Chapter 16: The Underworld Cave (Part Three)

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The cave Yao Qian had dug was only about the size of a palm; no matter how she activated her divine abilities, it was useless—the space was too small, and anyone could tell at a glance. She secretly gripped the Yimu Divine Needle while pondering how many talismans she could use from her hand.

Yao Qian silently vowed that once she earned enough money, she would definitely buy a concealment and defense formation! This passive state was unbearable. If she could learn formations, that would be even better. With the support of the Tianyan Stele, she was confident she could master formations thoroughly.

Three male cultivators entered, all at the Tongmai stage, though clearly several years older than her. Yao Qian’s eyes flickered slightly; since entering the sect, she had noticed that the number of male cultivators in the Wuji Sect far exceeded the females. This was normal in orthodox Taoism but posed a greater danger in a demonic sect.

The three men were overjoyed to see a girl about ten years old inside. A newly initiated Dao boy venturing deep into the mine clearly carried protective treasures. The sect managed things strictly, so killing in the Yanluo Cave was forbidden, but treasure snatching was still allowed.

The three silently surrounded Yao Qian, smiling slyly as they said, “Little junior sister, why are you here? It’s pitch black and no fun at all. How about the senior brothers keep you company—”

Before they could finish, Yao Qian struck first. She targeted the weakest, swung her fist, and smashed his head, while her divine sense transformed into a needle that pierced the man’s spiritual sea. Immediately after, she kicked another man’s vital spot fiercely.

Not yet at Foundation Establishment, they were essentially ordinary people, none possessing an invulnerable body. Compared to the one silently felled by the divine sense attack, the man kicked in his vital spot writhed in agony, howling as he knelt, temporarily unable to fight back.

With a crisp “clang,” the Yimu Divine Needle deflected a copper nail shot by the last man. At the same moment, a golden light shimmered around Yao Qian as she activated her Golden Light Protection Talisman. The needle spun midair under her divine sense control, stabbing the last man’s crown. Terrified, he fled without looking back, ignoring his two injured companions.

Yao Qian did not pursue; chasing someone here was suicidal. Calmly, she searched the two fallen men’s storage bags, then activated her concealment divine ability and left. She walked deep into Yanluo Cave for a long time before choosing a seemingly previously dug stone cave to hide in.

Sitting inside, her mood was unsettled, unable to calm down for a long while. Counting both her past and current life, this was the first time she had truly fought. She was quite satisfied with her performance; at least as a novice, winning by swiftly dealing with opponents counted as success.

Her combat skills were still too few, but Yao Qian didn’t intend to learn many more. She already knew swordsmanship and boxing, combined with her divine sense attacks—enough to face enemies. What she lacked was proficiency.

Thoughtfully, she considered Yanluo Cave a good training ground. She decided to allocate part of her time to fighting shadow spirits, not just cultivating and mining crystal stones. Progress in all three was necessary.

Yao Qian spared those two men. The one with the injured divine sense wouldn’t die—at worst, he’d suffer occasional headaches. She wasn’t afraid to kill but followed Li Wei’s words that the sect recently forbade internal killing.

Yanluo Cave was assigned by Pei Changqing himself. Yao Qian wasn’t sure if surveillance existed here, so she only injured, not killed. Where exactly the injuries landed was beyond her control.

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Yao Qian estimated the three men probably didn’t intend to kill her, maybe just to steal her treasures. Holding seven storage bags, she was very pleased. No wonder they said “killing and robbing for a gold belt”—black-on-black crime was truly a no-cost venture!

She eagerly examined the seven bags. To her surprise, five contained food—spiritual rice, spirit beast meat, even spirit beast blood. Yao Qian was puzzled—did these men also raise insects?

The other two held personal belongings. After discarding useless clothes, she sorted out three Daoist books, hundreds of talismans, about twenty thousand spirit pearls, and three hundred lower-grade spirit stones.

She was somewhat surprised—were Wuji Sect cultivators really this poor? Not that she looked down on them, but after a few years of cultivation, her own wealth should exceed this. She wasn’t sure if this amount of spirit pearls and stones would be enough to buy a formation.

This assumption came from her inexperience with the harshness of the cultivation world. Considering the efforts of several generations of the Yao family, all they had managed was a bamboo grove—no other production, let alone solo combat achievements.

These two men, able to accumulate such wealth in a few years, were considered affluent, explaining why they often robbed lone junior cultivators. This time, however, they were unlucky to target Yao Qian.

She placed the useless items into a bag for trash and sorted the rest by category. Then, casually flipping through the three Daoist books, she noted that books stored in bags were generally unimportant—this was a consensus in the cultivation world.

Finding cultivation manuals in storage bags was a tale for novels. No sect was foolish enough to allow disciples to carry vital manuals around; once disciples were on track, their manuals were recalled.

Her generation didn’t even receive manuals; teachings came directly via golden scrolls, which was safer. So the remaining Daoist texts were obtained elsewhere.

What surprised Yao Qian was that two of the books were mental cultivation techniques, and one was the Blood-Shackling Body Refinement Technique she had previously seen.

She ground her teeth. That guy claimed the technique was his family’s secret manual—whose “family secret” was so widely circulated? She knew she was poor at business, but never imagined she could be deceived! She vowed never to trust anyone’s lies again.

Suppressing a sigh, she tossed the three books into her storage bag and carefully examined the two weapons. One was a jet-black sharp spike, the other a silver-white flying fork glowing faintly red. She had seen these standard Wuji Sect weapons on many sect members; they must be official sect armaments.

Made of unknown materials, the weapons were heavy and exuded bone-chilling cold. Both the spike and fork tips seemed forged from special materials, looking exceptionally sharp and noticeably different from the rest of the weapon.

No wonder they could be used in Yanluo Cave. Yao Qian didn’t dare take out her Yimu Divine Needle for long, fearing the strong yin energy would erode it, keeping it as a last resort.

Both weapons bore intricate patterns. Yao Qian guessed these were their primary arms. She sent her divine sense into the weapons and found talismans condensed from spiritual energy inside.

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The spike contained only one talisman, while the flying fork held three. Yao Qian wondered if the fork was of a higher rank. She poured her divine sense continuously into the weapons, dispersing the talismans within.

These were enchantments on the weapons. Only by knowing the forging method could one use true energy to melt these enchantments and command the weapons like extensions of their body. Such weapons were typically only found in large sects, like the Elders’ Caiyan Luo.

Yao Qian didn’t know the forging method but could forcibly shatter the enchantments with her divine sense. Once broken, the weapons instantly lost their sacred glow. She swung the flying fork and stabbed the cave wall hard.

The fork easily gouged out a large chunk of stone. Her eyes lit up—this was far more effective than her divine sense! Mining would save much time now. If the original owners saw her treating their treasured weapons like mere shovels, they’d be furious.

Endless battles in Wuji Sect meant cultivators prized their weapons the most. The spike was called the Asura Spike; the fork, the Three Yin Flying Fork. These were among the few weapons outer disciples could forge, even many inner disciples used them.

Those two men had spent most of their wealth on these weapons. Unfortunately, Yao Qian was unskilled in appraisal and only used them as mining tools.

After her earlier lesson, Yao Qian practiced more cautiously, rarely staying in one place for more than two days.

Because of this caution, she never encountered sect brothers again. She breathed a sigh of relief mixed with slight disappointment. If those who came were of the same level as the previous three, she wouldn’t mind facing more—they were her target for her concealment formation.

However, Yao Qian never dreamed that instead of those weaklings, she would face a fully formed shadow beast!

During her time in Yanluo Cave, the shadow spirits she’d seen were formless clusters of yin energy. This time, she faced a real shadow beast!

The beast resembled a giant python but lacked eyes. Its fangs were sharp, and its body was so strong it could easily smash the cave walls. Though eyeless, it had two bulging lumps on its head, which fixated on Yao Qian.

Watching the shadow beast, she lowered her breath. Though less threatening than the previous divine sense, she sensed it was stronger than her and, given how silently it approached, it must possess some intelligence.

A powerful and somewhat intelligent opponent—this was tricky. Yao Qian fixed her gaze on the shadow serpent. Suddenly, she flickered, seemingly trying to break the serpent’s encirclement.

Unexpectedly, the serpent’s body rose erect, coiling in circles as if to trap her.

Yanluo Cave wasn’t tall; the serpent’s body could block the entire tunnel. Escape upward was impossible.

Yao Qian appeared to speed upward but stopped halfway and turned back. She pulled out the flying fork from her bag and drove it forcefully into the serpent’s head.