Volume Four: Buddha Saves No One, Only I, the Demon, Offer Salvation - Battle Lust Burns Bright (Part Two)

Fang Chen carried a long, narrow case on his back. Inside was mining equipment that Old Roughworker had modified into Immortal Artifacts. Its original oil-and-electricity power system had been converted to run on Immortal Jade.

Luo Qian's people stood on the east side of the valley, while the Gengluo Lin Family occupied the west. The Clear Xiang Aristocratic Clan of the Guxu Realm had erected a platform between them. Hua Shiwei and the clan head were both present, but the second Elder was nowhere to be seen. Luo Qian glanced at the platform, his spirits sinking. Even if the second Elder is hiding, what can Hua Shiwei accomplish with the clan head still serving as their puppet? Hua Shiwei had returned home without getting the result she wanted. Hua Yue was missing, and she had no proof that the clan head was under their control. For now, she could only pretend she knew nothing, keep Tian Shun'er close, and remain on guard.

The Immortal Emperor himself had decreed this contest, so the Clear Xiang Aristocratic Clan had to treat it with due importance. Before it began, they held a small ceremony, then marked out five sites and invited the contestants to choose freely where they would mine. Though the Immortal Jade deposit had been discovered long ago, it had never been worked. There were no existing tunnels, so both sides had to start from scratch. Driving a tunnel and extracting Immortal Jade ore within a single day was no easy task. For ordinary miners, a day would not have been nearly enough just to dig the tunnel.

That made the choice of mining site especially important. A site close to the vein would require only a shallow tunnel before the miners struck Immortal Jade, giving them an early lead.

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