Mo Lin returned on the third morning with a sack of mid-grade spirit herbs and a grin that suggested he had gotten away with something.
The caravan master tried to charge me double, he said, dropping the sack on the practice yard bench.
I told him the Han Family was buying everything in Cloudmist City and he’d have no market left if he didn’t sell to me at fair price.
Did it work?
He sold me triple what I planned to buy.
Lu Chen almost laughed.
Almost.
The herbs would extend Elder Lu Mu’s medicine supply by another two weeks, but two weeks was a bandage on a wound that needed surgery.
The Han Family’s blockade would simply absorb the next caravan, and the next, until the Lu Clan was starved into submission.
Lu Chen needed a permanent solution.
The System provided one that evening.
He was cycling qi in his room when the notification appeared, sharp and unexpected, cutting through his meditation like a blade through silk.
[System vault update.]
[New map fragment unlocked: Dragon Ridge Mine.]
[Location: 40 li west of Cloudmist City, base of Mistfall Mountains.]
[Resource assessment: Unmined spirit stone deposit.
Estimated grade: Low-to-mid.]
[Status: Undiscovered.
No active claims.]
[Note: Deposit sits outside Han Family territorial boundaries.]
Lu Chen opened his eyes.
An unmined spirit stone deposit.
Forty li west, in the foothills of the Mistfall Mountains, sitting on land that no family in Cloudmist City had bothered to claim because the terrain was too rough and the qi density too thin for conventional mining.
But the System’s map showed something the city’s surveyors had missed.
The deposit was not on the surface.
It was underground, buried beneath a layer of dense rock that blocked standard qi-detection methods, and it was large enough to supply the Lu Family for years.
Lu Chen stood immediately.
He found Lu Qinghe in the kitchen eating cold rice by candlelight and Mo Lin in the guest room counting his remaining spirit stones.
Both looked up when he entered.
I need you both to come with me, Lu Chen said.
Tonight.
Lu Qinghe set down his bowl.
Where?
Forty li west.
The Mistfall foothills.
Mo Lin frowned.
There’s nothing out there but rock and spirit beasts.
There’s a spirit stone deposit, Lu Chen said.
Mo Lin stared at him.
How do you know?
Lu Chen met his gaze steadily.
I know.
The silence stretched for three heartbeats.
Then Mo Lin tucked his spirit stones into his sleeve and stood.
Let’s go.
The Mistfall Mountains earned their name honestly.
By the time the three of them reached the western foothills, the fog was so thick that Lu Chen could barely see Lu Qinghe’s silhouette five paces ahead.
The terrain was brutal — jagged rock formations, steep ravines, and dense patches of thorn-covered scrub that tore at their robes and skin.
No mortal merchant would travel this route.
No low-level cultivator would bother.
Which was exactly why the deposit had remained undiscovered.
[Navigation active.]
[Distance to Dragon Ridge Mine: 2.1 li.]
[Warning: Spirit beast activity detected in surrounding area.]
[Threat level: Low.
Rank 1 beasts only.]
Lu Chen led them up a narrow ravine and stopped at the base of a sheer rock face that rose thirty meters into the fog.
The System’s map indicated the deposit entrance was behind the rock face, accessible through a fissure that was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
Here, Lu Chen said.
Lu Qinghe peered at the fissure with open skepticism.
You want us to crawl into a crack in the mountain at midnight?
Yes.
Why?
Because I’m telling you to.
Lu Qinghe muttered something under his breath but dropped to his knees and crawled into the fissure first.
Mo Lin followed with a merchant’s practical shrug.
Lu Chen went last, his qi senses extended ahead and behind, the Cloudmist Jade Pendant humming against his chest.
The fissure opened into a natural cave after twenty meters of claustrophobic crawling.
The cave was small, damp, and unremarkable.
Lu Chen walked to the back wall and placed his palm against the stone.
He channeled a thin thread of Qi Gathering energy into the rock.
The stone crumbled.
Behind it was a tunnel narrow, descending, and lined with veins of pale blue crystal that pulsed with faint spiritual light.
Mo Lin’s breath caught audibly.
Are those
Spirit stones, Lu Chen confirmed.
The tunnel descended at a steep angle for roughly fifty meters before opening into a natural cavern that made Lu Chen’s dantian ache with recognition.
The walls glittered.
Raw spirit stones hundreds of them, thousands of them were embedded in the rock like stars frozen in stone, their pale blue glow casting the cavern in cold, ethereal light.
The qi density was three times the surface level.
Not as rich as the underground passage beneath the Lu compound, but far beyond anything available in Cloudmist City’s depleted markets.
Mo Lin dropped to his knees and touched the nearest vein with trembling fingers.
This is a fortune, he whispered.
This is a kingdom-level deposit.
Lu Chen, this is.
“Quiet,” Lu Chen said sharply.
He was not looking at the spirit stones.
He was looking at the walls.
Deep gouges scarred the cavern’s eastern face — long, parallel scratches carved into solid rock with enough force to shred steel.
They were fresh.
The stone dust at the base of the scratches had not yet settled.
Lu Qinghe saw them too.
His hand went to the short sword at his belt.
What made those?
he asked quietly.
Lu Chen extended his qi senses into the deeper tunnels branching off the cavern’s far wall.
Something breathed in the darkness.
Something large.
[Alert: Spirit beast detected.]
[Location: 80 meters east, deeper tunnel network.]
[Classification: Rank 1 Iron-Claw Bear (hibernation cycle disrupted).]
[Realm equivalent: Qi Gathering Stage 5.]
[Status: Awake.
Hostile.
Approaching.]
The breathing grew louder.
The ground trembled.
And from the darkness of the eastern tunnel, two pale yellow eyes opened and fixed on the three intruders standing in its treasure hoard.
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