When Zhang Qianren arrived at that bottomless deep canyon at the bottom of the sea, the terrifying water pressure immediately compressed his outer Shield inward by a fair margin.
At this kind of depth, his eyes were already useless.
After all, sunshine couldn't reach this deep at all. Even if he opened his eyes, all he'd see was pitch darkness where he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face.
Fortunately, his Divine Sense wasn't affected.
After placing the Ruyi Jingu Bang on a piece of Iron Ore, he quietly began to wait.
Through his Divine Sense, which he kept spread out around him at all times, he could clearly sense everything nearby.
The speed at which the Ruyi Jingu Bang devoured metal wasn't slow at all.
But whenever he thought about how the people from the Sect might have already descended on Guanhai City by now, waiting for him, his heart churned with worry.
On top of that, this bottomless underwater canyon was also putting a great deal of pressure on him.
Zhang Qianren had no idea whether some terrifying creature lurked in the deepest parts of this canyon.
Although he was at Peak Foundation Establishment, he'd be utterly powerless before those massive, hulking creatures.
Any random big fish over a dozen meters long could ignore his attacks entirely and swallow him whole in one bite.
As for the stomach acid of certain Sea Monsters, capable of easily corroding even Magic Tools, he didn't think he could withstand that either.
Moreover, he only had a few Water Repelling Talismans left on him.
Just as Zhang Qianren grew increasingly anxious with the passage of time, Qin Mu, leaning back in his chair, had already broken into a grin.
"Your Ruyi Jingu Bang has been upgraded to Level 2. You will receive feedback of +1 Gold attribute Spiritual Root. Please select the feedback recipient."
After hearing many notifications of "Experience +1," the Ruyi Jingu Bang had finally leveled up again.
Without any hesitation, Qin Mu set himself as the feedback recipient.
The instant he finished making his selection, a chill materialized out of nowhere at the base of his spine and swiftly spread up along his backbone to his Cervical Vertebra, before finally seeming to turn into a needle of ice that pierced straight through his mind.
In that instant, Qin Mu felt his head clear and his vision sharpen.
Right after, a chill enveloped his entire body without warning, as though a basin of ice water had been poured over his head.
Qin Mu subconsciously shivered.
After the shiver passed, he stretched out both hands and tried clenching them into fists.
"So I already have a Spiritual Root now?"
Just as he was thinking this, the Prompt Sound of the Ruyi Jingu Bang gaining experience rang out in his mind again.
Qin Mu thought it over, then simply used his connection to the Ruyi Jingu Bang to block out this kind of experience-gain Prompt Sound.
Deep at the bottom of the East Sea, Zhang Qianren naturally had no idea that the Ruyi Jingu Bang had leveled up once again, and was still waiting anxiously, as if on fire.
Meanwhile, in Qin Manor in Guanhai City, Qin Mu had come back to his senses from the excitement of gaining a Spiritual Root.
Compared to the shock of transmigrating here and discovering he possessed a full ninety-nine innate supreme treasures, having a Spiritual Root simply couldn't keep him happy for very long.
Longevity, perhaps, could. But Qin Mu knew very well in his heart that having 1 Spiritual Root wasn't much different from having none at all.
The only difference was between being a servant in an Immortal Sect, or being a corporate drone in a society under the rule of the Great Yu Dynasty Court.
So Qin Mu quickly threw himself into working on his "new book."
Writing a book seemed hard to think about, but once you actually started writing, you'd realize your assumptions weren't wrong at all.
An experienced author gave every chapter its own purpose, building the entire book out of many small frameworks.
That way, the pacing stayed brisk, with climax after climax, keeping readers hooked and unable to stop.
But for someone inexperienced like him, before he'd even written a few hundred words, he'd already started writing a rambling, day-to-day account without even realizing it.
After spending a few dozen words describing the Protagonist and his family, he subconsciously began writing pointless family dialogue.
"Your Ruyi Jingu Bang has been upgraded to Level 3. You will receive feedback of +1 Gold attribute Spiritual Root. Please select the feedback recipient."
It wasn't until the notification of the Ruyi Jingu Bang leveling up rang in his ear again that Qin Mu came back to his senses from his fully absorbed state.
He looked up and only then noticed the sky had already turned to dusk.
"This afternoon really flew by~"
Qin Mu stretched with a deep sense of satisfaction, then accepted the feedback from the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
As a chill washed over him, his Gold attribute Spiritual Root increased by +1 once more.
Meanwhile, deep at the bottom of the sea, Zhang Qianren felt nothing like time passing quickly.
To him, each day felt like a year.
No!
Each moment felt like a year!
He had no idea how long it had been since he'd gone down into the sea, but he had a faint feeling... that the sky was about to go dark.
If night fell and he still hadn't returned, the people from the Sect would surely come searching for him in the sea.
Sensing the devouring speed of the Ruyi Jingu Bang, Zhang Qianren gritted his teeth in anxiety, practically wishing he could feed the Iron Ore to it himself.
Wait!
Iron Ore?
Zhang Qianren suddenly snapped to attention.
Though he'd spent all his years in the Sect, he did understand that Iron Ore with iron content over half was already considered high-grade ore.
In other words, he'd wasted a great deal of time for nothing, letting the Ruyi Jingu Bang filter out the iron from the ore first before devouring it.
Realizing this, Zhang Qianren could have slapped himself twice.
He hurriedly followed his Divine Sense's perception and rushed over to the piece of Iron Ore currently being devoured by the Ruyi Jingu Bang.
When he reached out and picked up a rust-covered chunk of ore, and carefully sensed it, his expression instantly changed.
This piece of ore's iron content only made up a fifth of its volume; the rest was sand, rock, and various sediment from the seabed.
"Damn it!"
He'd cultivated for decades without ever cursing, yet even he couldn't help but curse under his breath now.
After cursing, he hurriedly pulled a palm-sized Alchemy Furnace from his Storage Ring, cast a spell to enlarge it, then reached his hand out through his Energy Shield to start tossing Iron Ore into the furnace.
Once he'd gathered enough ore for a full furnace, his face turned Ashen as he used up a Talisman sealing a wisp of Azure Flame Fire, sitting cross-legged on a nearby rock to refine the ore with everything he had.
This Talisman had cost him fifty Low-grade Spirit Stones to buy, kept in reserve for emergencies.
The Azure Flame Fire burned at an extremely high temperature; ordinary metal couldn't withstand more than a few minutes under such Flames before melting into Molten Iron.
Even his Alchemy Furnace might very well be unable to withstand these Flames.
But at this point, Zhang Qianren no longer had the luxury of worrying about that.
All he wanted was to increase his Gold Spiritual Root as much as possible. That way, even if the people from the Sect found the Ruyi Jingu Bang, he wouldn't come out at a total loss.
.....
In Guanhai City, at the Qin Family estate;
Having finished dinner, Qin Mu sat in his chair, arms pillowing his head, feet propped on the desk and swaying idly, looking utterly at ease.
He'd originally wanted to admire the masterpiece he'd spent the whole afternoon writing, but ever since night had fallen, the Ruyi Jingu Bang's leveling speed had suddenly picked up.
It had already reached Level 6.
Amid this flood of joy, he couldn't calm down enough to read, so he simply let his mind go blank and stared at the beam overhead.
Before long, the Prompt Sound of the Ruyi Jingu Bang leveling up rang out in his mind once more.
"Your Ruyi Jingu Bang has been upgraded to Level 7. You will receive feedback of +1 Gold attribute Spiritual Root. Please select the feedback recipient."
As Qin Mu allocated the point to himself, he curiously summoned the Panel holding the Ruyi Jingu Bang's information, wanting to see how much experience it now needed to reach the next level.
【Name: Ruyi Jingu Bang】
【Grade: Innate Supreme Treasure】
【Level: LV7】
【Experience: 15/700】
【Trait: Ruyi （Seal）】
【Remarks: ......】
After reading through the information above, Qin Mu nodded in understanding, muttering quietly to himself.
"700?"
"So that means each time it levels up, the experience cap increases by a hundred?
That's good news for me. Thank goodness the experience requirement doesn't double each time, or else I'd never live to see it reach level a hundred."
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