Heavenly Dao Engine
Chapter 463 - 463 0326 Not Slapping Them a Few Times_2

Chapter 463: Chapter 0326: Not Slapping Them a Few Times_2 Chapter 463: Chapter 0326: Not Slapping Them a Few Times_2 Qi Tian hastily moved towards the other mining routes. As he had feared, all the mining paths marked as vital by the native cultivators were indeed occupied by cultivators from Wanjie Commerce. Each mine entrance was heavily guarded, blocking entry to all cultivators not from Wanjie Commerce.

Damn it! Ruthless!

Qi Tian muttered under his breath. As it stood, he was helpless unless he decided to sever ties with Wanjie Commerce. He had no choice but to accept this reality—he couldn’t enter into direct conflict with Wanjie Commerce.

However, Qi Tian wasn’t disheartened. If a frontal approach wasn’t possible, then he’d find another way. Tunnel-digging was a revered tradition of his people.

Qi Tian carefully reviewed the topographic map of the spiritual stone veins, swiftly selecting a mining tunnel. The spiritual stones in this tunnel were more sparse, and from the standpoint of the mine, the tunnel entrance was a fair distance from the rich mining routes. Given these circumstances, Wanjie Commerce would naturally not deploy heavy surveillance here. However, an advantage the vein offered, which Qi Tian noticed from the topographic map, was that it wasn’t straight. It had deviated from its original course during the initial excavation, the deviation deepening as it went further in. Additionally, the rock was quite soft, and the initial native cultivator diggers didn’t take that into account, thus, they dug too aggressively. The net result was that this tunnel stretched far upward, surpassing two layers of mining tunnels, and actually reached out towards the third layer from the top—the location of another rich vein.

Qi Tian’s biggest concern currently was that this mining tunnel might also have been discovered by Wanjie Commerce and thus, being blocked just like the others. If that were the case, then he would have no chances left, and would be forced to settle for a second-rate mine. He didn’t believe that Wanjie Commerce would swallow everything without leaving any remnants for other cultivators. If they did so, their reputation would be tarnished, and who would trust any promises they made when recruiting manpower in Wanjie City in the future?

Qi Tian headed towards the mine entrance, and to his surprise, there were no Wanjie Commerce cultivators guarding it. Any cultivator could freely enter and exit. Once inside, Qi Tian learned that the number of cultivators inside was pitifully small. After traveling quite some distance, he saw only a few cultivators, most of whom were leaving dejectedly. Seeing Qi Tian marching in, they gave him a schadenfreude grin—another unlucky fellow wasting his time in the mine.

Qi Tian paid them no heed and kept moving deeper into the cave. During his journey, he would slow down when encountering cultivators and speed up when alone, trying to reach the depth of the mine in the shortest amount of time. This way, he could maximize his mining time to harvest more spirit stones.

Halfway through his route, he noticed a brightly lit mining plateau from afar. If the entire spirit stone vein could be visualized as a bunch of grapes, the grape stem would represent the mine shaft, the branches projecting out would be the mining tunnels, and the grapes attached to the branches would be the mining holes.

Once the cultivators found the presence of spirit stones, they would begin digging, forming one mining hole after another. The sizes of the mining holes varied. Generally, once a cultivator discovered that there were no more spirit stones left in a hole, they would stop excavating it and shift to a different location.

This brightly lit mining hole appeared to be an old one, definitely not freshly excavated. Typically, this kind of hole would’ve been abandoned by the previous miners and only in extremely rare cases could one discover overlooked spirit stones in these abandoned holes.

As Qi Tian passed by the entrance of this hole, he scanned it using the Spirit Sense function of his Heavenly Dao Engine. To his mild surprise, there were indeed a significant number of spirit stones underneath the hole, possibly around thirty to forty thousand. The majority were low-grade spirit stones, though there were also a scattered few middle-grade ones.

Treasures like these were insignificant to Qi Tian; the number of low-grade spirit stones he had collected had already exceeded twenty million. Rather than waste time vying with others for spirit stone mines, he’d be better off quickly mining better quality stones from the richer veins.

However, just as Qi Tian planned to walk by the hole, he suddenly heard a familiar voice from inside. “What are you doing? Not only did you steal our discovered spirit stone mine, but you also murdered people. Aren’t you afraid of Wanjie Commerce punishing you?”

“Hmph, boy. Killing one is still killing, and so is killing two. To avoid trouble, it’s better to kill you all.”

Qi Tian raised an eyebrow. It was common to hear about cultivators killing for treasure, and he couldn’t possibly intervene in all such cases—nor did he have the capacity to do so. However, he recognized that somewhat familiar voice—it belonged to Che Long’an, who Qi Tian saved onboard the airship. Later at the campsite, Che Long’an invited Qi Tian to stay with their group but was stopped by his companions.

Qi Tian had a good impression of this grateful Che Long’an. He sighed; he could opt to ignore others, but it was hard to stand by while a familiar friend was in trouble.

Qi Tian pulled out a rune mask and put it on his face and a battle blade in his hand. He dashed into the hole with lightning speed. With blazing eyes, he immediately assessed the situation—Che Long’an and his companions were back to back, and they were all injured, their clothes drenched in blood. There were even two corpses lying on the ground.

Qi Tian lunged forward, swinging his blade toward a cultivator who was attacking Che Long’an’s group. Although he hadn’t practiced the blade technique, he did read through a few manuals on it. Besides, the cultivation of martial skills often extended from one technique to mastering others. Coupling this with Qi Tian’s formidable body and fierce strength, he wielded the blade as if he was a master.

The cultivators attacking Che Long’an’s group did not anticipate anyone attacking them from behind. As a result, the cultivator targeted by Qi Tian became the first victim, getting split in half by Qi Tian’s blade.

Qi Tian showed no signs of slowing down, swiftly moving onto the next cultivator. The latter reacted after his comrade was slain and quickly readied his defenses. However, his fighting strength was nowhere near Qi Tian’s. Furthermore, with Che Long’an’s group distracting him, he couldn’t fully focus on his defense. Qi Tian found a gap in his defenses, swung his blade, and swiftly took the cultivator down.

Qi Tian struck fear into his enemies’ hearts like a tiger among sheep. In no time, he eliminated the strongest few among the cultivators attacking Che Long’an. The rest posed no threat to Che Long’an and his companions. Without even greeting Che Long’an, Qi Tian turned and left—he had done all he could. Surely, he wasn’t expected to eliminate all the threats against Che Long’an’s group. That would be like handing all the underground spirit stones to Che Long’an on a silver platter.

Of the group, Qi Tian only had some positive feelings toward Che Long’an. As for his companions, Qi Tian felt he was already being merciful by not slapping them.