Chapter 378: One Hundred Thousand Immortal Crystals, Cultivation Progress

Afterward, he took out his iron pickaxe and began to dig.

To avoid making too much noise, he compressed his spiritual power to the extreme, ensuring each strike precisely hit the weak points of the stone wall.

Clack… Clack…

The slight sounds of impact echoed through the mine, but they were masked by the snoring of other Mine Slaves.

Zhou Chen dug slowly, but his efficiency was extremely high.

Half an hour later, he finally dug through the stone wall.

A rich surge of Immortal Spiritual Energy gushed out from the crack, instantly refreshing Zhou Chen's spirits.

"Found it!"

He couldn't help but pick up the pace, widening the crack bit by bit.

Soon, a narrow Ore vein hidden behind the stone wall appeared before his eyes.

The vein wasn't large, only about ten meters long, but it was embedded with countless crystal-clear immortal crystals.

The purity of the immortal crystals here was extremely high, emitting a soft glow.

Every single one was a high-grade immortal crystal Ore!

Zhou Chen made a rough estimate; there were at least a hundred of them.

"I'm rich…"

He suppressed the excitement in his heart and began to dig cautiously.

high-grade immortal crystals were extremely precious; if one wasn't careful during excavation, they could easily be damaged.

Therefore, he had to be extremely careful.

One… two… ten…

Zhou Chen dug slowly, but fortunately, every immortal crystal remained intact.

He stored all the excavated immortal crystals into the System space.

The System space could not be detected even by those in the Quasi-Immortal Realm, making it the safest place.

Three days later.

Zhou Chen finally finished digging out the entire Associated Immortal Crystal Vein.

A total of one hundred and three high-grade immortal crystals!

Equivalent to one million and thirty thousand Low Grade immortal crystals!

Enough to redeem his freedom ten times over!

Moreover, the System's notification sounded.

[Congratulations to the Host for successfully intercepting Zhao Shitou's Opportunity!]

[Triggered ten-thousand-fold critical hit return!]

[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining: 103,000 supreme grade immortal crystals!]

Zhou Chen blurted out, "Holy cow."

One hundred thousand supreme grade immortal crystals?!

One supreme grade immortal crystal was equivalent to a million Low Grade immortal crystals!

One hundred thousand supreme grade immortal crystals meant one hundred billion Low Grade immortal crystals!

"This…"

Zhou Chen sucked in a breath of cold air.

He had originally thought that intercepting a hundred high-grade immortal crystals was already a huge profit.

He never expected that the System's ten-thousand-fold critical hit return would directly give him a hundred thousand supreme grade immortal crystals!

This was truly an overnight fortune!

"Hahaha…"

Zhou Chen couldn't help but laugh wildly in his heart.

With these immortal crystals, never mind redeeming himself, he could more than afford to buy the entire mine!

But he quickly calmed down.

An ordinary man is innocent, but harboring a treasure makes him guilty.

If the people at the mine found out he had so many immortal crystals, it would certainly bring about a fatal disaster.

Therefore, Zhou Chen had to be even more low-key.

He should continue to mine as usual and hand over what was required.

He absolutely could not expose the existence of the high-grade and supreme grade immortal crystals.

He would wait for a suitable Opportunity to leave the mine.

Zhou Chen erased all traces of his digging and then quietly returned to his resting area.

Just as he lay down and prepared to rest, footsteps suddenly came from outside the mine.

It was the guards!

Zhou Chen's heart tightened.

Why were the guards coming at this time?

Could they have discovered something unusual?

He held his breath and pretended to be fast asleep.

Two guards dressed in black robes entered the mine, their Divine Sense sweeping across the entire area.

"Strange…"

One of the guards frowned. "I clearly felt a fluctuation of spiritual energy here just now."

"How is there nothing now?"

The other guard said, "Maybe you sensed it wrong."

"How could these Mine Slaves have the ability to pull off any tricks?"

"Let's go, patrol the other mines."

The two turned and left.

Zhou Chen breathed a sigh of relief.

That was close…

He was almost discovered.

It seemed he had to be even more careful in his future actions.

He closed his eyes and began to recover his spiritual power.

In his heart, however, he was calculating how to use these immortal crystals to improve his strength as quickly as possible and leave this hellhole.

In the morning, the harsh sound of a brass gong rang out as usual in the Blackstone Seventh Mine.

"Everyone up! Time to work!"

The guards' rough shouts echoed through the mine.

The Mine Slaves scrambled up one after another, picking up their iron pickaxes to prepare for a new day of mining.

Zhou Chen also pretended to have just woken up, stretched, picked up his pickaxe, and went to his mining area.

On the surface, he was the same as usual, but in his heart, he was calculating his next moves.

"One hundred thousand supreme grade immortal crystals, equivalent to one hundred billion Low Grade immortal crystals…"

Zhou Chen thought to himself, "This wealth is enough for me to gain a solid foothold in the Spirit Realm."

"But the problem now is how to use these crystals to improve my strength without exposing myself, and then leave the mine."

He thought for a while and had a plan in mind.

"I absolutely cannot take out one hundred thousand Low Grade immortal crystals at once to redeem myself."

"That would be too conspicuous and would arouse the suspicion of the mine manager."

"Secondly, I must find a way to improve my strength."

"The Spirit Realm is full of experts; the Quasi-Immortal Realm is just for small managers, so how terrifying must the stronger Cultivators be?"

"With my current cultivation at the First Layer of the Venerable Realm, it's simply not enough in the Spirit Realm."

"I must break through to the second layer, third layer, or even higher as soon as possible."

Zhou Chen calculated while he mined.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to him.

"Right, those supreme grade immortal crystals in the System space…"

"While I can't directly take out the immortal crystal Ore to use, the pure immortal crystals returned by the System can be used for cultivation!"

"Immortal crystals contain pure Immortal Spiritual Energy. If I can refine and absorb them, my cultivation will surely advance by leaps and bounds."

With a thought, he took out a supreme grade immortal crystal from the System space.

The Immortal Spiritual Energy contained within was concentrated to the extreme.

"As expected of a supreme grade immortal crystal…"

Zhou Chen marveled. "The Immortal Spiritual Energy contained in this one crystal is probably more than the spiritual energy of an entire Holy Land in the Tianxuan Continent."

"If I can refine and absorb it, my cultivation can at least increase by a small stage."

But he didn't refine it immediately.

Because refining immortal crystals would generate strong spiritual energy fluctuations.

If he refined it in the mine, he would definitely be discovered by the guards.

"It seems I must find a hidden place."

Zhou Chen looked around, his gaze falling on the depths of the mine.

There was an abandoned mine shaft deep inside; because the Ore had been depleted, no one had been there for a long time.

"There it is."

Zhou Chen waited until a break, pretended to go to the depths of the mine to relieve himself, but actually slipped into that abandoned shaft.

The shaft was pitch black, so dark he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

But for a Venerable Realm Cultivator, this level of darkness was nothing.

Zhou Chen found a hidden corner, set up a Concealment Formation, and then sat down cross-legged.

"Let's begin."

He took out that supreme grade immortal crystal and circulated the Great Void Eight Desolations Formless Scripture.

Buzz—

The Immortal Spiritual Energy inside the crystal began to pour out, turning into countless tiny threads of spiritual energy that drilled into Zhou Chen's body.

This Immortal Spiritual Energy was extremely pure, far exceeding the spiritual energy of the Tianxuan Continent, including the Chaos Spiritual Energy Zhou Chen had previously refined.

Zhou Chen's body was like a parched desert, crazily absorbing this Immortal Spiritual Energy.

His cultivation began to slowly rise.

Venerable Realm First Layer Middle Stage…

Venerable Realm First Layer Late Stage…

In just one hour, Zhou Chen's cultivation had increased by two small stages.

And that supreme grade immortal crystal still had half of its Immortal Spiritual Energy left.

Zhou Chen gave a bitter smile; his Azure Lotus Creation Body was still as voracious as ever.

If not for the System, he simply wouldn't be able to afford its upkeep.