Chapter 36: Treasure Hunting

Because of his long lifespan, Long Xuan was not afraid of wasting time at all. As a "Liver Emperor," liver-exploding was his greatest pleasure. He didn't mind investing a large amount of time in a tattered map.

For the next period of time, he devoted all his time to patching the map fragment. He didn't know how many sheets of white paper he consumed, but finally, after three months, he successfully patched this map fragment and successfully guessed the treasure location based on the information on the treasure map.

Long Xuan held this patched treasure map with ecstasy, walking back and forth in the room excitedly. No one could understand the joyful mood of a "Liver Emperor" after spending countless time and finally succeeding.

He kissed the map with his mouth, then rolled it up and put it into his storage bag, and began to pack his luggage, preparing to go on a long journey to hunt for treasure.

Long Xuan hadn't been on a long journey even once so far, and he hadn't even walked in places very close by.

On one hand, it was because his strength was too weak, and going too far was not safe.

On the other hand, he was responsible for taking care of Long Lao's medicine garden, so it was inconvenient to leave for too long.

But now he didn't need to consider this problem. He possessed a full five External Avatars. He could just send one External Avatar to take care of the medicine garden.

After Long Xuan left the Lin clone behind, he first went to the market to purchase supplies for the wild, and also hoarded a large amount of food, before heading all the way north.

Speaking of which, this world actually didn't have Fossilized Insect Pills. To prepare enough food, he had to prepare an extra storage bag specially for food, which was extremely inconvenient.

He had already made up his mind that when he had time, he must liver out the Fossilized Insect Pill formula. For wild adventures, Fossilized Insect Pills were truly too important; he absolutely couldn't do without them.

Half a month later, Long Xuan arrived at a steep mountain range that was a hundred zhang high and continuous, with several mountains towering into the clouds.

Looking from afar, it was like a giant beast crouching here, with majestic momentum.

It was uninhabited here, with no grass or trees on the mountains, and no birds or beasts, a scene of dead silence.

But Long Xuan didn't dare to underestimate this place. The more peculiar the terrain and the less frequented by people, the easier it was to hide treasure.

Ownerless treasures always appeared in places rarely visited by humans; otherwise, they would have been found by others in crowded places long ago, so how could it be his turn?

Long Xuan took out the map and looked at it, finding that the treasure location should be near this mountain range, and he couldn't help but grin.

He put away the map and began to conduct a carpet-style search here.

Don't look at the vast area here, but it couldn't withstand the fact that Long Xuan's eyes could see the progress deep underground.

As long as there was treasure here, no matter how deep it was buried, don't even think about hiding it from his eyes.

Thus, not long after, Long Xuan stopped at a cave entrance covered by rubble.

This cave was very hidden. After the entrance was blocked by rubble, it blended into the mountain wall. Even if ordinary people passed by, don't even think about discovering that there was a cave here.

Long Xuan immediately ordered the four clones to move the rubble blocking the entrance, while he himself rested on the side.

With many people, there was great strength. Before long, a gap was moved out of the entrance.

The entrance only needed to be able to accommodate one person to enter and exit; there was no need to move everything away.

Long Xuan immediately ordered to stop digging, and then sent the Fire clone to squeeze into the entrance, letting him go in to explore the path and see if there was any danger deep in the cave. After confirming there was no danger, the main body would go in.

Although External Avatars could be accidentally killed, after losing one clone, Long Xuan could completely condense a new one.

The only drawback was that the re-condensed External Avatar needed to be re-cultivated, and an External Avatar of the same attribute could only exist one at a time.

In the early stage, Long Xuan's spiritual power was thin, and External Avatars could be quickly repaired. Even if lost, he wouldn't feel heartache, so he dared to use them for path exploration casually.

But when his realm became higher in the future, External Avatars absolutely couldn't be said to be lost just like that; otherwise, it would be very hurtful to him.

Anyone condensing an External Avatar needed to pay a very high price and had the characteristic of not being easily lost. Long Xuan was already considered the one who needed to pay the least price.

After the Fire clone went in and didn't encounter danger for a long time, for the sake of safety, Long Xuan also sent the other clones in one after another, while he himself walked at the very end.

Suddenly feeling not very confident, he called back the Zhui clone who was walking at the end, ordering him to be responsible for the rear, while he himself walked in the very middle of the team.

After thinking about it, he still felt that this position in the middle was the safest.

The cave was very deep, and Long Xuan and every clone were holding torches, moving forward cautiously.

Before long, they encountered three predecessors who had already turned into white bones, and there were nine very full storage bags on the ground.

Long Xuan was afraid of poison or mechanisms, so he let the Kan clone pick up the storage bags and checked the things inside.

Long Xuan still held expectations for opening blind boxes.

In the nine storage bags, except for some ordinary sundries and a conspicuous diary, the rest were all fossils, large and small, strange-shaped fossils filling the entire storage bag.

However, in the eyes of Long Xuan, 90% of the fossils didn't show progress, confirming they were dead insects without a doubt.

The remaining 10% of fossils showed progress with varying lengths, the longest having four digits after the decimal point, representing Upper Grade Spirit Insects that matured in a thousand years, and the quantity was not small, enough to let him make a small fortune.

Seeing this pile of fossils, Long Xuan could already see that this cave was a fossil mine vein.

As early as before entering here, he had already discovered dense numbers in the center of the mountain.

But after all, he didn't have true perspective; he could only see the progress, but couldn't see what the progress represented.

Now he could basically confirm that what the progress showed were dense insects.

The location marked on this treasure map was actually a rare fossil mine vein.

Looking at these three scarred white bones, through half-hanging criminal investigation experience, Long Xuan inferred that several people died from infighting and mutual beating.

After flipping through the diary in that storage bag, he roughly inferred what had happened here.

A long time ago, four loose cultivators accidentally walked into this desolate place rarely visited by humans. When looking for a cave to rest, they accidentally discovered that there was a priceless fossil mine vein here.

The four were immediately ecstatic. After preparing food and a large number of storage bags, they began to dig for fossils here.

But digging a mine vein required consuming huge manpower and material resources, and required mobilizing thousands of miners.

The four of them dug desperately, but even if they dug until they were old, how much could they dig?

They soon discovered that mining was physical labor and truly too time-consuming. During mining, they couldn't cultivate. If they delayed a large amount of cultivation time, even if they earned more money, it would be a loss that outweighed the gain.

Letting mortals do this kind of hard labor was the best choice. A Gu cultivator's time was precious and absolutely couldn't be consumed here.

The rule of this world was that mortals were the main body engaged in production, and all dirty and tiring work was left to mortals to do. Gu cultivators only needed to be responsible for cultivation.

But all mortal villages were in the hands of major clans. Where would the four loose cultivators have the ability to mobilize mortals?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 37 =====