Lake Bottom Pit

Lake Bottom Pit. The setting sun sank, and night descended.

Though cultivators could go sleepless for days, the southwestern tribes, existing in tribal form, often had immortals and mortals living side by side. The insurmountable divide between immortals and mortals found in the Great Chu Cultivation Realm was far blurrier in these southwestern lands.

Thus, the vast majority of low-tier Gu Cultivators were inevitably influenced by mortal customs, retaining the tradition of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

Under the lingering influence of such mortal habits, the clamor and bustle of the vast Emerald Lake gradually subsided into silence.

Yet this silence was only relative—for the hired workers, as opposed to the idle cultivators.

So-called hired workers were cultivators employed by the Jadeite Tribe to mine mineral materials.

The term hired worker came from the mortal world. Within the cultivation world, employed cultivators used it to mock themselves, jesting over their wasted years.

Corresponding to them were forced laborers and prisoner laborers. Forced laborers were no different from their mortal-world counterparts; those conscripted were basically low-tier cultivators from lands under the Jadeite Tribe's rule.

As for prisoner laborers, there were mainly two kinds. One kind consisted of condemned criminals whose crimes warranted death. If they were not executed on the spot, once captured, they would generally be placed under restrictions and made to mine until death.

The other kind were those whose crimes did not warrant death. Their legal punishment was often replaced with mine labor, and depending on the severity of their offenses, those captured would work in these mines for varying lengths of time.

Compared to the employment arrangement of hired workers, the latter two naturally faced far more restrictions. There was no question of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

Even though dusk had fallen,