Her heart sank slightly.
Jiang Li suddenly stopped in her tracks.
She thought of her skill.
The power of the Five Elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
Earth gives rise to metal: within earth lies ore, and from ore, metal is born.
With that thought, Jiang Li first checked her surroundings.
Over hundreds of years, countless mining tunnels had been carved deep beneath the mine. Aside from her, there was no one else nearby.
She crouched down, placing her hand against the ground, imagining what the Yanxing Stones looked like.
It was only an attempt; she didn’t hold much hope. After all, she wasn’t familiar with her skill—both water and fire had only been discovered through trial and error.
Unexpectedly, she succeeded.
As if through perception itself, even with her eyes closed, she could “see” through the thick, solid rock and locate the Yanxing Stones.
The good news: she had found them.
The bad news: the nearby Yanxing Stones were almost depleted.
Jiang Li relaxed slightly, and the positions of the stones in her vision faded away as well. Her perception extended outward in all directions from her body, up to a maximum range of two hundred meters.
It was as if her awareness had merged with every stone, searching for traces of Yanxing Stone.
Within her range, the number of Yanxing Stones was scarce, all hidden in extremely concealed places—which was precisely why they still existed today.
To sense deeper, she would need to go further into the mine, into areas miners had never reached, in order to find more Yanxing Stones.
“The mine isn’t disappearing because all the Yanxing Stones have been exhausted.”
Jiang Li walked deeper along the tunnel. Every so often, she would stop to sense the location of nearby Yanxing Stones.
This mining area had countless branching tunnels. In her current tunnel, aside from the outer sections where Yanxing Stones were sparse, the deeper parts still hid dense clusters of them.
If even her tunnel contained so many, then the other tunnels must be the same.
So why was the mining area disappearing?
Was it a natural disaster, or human intervention?
Jiang Li couldn’t find the answer. Her skill could only help her locate Yanxing Stones; it couldn’t uncover the true reason behind the mine’s disappearance.
She still had a month, so there was no need to rush.
Finding a cluster of ore, Jiang Li tightened her grip on the pickaxe and swung it toward the stone wall.
The ore veins were hidden behind thick, hard rock; she had to break through it to reach them.
After several heavy strikes, the wall finally gave way—but her stamina was already running low.
“Fatal… only 5 stamina left!”
She collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Sweat soaked her back, leaving an uncomfortable sticky sensation, while her arms throbbed with soreness from gripping the pickaxe.
Mining was truly exhausting work. People with low stamina simply couldn’t do it.
Jiang Li didn’t dare rest for long. Once you stopped, it was easy to become lazy.
After catching her breath, she quickly stood up again and resumed mining.
Clang—clang—
The sound of digging echoed through the tunnel again and again.
Only after she had dug out five palm-sized Yanxing Stones did she finally stop. Wiping sweat from her eyes, she panted heavily and lifted one stone to examine it.
On the surface, it looked like an ordinary rock—but upon closer inspection, it revealed something unusual.
Fine golden lines, like mycelium, spread across the gray stone. As the stone tilted, the golden threads flickered in and out of view, sinking into the rock.
Holding it in her hand, she could feel a faint warmth, like a heated stone. The heat spread into her body, dispelling the cold from her limbs.
So this was a Yanxing Stone.
She examined it curiously.
The moment she touched it, a line of information appeared before her eyes.
[Yanxing Stone (Rough): The foundation stone of the Celestial Immortal Palace, capable of resisting darkness.]
Yanxing Stones also had quality grades. The lowest was the rough grade she had just mined, which was also the most common in the mine. Above it was “good,” and above that, “excellent.”
Higher-quality Yanxing Stones could resist stronger evil entities.
In this world of catastrophe, Yanxing Stones functioned as currency. One “good” stone could be exchanged for ten “rough” ones, following a tenfold system all the way up.
Jiang Li also noticed that her perception skill showed differences in color.
The ones she had just mined were the lightest in color. Deeper-colored stones existed too, but they required breaking through much thicker rock to reach.
“Maybe the light and dark shades I see correspond to the quality of the Yanxing Stones.”
She thought to herself.
Her stamina had already reached its limit; she couldn’t mine any further. Besides, this mine would disappear in a month—no matter how much she worked, there would be no wages, only a fixed quota.
After resting, she stood up with her five Yanxing Stones and prepared to head to the surface to submit them.
After only a few steps, the long-vanished Supervisor Li suddenly appeared before her like a ghost.
Those cold, emotionless eyes fell on her.
Jiang Li’s heart tightened, and she immediately stopped. Her hand instinctively moved toward the stone axe at her waist, her entire body tensing like a drawn blade.
She didn’t know why the supervisor had come, but caution was never wrong.
“You’re very lucky,” Supervisor Li said hoarsely, her voice sounding as though she hadn’t spoken in a long time. The words made Jiang Li’s skin crawl.
Cold sweat dampened Jiang Li’s palm. She suddenly realized a fatal oversight.
Her skill had allowed her to accurately locate the Yanxing Stones. Before that, she hadn’t even swung her pickaxe once—it looked almost as if she had gone straight to the ore vein.
Supervisor Li might never have left at all. She had been watching her the entire time.
That was why she said something so ambiguous.
Jiang Li had been careless. She had assumed that in the tunnels, no one was watching her—that she was free.
Her mind surged with waves of alarm, but her face remained calm as she pretended to be shy.
“Is that so… thank you for the compliment, Supervisor.”
Whether she was truly convincing or simply lucky, Supervisor Li did not press further.
“Let’s go. I’ll take you up.”
Jiang Li’s tense nerves did not relax in the slightest. She took out the five Yanxing Stones and handed them over with a forced smile.
“Supervisor Li, I’ll leave them to you.”
It was meant as a gesture of goodwill.
But Supervisor Li didn’t even look at them and continued walking ahead.
Unable to read her intentions, Jiang Li grew even more cautious, reminding herself never to be so careless again. This time she had gotten away with it—but next time, she might not be so lucky.
If Supervisor Li discovered she could locate Yanxing Stones, the people behind the mine would never let her go. They would lock her up and treat her as a human radar, forcing her to endlessly locate ore.
Not a single word was spoken along the way.
After taking the mining elevator back to the surface, Jiang Li found that the temperature above ground was actually even colder than underground. The sky was dim, not yet at sunset, with no trace of red glow.
The first thing she noticed were three people crouching ahead.
They were also miners. But from the killing intent radiating from them—even from a distance—she could tell they were waiting along the only path to the submission point.