Chapter 169: Eliminating Cultivators Inside and Out

He began communicating with Chu Yi through their Contract and learned that indeed only one Cultivator came out on patrol each day; Bai Jingde had not lied to him.

So no one else should come out today, but he feared that if the people inside discovered Bai Jingde had not returned, they would become alert, thus startling the snake by beating the grass.

Therefore, he might as well strike first! He would go inside and release the Purple Crystal Scorpions.

Among these five Cultivators, the two brothers Chen Biao and Chen Hu posed the greatest danger, so even if he could not eliminate both at once, he must at least take out one first.

Having made up his mind, he summoned the Purple Crystal Scorpion Swarm back; after a moment's consideration, he did not retrieve the Mysterious Trace Array, thinking that leaving it here might yet yield an unexpected harvest.

He took out the Treasure Light Gauze, draped it over himself, and then approached that Concealment Formation, which took a Quarter of an Hour.

Finally reaching the edge of the Formation, he used the Spell Incantation taught by Bai Jingde and successfully entered inside the Formation.

As soon as he entered, Lin Changqing began releasing the Purple Crystal Scorpion Swarm; after releasing them, the swarm turned invisible and scattered, only then did Lin Changqing have the leisure to observe the situation inside.

He saw that the Formation also covered a radius of one hundred meters, with the entrance to the Fire Copper Mine located in the center; surrounding the entrance were five houses, and of the remaining five people, except for the eldest, they should all be inside the houses.

This made things easy; with a thought, he assigned twenty Purple Crystal Scorpions around each house, while the remaining twenty-four were sent into the mine tunnel.

The Purple Crystal Scorpions surrounding the five houses soon took their positions; after a moment's consideration, feeling that the eldest still posed the greatest danger, Lin Changqing followed those twenty-four Purple Crystal Scorpions as they crept into the mine tunnel.

After entering over one hundred meters, he saw a middle-aged burly man at the Qi Refining Great Perfection stage leaning against a corner in meditation, with many piles of unprocessed ore stacked beside him.

Lin Changqing dared not stare directly at him, fearing it would arouse his alertness, so he could only glance occasionally out of the corner of his eye, holding the Golden Thread Escape Light Needle in his hand, ready to deliver a finishing blow if necessary.

He dared not let too many Purple Crystal Scorpions approach him at once, arranging only that single First Stage Late Period one to carry out the task.

However, just as it was about to touch him, it was still discovered.

The burly man let out a sudden roar, "Who is there?" and reached his hand toward his Spirit Beast Bag, intending to release his Spirit Beast.

Lin Changqing would not give him the chance; with a thought, several more Purple Crystal Scorpions pounced upon him.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Several consecutive piercing screams of agony echoed throughout the mine tunnel and beyond; not only did the miners inside hear them, but the four remaining Cultivators outside heard them as well.

The Golden Thread Escape Light Needle in his hand flew out, delivering an additional strike to that Cultivator's head, and he shouted into the tunnel, "I am here to save you all; stay exactly where you are and do not come out."

Then he paid them no more mind, turned around, and walked out of the tunnel; with a flip of his hand, the Thunder Horn appeared in his grip, and he quickly began injecting Spiritual Energy into it.

With Ba Bai's cooperation, a Geng Metal Divine Thunder was soon generated, held in reserve without being released.

Just as he exited the tunnel, he heard two more screams, clearly distinguishing them as the voices of one man and one woman.

The remaining two were quite clever; instead of using the main gate, they performed Sword Flight from within their rooms, bursting out through the roof, and upon spotting Lin Changqing, they wasted no words and directly flew their swords toward him.

At the same time, the Flying Swords in both their hands shot forth aggressively, flanking left and right to crush Lin Changqing between them.

Lin Changqing's Divine Sense immediately locked onto the Cultivator with the higher Cultivation Base.

"Boom!" The Geng Metal Divine Thunder, though launched later, arrived first, blasting that Cultivator into several pieces.

At this moment, the two Flying Swords from left and right also arrived; Lin Changqing did not even dodge, but simply with a thought, two Thunder Shields enveloped him tightly.

After two sharp "Ding, ding" sounds, one of the Flying Swords lost its master's control and fell beside Lin Changqing, while the other circled halfway and attacked Lin Changqing again.

Lin Changqing was somewhat speechless; this Qi Refining Sixth Layer Cultivator had admirable courage, actually not fleeing but controlling his Flying Sword to attack Lin Changqing once more.

But this was as far as it went; three Golden Thread Escape Light Needles arranged in a row shot forth from Lin Changqing's hand.

The first two pierced through the two layers of Defensive Light Shields on his body, and the final one penetrated his brain; immediately, his body stiffened, and he fell from mid-air.

With a thought, three Purple Crystal Scorpions rushed up to deliver the finishing blows.

There were still two who had merely lost their ability to resist; he needed to deal with them now to prevent them from recovering.

He stripped everything from these two Cultivators, one male and one female: their Storage Bags, Spirit Beast Bags, and several Dharma Artifacts that had fallen to the ground.

Then he bound them all up and stored them inside his Spirit Beast Bracelet to keep that old rascal Bai Jingde company.

Next came the time to clean up the battlefield; he first collected the belongings from the two Cultivators who had perished outside. However, while gathering the spoils from that unlucky fellow struck by lightning, it was quite nauseating—bloody and gore, along with some colorful bits...

Lin Changqing endured the discomfort; adhering to the principle of not wasting anything, he cast several Water Ball Techniques beforehand to clean the area thoroughly before picking up the items.

There was also the Flying Sword he had been riding at the time, which had been bent by the Geng Metal Divine Thunder; he found it dozens of meters away.

After sweeping the area twice with his Divine Sense and confirming nothing was missed, he turned back into the mine tunnel and stripped everything from the eldest, Chen Biao.

After a moment's consideration, he still used that Storage Bag previously employed to hold Wang Youzong's Corpse to pack these two intact Corpses.

He would keep them for now; when interrogating those two Robber Cultivators later, they might yet serve some unexpected purpose.

Then, looking at the piles of Red Smelting Fire Copper Ore before him, these items had not yet been refined and took up considerable Space, but there was no choice; he had to store them first.

Fortunately, Lin Changqing possessed the Spirit Beast Bracelet; using only the smallest Space within it, he stored all the ore.

Remembering the few houses outside, Lin Changqing decided to inspect them before dealing with the villagers who had been captured and forced to work as miners inside the tunnel.

He inspected the five houses one by one; there were no other discoveries, just some Living Supplies and the like, but inside each house, he found about two cubic meters of ore.

Upon inspection, he realized these should be ores with a higher content of Red Refined Fire Copper, so Lin Changqing specifically placed these ten cubic meters of ore into a separate Space.

Suddenly inspired, he also dismantled some usable building materials from these few houses and stored them in a large Storage Bag.

In this way, he now had the building materials needed for his Inner Space, saving Lin Changqing the trouble of going out to buy them specifically.

Since Xu Meiniang happened to be an Earth-attribute Cultivator, he would just toss all this to her and let her build the Courtyard herself.

This time, he truly made full use of everything, letting nothing go to waste; he then used the Fireball Technique to blast the few houses into ruins, lest anyone detect anything amiss.

He left twenty-four Purple Crystal Scorpions distributed within the Formation and recalled the rest into his Spirit Beast Bracelet.

After sweeping back and forth with his Divine Sense several times and confirming once again that nothing was missed, he walked back into the mine tunnel; probing each tunnel with his Divine Sense, he soon had a general idea of the situation in his mind.

The ore in many mine tunnels had already been exhausted; the remaining eighty-seven villagers were all concentrated in the last three tunnels.

He shouted to the people inside, "It's over, you can all come out now; those few Robber Cultivators have already been dealt with by me, and everyone can go home."

Hearing Lin Changqing say this, the people inside immediately erupted in earth-shaking cheers and then all rushed outward.

They gathered before Lin Changqing one after another, kneeling and kowtowing while loudly expressing their gratitude, "Thank you, Immortal Master! Thank you, Immortal Master! Thank you, Immortal Master, for saving us!"

With everyone talking over each other in a chaotic clamor that made Lin Changqing's head ache, he could only shout loudly, "Stop, no more noise, all of you get up; is anyone from Tongshan Village here? Come out, someone who can take charge and speak."

Only then did the crowd turn their gaze uniformly to a tall, thin, and sturdy man; subsequently, that man stood up and said to Lin Changqing, "Thank you, Immortal Master, for saving us; Chen Shuguang of Tongshan Village greets the Immortal Master!"

Lin Changqing nodded and said, "Less idle talk; very soon, in another hour, the sky will grow dark. Do you have the confidence to lead these people back to Tongshan Village safely? Or would you prefer to make do here for the night and depart early tomorrow morning? You choose yourselves."

Lin Changqing's voice had just fallen.

Everyone below shouted things like, "Go back, go home, leave now, I don't want to stay here."

Lin Zhangqing could only shout loudly, "Stop!"

Only then did the crowd fall silent.

"Chen Shuguang and the others from Tongshan Village, lead the way at the front; those behind, follow closely and do not get separated. I will protect you from the air. For now, everyone returns to Tongshan Village first; tomorrow, the others may return to their own villages. Set out!"

He then formed a Spell Incantation to open a gap in the Concealment Formation to let them out, only to remember he had left a Small Five Elements Illusion Array outside, with a villager still inside it.

Lin Zhangqing immediately flew over, retrieved the Array Disk, and brought that villager to rejoin the main group.

For these ordinary people, the thirty or forty li of mountain roads took more than two hours to traverse before they finally returned to Tongshan Village.

With so many people returning at once, all of Tongshan Village erupted in clamor; seeing several of the village's key figures come out, Lin Zhangqing gave them a few instructions to properly care for everyone who had returned, then went alone to Chen Ziya's home.

(End of Chapter)