Daoist Qingsang bent at the waist and jogged ahead to lead the way.
As the immortals walked farther inside, the spiritual energy around them grew increasingly dense, until even the breeze condensed into a faint white mist.
They rounded a bend lined with stalactites, and the view suddenly opened up. An underground cavern appeared before the immortals, its stone walls densely studded with raw Spirit Stone ore. At its very center, an innate spirit vein lay quietly dormant.
Spiritual energy pressed in on them, and the vein was of exceptional quality.
Judging by appearances alone, it absolutely deserved a grand stroke of the Heavenly Court's brush, formally conferring the title of Merit Demon King upon Daoist Qingsang.
Daoist Qingsang stepped aside and gestured invitingly. "Lord Chen, please cast your expert eye over it. This is the innate spirit vein I intend to donate in its entirety to the Heavenly Court's treasury. Completely pure and unadulterated, without a drop of water mixed in!"
Chen Wei stood at the edge of the spirit vein and looked it up and down.
He had passed the examination for the Advanced Forging Token at the Immortal Works Bureau, after all. Ore veins and spiritual treasures were his particular expertise. One glance was enough to see what was going on: this innate spirit vein was entirely natural and untouched.
There were no traces of magical excavation on the surrounding stone walls.
Nor did the spirit vein's nodes show any signs of having dried up from spiritual energy extraction.
Was that possible?
An innate spirit vein sat right here underground, out in the open. How many bands of demons had come and gone on Mistcloud Mountain, yet not a single Demon King had developed it?
Had all the demons in the Mortal Realm turned vegetarian and lost