Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit

As soon as the array formation was destroyed, two rays of light flew out from the buildings. Master Immortal Liu and Master Immortal Du instantly flew forward to intercept the lights. In an instant, all kinds of spells and mystic instruments clashed in the air, rumbling the ears of the disciples.

Fortunately, the four of them intentionally moved away from the disciples as they battled. Taking the fight elsewhere greatly relieved the disciples of both sects.

With a rallying cry, the Zhen Ling Sect disciples rushed into the buildings and searched for their own opponents.

Filled with rage, Lu Ping initially planned to take revenge on the cultivator who assaulted him with the bead mystic instrument. But moments later he was left speechless. The Xuan Ling Sect disciples were already so few in number, and in addition to the members of Cultivator Sharing Union, there were only roughly 30 opponents on the island.

Counting their seventh group disciples and the disciples of Xuan Hua Island, they had more than 40 people on their side. Lu Ping deliberately avoided the beginning rush to intercept the enemies. He was looking for the guy with the bead mystic instrument when he suddenly realized he had no more opponents!

He looked at his martial siblings as they engaged in one-on-one battles with their opponents, Lu Ping was just thinking which martial sibling he should help in bullying their opponent, when suddenly, he saw a silhouette flash away behind one of the pavilions.

Naturally, Lu Ping wouldn’t let this slide. However, as he saw the silhouette’s stealthy actions, a thought came into his mind. He decided not to intercept the silhouette right away but followed quietly behind.

The man was dressed in a black robe. He was in a panic and looked extremely anxious. The pavilion they were on was constructed on top of a mountain ridge—the man moved down the ridge heading toward the bottom of the mountain.

After that, he took a sharp turn and arrived at an empty site, at the end of which was an excavated mine cave. A few dozen commoners were sitting in front of the cave; they clearly knew what was happening outside. However, because the affairs of cultivators seldom involved mortals, they didn’t go anywhere but sat quietly to wait for the outcome.

The black-robed man was happy to see that the miners were still there and asked hurriedly, “Where are all the spirit stones mined from the past five days?”

The foreman quickly stepped forward and handed him two interspatial pouches. The black-robed man quickly snatched them from the foreman, looked into the pouches and was satisfied Then, he turned and left.

When the black-robed man happily walked out of the site with the spirit stones, he suddenly sensed a killing intent. A chill ran down his spine and he quickly looked up. A black item slammed onto him from above!

The black-robed man's face couldn’t even show any despair before he was smashed into the ground three feet deep by Landslide.

Lu Ping was also surprised to see that the man was so completely unaware of his surroundings. Just how many spirit stones could make a cultivator lose his vigilance?

Lu Ping put away Landslide. This mystic instrument was definitely a good weapon for killing people. It looked like he would have to upgrade it to suit his needs after reaching a higher cultivation level.

Lu Ping looted the two spirit stone interspatial pouches and the black-robed man’s own interspatial pouch from his body. He glanced about and after confirming there was no one else around, he took a quick look inside the three pouches.

He first checked the interspatial pouch belonging to the black-robed man’s. There was a low-grade mystic instrument and roughly 60 spirit stones, two cultivation medicinal pellets for Ninth Rank Blood Refining Realm cultivators, a few jade scrolls, some herbs and materials, and a map of Xuan Qi Island and the areas around it.

After that, he opened the two interspatial pouches that contained the spirit stones from the miners. Instead of feeling happy, Lu Ping immediately knew that matters had gone beyond his control!

It wasn’t that the spirit stones were too little, it was because the spirit stones were too many—way too many. There were a total of 1,800 spirit stones!

Lu Ping had been hiding in the corner and clearly heard the entire conversation. These stones were produced after five days of mining. This meant that on average, they mined roughly 300 spirit stones in a day. This was a small spirit mine!

A spirit mine to the cultivators was like a gold mine to the commoners!

As far as Lu Ping knew, among the spirit mines discovered in the cultivation world for the past tens of thousand years, 95% were mini spirit mines; more than 3% were small and medium spirit mines; less than 2% were large and colossal spirit mines. There were only 12 large spirit mines and 6 colossal spirit mines.

Usually, only sects with Law Avatar Great Ancient presences were able to dispatch their Core Forging Realm Perfect Persons to fight for a small spirit mine.

On the other hand, even a medium spirit mine would be alluring enough for the Law Avatar Great Ancients to come out and fight for it already. Even so, most of the time, it would still end up with a few sects sharing the medium spirit mine together. Only strong sects like Xuan Ling Sect in the North Ocean were able to own a medium spirit mine on their own!

Whereas for the large and colossal spirit mines, Lu Ping never heard of any sect or faction solely owning one. They were usually shared and developed by many parties. However, Lu Ping didn’t know how many parties would share a large or colossal spirit mine usually.

The sizes of the spirit mines were classified by their daily production rate. A mini spirit mine has a daily production of less than 200 spirit stones, a small spirit mine less than 500 spirit stones, and a medium spirit mine less than 1000 spirit stones.

Whereas for the large and colossal spirit mines, Lu Ping didn’t know what their daily production would be. Perhaps, only the Great Ancients of the sects involved would know.

Lu Ping didn’t know why Xuan Ling Sect only sent Blood Condensation Realm cultivators to protect and look after such an important spirit mine. Maybe it didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. Zhen Ling Sect surely didn’t know about this. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have attacked Xuan Qi Island so rashly.

If it was just an island or two, the sect would just send a Core Forging Realm Perfect Person to be in charge of the operation, and then sit down for the usual diplomatic discussions. At most, they would send out the Blood Condensation Realm disciples to battle. But for a small spirit mine, the two sects could actually declare war on each other!

No matter Zhen Ling Sect’s true goal behind this operation, there was definitely a Core Forging Realm Perfect Person behind it all. There was no way Lu Ping could conceal the spirit mine’s existence. The best measure to take now was to notify the sect so they could plan appropriately.

Otherwise, he and the rest of the disciples would definitely be slaughtered by Xuan Ling Sect’s Core Forging Realm Perfect Person before their own sect’s Core Forging Realm Perfect Person arrived!

However, he couldn’t bring himself to give up the spirit stones in the interspatial pouches. He had to think of a way.

As he thought, Lu Ping knew he needed to prepare a story so he could hide the spirit stones he just looted.

As the saying goes, “Quick wit in an emergency”. He quickly covered any traces of battle and pretended that he just discovered this place. He took a sharp turn and arrived at the empty site. He saw the miners and pretended to ask curiously, “Huh, there’s a mine here. May I ask, what mine is this?”

…

Then, everything else would naturally fall into place. After this incident, Lu Ping was more alert. He deliberately searched everywhere on the island but sadly, the island disciples must have already put away their belongings before the attack. There wasn’t anything valuable left.

Lu Ping only found a place that seemed to be an alchemy house. He found some hundred-year spirit herbs that added together may be worth up to a hundred spirit stones. On top of that, Lu Ping was extremely happy to find a 500-year spirit herb that could be used to concoct Blood Condensation Pellets!

When he returned to the battlefield, Zhen Ling Sect was already cleaning up their respective battles. Lu Ping helped a few of his senior martial brothers finish off their opponents and then, they met up with the rest of the disciples.

The disciples gathered together by the beach and watched the battle between Master Immortal Liu and Master Immortal Du against Xuan Ling Sect’s Zhao Lingqiao and Cultivator Sharing Union’s leader Zhang Zhihe.

But while they were busy watching the battle enviously, Lu Ping’s thoughts lay elsewhere. Blood Refining Realm cultivators had yet to cultivate the divine sense, so they wouldn’t be able to learn anything from the battle. They were only watching because it was interesting.

Suddenly, a thought flashed in Lu Ping’s mind. He quietly walked to a place out of sight from the rest, took out the map he looted from the black-robed man and looked at it.