Immortality and Cultivation: This old man seeks enlightenment through mere survival.

"..."

As soon as Su Li finished speaking, the surroundings fell into a deathly silence.

Everyone froze, mechanically turning their heads to stare intently at her.

"You...what's wrong with you?"

Su Li shrank back, stuck out her tongue, and thought she had said something wrong.

Little did they know that her words were like a heavy hammer thrown into a lake, stirring up a huge wave in everyone's hearts.

After a brief silence, a burst of shouting and yelling erupted.

"Yes!!!" one person clapped his hands and shouted excitedly.

"Su Li is right, everything is correct!! No wonder we keep finding high-quality ore, there must be rich mines hidden under the Changli Mountains!!"

"If we forge them all into Yang Yuan Pills, wouldn't that be enough for us to cultivate and break through to the Foundation Establishment stage?!"

Another disciple suddenly spoke up, his tone dreamy.

"...First of all, we don't know how deep or wide this vein is?"

We've only been collecting scattered minerals near the Hundred-Zhang Earth Fire area so far.

Secondly, to put it bluntly, this entire mountain is the private property of the mountain owner.

You want to use the mine you opened for foundation building?

"Aren't you overthinking it?"

At this moment, the disciple next to him rolled his eyes and interrupted him.

The disciple, not to be outdone by being directly refuted, retorted:

"Mining and alchemy will require our unique techniques, and the Mountain Lord certainly won't let us work for nothing..."

But when it comes to such huge interests, and when I think about how we are dependent on others and have little influence, I realize that...

The disciple immediately lost the confidence to continue speaking, and his voice became barely audible.

Seeing that the disciples were starting to argue heatedly, their faces flushed red.

Only Su Xuanhuo remained relatively calm, though he still tugged at his beard fiercely at the moment.

"Calm down! It won't do any good no matter how much you cause a ruckus here."

The most urgent task now is to ascertain the mineral reserves and then report to the mountain lord for his decision!

Su Xuanhuo never forgot that he and his companions all relied on the mountain lord's protection to survive.

Such a major decision is not one they can make.

Just then, a cold voice suddenly came from the rear hall door.

"I've been listening to your discussion for a long time. So you mean there's a large amount of fire poison crystal ore buried beneath the Changli Mountains?"

Everyone was startled and turned around!

Unexpectedly, the moment the mountain lord was mentioned, he appeared at the palace gate!

Thankfully, I didn't say anything bad about him before!

"Greetings, Mountain Lord!!"

"Greetings, Mountain Lord!!"

"No need for formalities, please continue with what you were saying earlier."

Lu Zaian stepped forward and then asked.

He only heard the gist of it.

He was still completely clueless about the specific mineralization conditions, mining methods, and forging methods of the Fire Poison Crystal ore.

"Lord of the Mountain, please allow me to explain in detail."

Su Xuanhuo quickly stepped forward and explained everything to Lu Zaian...

After a while, through Su Xuanhuo's explanation, Lu Zaian understood the value of the Fire Poison Crystal Mine.

It's roughly like this:

The Liushi Domain is a unique region, barren of resources, because its earth veins contain a large amount of fire-poisonous substances, which, after settling for millions of years, have become known as the [Fire-Poison Crystal Mine].

The monks racked their brains for cultivation and survival.

Finally, they found a way to extract this poisonous mineral into a miraculous medicine.

This method has been widely spread throughout the cultivation world of Liushi Domain.

Over thousands of years, it has undergone countless modifications and evolutions by various forces.

Due to the varying extraction efficiencies, it became a closely guarded secret among different factions.

One of them is the "Crimson Fire Alchemy Technique" passed down from the Crimson Forging Immortal Workshop.

Furthermore, the Yang Yuan Pills forged using the Crimson Fire Alchemy technique are of exceptionally high quality due to their high detoxification rate of up to 70%.

It is renowned even within the Liushi Domain.

It is one of the cultivation pills favored by many cultivators.

After the group from the Crimson Forge Immortal Workshop arrived at Cloud Hat Mountain.

Because the daily tasks of alchemy are easy.

In their spare time, they would search for scattered minerals in the mountains and use alchemy to forge them into elixirs, which was better than having nothing to do.

These scattered minerals were all collected from beside the fiery crack in the ground, hundreds of feet deep, from the Southern Ming Prince.

Upon hearing this, Lu Zaian glanced at Su Xuanhuo with a faint expression.

They did not expose the ulterior motives in his words.

What does "It's better than having nothing to do" mean?

Those elixirs forged from scattered minerals probably ended up in the stomachs of the disciples of the Crimson Forging Immortal Workshop.

However, Lu Zaian was a dignified Foundation Establishment cultivator and didn't care.

The way to govern subordinates is like water that is too clear: if it is too clear, there will be no fish.

In the spiritual fields of Xishanjian, the Xu family would secretly pocket the inferior spiritual rice, some of which was of mixed quality and damaged by pests, during the harvest.

Lu Zaian turned a blind eye to this.

The same applies to these loose ores.

Before the people from the Crimson Forging Immortal Workshop arrived, that thing was just a piece of waste rock underground.

Their ability to make use of waste is quite impressive.

And it was during this process that the people of the Crimson Forging Workshop discovered the anomaly of the ore vein.

That is—the frequency of high-quality ore is too high!

This has led to today's discussion.

After listening to Su Xuanhuo's explanation, Lu Zaian crossed his arms and stroked his chin with the other.

"So, you suspect that there is a huge amount of high-quality fire poison crystal ore hidden under the Changli Mountains, which is why the spiritual veins are depleted?"

If we want to pinpoint the exact location of a mineral vein, approximately how far is it from the surface?

Su Xuanhuo was taken aback, pondered for a moment, and then guessed and said:

"Well... I can't say for sure exactly where it is right now."

It could be hundreds of feet below, or it could be thousands of feet below.

Although my Crimson Forging Immortal Sect has special methods of investigation, I am ashamed to say that my skills are not proficient and my cultivation is shallow. I can only use this clumsy method to investigate inch by inch..."

At this point, Su Xuanhuo paused, somewhat apprehensive.

In the Liushi Domain, this art of mineral exploration is also a rare and secret technique.

And it is often more precious than the art of tempering.

After all, you have to find the ore first before you can mine it.

Unfortunately, the cultivators in the Crimson Forging Immortal Workshop who were skilled in mineral exploration were almost all killed or wounded in the battle against the Burning Palace.

The remaining Su Xuanhuo happened to be someone who wasn't good at prospecting for minerals.

"trouble……"

Upon hearing this, Lu Zaian couldn't help but frown slightly.

Seeing Lu Zaian's displeasure, Su Xuanhu broke out in a cold sweat and quickly promised:

"I assure the mountain lord that if you give me three months... no, one month, I will definitely find the location of the main mine!"

Lu Zaian waved his sleeve and said coldly:

"No need. Since you don't have any special methods, then let me do it."

Su Xuanhuo and the others used their divine sense to search for the location of the main mine inch by inch.

The Changli Mountains stretch for tens of thousands of miles; how long will it take to find them?

Although Lu Zaian doesn't lack that little bit of time.

But seeing the treasure hidden beneath their feet, they still wanted to dig it out as soon as possible and turn it into their own strength.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Zaian's figure disappeared.

When it reappeared, it was already in the sky above the southern part of the mountain!

"Does the mountain lord have a special method for finding minerals?!"

"That's impossible. If he had any, he wouldn't have let these crystal mines remain buried in the mountains for so long..."

"Perhaps it's just the effect of the Fire-Repelling Poison Crystal from before?"

"Let's go out and take a look!"

"I'd also like to see what methods the Mountain Lord will use!"

The people inside the hall looked at each other in bewilderment, and then rushed out of the Nanming Hall in a swarm.

Gazing at Lu Zaian's figure suspended in the sky, everyone whispered among themselves.

Even the servants on Nanshan Mountain looked surprised. What exactly was the mountain lord's intention in doing this?

However, in a moment.

Lu Zai'an's booming voice resounded throughout Yunli Mountain.

"I intend to unleash the power of this grand formation, causing mountains to shake and the earth to tremble. You need not be alarmed!"