Chapter 253 Dragon Repaying a Debt of Gratitude
“The three of you should soak here, don’t run around randomly!”
After Sun Mo instructed Xuanyuan Po and the other two. He then followed the papaya girl to the good location she said she found.
The spirit qi roaming dragon curled up and sat on Lu Zhiruo’s head. Actually, it was the one leading the direction. But even after observing for half a day, Sun Mo didn’t discover how it was communicating with the papaya girl.
“Maybe an alien language?”
No matter what, Sun Mo’s art of spiritual beast control was at the grandmaster-grade, but he completely wasn’t able to deal with this situation.
“She seemed to have an affinity with small animals!”
Li Ziqi mumbled in a soft voice.
“Mn, I can’t do what she does. Even old hens are scared of me!”
Ying Baiwu felt that she had no affinity with animals at all.
W
Sun Mo and Li Ziqi immediately cast a glance at the iron-headed girl. (Back then you were extremely poor, okay? You were so hungry that even your eyes turned green. The little animals must have sensed your ‘hungry intent’. If they didn’t stay away, you might gobble them up if you caught them.)
Very soon, a gigantic rock wall appeared before the eyes of everyone. The spirit qi roaming dragon squeezed its way into a gap that was roughly half-meter wide.
Sun Mo and Li Ziqi hesitated, worried that there might be a danger. However, Lu Zhiruo who was happy-go-lucky by nature simply followed in with no worries. Her trust in the spirit qi dragon was absolute.
Sun Mo and the other two could only follow after, squeezing their bodies through the gap. After they headed forward for tens of meters, a naturally-formed karst cave appeared before their eyes. Jiji
The spirit qi roaming dragon called out. “Little loachie asks you all to move faster!”
Lu Zhiruo translated.
“Should we be sufficiently prepared before going in?”
Li Ziqi furrowed her brows. They had a torch with them, but this cave had an extremely long tunnel. A torch wasn’t enough.
“Let’s go and take a look at it first!”
Sun Mo didn’t wish to waste the effort. Coming here already took up quite a lot of time.
“Zhiruo, do you want me to lead the way instead?”
Ying Baiwu suddenly spoke. She ran from the rear of the group to Lu Zhiruo’s side.
Although her teacher had the strongest combat strength, things like finding a path definitely mustn’t be done by him. Ziqi was too clumsy, and Zhiruo’s combat strength was low. She was the only one who was up to this task.
Jiji!
The spirit qi dragon turned its head and called out.
“Little loachie says that there’s no danger!”
Lu Zhiruo reported. She added another sentence, “If there’s danger, I will call out. You guys have to run first!”
Upon seeing this scene, Sun Mo was very satisfied. Between martial siblings, it was good to be concerned about each other.
“Alright!”
Ying Baiwu returned to the rear, no longer afraid. She had to guard the rear to prevent people from sneak-attacking them from behind.
The tunnel led downward, and the slope became steeper. There were even a few completely vertical walls of three to four meters on the way down. Luckily, these people were cultivators. Their body stats were off the charts. Even if they didn’t have tools, they could still descend.
Although Ying Baiwu and Lu Zhiruo were little girls, they were very relaxed when walking here. Li Ziqi was different. She was stumbling about and would occasionally stumble and fall, scraping her knees.
Huala
Li Ziqi stumbled again as she fell.
“Careful!”
Sun Mo grabbed the little sunny egg by her clothes and hoisted her back up.
“Boohoo, why am I so clumsy?”
Li Ziqi was so angry that she wanted to cry. But after seeing Sun Mo’s concerned gaze, she squeezed out a smile. “Teacher, I’m fine. There’s no need to worry about me!”
“How long do we still have to travel?”
Sun Mo asked. From his estimation, they had traveled for 40 minutes.
Lu Zhiruo and the spirit qi roaming dragon communicated in an unknown syllable-based language. After that, she called out, “Little loachie says that we are about to arrive soon!”
Indeed, ten minutes later, a blue-color glow suddenly lit the cave up.
“What is this?”
Ying Baiwu was astonished.
There were some crystal stones on the wall. These were the glowing items.
“They are spirit crystals, crystals formed from the essence of spirit qi.”
Li Ziqi, who had read many books before, immediately gave an explanation. “At a location where spirit qi is overly saturated, they would crystalize and become a type of ore.”
These items could be considered a type of spirit stone. Humans could absorb the spirit qi within for cultivation. However, they were much more expensive compared to spirit stones.
Spirit stones were like normal ore, and there were some impurities within. However, spirit crystals were condensed directly from spirit qi. Hence, it was only natural they would be more expensive.
The more they moved forward, the more spirit crystals they discovered. The glow also grew increasingly brighter.
“The spirit qi here is so concentrated!”
Ying Baiwu inhaled deeply. She felt so comfortable that she wanted to shout.
“Could there be a spirit qi mine in the surroundings?”
Li Ziqi had a look of shock on her face. Other than this reason, she temporarily couldn’t think of anything else. But no matter what, they had struck it rich for sure.
Lu Zhiruo suddenly stopped walking. She then moved toward a gap in the walls and jumped down.
“I’ll go down first!”
Sun Mo lifted his hand to stop Li Ziqi and jumped down before her.
Pak!
Sun Mo landed on the ground and quickly turned his head to get all the things here in his vision.
After that, he was astonished.
This was actually an enormous corridor. There were murals drawn on the walls, but due to the passage of many years, the murals had faded into blurriness. And because of the vast quantity of spirit qi here, many spirit qi essence crystals were generated. “I must not stumble and fall on my face
again!”
Li Ziqi drew in a deep breath and prepared to land in an elegant posture. In the end, even before she could exert any force, her feet slid on the ground and she directly fell in. “Ahhh!”
Li Ziqi screamed. After that, she felt a pair of strong arms around her. She had fallen into a warm embrace.
The little sunny egg had an ashamed look on her face. Just when she wanted to find an excuse to cover her embarrassment, Sun Mo already placed her down and took the initiative to change the topic.
“What place do you think this is?”
“An underground palace?”
Li Ziqi randomly replied. Her heart was full of gratitude for Sun Mo. Her teacher was truly understanding!
Pak!
Ying Baiwu landed in a beautiful posture. Even girls might fall in love with her if they saw her beautiful landing.
The spirit qi roaming dragon continued to lead the way. This time, the distance was very near. There was a gigantic door with a hole at the end of the corridor. As dense spirit qi flowed from within, this place was now covered by a layer of spirit crystals.
Sun Mo broke apart the crystal wall and squeezed his way in.
The three girls followed behind him. After that, when they saw the environment within, all of them had shocked looks on their faces. They were so surprised that they almost forgot to breathe.
Li Ziqi was royalty. Her clan was illustrious and she had seen mountains of silver and gold before. But now, she was completely dumbstruck with her mouth wide open. It was like this was the first time she saw a treasure.
This place was a great hall the size of a soccer field. At this moment, spirit crystals could be seen everywhere, glowing with a bright light.
These crystals were all bunched together like bloomed flowers!
“Teacher, I feel a little giddy!”
Ying Baiwu kneaded her forehead.
“This is the sign of spirit intoxication. Quickly meditate and digest the spirit qi in your body. After that, control your body not to absorb any spirit qi!”
Li Ziqi hurriedly reminded her.
“Spirit intoxication?”
Ying Baiwu had a stupefied look on her face. As a cultivator who had cultivated on her own without any guidance since she was young, she didn’t know any basic knowledge like this.
“It means that when the spirit qi in the area is too dense, our bodies are not able to absorb it. When such a thing happens, this symptom might appear. Your mouth will feel dry and your head giddy, it’s a little like when you are drunk. However, there isn’t too much danger.”
Li Ziqi explained while feeling rueful.
The cultivators of the Middle-Earth Nine Provinces wanted nothing more than to have spirit qi to absorb when they were eating and walking down the streets. However, they couldn’t do so because the spirit qi concentration in the nine provinces was too thin. For cultivators with inferior aptitudes who wanted to break through, they had to prepare alchemy pills or a large number of spirit stones. If not, it was impossible for them to amass enough spirit qi based on their own capabilities and it would lead to them failing their breakthrough.
But right now, in this great hall, just casually breathing in would cause large amounts of spirit qi to flow into one’s body. How luxurious was this?
If people were to know about a treasured land like this, they would definitely go mad and even wars between countries would be triggered for the sake of seizing it.
“There are so many spirit crystals. How much are they worth?” Ying Baiwu’s eyes glowed brightly. She didn’t even have a unit of measure in her brain for this.
“Junior sister, you have to cast your vision further. To peak-level cultivators, what does money count for?”
Li Ziqi smiled.
“Money can buy many things!”
Ying Baiwu didn’t understand.
“You are wrong. The reason why money can buy things is because humans formulated a system and gave money their worth. After that, they chose to treat gold and silver as money. If you grow to a point where you can set up a system where everyone has to follow, you can designate any item you want as money. In fact, in our earliest recorded history, the first form of money was in terms of shells.”
Li Ziqi explained.
“Shells can be treated as money? The ancients must be fools.”
Ying Baiwu’s lips twitched. She didn’t seem to understand what Li Ziqi was saying. Sun Mo cast an astonished glance at the little sunny egg. (My heavens, you even know financial knowledge?)
“In that case, how can one make sure that everyone follows their system?”
Lu Zhiruo was curious.
“By possessing the greatest martial strength, so great that you can conquer the nine provinces or small enough where you can conquer an entire country. At that time, you can make any changes you want to the system!”
Li Ziqi spoke frankly with assurance.
“Enough!”
Sun Mo saw Li Ziqi speaking with zest and hurriedly interrupted her. After that, he sighed. Maybe in the future, this little sunny egg would become the finance minister.
“Simply speaking, if you have money and no martial strength to protect it, your money would be robbed. Hence, these spirit crystals can help cultivators raise their strength and build a large army of cultivators belonging to them solely!”
Sun Mo summarized.
A wise man once said, ‘political power comes from the barrel of a gun’. But where did a gun come from? Naturally, a gun came from being bought by money. “Understood!”
Ying Baiwu nodded. “So, it means we have to use the resources here to nurture a powerful army. After that, we will snatch the money from the richest people because we are the strongest!” “So this is the case!”
Lu Zhiruo finally understood.
Sun Mo was speechless. (My dear Ying Baiwu, although what you said wasn’t wrong, is there a need to be so simple and crude?)
(Humans have to have some face, alright?!)
Jiji!
The spirit qi roaming dragon who was being ignored suddenly cried out. It moved toward Sun Mo and had a complacent look on its face. (Do you see it? My repayment of a debt of kindness is worth so much! Remember this, I’m not a stupid loach. I’m a lofty and noble spirit qi roaming dragon.) “Ah? You can fly?”
Ying Baiwu screamed.
(Damn, I exposed myself!)
The spirit qi roaming dragon immediately started and hurriedly stopped its ability of flight. Hence, it fell onto the ground with a loud thud.
Jiji!
The spirit qi roaming dragon cried out. It was so painful!
“Little loachie, are you alright?”
Lu Zhiruo hurriedly squatted down and stroked its body.
Jiji!
The spirit qi roaming dragon immediately rubbed its head against the papaya girl’s tiny arms with a wronged look on its face. However, when the name ‘little loachie’ was called out by this big-breasted girl, it sounded so nice and pleasant.
(I’ve decided. When I’m in front of you, I will be your little loachie!)