"Damn you... If you’ve got the guts, come on out! What kind of hero are you, hiding in a cave like a coward?"

Seeing that the young man had no intention of fighting it, the Black Bear shrieked in anger. However, it was wary of the Sword Array at the cave’s entrance and didn’t dare to charge, so it could only resort to hurling insults from the air.

"A coward? I’d be the fool if I went out there!"

Nie Yun might have looked young, but he had the mind of an old soul and wouldn’t be provoked by a few words. With a cold snort, he sat down cross-legged inside the cave and, with a flick of his hand, tossed out the corpse of the Purple Flame Tiger.

’Heh, finally something to eat...’

With a faint smile, he retrieved a small knife from his Dantian and began to skin the Purple Flame Tiger.

Having lived in the mountains for over half a month, Nie Yun hadn’t brought any rations. Whenever he got hungry, he would just kill a Demon Beast and roast it. As a result, he was fully prepared with salt and all sorts of seasonings. Before long, the fragrant aroma of roasted Purple Flame Tiger meat filled the air. Nie Yun took the meat, stood at the entrance of the cave, and stared at the Black Bear still cursing in the sky, eating with great relish.

’Let’s see how long you can stay in there!’

Seeing the young man’s smug display, the Black Bear was about to explode with rage. Not only had this guy killed its subordinate, the Purple Flame Tiger, but he was also eating its meat right in front of it! Even death by a thousand cuts couldn’t quell the fury in its heart...

"Heh, you can keep shouting out there. I’m going back to get some sleep..."

Ignoring its roars, Nie Yun retreated into the cave.

Though he sounded relaxed, Nie Yun knew that being trapped like this wasn’t a sustainable solution. ’I have to find a way out!’

’I was lucky to kill a Purple Flame Tiger for food this time. Hunting for more won’t be so easy!’

’Hm? Now that I’ve created the first move of the Profound Jade Sword’s swordsmanship, can’t I just carve a new tunnel horizontally to get out? As long as I get beyond this Ultimate Venerable Demon Beast’s detection range, it won’t be able to catch me!’

An idea suddenly struck Nie Yun.

The cave was perpendicular to the canyon outside. He could simply carve a horizontal tunnel through the side wall! If he followed the direction of the canyon for over ten kilometers, then no matter how powerful the Ultimate Venerable Demon Beast in the sky was, there would be nothing it could do to him!

At this thought, Nie Yun’s eyes lit up.

With his swordsmanship technique, Momentum of Mountains and Rivers, the hard granite was no different from tofu to him. Carving a ten-kilometer tunnel would probably take less than three days!

No sooner said than done. With a mischievous grin, Nie Yun raised his Profound Jade Sword and hacked at the side wall of the cave!

BOOM!

A single sword strike carved out a tunnel more than twenty meters long. With a furious barrage of slashes, Nie Yun managed to dig a four- to five-kilometer-long rock tunnel in less than a day.

’At this rate, another day of digging will get me out of the Black Bear’s line of sight,’ he thought. ’Heh heh, Black Bear, you can keep waiting at that cave entrance. Granddaddy is taking his leave!’

After digging for a whole day, Nie Yun sat down to rest, a look of excitement on his face as he admired his masterpiece.

Reaching the Qi Sect level granted one the Eye of Nature, allowing them to see everything within a ten-li radius. Although this ability was enhanced at the Ultimate Venerable Level, enabling one to see even farther, Nie Yun didn’t believe the Black Bear would be scouting constantly.

After all, using the Eye of Nature consumed a great deal of Spirit. Unless there was a specific reason, no powerhouse would waste energy by constantly keeping their focus trained on their surroundings.

Therefore, as long as Nie Yun escaped to a distance of over ten li, he would no longer attract the Black Bear’s attention and could make a clean getaway.

After a short rest to recover his strength, Nie Yun resumed his digging.

BOOM!

"Hm? There’s another cave here?"

He had dug another two or three li forward when the wall in front of him suddenly crumbled with a CRASH, revealing a pitch-black cave entrance.

This cave was also perpendicular to the rock face, and Nie Yun squeezed into it sideways.

"Fallen Flower, Du Yuan Grass, Ziqing Vine... What is this place? How can there be so many medicinal materials?"

As he broke through and looked inside the cave, Nie Yun’s eyes immediately lit up.

The Spiritual Qi in this cave was abundant, and it was filled with all kinds of medicinal materials. Every single plant was on the same level as the Beardless Grass and Life Reviving Flower he had obtained before—so rare they were nearly priceless!

He had been digging without knowing where he would end up, and now he had found so many medicinal materials. Nie Yun was so excited he was at a loss for words.

’These medicinal materials are all at the thousand-year level, but it seems someone has used a Great Technique to fix them in place so they can’t escape. To be able to execute such a Great Technique, one would have to be at least at the Ultimate Venerable Level! Could the owner of this cave be an Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse?’ 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Although excited, Nie Yun didn’t recklessly rush over to gather the medicinal materials. Instead, he carefully surveyed his surroundings.

When medicinal materials reach a thousand years of age, they gain the ability to flee on their own. For so many of them to be living in such a small area, it was obvious that an extremely powerful expert had confined them here!

To be able to confine thousand-year-old medicinal materials meant the owner of this grotto was, at the very least, an Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse!

’The Black Bear is already an Ultimate Venerable, so how can there be another Ultimate Venerable in this place?’

’If that’s the case, aren’t there too many Ultimate Venerables in this valley?’

An Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse was at the very Peak of the Qi Sea. There were few people with such strength in the entire Divine Wind Empire, so it was undeniably strange for a Demon Beast of this level to appear in an ordinary canyon.

Moreover, the Spiritual Qi in this cave was several times denser than outside, and it was filled with so many thousand-year-old medicinal materials. The whole situation was indescribably bizarre.

’Nine Layers of the Earth Palace, a convergence of Primordial Qi... Could this be a place where Primordial Essence Spirit Liquid gathers?’

After carefully examining the cave’s interior, a thought struck Nie Yun, and a certain term surfaced in his mind.

Primordial Essence Spirit Liquid!

All Cultivators knew that the mountains and rivers of the world each had their own feng shui. Many mountain ranges could contain Earth Qi and gather Spirit Meridians. For this reason, many Sects were established on mountains with abundant Spirit Meridians, because the ample Spiritual Qi allowed disciples to advance their Cultivation faster than ordinary people!

Take the Mi Tian Sect and the Baihua Sect in the Divine Wind Empire, for example. The peaks where they established their Sects, Mi Tian Peak and Baihua Peak, were both places where nature’s spiritual energy was exceptionally dense. As a result, everyone who cultivated there was quite powerful.

These mountain ranges allowed Spiritual Qi to flow freely, releasing the qi from underground and invigorating the entire peak with life. However, there were also some mountain ranges that suppressed the Earth Qi, causing it to stagnate and preventing its release. Over long periods, this would form Primordial Essence Spirit Liquid underground!

Primordial Essence Spirit Liquid was formed entirely from the convergence of nature’s spiritual energy. It took over a hundred years to form a single drop, making it incredibly precious!

If he could obtain even a single drop, he could directly achieve Nirvana without having to worry about any of the dangers!

This cave had a convergence of Primordial Qi and the formation of the Nine Layers of the Earth Palace; one glance was enough to tell it was a place where spiritual energy gathered. If his guess was correct, this was definitely a place where Primordial Essence Spirit Liquid pooled!

’It must be! An ordinary mountain can’t be made entirely of granite; there’s always some soil. But this mountain is solid rock, without a single plant on its cliffs. The Spiritual Qi must be unable to escape... I’ve struck it rich!’

Confirming his suspicion, Nie Yun’s eyes immediately turned red with excitement.

PS: I just looked, and the word count is almost at 330,000. Novels usually go premium around the 200,000-word mark, so I, Lao Ya, have been pretty generous (pats self on the back...). To prove my good character, I’m planning to do another Chapter burst before the novel goes premium. How about it?

Are you up for it? I don’t need your donations now; save those for when we go premium tomorrow morning to exchange for monthly tickets. All I, Lao Ya, want are your bookmarks and recommendation tickets!

We’re currently at 14,735 bookmarks. If we can get to 16,000 before midnight tonight, I’ll release a two-Chapter burst before going premium tomorrow. If we hit 16,500, it’ll be a three-Chapter burst!

On the first day of our big feature, we gained 2,247 bookmarks. A measly thousand or so... shouldn’t be a problem, right? ...