Chapter 62: Deep in the Mine Tunnel

This Spirit Fox Nest was, in fact, a mine tunnel developed by the Taiyuan Sect a long time ago. It contains many tunnels, crisscrossing in a complex structure, and it is also very deep. However, ever since it was occupied by a group of Spirit Foxes, people from the Taiyuan Sect have rarely come here, and Xu Chen has never once explored deep inside.

Today, Xu Chen intends to take Xiao Huli and give the inside a thorough exploration.

If it were before, he would definitely not have dared to rush in, but right now, his Divine Sense, as powerful as that of the Zhenyuan Realm, is enough to envelop an area with a diameter of over a hundred zhang. Even within the complex mine tunnels, he can still clearly see the situation of all nearby tunnels, so he is absolutely not afraid of getting lost.

One person and one fox, under the cover of his Divine Sense, keep walking down along the sloping, complex mine tunnels.

Walking deeper and deeper, descending along layered and intersecting paths, until finally, the surrounding tunnels become fewer and fewer, leaving only one main tunnel winding downwards.

And as they descend, this main tunnel also becomes increasingly narrow and low, until finally, even Xu Chen has to hunch over to move forward.

It seems they are nearing the end.

Within his Divine Sense, the winding tunnel ahead seems to encounter a great obstruction at about a hundred zhang, completely unable to penetrate it.

At the same time, his Divine Sense feeds back that he can hear the sound of dripping water; it seems that at the deepest location, there is spring water flowing.

In truth, this abandoned mine tunnel would not have any good things; Xu Chen is very clear on this.

After all, after that glorious Taiyuan Sect of the past suddenly collapsed and its mountain gate was destroyed, countless cultivators have come to hunt for treasures and scavenge over the past thousand years. Within a radius of a thousand miles around this Taiyuan Sect, any place with ruins has long been dug three feet deep and searched countless times. Anything with a trace of Spirit Qi has been scraped clean; there is absolutely no way any valuable items remain.

Ever since the current ancestor of the Taiyuan Sect unearthed a complete cultivation technique over three hundred years ago and re-established the sect after achieving success in cultivation, no one has come to the Taiyuan Sect since.

Xu Chen spent three years collecting feces, his tracks covering a hundred-mile radius around the mountain gate, and he also held the thought of finding treasure and getting rich, searching carefully countless times, but apart from harvesting some Spirit Beast Feces, he still gained nothing.

This mine tunnel had likewise been explored inside and out countless times by the countless cultivators who came seeking treasure earlier.

Even if there were something, it would absolutely not be his turn to get rich now.

Xu Chen's purpose in coming in is purely out of curiosity.

No one knows what kind of ore this mine tunnel was originally developed to extract.

According to some information passed down by the sect, it seems there was no ore at all inside this mine tunnel.

There are not many ores useful to an Immortal Sect, such as Essence Iron, Essence Copper, Spirit Stone, Five Elements Crystal, Spirit Transformation Soil, and so on, but almost every one of these minerals is found in places rich in essence and Spirit Qi.

And a Spirit Stone mine requires a powerful spirit vein to be born.

But there is not a trace of essence or spirit aura inside this mine tunnel; even if it had been mined out, at least one should see some associated essence stones or essence mud, but none of these have ever appeared.

Xu Chen hunches over as he walks forward, his Divine Sense feeling that he is getting closer and closer to the end.

After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, Xu Chen emerges from a low tunnel no wider than three feet, and the space before him suddenly becomes much more open; it is actually a circular cavern nearly ten zhang in diameter.

The surrounding cave walls are very smooth, about two zhang high, and spring water seeps from cracks in the ceiling, dripping down and accumulating into a pool of water in the center of the grotto.

This location should already be in the heart of the mountain, and it is also dozens of zhang deep underground, so there is not a single ray of light. Even though Xu Chen is a cultivator, his eyes still cannot see anything; the only thing he can use is his Divine Sense.

However, the scene seen by Divine Sense is very different from what is seen by the eyes.

Divine Sense can only distinguish space and objects, and even detect danger, but it cannot accurately distinguish shape and material.

Thus, Xu Chen takes out the Dust-Avoiding Bead from his Storage Bag.

As a mass of dim white light radiates out, he quickly sees the situation before him clearly; it is much the same as the scene fed back by his Divine Sense, only the accumulated water in the pool looks quite substantial, pitch-black and seemingly unfathomable.

Xu Chen kicks a stone into it; with a splash, the water bubbles for more than ten breaths before slowly calming down.

This makes him involuntarily gasp.

This water is likely seven or eight zhang deep.

Why would such a strange and deep vertical pit be dug in the depths of a mine tunnel that has no ore at all?

Xu Chen feels that this place must hide some secret.

Of course, this place has surely been visited by countless people over the past thousand years, and they must have had doubts; the bottom of this deep pit should naturally have been explored countless times as well. If there were a secret, it would surely have been dug up long ago.

Therefore, thinking about it, Xu Chen feels he is being a bit bored, and feeling quite discouraged, he kicks a larger piece of rubble down, preparing to leave.

"Glug, glug, glug..."

A series of huge bubbles rise from the bottom of the pit. Xu Chen's eyelids jump violently, because he sees that among the bubbles emerging on the water surface, there are actually wisps of Black Mist.

This wisp of Black Mist is very weak; if his Divine Sense were not strong enough, and he did not have the precious light of the Dust-Avoiding Bead to illuminate it, he would definitely not have discovered it.

The only place he can connect this Black Mist to now is Black Wind Ridge, and then the Eastern Wasteland Void Abyss that Lin Qiuya spoke of.

Xu Chen squats down and reaches his hand into the accumulated water.

Sure enough, a familiar icy chill invades his skin, making his soul tremble slightly, similar to what he felt in the black mist deep within the fissure at Black Wind Ridge.

This kind of Black Mist has an erosive effect on Divine Sense.

Thus, he understands in an instant that below this mine tunnel, there must also be a place similar to the fissure at Black Wind Ridge, perhaps leading to the legendary Cangming World.

Although he does not know what the Cangming World is actually like.

But that does not prevent him from making this judgment.

Could it be that the Taiyuan Sect of the past wanted to dig a passage to Cangming from here?

Xu Chen thinks about it and feels it is impossible.

Cangming is just an ancient legend; where it is and what it looks like, even the Immortal World cannot say for sure. No matter how powerful the Taiyuan Sect was back then, it was only a large sect within the Shenzhou territory, with limited strength; it is absolutely unlikely they would do such an unreliable thing.

As the saying goes, ascending to heaven is difficult, but in reality, entering the earth is even harder.

Cultivating to the True Immortal Realm, breaking the void and achieving Ascension, and roaming the nine heavens is not impossible, but since ancient times, no one has ever figured out what the earth is actually like; how thick the earth is is purely an unknown.

If one could dig through to Cangming by digging a mere dozens or hundreds of zhang down like this, then this earth would likely not be able to withstand any wind or rain and would collapse, let alone the battles of a Spirit Realm Great Cultivator; a single battle would shatter the earth into pieces.

Therefore, the Taiyuan Sect of the past definitely did not want to dig through to Cangming, but had another purpose.

Xu Chen feels as if he has grasped something, but when he thinks about it carefully, he feels he has grasped nothing at all.

"Should I go down and take a look?" Xu Chen begins to hesitate.

"Wu ya~" Xiao Huli seems to know Xu Chen's thoughts and bites his trouser leg, pulling him backward.

"Alright, alright, don't worry, I won't go down!"

Xu Chen is caught between laughter and tears as he strokes Xiao Huli's head, finally deciding not to take the risk.

His Divine Sense cannot penetrate this pool of black water, and it can also erode Divine Sense. Following his usual cautious habits, he truly should not go down rashly.

If it were before, Xu Chen would never have come to such a deep place at all.

It was just that after returning from this trip down the mountain for experience, not only had his courage grown much larger, but his temperament also leaned more toward adventure.

After all, the harvest last time was too great, which let him get a taste of the sweetness.

However, just as he stood up to leave, a burst of violent bubbles suddenly gurgled up in the water pit, and at the same time, he felt a hair-raising aura dart out from the depths of the water pit.

"Boom~"

The sky-filling Black Water exploded, and only a thing as thick as an arm and resembling a python was seen whipping over from the water with a whoosh.

In his haste, Xu Chen's protective Qi exploded, but it had absolutely no defensive effect; the black, python-like thing wrapped around his waist with a rip.

Amidst an exclamation, Xu Chen was dragged into the water with almost no defense.

With a splash and water spraying everywhere, the pitch-black water pit instantly churned with violent splashes, then quickly calmed down.

"Wu ya~ wu ya~~"

The sudden turn of events scared Xiao Huli into fleeing in terror; after the splashes subsided, it lay by the edge of the water pit and let out shrill cries.

"Gurgle gurgle..."

Xu Chen struggled desperately in the Black Water, yet the thing wrapped around his waist had infinite strength, pulling him rapidly into the deep water with irresistible force.

The frigid aura was pervasive, as if it wanted to drill into his body through ten thousand pores; his Divine Sense was of almost no use in the Black Water, and the surroundings were a vast, chaotic darkness where nothing could be seen clearly.

In the darkness, it seemed as if more black, tentacle-like things were wrapping around him from all directions, quickly binding him all over like a rice dumpling, making it impossible for him to move at all.

Xu Chen desperately released his Qi to resist, yet everything was in vain.

In no more than a few breaths of time, he felt his soul was about to be frozen stiff by the Black Water, and his body was being constricted until his skin split, his flesh tore, and his bones creaked.

However, Xu Chen did not fall into complete panic, because he knew that if he gave up resisting, he would definitely die here today; therefore, he concentrated all his Divine Sense in his Sea of Consciousness, driving his Qi to frantically strike the Blue Light Treasure Bottle, attempting to trigger the power of the Blue Jade Bead.

But it seemed everything was still in vain; no matter how much strength he used, the Blue Light Treasure Bottle hanging in his Sea of Consciousness had no reaction at all, as if it were a ten-thousand-jun boulder that could not be shaken in the slightest, and he also tried to force his Divine Sense into the mouth of the bottle, but after trying more than ten times in a row, the inside of the bottle mouth was like a pitch-black abyss, and once his Divine Sense entered it, it was like a clay ox entering the sea, disappearing without a trace.