The Secret in the Mine

Li Zhengyang tucked the note away and walked inside.

The tunnel was far quieter than the gorge outside, his footsteps crunching over gravel.

He had gone less than fifty meters when the ground changed.

The gravel gave way to a smooth stone-slab road.

Someone had laid it.

And they had done so meticulously. The seams between the slabs fit perfectly, not some slapdash wilderness path.

Farther in, lamps appeared along the walls for illumination, one every ten meters, with several still lit.

Li Zhengyang switched off his phone flashlight and advanced by the lamplight.

This road had been built far too professionally. It did not look like something dug out in a hurry, but like an underground passage that had taken considerable effort to create.

After roughly a hundred meters, the road split into left and right paths.

The one on the right had tracks.

Rail tracks.

The kind used by narrow-gauge mine carts.

An empty mine cart sat on the rails, with mineral dust still lingering in its hopper.

Li Zhengyang pinched up some of the powder and rubbed it between his fingertips.

Dark purple, faintly warm, with a subtle pulse of spiritual energy against his fingertips.

Low-Grade Spirit Ore.

A cultivation material for Martial Warriors and a military-controlled resource. A single gram was hard to find on the market, while the black-market price stood at one hundred Great Xia yuan per gram.

The residue in this cart alone could yield at least several dozen grams if shaken out.

Li Zhengyang continued along the tracks to the right.

The tracks extended for roughly three hundred meters before the space ahead suddenly opened up.

A natural cave had been converted into a warehouse.

It covered at least three or four hundred square meters, with a ceiling more than ten meters high.

Lamp fixtures hung densely in a ring, brightly illuminating the cave.

At the center of the cavern, over a dozen metal crates were stacked in neat rows beneath oilcloth coverings.

Li Zhengyang walked over and lifted the lid of the nearest crate.

Spirit Ore.

An entire crate of Spirit Ore, each piece the size of a fist. They were finished products that had been cut and polished, sorted and packed by grade.

He opened the second crate.

Pills.

Military-issued Battlefield Emergency Pills, Healing Pills, and Blood-Replenishing Pills.

Bottles and jars filled the entire crate to the brim.

Fortress No. 13 Quartermaster Department serial numbers were printed on the bottles.

The third crate held standard-issue weapons: alloy Short Blades, standard military crossbows, and several expensive-looking, finely forged long spears.

The fourth crate held Beast Cores, each packed into separate bags.

Li Zhengyang searched through the crates one by one, stopping when he reached the seventh.

A shipping manifest was stuck to the side of the crate.

The recipient was identified by a code name, giving away no actual name.

But the sender field stated in black and white: Fortress No. 13 Quartermaster Department.

The seal was that of the Quartermaster Department.

The signature belonged to Zhang Jianbiao.

Li Zhengyang took a photo of the shipping manifest.

Something came back to him.

On the day he had reported to the fortress, the administrator of the logistics warehouse had casually mentioned that the fortress's pill reserves had always been tight. Last month, more than thirty soldiers injured on the front lines had been forced to drag on for half a month before barely recovering because there were not enough Healing Pills.

Two of the severely wounded were still lying in the medical room. Their damaged meridians had not been repaired in time, and whether they would ever be able to return to the battlefield was still uncertain.

So that was it.

It was not that supplies could not get through.

They had been intercepted by this deputy commander.

Zhang Mang's Fierce Tiger Squad monopolized the lucrative missions and barred others from entering the areas near the gorge. On one hand, it was to seize the money.

On the other, it was to deny newcomers the chance to venture deep into the fortress's perimeter.

Li Zhengyang stuffed the shipping manifest into his pocket.

Since this was smuggling money stained black, he had no psychological burden whatsoever about taking it.

Just as Li Zhengyang was about to start stuffing the goods into his Space Ring, he glanced back toward the left passage.

Voices came from that direction.

More than one person.

Conversation mixed with footsteps as they headed this way.

Three auras.

Two were at the Great Martial Master level, not worth mentioning.

The one in front was a Third-Rank Martial Spirit.

Li Zhengyang withdrew his hand from the crate, gripped the Mountain-Piercing Spear, and retreated behind a pile of empty crates in the corner.

The voices drew closer and closer.

"Why are you rushing me? That batch from above will not reach the pickup point until the day after tomorrow. What the hell are you panicking for?"

The leader's voice was hoarse, and he spoke slowly.

"Boss, Deputy Commander Zhang sent signals twice today, telling us to speed up the loading. He said a troublemaker recently arrived at the fortress, and he is afraid something might go wrong."

"Troublemaker? What kind of troublemaker could find this place? The gorge outside is full of Fourth-Rank Magic Beasts. Other than my men, who could make it here alive?"

The three men entered the cavern.

The leader was a gaunt man in his forties, with an old scar slashing across his face from temple to chin. He wore black training fatigues and had two Short Blades hanging from his waist.

Third-Rank Martial Spirit.

His aura was restrained, but it could not conceal his foundation. Li Zhengyang gauged the depths of his strength with a single sweep.

The two Great Martial Masters behind him were carrying a crate and pushing a mine cart respectively.

Two small fry.

The scarred man walked before the stack of crates, yanked aside a piece of oilcloth, and began counting the inventory.

"Five crates of Spirit Ore, four crates of pills, three crates of weapons, two crates of Beast Cores. It does not match the last manifest. Two crates of pills are missing."

"Deputy Commander Zhang took two crates himself last time. He said they were for conditioning his nephew."

"Fine, note it down. Load them up. Move the Spirit Ore first to—"

Just as they were about to reach the crates behind which Li Zhengyang was hiding.

A streak of silver shot out from behind the crate pile.

A spear thrust filled with Blood Qi—the Collapse Formula.

A Fifth-Rank Martial Spirit against a Third-Rank Martial Spirit, separated by two entire ranks.

The scarred man's reaction was already considered quick.

The instant he heard the wind, both hands drew their blades at once, crossing the two Short Blades to block.

It was useless.

The moment the spear tip struck the blades, the Short Blades shattered outright.

The spear did not lose momentum. It pierced through the scarred man's left shoulder and emerged from his right waist.

His whole body was hurled backward by the spear and nailed to the rear wall of the cavern.

The scarred man lowered his head to look at the shaft protruding through his chest, his mouth opening and closing.

"You... who..."

Li Zhengyang walked over and pulled out the spear.

"Your killer!"

The pull tore out half a length of intestine. The scarred man's head lolled to one side, and he fell silent.

The two Great Martial Masters behind him saw this and threw down the crate and mine cart at the same time.

One drew his blade, while the other turned and ran.

The one who drew his blade charged forward, raising it above his head.

Li Zhengyang thrust the butt of his spear forward.

The iron band on the spear butt smashed into his forehead, caving in his skull.

He fell backward. The back of his head struck the rails, bounced once, and he did not move again.

The runner had already dashed more than twenty meters away.

Li Zhengyang threw the long spear like a javelin.

The spear tip bored in through his back and burst out of his chest. He crashed facedown and slid another three or four meters before stopping.

Three men, in less than five seconds.

Li Zhengyang walked over, pulled out the spear, and wiped the blood off with the dead man's clothes.

He took out his phone and snapped several photos.

A full view of the warehouse, the shipping manifest, the Quartermaster Department serial numbers inside the crates. He would keep the evidence; it might prove useful someday.

Then he began moving the goods.

The Space Ring had limited capacity, but fortunately, he had cleared out a batch of miscellaneous junk earlier.

The Spirit Ore went in first. This stuff was the most valuable.

After he stuffed in five crates of Spirit Ore, the ring's space became tight.

The pills took up little room, so he crammed in another two crates.

From the remaining weapons and Beast Cores, he selected and packed some of the more valuable ones.

Several crates simply would not fit. After thinking it over, Li Zhengyang dragged them into a corner and covered them with gravel and oilcloth.

Once he got a larger storage item, he would come back for a second trip.

After cleaning up the scene, he dragged the three corpses into a dark passage deep in the cave and tossed them inside.

Few living people knew of this place to begin with. With the bodies hidden in there, they would not be discovered anytime soon.

Li Zhengyang crawled out of the mine along the original route and returned to the gorge.

The sky had already darkened.

He checked his phone. It was eight at night.

More than four hours had passed since he entered.

Had the mission been completed?

The mission required him to scout the source of the Magic Beast tide's abnormal activity.

He had found the source. There had never been any Magic Beast disturbance at all; Zhang Jianbiao had been transporting goods inside, and the commotion had drawn the nearby Magic Beasts over.

But he did not intend to report that conclusion for now.

If he reported it, the military would intervene and investigate, and all the Spirit Ore and pills would be confiscated for public use.

Not a single cent would reach his hands.

What he needed to do was cash out the goods first. Once the money was in hand, then he could talk.

Li Zhengyang headed back along the gorge, casually killing several lone Third-Rank Magic Beasts along the way and stuffing their Beast Cores into his pocket.

When he reached the mouth of the gorge, he called for the fortress's transport aircraft.

During the twenty minutes he waited for the aircraft, Li Zhengyang leaned against the rock wall and calculated the haul from this trip.

The Spirit Ore was conservatively worth two million.

The pills, together with the miscellaneous Beast Cores and materials, were worth several hundred thousand more.

Adding in the batch he had accumulated from killing Magic Beasts earlier.

This trip to Blood-Colored Gorge had brought in roughly three million.

The transport aircraft's engines sounded in the distance.

Li Zhengyang stood and dusted off his pants.

Once these things were turned into money.

They would be enough to let him climb another step.

But before climbing that step, there was something else he wanted to do.

Those pills, such as the First-Aid Pills and Healing Pills.

He had no use for them. A Martial Spirit Rank cultivator's self-healing ability had no need for such low-grade goods.

But the wounded soldiers in the fortress medical room, those who defended their homes and country, could use them.

Li Zhengyang made up his mind.

The transport aircraft landed, and Li Zhengyang jumped onto the boarding ramp.

"Back to the fortress."