Promise!

Chapter 246, Ruins

During Zhuang Jin's hunt for the Netherworld Python, the Purple Kangaroo also discovered some rare and precious materials, but their value was very ordinary. When converted into contribution points, the highest value was no more than 200,000 contribution points. However, they were just incidental finds, so there was no reason not to take them.

He assumed it would be the same this time, but when he went over to take a look, he was somewhat disappointed.

"Little Purple, you're not talking about this Mystic Ice Stone, are you?"

Mystic Ice Stone is an excellent material for forging weapons, with extremely high strength. The price offered by the Suspended Sky Division is also decent, with several dozen contribution points per kilogram. For martial artists below the Innate Realm, this is considered a good opportunity. However, for him, carrying it around is not worth the effort and money, and he is too lazy to even pick it when he sees it.

"Chirp!"

"No, it's something even better, inside the Xuanbing Stone, that's perfect for me?"

Upon hearing this, Zhuang Jin's expression immediately turned serious.

He had read the information and knew that there was a very small chance of finding Xuanbing Marrow in Xuanbing Stone Mine. Xuanbing Marrow was considered a rare and precious material suitable for refining attributes, but it was of a lower level and did not provide any attribute bonus. However, it was still much faster than using beast cores.

Most importantly, the Xuanbing Marrow, as the name suggests, is of the ice attribute, and its value to Zhuang Jin is even higher than that of the Wind Spirit Pearl!
'Could it be that my luck has finally turned? Sometimes, the flowers I carefully cultivate don't bloom, while the willows I casually plant thrive?'

Zhuang Jin was slightly excited: "If it really is the Mysterious Ice Marrow, I will remember your great contribution today."

He looked at the icy stone walls in the cave, then suddenly calmed down, looking somewhat troubled. He had no tools at hand, so how could he start digging?
It was impossible to do it barehanded; Zhuang Jin wasn't a caveman.

The martial art of the Meridian-Severing Divine Sword?

This is like trying to mine minerals with a laser gun; it's a joke.

A powerful energy bomb?

The Qi Bombs were somewhat scattered. As mentioned before, Xuanbing Stone is an extremely high-strength casting material. If Qi Bombs were used to detonate it, the other parts of the cave would most likely collapse under the pressure first. At most, the Xuanbing Stone area would only have a crater. That would definitely be asking for trouble.

Zhuang Jin thought for a moment, then his shoulders shrugged, and the Ice Soul Divine Sword was drawn from his back: "It seems that I have no choice but to make do with you."

Heaven have mercy! Such a divine weapon, he never used it after entering the mountains, not even in regular combat, let alone when he went beyond his limits. Now, for the first time, he used it to mine.

If Shen Tu Biao knew that Zhuang Jin had used tens of millions of contribution points just to forge the Ice Soul Divine Sword, he would definitely curse it as a waste of resources.

However, on the other hand, the Ice Soul Divine Sword truly lived up to its reputation for being made with all sorts of rare materials. Under Zhuang Jin's infusion of his inner energy, it transformed into an invisible, faintly glowing sword, extremely sharp. Facing the Xuanbing Stone, it wouldn't be too difficult, if not as easy as cutting tofu.

They dug and dug in the small cave.

Following the directions given by the purple kangaroo, Zhuang Jin carefully observed the structure to avoid causing a collapse during the excavation—although a collapse wouldn't be a problem, as he was protected by his protective aura and wouldn't be seriously injured, it would only add unnecessary trouble.

The deeper you dig, the more difficult it becomes, and the colder it gets.

After more than an hour, having dug to a depth of about ten feet, just as the purple kangaroo became excited and its cries grew more urgent, Zhuang Jin struck down with his sword and unearthed something.

"It's shipped!"

Zhuang Jin raised his hand and drew in a walnut-sized, oval-shaped, colorless, semi-transparent crystal resembling ice crystals. Feeling the pure and rich ice attribute power within it, he was pleased but also disappointed: "This is indeed Xuanbing Marrow, but the amount is a bit too small!"

He estimated that this small piece of Xuanbing Marrow would only be enough for him to complete one-tenth of his attribute condensation progress. Well, it was roughly equivalent to a beast core from a Six-Fu Realm cultivator condensing one or two Fu organs.

How to put it? It's like chicken ribs—tasteless to eat, but a pity to throw away.

"It would be great if it were bigger, or if there were a few more pieces."

Zhuang Jin sighed and looked at the purple kangaroo, but the purple kangaroo shook its head repeatedly, as it sensed that there was indeed none left.

"Is that so?"

He did not leave, his eyes fixed on the excavated stone hole, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"This isn't right. Normally, the ice stones should radiate outwards in a spherical pattern from this piece of Xuanbing Marrow, with the coldness decreasing progressively. In other words, the closer to the Xuanbing Marrow, the higher the quality of the ice stones, and the farther away, the lower the quality. But this isn't the case here."

Zhuang Jin discovered that the quality of the Xuanbing Stones inside the Xuanbing Marrow was now even better, which was illogical. Moreover, he sensed that the temperature seemed to be decreasing as he went further in.

'What else is inside causing this phenomenon? But the Purple Kangaroo doesn't sense any rare or precious treasures. What deceived its senses, or is it some special environment?'

Zhuang Jin secretly guessed and decided to dig deeper to trace the source.

As the purple kangaroo continued to dig deeper, it still couldn't detect any treasure. Strangely, the deeper it went, the slower the temperature dropped, as if something was affecting it, but it couldn't find the source.

"I refuse to believe it, I'll dig for three days first."

Where there's smoke, there's fire; there must be a reason.
Zhuang Jin believed that something must have caused this anomaly, and in this world, this anomaly most likely represented some kind of opportunity.

Even if we take a step back and assume there's no gain, and all the effort is in vain, it's just a waste of time, which he can afford to waste a few days.

……

two days later
"There's really nothing there?!"

Zhuang Jingan has been digging here for two whole days, and has now gone more than ten feet deep.

—The deeper you go, the harder it is to dig. It's not a straight line; you're digging in the direction of decreasing temperature. The air temperature is so low that even martial artists below the Innate Realm can hardly withstand it. Even he, a martial artist at the second level of the Ice Attribute Innate Qi Realm, felt a slight chill.

In this environment, no more Xuanbing Marrow appeared, and the Purple Kangaroo did not sense any other rare and precious materials.

Well, the purple kangaroo was quite enthusiastic at first, earnestly sensing with anticipation, but gradually it failed to discover anything and found the place rather monotonous, so it has now given up and become listless.

Even Zhuang Jin wasn't very confident, suspecting that she had misjudged the situation.

'Should I give up? Fine, we agreed on three days. I'll finish digging today, make it three days, and if I still haven't found anything, I'll give up and leave.'

Zhuang Jin made a decision to continue the mechanical digging, having already given up hope, simply doing his best and leaving the rest to fate. That afternoon, after digging for another ten feet, the sound of the Ice Soul Divine Sword striking the Xuanbing Stone seemed slightly off.

"Hmm, a hollow echo, is it empty inside?!"

He perked up: "Found it!"

"Chirp chirp?!" The purple kangaroo suddenly became lively, rolled over, and jumped up from the ground.

Swish!
After another short while, with the final sword strike, the Xuanbing Stone in front shattered, and a faint light shone from within.

"Let's go!" Zhuang Jin led the purple kangaroo through the dug hole and into it.

……

Wow!
The ice stone broke open, and a man and a rat entered.

The temperature in the air dropped again, and Zhuang Jin felt a chill rushing towards him, instinctively shivering. However, in such an environment, his cultivation technique accelerated its operation on its own, and he quickly adapted.

The purple kangaroo is a mythical beast that cultivates its physical body, which is somewhat better.

At this moment, Zhuang Jin's attention was not on himself, but rather he looked up and down, and the sight he saw made him slightly lost in thought.

Above them was a winding cave passage, its destination unknown. The widest part of the cave entrance was several meters in diameter, while the narrowest part was only a few feet. The cave walls were covered with jagged, protruding ice-like rocks, among which grew a strange plant resembling crystal coral, emitting faint fluorescent light.

The cave passage where he was located was quite wide, about ten feet in diameter, and was an irregularly shaped protruding platform. Zhuang Jin had dug his way through the cave wall, essentially entering halfway through the passage.

Below, it's like passing through the mouth of a bottle and entering the body of the bottle, suddenly becoming extremely open, tens of feet long and wide, which is a cave-like ice lake. What flows in it is not water, but flowing slurry ice!
"This is... ice lava?!"

Zhuang Jin had read about strange tales in the Xuantian Division. In an environment where the primordial energy of heaven and earth was abundant and extremely cold, ice would turn into a syrup, which was called ice syrup.

'Icy lava is an extremely cold substance, and to have so much of it, converging into such a large lake, is truly a magnificent sight.'

'Is it the icy lava from this underground lake, radiating coldness, that has seeped into the veins of mystic ice stone, causing the temperature to drop as I've dug my way here?'

Zhuang Jin thought to himself, carefully sensing the surroundings: 'The ice-attribute spiritual energy here is extremely abundant. If I stay here, I won't need any rare treasures or beast cores; I can complete the condensation of my attributes in just three to five years.'

However, it's useless to him, so he might as well use the beast core!

Zhuang Jin looked around and, having now found the source of the previous anomaly, he wasn't very happy—three days of hard work only to find this, and he just wanted to satisfy his curiosity?!
"Little Purple, look around here and see if you can find any treasures."

"Chirp chirp!" The purple kangaroo hopped around, carefully sensing the surroundings, then shook its little head like a rattle-drum.

Wow!
As it bounced back and forth, the broken pieces of the mysterious ice stone that it had previously chiseled open rolled down.

"and many more!"

Zhuang Jin realized something was wrong. When the Xuanbing Stone fell into the Ice Flow Lava, according to the density of the Ice Flow Lava, it should be absorbed and decomposed like a swamp. But why did the Xuanbing Stone fall into the slurry faster than a stone falling into water?
He suspected there was something wrong with the icy lava, but he didn't act rashly. If his guess was wrong, the icy lava from such a large lake would be a huge problem if it were absorbed, and even the innate protective energy shield would have difficulty withstanding it for long.

Zhuang Jin thought for a moment, then raised his hand and tore off a piece of sleeve, throwing it away. The sleeve swayed and fell into the icy lava below, but it didn't stop, as if it sank down.

"My clothes are made of Heavenly Silkworm Silk from the Six Internal Organs Realm. Normally, if they fell into the icy lava, they should float on the surface for a while before being decomposed and annihilated. It's absolutely impossible for them to sink like this."

'Just as I expected, there's something wrong with this icy lava. It looks extremely realistic, but it seems to be an illusion. Is there a hidden world beneath?!'

……

Zhuang Jin and the Purple Kangaroo went down, and after testing and confirming with the Ice Soul Divine Sword, they passed through the 'ice flow lava' as if passing through a soap bubble, and then fell five or six zhang before landing.

Above, there was an illusion of flowing ice magma, rippling gently like a celestial curtain; on the ground, a large vein of mysterious ice stone protruded to form a valley; and below, emanating an aura of extreme cold, was the real flowing ice magma.

He headed toward the center of the place, crossed a stone bridge, and walked several hundred steps further. Among a forest of jagged, sharp black ice stones, there was a cave entrance, blocked by a stone door with two groove-like features in the center.

'This is... the ruins of immortals?!'

Zhuang Jin was deeply shocked. He couldn't think of anyone else who could have created that magical illusion of flowing ice and lava, except for the immortal from eight hundred years ago. There were also traces of human activity here, so it was clear that this was almost certainly an undiscovered immortal's relic.

"And this isn't even the lowest level. Back then, the lowest-level immortal ruins, the waterfall outside Changning County in Huaihua Prefecture, had a completely different layout."

'Since it's not the lowest-grade immortal ruins, that means there's at least one mid-grade Azure Origin Pot inside—that's the foundation of an entire clan!'

'There must also be various cultivation techniques. As the first version of cultivation techniques created by immortals, the complete Black Fiend Technique should certainly exist.'

The so-called complete text is not the three innate realms: the innate true qi chapter, the innate qi chapter, and the innate corpse-slaying chapter. There is also the Yin spirit chapter, and even the chapters above the Yin spirit.

Zhuang Jin had already realized that the higher his cultivation level was, the harder it was to obtain cultivation techniques. In order to obtain the Black Fiend Technique's Innate Corpse-Slaying Realm cultivation technique, in addition to upgrading the Black Python Token to the Purple Serpent Token corresponding to the Innate Corpse-Slaying Realm, there were many other conditions.

—The term "虺" refers to a venomous snake, and some say it represents the final step before a snake evolves into a dragon. The Innate Corpse-Slaying Realm corresponds to the Purple Serpent Token, signifying that this realm is the transitional stage from the Innate Great Realm to the Yin God Great Realm.

'It's not good for our cultivation techniques to always be controlled by others. If I were to demonstrate an extremely high level of threat, given the moral bottom line of aristocratic families, they might very well modify the techniques and set traps within them, which would be disastrous.'

If the resources represented by the mid-grade Qingyuan Pot, including rare and precious materials with refined attributes, can be replaced by other things for Zhuang Jin, then the cultivation technique is truly the most crucial thing, the kind that has no other choice and is something he must obtain.

"Chirp chirp chirp!" The purple kangaroo arrived and became extremely active, chirping excitedly to indicate that there were treasures inside, lots and lots of big treasures.

—The previous layer of illusory ice flow seemed to have blocked its treasure-hunting methods.

"Nonsense, how could there not be treasures here? Of course I know."

"Chirp, chirp, chirp!"

"What? There are treasures inside that are perfect for me, much better than the Xuanbing Marrow I had before?"

Zhuang Jin was surprised, but also felt it was only natural. That place was the core of the entire underground ice lake, where the essence of heaven and earth was concentrated, so it must contain extremely high-level ice attribute treasures, which were suitable for refining attributes.

'In this environment, any ice-attribute treasures born would undoubtedly be of the highest quality. If I were to obtain one and use it to refine my attributes, completing the accumulation for the second stage of the cultivation realm would likely only take a month or so. Since I have no bottlenecks, I can directly reach the third stage of the Innate Qi Realm, saving an immeasurable amount of time.'

Thinking of this, Zhuang Jin felt a surge of excitement.

In other words, this is another essential reason besides the cultivation method!
"However, all of this can only be done once we get inside!"

Zhuang Jin stared at the groove in the doorway, wondering if it required a token to open it? Or perhaps, some kind of test?

'Is there a shortcut? Can't I dig around the entrance from the side instead of the main gate? Even if it takes ten days or half a month, it would be worthwhile.'

He acted on his idea immediately, telling the purple kangaroo to back away before starting to dig from the side, but he had only dug a few times.

Rumble!
The cave door suddenly opened, and with two clear cries, two figures, one fiery red and one icy blue, flew out.

……

(End of this chapter)