Lending a Hand

"Elder Su!"

Sun Fu froze for a moment when he saw that it was Su Fuxi and her disciple, then his eyes lit up with delight. "Wonderful, it's you!"

The interruption slowed him down a little, and the sword cultivator behind him had already formed a seal and sent the treasured sword at his back flying out. In the blink of an eye, its light streaked like a rainbow straight toward Sun Fu's back. Su Fuxi quickly formed a seal and struck out with a golden palm print, which collided with the sword with a boom.

The enormous palm print stopped the sword's howling, blue-lit tip three zhang behind Sun Fu. He hurriedly darted behind the golden cicada, only then daring to relax and spit out the blood that had pooled from his internal injuries and been suppressed for so long.

Su Fuxi and the sword cultivator locked in a stalemate.

"Why are you pursuing my fellow sect member?"

The sword cultivator snorted coldly. Seeing that they were together-one peak Golden Core and two Golden Core cultivators-he knew he was no match for them.

Had Su Fuxi been alone, he could still have fought her, but there were three Golden Core cultivators on the other side. After probing her with that strike, the sword cultivator realized she was no weak Golden Core cultivator either and immediately wanted to retreat.

"Since you are all from the same sect, I must apologize for disturbing you!"

By the time he finished speaking, he had already retreated dozens of zhang and only then dared to summon his treasured sword back. But Su Fuxi did not let up, driving her palm forward with force. The sword cultivator felt the terrifying power of the golden palm bearing down on him. With no other choice, he hurriedly flung out a jade slip, and the instant it raised a defense, he fled without looking back.

With a sharp crack, the jade slip shattered, and the golden palm slowly withdrew.

Su Fuxi dismissed her hand seal and did not pursue him. The man was a sword cultivator, and she had no reason to kill for Elder Sun and expose her trump cards.

Saving him in passing was enough.

"Many thanks for your help, Elder Su. Otherwise, I fear the odds would have been against me."

After regulating his breathing, Sun Fu cupped his hands to thank her, then asked, "Where are you two headed?"

"To the Black Rock Mountain Range." Su Fuxi nodded. "You're too polite, Elder Sun."

"Then I won't trouble you and your disciple. Hm? Martial Nephew Lin truly has extraordinary talent. He's already advanced to Golden Core! He's the youngest Golden Core cultivator in the sect's history. The younger generation is truly formidable!"

Seeing Lin Sui's cultivation, Sun Fu widened his eyes in surprise. Lin Sui hurriedly cupped his hands. "You flatter me, Elder."

Sun Fu could not help feeling envious. He cupped his hands and added, "This secret realm is too dangerous. I'll head for the exit now. You two, I'll take my leave."

Su Fuxi nodded. Presumably, he had found what he needed. She watched Sun Fu ride a streak of light into the distance.

She and Lin Sui continued toward the Black Rock Mountain Range. Aside from that small incident, they encountered no other dangers along the way. The occasional cultivators they met would give them a wide berth as soon as they saw the enormous golden cicada, before it even drew near.

Lin Sui sat steadily on the cicada's back as though on level ground, meditating with his eyes closed, unmoving as a mountain. Su Fuxi had ordered him to devote this time to improving his cultivation because she truly could not stand his gaze resting on her all the time.

And she could not kick him off for no reason.

Half a month later, a glittering golden cicada with red eyes appeared above the Black Rock Mountain Range.

The golden shadow plunged swiftly toward the foot of a mountain peak in the center. Its beating wings scattered layer upon layer of cloud and mist, and it disappeared into them in an instant.

"That's the cold spring."

Su Fuxi saw the familiar deep-blue pool. The golden cicada hovered in the air by the shore, seemingly disliking the cold rising from it. Su Fuxi disliked it too.

She remained seated without moving and gestured with her chin. "Lin Sui, go on."

"There's countless ice down there. Be careful not to suffer a backlash. I'll go to that flood serpent's lair you mentioned and take the spirit veins first."

"I'll come back for you."

Lin Sui had just set foot on the ground when the golden cicada beat its wings and carried Su Fuxi into the sky and away. Her immortal voice faded into the distance as she vanished beyond the horizon.

"Master, are you so eager to leave that you don't want to look at me a moment longer?" He gave a helpless, wistful smile and turned to plunge into the cold pool.

I'd better work hard at cultivating. As long as my cultivation is high enough, she definitely won't be able to escape.

Although it was indeed partly because she did not particularly want to see Lin Sui, Su Fuxi's thoughts were now entirely occupied by the spirit crystal mines.

She swept her spiritual sense into her storage bag. On the two-meter-wide bed of spirit crystals, a mass of silver threads writhed slowly, wrapping the spirit crystals Lin Sui had contributed so tightly that not a gap remained. In just half a month, the bed of crystals had shrunk all around.

The silver threads had recovered their reach of seven or eight zhang.

Raising these spirit insects and spirit gu took enormous resources. Su Fuxi had benefited from the son of fortune's good luck.

Otherwise, she would not even have known where to find the resources to raise it to this size.

If a creature like this was not of a high enough grade, it would be of little use against a powerful enemy. The Thousand Silk Gu had only recently reached the peak of the second tier, but once it advanced, its strength should not be underestimated.

As its tendrils continuously absorbed spiritual energy from the crystals, specks of white fluorescence flowed steadily into the core at the center. The core looked to be the size of a soccer ball now, and every time it devoured spiritual energy, it flashed silver, as though a soundless gulp had rung out.

If this thing kept growing, then every time it appeared, it would be like a great, indescribable mass. The thought was enough to make her scalp tingle.

Su Fuxi watched the pure spirit crystals being steadily consumed, her heart aching.

These few spirit crystals were worth a fortune. It was as though the gu had swallowed tens of millions of spirit stones in one gulp.

That was comparable to the spiritual energy a Golden Core cultivator consumed when advancing.

Three months later, Su Fuxi reached the natural chasm and entered the flood serpent's lair beneath the pool. She faced the cavern, still dense with spiritual energy even after Lin Sui had dug out part of it.

She sighed inwardly that only a son of fortune could receive such treatment.

She swept her spiritual sense outward and discovered that this chamber was the center of the spirit veins, with tendrils of them radiating out in all directions.

The entire network of spirit veins was not very large, but its quality was excellent.

There were three superb spirit crystal veins and more than a dozen spirit stone veins.

Su Fuxi instantly felt as though she were sitting on a mountain of mines, suddenly rich, and was thoroughly pleased.

How was this any different from a mouse getting into a granary?

It even lifted the gloom that had weighed on her ever since she was poisoned, putting her in an exceptionally good mood.

Countless tunnels in the cavern stretched for over a hundred li. Su Fuxi used her spiritual sense to determine the size of the spirit veins she wanted to extract, then formed a seal to control the Embroidered Gold Sword and began cutting around the main chamber with the Remnant Star Sword Art.

A few slashes of Remnant Star made the water in the pool outside tremble violently, while muffled rumbles came from underground. Afraid the cave would collapse and bury her alive, she settled for the next best thing: two small spirit crystal veins and the best spirit stone vein.

Moreover, without sealing them, there was simply no way to fit the spirit veins, each at least fifteen li long, into storage bags.

Fortunately, Su Fuxi knew sealing restrictions. Otherwise, she would have had no way to take the spirit veins out.

Each spirit vein required more than three hundred sets of restrictions, nearly a thousand seals in all. The restrictions overlapped layer upon layer, sealing them so tightly that not a trace of their aura could leak out.

"Collect!" With a thought, the three spirit veins shrank into balls of light and flew into the three storage bags she had prepared.

Once she had successfully stored them, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She stood and cast a cleaning spell on herself, removing the dust that had accumulated all over her. She glanced at the chamber ceiling, where a pitch-black passage ten zhang wide had appeared. The spirit vein inside was completely gone.

The mine tunnels to the left and right, each fifty or sixty meters wide, were likewise empty.

"Time to go." Su Fuxi beckoned toward a naturally formed tunnel a little over a zhang wide at the side. "Come back."

Soon, a mass of silver threads poked out of the tunnel with a rustle. In the blink of an eye, silver light flashed, and it contracted into a ball of light the size of a washbasin, flew out, and drifted onto her hand.

This was the Thousand Silk Gu, which had devoured spirit crystals over the past year and successfully advanced to the third tier.

It was even more reluctant than Su Fuxi to leave the mine and had been eating and eating with all its might. Up close, the round ball looked like a fluffy silver puff, but it was actually made entirely of contracted silver tendrils.

It gave a satisfied belch, and its silver light flickered. The core shrank another size, becoming as large as a fist. Su Fuxi put it into her storage bag, where it landed on the bed of spirit crystals and lay obediently still. Its silver light dimmed, and it fell asleep.

Greedy little thing, Su Fuxi thought. Thousand Silk Gu doesn't suit it. It should be called a Spirit-Devouring Gu Beast.

She turned and took a step, transforming into light and shooting out of the cavern.

"Extracting three spirit veins in a year is already fairly fast. I hope my disciple has finished tempering his body. It would be good to leave the secret realm sooner."

Su Fuxi was now a landowner with spirit veins of her own and had no interest at all in ordinary spirit materials and resources.

The river had indeed flowed east for thirty years, and now it flowed west.