At the highest council meeting, aside from Lingxiao Palace's absent representative, the other seven major factions gathered together to begin negotiations. Unlike the eighth-grade Immortal Vein, where there had been too many wolves and too little meat, dragging matters out for a long time without even convening a highest council because everyone knew no agreement could be reached quickly.
This time, however, seven resource-rich mineral veins had appeared along the northwestern border. There was certainly enough meat to go around, so the highest council had to be convened to make a decision as quickly as possible.
Mineral veins differed from Immortal Veins in that they could not be forcibly relocated. Otherwise, it would be like killing the chicken to get the eggs, making lasting profits like Tianji Pavilion's impossible. Thus, this meeting discussed every possibility: whether the seven factions would jointly arrange mining personnel, or trade other things for larger shares and directly obtain the mining rights to an entire resource-rich mineral vein.
Though all seven mineral veins were tempting, their quality varied. If the "Heavenly Mechanism Spirit Stabilizing Stone" vein, capable of producing Sixth-ring Dao Material and creating a Tianji Pavilion in one stroke, counted as a supreme-grade mine, then among the seven newly discovered veins, three were near-supreme-grade veins.
Those three veins could respectively produce Li Jinsha, Golden Marrow Insect Crystal, and Wanxi Filth Soil.
Li Jinsha had a single use: it was a material used solely for artifact refinement. Yet it was exceptionally useful in refining artifacts. The higher the grade of the artifact being refined, the more precious the required materials became, while success remained difficult to guarantee.
Once refinement failed, the losses became even more severe. This was why many Rogue Cultivators would rather pay a high price for finished products than have someone refine