Scheme of the Nine Nether

Underground.

In the endless pitch-black depths, a streak of light sank downward.

The surroundings were utterly dark. All microbial activity had been severed; there were no subterranean creatures burrowing through the earth. It was a place of deathly stillness, devoid even of life force.

That streak of light continued sinking, sinking, until it finally reached the very bottom—a layer that seemed even sturdier than the surrounding earth.

"Is this... basalt?"

The streak of light halted, revealing Lin Chen within.

Looking at the rock before him, which gleamed with a metallic luster beneath his radiance and seemed engraved with layer upon layer of intricate, profound patterns—rock that not only mana but even a Dao Domain could scarcely penetrate—he raised a brow.

Basalt was currently the highest-grade defensive spiritual material in this world, developed by the Immortal Alliance's mine cultivators.

Mine cultivation was one of the Cultivation World's most distinctive paths.

A cultivator first had to cultivate to Foundation Establishment through a particular technique, then locate a mineral vein. At its core, they would disperse their cultivation and return their true essence to that place.

A mineral vein soaked in a cultivator's true essence would undergo a certain mutation due to the peculiarities of the technique, thereby forming an unknown connection with the cultivator. The cultivator could then transplant a spirit vein into it, invest all manner of specific spiritual materials, and use particular formations to establish a symbiotic relationship with the altered mine.

Cultivators who cultivated alongside spirit mines in this manner could use their will and special spiritual objects in hand to mutate the mine in the direction they desired, eventually giving birth to mineral deposits that had never existed in the Cultivation World before.

Mine cultivators themselves could also use this method to turn the location of a spirit