Treasure Hunting

Because his lifespan was so long, Long Xuan was not afraid of wasting time. As a Grind Emperor, grinding himself to the limit was his greatest pleasure. He did not mind investing a great deal of time into a tattered map.

For the next stretch of time, he devoted all his time to completing the fragmentary map. He did not know how many sheets of blank paper he had used. After three full months, he finally completed it and successfully deduced the treasure's location from the map's information.

Long Xuan clutched the completed treasure map in wild delight, pacing excitedly around the room. No one could understand the joy a Grind Emperor felt after spending countless hours and finally succeeding.

He kissed the map, then rolled it up and stored it in his storage bag. He began packing his luggage, preparing to travel far in search of treasure.

Up to now, Long Xuan had never taken a long journey. He had not even gone to nearby places.

On one hand, his strength was still far too weak, and traveling too far was unsafe.

On the other hand, he had to tend Old Long's medicinal garden, so it was inconvenient for him to leave for too long.

But now, he no longer needed to worry about that. He had five Externalized Clones in total; he could simply send one to care for the medicinal garden.

After leaving the Wood Clone behind, Long Xuan first went to the market to purchase supplies for the wilderness. He also stockpiled a large amount of food before heading north.

Come to think of it, this world actually had no Grain-Repelling Pills. To prepare enough food, he had no choice but to bring an extra storage bag specifically for food, which was terribly inconvenient.

He had already made up his mind. Once he had time, he absolutely had to grind out the Grain-Repelling Pill Formula. Grain-Repelling Pills were simply too important for wilderness exploration; he could not go without them.

Half a month later, Long Xuan arrived at a perilous mountain range over a hundred zhang high, stretching without end. Several peaks soared into the clouds.

From afar, it looked like some enormous beast coiled there, its presence magnificent and imposing.

This place was utterly uninhabited. The mountains were barren of grass and trees, without birds or beasts, steeped in deathly silence.

Yet Long Xuan did not dare underestimate this place. The more unusual the terrain and the scarcer the human traces, the more likely it was to hide treasure.

Ownerless treasures always appeared in places seldom touched by mankind. Otherwise, they would have long since been taken away in crowded areas. How could they possibly have fallen to him?

Long Xuan took out the map and examined it. He found that the treasure's location should be somewhere near this mountain range, and he could not help grinning.

He put away the map and began conducting a carpet search of the area.

Though this place covered a vast area, Long Xuan's eyes could see the progress deep underground.

As long as there was treasure here, no matter how deeply it was buried, it could forget about hiding from his eyes.

Before long, Long Xuan stopped at a cave entrance buried beneath a heap of rubble.

This cave was extremely well concealed. Once rubble blocked its entrance, it blended into the mountain wall. Even if ordinary people passed by, they would never discover that there was a cave here.

Long Xuan immediately ordered the four clones to move the rubble blocking the entrance while he rested to the side.

Many hands made light work, and soon a gap was cleared at the cave entrance.

The entrance only needed to be wide enough for one person to pass through. There was no need to clear it all out.

Long Xuan immediately ordered them to stop digging. Then he sent the Flame Clone squeezing through the entrance to scout ahead, checking whether there was any danger deep inside the cave. Only after confirming it was safe would his main body enter.

Although an Externalized Clone could be accidentally killed, after losing one clone, Long Xuan could simply condense another.

The only drawback was that a newly condensed Externalized Clone had to cultivate again from scratch, and only one Externalized Clone of the same attribute could exist at a time.

At this early stage, Long Xuan's spirit power was thin, so Externalized Clones could be restored quickly. Even if he lost one, he would not feel heartache, which was why he dared use them so freely for scouting.

But once his realm grew higher in the future, he absolutely could not afford to lose Externalized Clones whenever he pleased. Otherwise, it would hurt him badly.

Anyone who condensed Externalized Clones had to pay an enormous price, and none could afford to lose them easily. Long Xuan already paid the smallest price among them.

After the Flame Clone had gone in for half a day without encountering danger, Long Xuan, to be safe, sent the remaining clones inside one after another, while he himself walked at the very back.

Suddenly feeling that this was not quite secure enough, he called back the Water Clone, who had been walking last, and ordered him to guard the rear while he moved to the very middle of the group.

After thinking it over, he still felt that the middle was the safest position.

The cave was deep. Long Xuan and every clone held torches as they advanced cautiously.

Before long, they came across three predecessors who had already become white bones. Nine plump storage bags lay on the ground.

Afraid there might be poison, mechanisms, or something similar, Long Xuan had the Metal Clone pick up the storage bags and inspect their contents.

Long Xuan still looked forward to opening blind boxes.

Other than some ordinary miscellaneous items and a conspicuous diary, the nine storage bags contained nothing but fossils. Large and small, strange-shaped fossils filled the bags completely.

However, in Long Xuan's eyes, ninety percent of the fossils displayed no progress at all, confirming beyond doubt that they were dead insects.

The remaining ten percent had progress displays of varying lengths. The longest had as many as four digits after the decimal point, representing High-grade Spirit Insects that matured once every thousand years. There were quite a few of them too, enough for him to make a small fortune.

The moment he saw this pile of fossils, Long Xuan could already tell that this cave was a fossil vein.

Even before entering, he had already discovered densely packed numbers in the center of the mountain.

But he did not possess true X-ray vision. He could only see progress and could not tell what the progress represented.

Now, he could basically confirm that the progress displays all belonged to densely packed insects.

The location marked on this treasure map was actually a rare fossil vein.

Looking again at the three scarred white skeletons, Long Xuan used his half-baked criminal investigation experience to deduce that they had died after internal conflict and mutual fighting.

After reading through the diary in that storage bag, he roughly inferred what had happened here in the past.

Long ago, four Rogue Cultivators had accidentally entered this desolate land rarely visited by humans. While looking for a cave to rest in, they unexpectedly discovered a priceless fossil vein here.

The four were immediately overjoyed. After preparing food and a large number of storage bags, they began excavating the fossils here.

But excavating a mineral vein required enormous manpower and resources. It required mobilizing thousands upon thousands of miners.

Even if the four of them dug desperately until they were old, how much could they possibly excavate?

They quickly discovered that mining was physical labor and simply wasted too much time. They could not cultivate while mining either. If they delayed a great deal of cultivation time, then no matter how much money they earned, it would not make up for the loss.

The best choice was to have mortals do this kind of grueling labor. The time of Gu cultivators was precious; they absolutely could not waste it here.

The rules of this world were that mortals were the main force of production. All dirty and exhausting work was handed over to mortals, while Gu cultivators only needed to focus on cultivation.

But every mortal village was controlled by great clans. How could four Rogue Cultivators like them possibly have the ability to mobilize mortals?