

In the Cultivation Immortality Realm, there weren’t many Spirit Veins that had reached a specific Grade, and any that were found would be fought over. Demand far outstripped supply, and the number of recorded veins was finite.

Back in the Immortal City, Cheng Zongyang considered how to use the fifteen Spirit Storage Dharma Pearls.

’First Grade veins for the Martial Arts Families, Second Grade for the Gate Valves...’ Cheng Zongyang schemed. ’Third Grade for Qi Cultivation Families, Fourth Grade for Foundation Establishment Families, and Fifth Grade for Golden Core Families. A Sixth Grade vein could be placed on a large mountain with many cave residences. As long as the Arrays are set up properly to distribute the energy evenly to residences of different Realms, it would be enough to supply thousands of Qi Cultivation, Foundation Establishment, and even Golden Core Loose Cultivators.

’Finally, the Seventh and Eighth Grade veins will be for the Immortal City’s own use. After all, the city also requires a massive Spirit Vein to sustain it... Hmm, yes, I’ll use this allocation method for now.’

Cheng Zongyang made the decision quite simply.

However, the Immortal Mountain renovation project was still underway, so he couldn’t place them yet.

Of course, this "renovation" was currently just a matter of surveying each mountain’s condition—for instance, mapping its general appearance, surroundings, and size to determine if it was suitable for creating cave residences, housing family factions, or serving as a Gang headquarters.

Afterward, the information would be registered and compiled into a directly viewable codex. As for the Spirit Storage Dharma Pearls and the First Grade Gathering Spirit Protection Array, Luo Daoist had already managed to create a copy by rote imitation and was continuing to produce more.

Once he fully grasped the principles of the First Grade version, he could probably try to create a Second Grade one.

For now, all the Immortal Mountains were for lease only, not for sale.

Although he wasn’t actively collecting Spirit Veins, that didn’t mean Cheng Zongyang would stop and do nothing for the next two years.

Therefore, in the days that followed, besides spending six hours a day on his Cultivation, Cheng Zongyang spent the remaining six hours in the Cultivation Immortality Realm researching the second, third, and fourth collection plans—investigating, scouting, and preparing Arrays.

One by one, Cheng Zongyang marked down the locations of Entry Grade Spirit Veins. He even included the Spirit Veins of the Five Great Immortal Sects in his plans.

At the same time, he paid attention to any news regarding the reactions of the families whose Spirit Veins he had collected.

The results were just as he expected. After all, the traces of excavation in the ground still existed, so it wasn’t hard for them to figure out that someone had stolen the Spirit Vein.

However, since Cheng Zongyang only targeted one family within a certain radius while the other families with Spirit Veins remained untouched, the victimized family pointed their fingers at rival factions.

Otherwise, with so many Cultivation Immortality Families’ Spirit Veins untouched within a radius of thousands of miles, why would only their family’s disappear? Who wouldn’t be suspicious?

Consequently, this led to battles between certain factions, becoming a chance to settle both new and old scores.

To outsiders, however, this just looked like another pretext for them to wage war and annex one another, so it didn’t cause any major alarm. And just like that, the true cause was obscured.