Aunt Chen is back from the world of cultivation

Chen Qingzhu originally planned to go to Guangdong and Guangxi further south to look for jade mines.

But Zheng Yuannai's military power in Songhu gave her an unexpected surprise, and also required her to arrive in Songhu before mid-April.

Since we couldn't go too far on this trip, we temporarily changed our plan and planned to look for jade mines in a closer place.

Integrating the information she knew from her previous life, she could choose between Xingde and Lushan in the neighboring Jiujiang Prefecture.

The mines in Lushan are already being mined and can only be used as a backup option.

The jade mines in the eastern mountains of Xingde are still unknown to the public, so they are naturally the first choice.

The reason why Chen Qingzhu knew this was thanks to Mrs. Zhang, the wife of Marquis Jingnan in his previous life.

In the previous life, about four years later, natural disasters occurred frequently and Emperor Yong'an was caught up in rumors of divine punishment. Officials from all over the country found various ways to flatter the emperor.

The new prefect of Raozhou presented a large purple stone, saying it was a lucky sign produced locally. Later, Emperor Yong'an awarded this lucky sign to the only eldest prince.

Zhang and others also went to the palace to appreciate this auspicious sign. After returning, they quietly told Pei Xiao that it was actually a piece of jade.

Purple jade is rare. If we can find a jade mine and mine it on a large scale, it will definitely bring considerable income to the Jingnan Marquis Mansion.

Who would complain about having too much silver? Pei Xiao naturally would not object and immediately sent people to Raozhou to inquire about the source of this strange stone.

When we arrived at the local area, we learned that this strange stone came from the mountains in the eastern part of Xingde County.

The Jingnan Marquis's Mansion sent craftsmen who were good at exploring jade mines to investigate, and eventually concluded that there were indeed jade mines in the mountain, but the output should not be large, and it was unknown how much purple jade there was, and mining was extremely difficult.

Zhang did not give up and still sent people to prepare for the mine.

Unfortunately, before the mine could produce any output, Gan Province fell into the hands of the rebels, and the mine of Jingnan Marquis Mansion was never heard of again.

This was the place that the Jingnan Marquis Mansion had already sent people to confirm, which would save Chen Qingzhu the time of searching everywhere. It was also not far from Xingde County, so it should be listed as the first choice.

Although the output is not large, it is still a mine no matter how small it is. There will be a lot of high-quality jade in it. It should not be a problem for her to have the spiritual energy to break through the seventh level of Qi Refining.

As for the difficulty of mining, it is not a big deal for her.

Thinking of this, she went to the mountains in the east of Xingde without hesitation.

Now that the spiritual liquid has been used up to a minimum, Chen Qingzhu and Rong Niang have no important luggage left.

After selling the carriage, he rode his horse straight into the mountains.

There are almost no houses in the mountains, and the winter is very bleak. Only a few hunters go into the mountains to make a living.

When they reached the mountains, when the horses were no longer able to move around conveniently, Chen Qingzhu found a cave to stay in, tied the horses outside the cave, and flew directly to the treetops with Rong Niang to explore the concentration of spiritual energy around them from a high altitude.

Generally speaking, high-quality and top-grade jade can only be found in places with rich spiritual energy.

After three days, Chen Qingzhu had almost explored the entire mountain.

However, the results were not as optimistic as she had originally expected.

There are only three places where high-quality and top-grade jade mines are concentrated. It is preliminarily estimated that the total amount of spiritual energy is not enough for her to break through to the seventh level of Qi Refining.

What's more, she still had a lot of things to do before and after breaking through the seventh level of Qi Refining.

It's a rare opportunity to come out, so naturally the more spiritual energy reserves the better.

Since we have already spent time and spiritual energy to explore this place, we certainly cannot give up.

After some thought, Chen Qingzhu came up with a solution.

After tying a red cloth on the top of the tree as a mark, she flew down the mountain and bought three large jars for wine, which she carried up the mountain in a large net bag.

She placed Rong Niang in a dry and warm cave, where she devoted herself to practicing martial arts.

During these three days, they lived and ate in the mountains.

While Chen Qingzhu was exploring the spiritual energy, he could easily catch wild rabbits and pheasants. He flew to the top of a tree and got a big bag of wild chestnuts.

Pheasant stewed with chestnuts and roasted rabbit are extremely delicious thanks to Chen Qingzhu's excellent cooking skills.

Sometimes they would bring back some dried persimmons, or oranges that had become particularly sweet after being weathered.

In short, it had a unique wildness that made Rongniang feel very novel and happy.

Now that Chen Qingzhu had gone down the mountain and left her alone, with the horse as her companion, she no longer felt afraid at all.

Seeing Chen Qingzhu coming back with three large jars, he couldn't resist his curiosity and asked:

"Mother, what are you doing?"

Chen Qingzhu smiled brightly and said mysteriously:

"Take the essence of heaven and earth."

"what?"

Rong Niang was puzzled.

Chen Qingzhu held his daughter in one hand and the jar of wine in the other, and said:

"Come on, I'll get it for you to see."

As he spoke, he took his daughter to a small hill where a high-quality jade mine was concentrated.

Putting Rong Niang aside, Chen Qingzhu began to set up the formation around him.

Now she had neither a storage ring nor the ability to draw storage talismans, so she could only extract the spiritual energy and compress it into liquid to take away.

To this end, she stacked up several spirit gathering arrays to allow the spiritual energy to be gathered and compressed, and finally flow into the wine jar.

After setting up the formation, Chen Qingzhu stood in the middle of the formation, took out a banyan seed that he had prepared long ago, and made hand gestures.

Rich wood-attribute spiritual energy gushed out, and in the blink of an eye, the seed that fell to the ground grew into a tree taller than a human.

Then it continued to grow taller at a speed visible to the naked eye, and in just a breath or two, it grew into a towering tree.

"Wow--"

Rong Niang couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

Even though she had seen her mother perform many miraculous skills along the way, none of them were as shocking as the visual effect at this moment.

In her opinion, her mother just threw down a seed, made a gesture and pointed a finger, and the seed quickly turned into a towering tree.

"Mother is mighty!"

Rong Niang clapped her hands excitedly.

Chen Qingzhu smiled with her lips curved. For her, who possessed water and wood spiritual roots, this was just the most basic spell to induce childbirth and was not considered advanced.

She could even perform it in the early stages of Qi training.

But at that time, spiritual energy was too precious, and it would be more beneficial to use it to cure diseases and save lives rather than to cast spells that were not very effective.

Of course, I’m not using this magic for fun now.

But those top-quality jades were buried hundreds of feet deep. If one used ordinary methods to extract spiritual energy from them, it would probably take eight or ten years to completely extract it.

The banyan tree she nurtured has a particularly developed root system. Under her design, it has become a part of the spirit gathering array, which can act as tentacles to reach deep into the mineral layers and extract spiritual energy at the fastest speed.

In this way, all the top-quality jade here can be transformed into spiritual liquid in just over half a month.

Chen Qingzhu carried Rong Niang out of the range of the banyan tree, then injected spiritual energy and activated the formation used to concentrate spiritual energy.

The same procedure was followed for the other two locations.

After setting up the formation, she did not let go of other scattered pieces of top-quality jade mines. She gave birth to a banyan tree, manipulated its roots to reach the scattered stones, and then sat on the tree to meditate and practice.

Rong Niang was also practicing internal skills under the tree, bathing in the spiritual energy that was emanating from it.

As an ordinary person, she cannot absorb and store too much spiritual energy, but Chen Qingzhu spends a moment every day to transform the spiritual energy into true energy for her.

After half a month, Rong Niang's internal Qi had obviously increased a lot.

Although he is still unable to release his Qi, his strength is twice as great as at the beginning.

This surprised Rong Niang very much. She would rush to do things that required strength every day and never got tired of it.

A few days later, Chen Qingzhu went to see those spirit gathering arrays.

When he found that the spiritual energy had been completely drained, he withdrew the formation.

The three wine jars were sealed to prevent the spiritual energy from escaping, and water magic was used to freeze the spiritual liquid into crystals to prevent it from breaking and spilling.

Finally, it gave birth to thin vines that wrapped up the three wine jars, and then took Rong Niang and the three wine jars full of harvest to the next destination -

The Lushan jade mine has been occupied by local tyrants.