Chapter 87: The Cave

Cold.

Bone-piercing cold.

It seemed that the spiritual energy could penetrate the body directly, sealing the internal organs in ice, that even Jing Yue was affected.

“Yanzhi, are you okay?”

“I’m fine…”

“No, I’m not! Ji-ji is cold, cold…”

Blue phoenix was so cold that it couldn't say anything, its little beak chattering incessantly.

Jing Yue, “…”

So, why did the blue phoenix tag along again?

Jing Yue infused a touch of spiritual energy into the bubble to increase the temperature.

He felt that the spiritual energy level of the water in the cave was more abundant. The vision was not as dark as just now and the light seemed to be coming through from below. He wondered what it was.

Jing Yue swam toward the light with anticipation. He found that the cave became wider and wider, and it continued to extend underground. The lower he went, the colder the water became.

During his swim, he occasionally saw a few translucent small fish, each about the length of the thumb. But the small fish didn't look aggressive, so Jing Yue ignored them, only staying alert.

As he swam deeper and deeper, there were more and more small fish, densely clustered into groups, gradually blocking the front.

Jing Yue tentatively shot a water arrow, trying to break up the school of fish. Unexpectedly, the water arrow spurred by spiritual energy suddenly dissipated when it entered the school of fish. The little fish were unaffected, and even... seemed to be a little excited?

He was still puzzled when he saw the school of fish began to move towards him, and there were more small fish swimming in a steady stream not far away, growing the school of fish.

Alarm bells rang in Jing Yue's heart. He quickly tweaked some hand seals, freezing the cold water in front of him bit by bit, which soon condensed into an ice wall.

He intended to prevent the fish from approaching, but after the ice wall appeared, the fish were more excited. They swam faster, treating the ice wall as nothing, and where they passed, the ice wall quickly disintegrated!

Jing Yue was shocked and was about to retreat when he heard blue phoenix call out, “Jing-jing, Ji-ji recognize it! This is spirit-devouring fish, born by devouring spiritual energy! Don’t cast spells to replenish their nutrients!”

Jing Yue, “…”

He suddenly choked a little. After more than ten years, Ji-ji’s incomplete knowledge reserve finally played a key role. It really felt like a silly son who was raised in the family suddenly made an achievement one day.

Jing Yue drew out his sword. For Ji-ji’s sake, he would fight!

Qin Yanzhi immediately followed suit.

The spirit devouring fish was very weak, not to mention little intelligence. It couldn’t even avoid the simplest seven sword styles. The fish school was quickly dispersed by the sword energy and they retreated in fear.

Without the fish in the way, Jing Yue dived smoothly into the bottom of the cave. The light became brighter and brighter. Before long, he saw a cave wall with golden spirit stones embedded in it.

Sure enough, it was a metal spiritual mine!

When they dived into the bottom of the cave, a vein of long metal spirit mine appeared in front of them, just like a golden dragon.

Jing Yue was overjoyed. He was about to speak when suddenly, a subtle sense welled. At the center of the mine vein, there seemed to be something that pulled at his spirit-sense.

What could it be?

He followed his instinct and finally stopped in front of a bulge somewhere in the vein.

Jing Yue slowly stretched out his hand as though he was enchanted, broke apart the metal spirit stone on the periphery of the bulge, and a blast of coldness shot out. Jing Yue immediately released his spiritual energy as a shield in front of his body, blocking the cold air attack.

The thing that entered his sight was a white ore the size of a walnut that exuded a soft golden light. Jing Yue’s pupils constricted as his heart started beating wildly—the Ice Gold Ore!

At the same time, in the original world, Mini Canglan Sword trembled slightly.

Although it didn't know what happened in the small world, it could sense the master's emotions and knew that the master's excitement at this time was related to it.

Of course Jing Yue was ecstatic!

The ice gold ore was an item of the five elements of water and also one of the important materials he had been looking for to enhance Mini Canglan sword!

Ice gold ore was extremely difficult to form. It required sufficient metal spiritual energy and cold energy to merge, and it would take 100,000 years or more to condense. Jing Yue never expected that it would exist in a small world!

Just for the sake of this ice gold ore, the incident of him falling into the Haotian Realm accidentally was not in vain!

Jing Yue gently stroked the body of Mini Canglan sword and marveled at his good fortune. When his ‘other self’ broke out of the small world one day, his Mini Canglan sword could finally have its fill!

Jing Yue, who was in a state of excitement, didn’t notice that Qin Yanzhi beside him was also smiling as he looked at him. The sword capsule was a gift from Qin Yanzhi. Of course he knew the role of the ice gold ore for Mini Canglan sword.

But inexplicably, Qin Yanzhi’s expression darkened again. He lowered his head to look at the broken Daoyi at his knee. This sword had been eroded by the malefic energy of the Nine Heaven Rift and even the rarest heavenly treasures would be difficult to save it.

Fortunately, Daoyi’s sword spirit was still entangled with the malefic energy in the ‘other self’, still accompanied him, and never left.

Haotian Realm.

Jing Yue accidentally found the ice gold ore but he was far less delighted than the ‘original self’ in the big world. In his perception, Mini Canglan sword had fallen into the Nine Heaven Rift, never to return. Jing Yue sighed forlornly before smiling in relief. No matter what, the ice gold ore was a rare treasure. Even if it was no longer useful to him, it might help Qin Yanzhi in the future.

He was just about the dig out the ice gold ore when suddenly, the back of his neck felt cold, like he was being stared at by a fierce beast and a crisis was about to happen!

Jing Yue took a step away with lightning speed, hugged Qin Yanzhi, and retreated quickly. The next moment, he heard a loud rumble. A big hole had been blasted open where they previously stood and the metal spirit ores were scattered all over the ground.

The attacker was a big translucent fish.

Looking at the structure, this big fish shared the same origin as the spirit devouring fish, but its body was more than ten feet long and its fins looked like a pair of giant wings.

It must have lived countless years to grow to such a large size, even longer than Jing Yue's previous and present lives combined.

To think of it, the big fish also used the spiritual energy in this spirit vein to survive. Now that Jing Yue intended to take away the item that produced the most spiritual energy, of course the big fish was unwilling to yield.

At this time, the big fish emitted some threatening noises that sounded like mooing, revealing rows of sharp teeth in the mouth, densely packed as if there were tens of thousands of them. Due to the translucent body, its internal organs could be seen very clearly, and the stomach was large enough to accommodate a living person!

“You, you, you! Don’t come over! Ji-ji will beat you to death!”

In the water bubble, blue phoenix’s head was almost retracted into its body. The fluff all over its body was trembling, but it forced itself to float in front of Jing Yue. It said that it would protect Jing-jing!

Jing Yue couldn’t help laughing and said to blue phoenix kindly, “Ji-ji, you go up first. It’s just a fish.”

Blue phoenix said with determination, “No, Ji-ji is fearless!”

Only its expression hesitated doubtfully.

Jing Yue, “Be obedient. You’re my secret weapon. If there’s danger, I’ll turn to you for help then.”

“Uh, okay then. Ji-ji will help you set up a…”

Before it even finished talking, blue phoenix had already jumped upstream quickly and disappeared in a blink of an eye.

Jing Yue, “…”

As soon as blue phoenix left, Jing Yue decisively swung Qin Yanzhi from his arms to let the other party lie on his back, and said solemnly, “Hold on tight. Don’t let go.”

“… Mm.”

Jing Yue felt the hand wrapped around him tightly as if wanting to embed into his body and quickly said, “Not that tight!”

The person behind stiffened and loosened his hold a little. Instead of looking at the fish, his eyes focused on Jing Yue’s side profile. Then, he gently pressed his cheek against his shoulder.

Unfortunately, Jing Yue didn’t notice Qin Yanzhi’s action. He once again avoided another attack from the big fish. With a wave of his long sleeve, the wooden sword was held firmly in his hand.

He gathered strength in his arms and shoulders and swiped the sword horizontally. A sword Qi broke through the cold water from east to west and shot straight at the big fish!

Although the fish was big, it was as nimble as a silver snake. The fins allowed it to move in the water like a flying bird. In a flash, it avoided the sword Qi and swung its tail toward Jing Yue.

The latter suddenly leaned back and struck out with the sword in his hand at the same time. The wooden sword slashed on the tail of the big fish. As if cutting on top of a rock, it emitted an ear-piercing sound of friction. It turned out that the translucent body of the big fish may look soft, but it was in fact extremely hard.

The big fish jumped into the air. Jing Yue quickly adjusted his posture and pounced to the rear of the fish. He kicked the body of the fish, making it flip a few somersaults.

He took the opportunity to urge his sword around his head, churning out a whirlpool that crashed into the big fish. The angry fish was certainly not afraid of the whirlpool, but the surrounding water had become unusually turbulent, slightly preventing the big fish’s offensive.

In this way, Jing Yue created a whirlpool in the process of fleeing, causing the water in the cave to turn muddy. The big fish got more irritable and its pursuit got more intense. Suddenly, it noticed that the cunning prey paused briefly.

The fish had little intelligence and rushed up to bite the bait, but a wooden sword shot into its open mouth, penetrated through the fish's body, and broke out from the fish’s tail!

Boom!

The big fish crashed on the ground heavily and Jing Yue breathed a long sigh of relief.

He didn't know if there were other dangers under the water so he dared not delay any further. He carefully dug out the ice gold ore and kept it. Carrying Qin Yanzhi on his back, he quickly headed back upstream, not forgetting to retrieve the wooden sword before leaving.

After he swam for about a quarter of an hour, he finally saw blue phoenix that was stranded unhappily in the water bubble.

Wasn’t it going to set up an array? This was a bit too far, right?

“Jing-jing, it’s great that you’re okay! Ji-ji is so worried about you and waiting for you to summon me!”

Jing Yue was tempted to say—it ran so far it was impossible to hear even if he summoned it! But he finally held back, poked at the water bubble, and praised, “Ji-ji is very obedient.”

Blue phoenix immediately swam a circle in the bubble happily.

The way back was very peaceful, and the gradually relaxed Jing Yue figured it out—there was probably only that big fish in that cave.

For it to grow so big, apart from absorbing spiritual energy, it would also have to feed on other fish. The slightly bigger spirit devouring fish were probably eaten by it long ago, so they only saw little fish along the way.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have obtained the ice gold ore so smoothly.

The spirit vein here was not that big. In the big world, it would only be considered a small medium-sized vein, but for the poor Mini Frostcloud Sect, it was an amazing fortune.

After making ample preparations, he would send someone to dig up all the spiritual stones.

However, this spiritual vein had existed for at least 100,000 years. Why had no one discovered it? Jing Yue was perplexed until he was about to swim out of the cave when he suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Since the cave could prevent his spiritual exploration, why couldn’t it seal the spiritual energy? In fact, he felt that the spiritual energy was more abundant after entering the cave. Obviously, there was something fishy about this cave.

Jing Yue thought about it for a moment and then swam to the cave wall to investigate carefully. He found that the rock wall was actually a kind of rare ore that could naturally isolate the divine consciousness and control the energy from escaping.

According to his speculation, this place was originally a sealed cave, but due to the earthquake five hundred years ago, a fissure was created in the cave. A small amount of water containing spiritual energy merged into the underground water veins and eventually formed a spiritual spring.

However, over the years, the gaps between the spiritual springs were gradually blocked and the amount of water sprayed naturally became less and less.

Jing Yue was originally worried that it would be difficult to conceal the ice gold ore, but now that he found the rare ore, he could completely seal the spiritual energy from leaking out of the ice gold ore.

Thus, he quickly pried off a piece of the rock wall, transformed it into a box, and encapsulated the ice gold ore before swimming toward the shore in a leisurely manner.

It had been a day and a night since he entered the water.

On the shore, the Xiang royal family sat around the fire, their faces pale with cold and their lips blue. The emperor was wrapped in the clothes he had snatched from his relatives, but still shaking constantly. He could not help cursing at this moment, “You heartless bunch don’t even know to bring a few warming talismans. If I fall sick from the cold, you have to answer for it!”

Someone said innocently, “Your Majesty, winter is over, what’s the point of bringing a warming charm? Besides, you said that the valley is like spring in all seasons…”

The emperor choked, still trying to find a reason to vent, but saw two figures suddenly appear on the ice surface of the divine spring. Tears instantly filled his eyes, “Xianzhang, you’re finally back!”

Amid the crowd's expectant eyes, Jing Yue slowly walked out of the ice spring. With a wave of his sleeves, the frozen world was once again restored to the full bloom of spring. The valley was still verdant, hundreds of flowers were still gorgeous, and the spring was also restored to a stream of clear water, but the source of the spring was no more.

He said, “After my investigation, there is a metal spirit vein hidden underground. You can be credited for this.”

As soon as the words came out, the people of Xiang were first excited, and then they were pained - so what if there was a spirit vein? They had already offered up the spring and could no longer touch it.

The emperor just wanted to compliment a few words when he saw Xianzhang pull out the wooden sword. His heart trembled. Could it be that Xianzhang wanted to silence them?

With a wave of Jing Yue's long sword, a huge boulder with a width of ten feet fell from the cliff, just blocking the open spring hole.

“This place is sealed for now. I’ll arrange for the sect disciples to move the mine later.”

Before the emperor had time to calm his frantic heartbeat, he heard Jing Yue say cheerfully, “Under the rule of Mini Frostcloud Sect, as long as the Xiang royal family respect my sect and take care of the people, I’ll protect the stability of your Zhao family's kingdom.”

The emperor was overjoyed and immediately bowed his head in thanks.

Author’s Note:

Ji-ji handing over the whip: Jing-jing, I was wrong.

Jing-jing: What did you do wrong?

Ji-ji: Ji-ji is a deserter.

Jing-jing: No, I told you to leave first.

Ji-ji: Ji-ji is still not brave enough.

Jing-jing: You’ll be fine when you grow up.

Ji-ji: Will you wait until I grow up?

Jing-jing: Yes, definitely.