Western Desert.
This was a stretch of Gobi, flat and boundless as far as the eye could see.
Cracked stone ground lay everywhere, without a blade of grass.
Yet deep underground, there was another world entirely. Vast mineral veins and constructed mines filled the depths.
More than a hundred thousand stone men lived here as miners, extracting all manner of minerals for Gu Immortals.
This was the famed Ten Thousand Mines Gobi of Western Desert, controlled by the Shi Family, one of the Super Forces.
The minerals here came in countless varieties and immense reserves.
Aside from the mortal-level minerals mined by stone men, there were also many immortal mines that Gu Immortals had to personally mine.
For example, darkflow goldsteel was the hardest Rank 6 Immortal Material. Then there was the Rank 7 Immortal Material Dark Green Ink Stone—even the vicious claw of an Ancient Sword Dragon would leave scarcely a mark upon it.
And deep beneath this Ten Thousand Mines Gobi flowed a majestic Shattered Gold River.
The Shattered Gold River was a river of metal from Primeval Yellow Heaven. This Ten Thousand Mines Desert had once been the place where an enormous fragment of Primeval Yellow Heaven fell.
That fragment of Primeval Yellow Heaven had once become a treasure land explored by Gu Masters and Gu Immortals alike. But as the years weathered and eras changed, the fragment grew smaller and smaller until it finally vanished completely.
During the process of its disappearance, the dao marks it scattered gradually transformed the surrounding Gobi into the Ten Thousand Mines Gobi. This Shattered Gold River had been a product of that Primeval Yellow Heaven fragment, passed down until today without ever running dry.
Fang Yuan's Lesser Yellow Heaven also had a Shattered Gold River, but it was extremely small.