Refine the soul

  In the deep and mysterious mine cave, a group of robust miners are advancing from the inside.

  The leader had a scar on the left side of his face that looked like a centipede, and he was holding a cyan-colored saber in his hand, looking like no good at first glance.

  The six people following him also looked fierce, holding weapons in their hands. If it weren't for the fact that they all had pickaxes on their backs, there wouldn't be a hint of miner about them.

  "Hong Lao Da, let's go further in. If we want to hurry back to Fang City today, it will be difficult. Our food and water are also running out..."

  "Just robbed over 50 low-grade spirit stones, not even enough to pay this month's head tax, and it's been three days since we went down the mine pit. We've only gotten so little, don't waste my time with nonsense. Nowadays people are getting smarter, they're all digging deeper. Let's go a bit further in, take out a few more, gather enough to make 100 low-grade spirit stones and then head back."

  Scarface let out a somewhat helpless roar, then took the lead and quickened his pace towards the depths of the mine.

  "Hong Lao Da, there's a firelight ahead." After another half hour of walking in the rugged mine tunnel, one of the six men, a short fellow, suddenly stopped and exclaimed with joy.

  "We've finally caught up with you, let's take care of this guy, same old rules, no survivors."

  Scarface gave an order, and a group of people immediately picked up their weapons and charged forward with extreme ferocity. Judging from their posture, they seemed to have learned some martial arts, far surpassing those ordinary miners who were just selling their labor.

  "Robbers in the mine... Run quickly..."

  This was a space of about ten square feet, eight miners covered in dust suddenly saw the scar-faced man holding a knife and scattered like birds and beasts.

  "Kill!"

  Faced with the ruthless characters who make a living by killing and robbing, these eight miners were powerless to resist. In just over ten breaths, six of them were killed on the spot, while the remaining two managed to escape through the rugged mine tunnels.

  Wiping off the thick, fresh blood on the horse-killing knife, the scar-faced man picked up the scattered spirit stones on the ground one by one. A ferocious and greedy smile flashed across his mouth, "These few bastards are good at hiding, but they still ended up as my knife's victims. Little Sixth, count the spirit stones, if we have enough, we'll head back."

  "Alright!"

  This time can be considered the farthest that this group of scar-faced people have gone in their years of killing and robbing, but it's also because the number of gangs hijacking mines has increased in recent years. Now those ordinary miners are worried about being hijacked and are desperately going deep into the mine tunnels.

  Just as Scarface and his men were counting the spirit stones, a sharp-eyed guy suddenly pointed to a fork in the mine tunnel ahead and exclaimed: "Boss, there's a bright light up front! It seems that heaven is helping us too, haha, another good deal!"

  Scarface didn't say much, made a gesture with his eyes, followed the faint light in front of him, and charged up with his knife.

  Six people turned a bend and were about to charge forward, but they were shocked by the scene in front of them.

  But saw a young man, naked all over, with only a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist, sitting cross-legged several meters away, his palms facing upwards, each pinching a low-grade fire spirit crystal, emitting a faint red flame.

  Scarface, after all, was an old hand at this sort of thing. He was only stunned for a moment before he came to his senses, and the fierce glint in his eyes reappeared. "We've run into some country bumpkin," he said. "Brothers, let's get him! This little guy is in the middle of practicing his kung fu. If we're too late, it'll be our own bad luck."

  This person who has been cultivating in the depths of the mine is none other than Chu Yi, who had obtained the "Three Yuan Blazing Fire Decision" three years ago. Indeed, as Knife Scarface said, Chu Yi was currently at a critical juncture in his cultivation.

  Hiding in the mine to cultivate, this was what Chuyi had planned from the start.

  As early as when he first entered the mining area, Chu Yi had already started preparing. In the half year of desperately digging for mines and accumulating wealth, Chu Yi had explored all the ore veins within a hundred miles without regard to cost. Moreover, relying on his foundation as an engineering architect, in the winding and complex mine tunnels, he had marked out no less than over a hundred rich mineral deposits.

  It was precisely because of this that Chu Yi was able to cultivate the "Three Elemental Blazing Decree" to perfection in just three short years, relying on the supply of over a hundred rich mineral deposits.

  Six days ago, Chu Yi found this rich ore point and mined nearly a hundred low-grade fire spirit crystals. Together with the fire spirit crystals he had stored earlier, he finally barely gathered enough mineral resources to support his breakthrough to the post-heavenly bottle gourd's power.

  "Three Elements Blazing Fire Decision" as a fire-type introductory cultivation technique, for Chu Yi, is the key to transitioning from post-heavenly to pre-heavenly and becoming a true cultivator.

  The Fire Attribute Spirit Stone is of utmost importance to Chu Yi, as it is the most crucial factor in enhancing his cultivation. In order to have the greatest guarantee in the final breakthrough stage, Chu Yi has been searching for this batch of Fire Spirits with all his might for the past three years.

  Who made it that after the breakthrough, when using pure Huǒ Líng Jīng as a consumable, the probability of breaking through is at least 30% higher than when using other attribute spirit stones?

  Under the rebuke of Scarface, several of his subordinates plucked up their courage to wield their knives and kill Chu Yi, who was still sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. As experienced mine robbers, they were very clear why a guy like Chu Yi, who looked like a cultivator, would appear here.

  After all, among the miners who toil in this mine vein, there have always been people with aspirations for self-cultivation. Although they had never encountered it during their robbery, similar rumors had been heard many times before.

  The most sensational one was the "Thousand People Beheading" incident that occurred eight years ago in this mine vein, when the largest bandit organization in this mining area encountered a miner who was hiding and practicing in the mine tunnel, resulting in a fierce battle.

  That incident directly led to the re-shuffle of the mining forces in the entire mine, and that miner cultivator searched through the mines within a hundred miles in three days, killing thousands of bandits.

  Until the gatekeeper of the mine discovered that someone was entering the cave and grabbing people, that person stopped and then disappeared without a trace.

  Events like this are by no means rare; it's just that this one has caused the greatest stir and is most widely known.

  "Ride you to illness, want your life..."

  The miner at the forefront was robust, wielding a heavy knife with at least 200 catties of force, enough to cleave open even a large boulder.

  Until the knife was about to fall, Chu Yi still didn't have any signs of movement. The only change was that the fiery red light swirling around his body became even more eye-catching, which was clearly a sign that he was about to break through from acquired to innate.

  With one heavy slash downwards, Chu Yi didn't fulfill the wishes of several mine robbers to have their heads separated from their bodies. A burst of flames suddenly erupted from around his body without warning and the molten iron-like flames actually melted and vaporized the ordinary iron weapon at the moment it was about to land on him.

  The burly man holding the knife was also engulfed by the spreading flames in an instant, and even gold and iron would melt under such intense heat, let alone his mortal flesh.

  A shrill cry of despair had barely time to escape his lips when the man was reduced to ashes, and the only thing that could bear witness to the fact that he had been alive just a moment before was a pile of charred black bones on the ground.

  Run, as far as you can run...

  They didn't even use knives, the scar-faced man and a few others who were charging forward had already fled in an instant, and as the leader of the group, Scarface had run far away from the moment the flames appeared.

  Looking back at Chu Yi, he still sat with his eyes closed and his legs crossed, no different from before. The only difference was that the two low-grade fire spirit crystals in his hands had lost their previous luster and become two lifeless rocks.