Journey to the head

The spiritual stone veins are the crystallization of condensed spiritual energy.

Now that Lu Qian has some understanding of the nature of "spiritual veins", he also has a clearer understanding of the formation principles of spiritual stone veins.

The birth of the spirit stone mine is because the spirit vein appeared directly deep underground and deep in the mountain. The spiritual energy was extracted from the "firewood world" but could not disperse outward, and eventually condensed into a vein.

The emergence of the spirit stone vein has made this end of the spirit vein even more blocked. As time goes by, this "space channel" will gradually shrink and disappear due to the blockage.

The larger the scale of the spirit stone mine, the higher the level of the spirit vein that once appeared here. Only in this way can it last until a large vein is born before it finally disappears.

In a case like Lingsha City, there was once a high-level spiritual vein underground, and now there is another three-level low-level spiritual vein on the ground, which is also very rare.

At this moment, the red light on the "Miner No. 1" in front of him flashed. It stopped moving, and its chest opened to both sides, revealing two grooves, one of which was inserted with a white spirit crystal.

A box popped out from the waist of "Miner No. 1". He opened the box, took out a brand new spirit crystal, and inserted it into another empty slot.

Then the red light turned green, "Miner No. 1" closed his chest and continued to work.

"After a while, when the old spirit crystal is completely consumed, it will discard the consumed spirit crystal and make another slot available, and then repeat the cycle to ensure that no spirit crystal is wasted." Tao Boliang explained.

Lu Qian praised the Equipment Refining Hall for its careful planning.

Even though the Yunshan Sect could earn eight million spirit stones every year from the market trade alone, spirit crystals were still extremely precious strategic materials.

This is why Lu Qian is interested in the spirit crystal ore produced here and the possible spirit marrow ore.

What is important is not their ability to be exchanged for a large number of spirit stones, but their ability to be used directly.

The amount of spiritual energy contained in a standard-shaped spiritual crystal is equivalent to that of a thousand standard-shaped spiritual stones. However, when used in the process of practicing, refining, casting, refining pills, and drawing talismans, using a spiritual crystal can instantly generate a large amount of spiritual energy, which is much more effective than using a thousand spiritual stones.

Just like when Lu Qian manipulates the formation, in addition to using his own spiritual power to supply energy, he would also choose to use spirit crystals instead of spirit stones.

So in terms of price, one spirit crystal can be exchanged for twelve to thirteen hundred spirit stones.

On the other hand, if the Yunshan Sect’s commercial income of 8 million spirit stones were converted into spirit crystals, that would be around 6,500 spirit crystals.

But in reality, it cannot be calculated this way.

Because spirit crystals are rare in spirit stone veins, the amount mined is relatively small. In addition, just like the Yunshan Sect's small Taoist soldier "Miner No. 1" needs to be driven by spirit crystals, and at the same time, spirit crystals are needed in many places such as refining tools and alchemy, the consumption of spirit crystals by various wealthy sects is very large.

Therefore, the amount of spiritual crystals circulating in the market is not much. Even if Yunshan Sect wants to exchange these 8 million spiritual stones for spiritual crystals, it will take a long time and multiple exchanges to succeed.

Moreover, due to the large-scale exchange, the price of spirit crystals will rise rapidly, and it is estimated that only more than 5,000 pieces can be exchanged in the end.

Therefore, with the current trend of Yunshan Sect's increasing demand for spirit crystals, market exchange alone is no longer able to meet the demand. The spirit crystals in the treasury are being used very sparingly, and the Management Department is also trying every means to obtain more spirit crystals.

Under such circumstances, it would naturally be a great joy if one's own mine was discovered to produce spirit crystals.

As for the spiritual essence, it was an even more precious product. Even the rewards of Taiyi Paradise were mainly spiritual essence. The current Yunshan Sect had not reached the level of using spiritual essence, and there was almost no special demand.

Even if there is, the one thousand spiritual essences bestowed by Taiyi Paradise will be enough to last for a long time.

Another point is that the smelting of spiritual marrow ore has reached a new level. Even in Xuanjun's collection of books, there is no relevant record. Even if a piece of spiritual marrow ore is dug up now, the Yunshan School can only put it aside and cannot use it.

Lu Qian watched the mining demonstration for a while and put forward some suggestions on the working methods and improvement directions of "Miner No. 1".

Tao Boliang took note of it carefully, and said that currently all data of "Miner No. 1" were being continuously collected and experimented, so the scale of excavation of the spirit stone ore vein was not large, and the Equipment Refining Hall would soon focus on tackling the problem and upgrading it, and when "Miner No. 2" was put into use, they would be able to fully focus on mining the spirit stone ore, and by then the output of spirit crystals would be able to gradually stabilize.

Lu Qian hopes that this place can eventually produce three spirit crystals a day, which means a thousand spirit crystals can be produced every year, so as to ease the shortage of spirit crystals in the sect.

During the time when the two were talking and watching, the spiritual shield covering Tao Boliang was being corroded by the light of the Corrupted Soul Phantom Iron Ore and was about to be penetrated.

Lu Qian's spiritual consciousness moved, and his own spiritual consciousness surged out, protecting Tao Boliang as well, and stood still in the dark blue light.

Tao Boliang thanked him repeatedly and was full of envy, while Lu Qian felt deeply moved.

Even someone like Tao Boliang, who was in the late stage of foundation building, couldn't hold out for too long surrounded by the Corrupted Soul and Phantom Iron. If a cultivator were to mine the spiritual stones here, no matter how many lives they lost, it would not be enough.

We can't let Jindan Zhenren come here to mine, can we?

Fortunately, the Equipment Refining Hall, in accordance with Lu Qian's idea, mastered the technology of miniaturizing Taoist soldiers and produced "Miner No. 1", which allowed this spiritual stone vein to play its due role.

The small Taoist soldiers, also known as small unmanned puppets, were mainly created by Tao Zhongxian, who led the technical research and development. They drew on Taoist soldier technology, small manned Taoist soldiers, and puppetry.

Compared with normal Taoist soldiers who can only be powered by spirit veins, small Taoist soldiers have lower consumption and are more flexible in deployment. They can be powered by both spirit veins and spirit crystals.

At the same time, like normal Taoist soldiers, after being infused with spirits by monks, they have the fighting instincts and basic intelligence of wild beasts. After being adjusted, "Miner No. 1" can complete simple actions such as mining and carrying ore.

But there is always a trade-off. The miniaturization of the body and the weakening of the energy supplied by the spirit crystals have greatly reduced the ability levels of the Taoist soldiers.

Lu Qian’s solution to this disadvantage was simple and crude.

Since the “quality” has declined, let’s win by “quantity”!
"Miner No. 1" is the first production-type small Taoist soldier. At the same time, the Equipment Refining Hall also manufactured the "Spirit Snake No. 1" combat-type small Taoist soldier.

"Spirit Snake No. 1" was derived from Tao Zhongxian's miniature Taoist flying snake test aircraft. It can almost be regarded as a mass-produced version of the flying snake test aircraft. It is equipped with various technologies of the flying snake test aircraft, including the ultimate move "Blazing Light".

However, due to the use of spirit crystals for energy and manufacturing materials, the power of the Blazing Light is only one-third of that of a normal Flying Snake Taoist soldier, its duration is also shorter, and the firing interval is longer.

Even so, Lu Qian was already very satisfied. Just imagine if he could release hundreds of "Spirit Snake No. 1" in the battle, with hundreds of beams of blazing fire and bright light, even a golden elixir would find it difficult to resist.

It’s just that the Dow brothers are striving for perfection and have higher requirements for this combat model, and they are still constantly debugging and improving it.

After observing the mining situation of the Lingshi mine, the two returned to the ground. Lu Qian talked with Tao Boliang for a while and asked about the development progress of the new airship.

Tao Boliang was very embarrassed: "Master Lu, our weapon refining hall currently has few talents who can take charge of their own affairs, especially those who are good at research and development. At present, in addition to meeting the daily tasks of refining magic weapons and spiritual weapons, we are also studying small Taoist soldier technology. We have not made any progress in the research of new airships."

Tao Boliang explained that it was not that they had not done research and development. At that time, Lu Qian made a request, and the Refining Hall attached great importance to it and made full efforts to study it for a period of time. However, it was later discovered that Lu Qian required the new airship to reach a range of one thousand miles per hour and carry more than three hundred monks, which required the size of the airship to be enlarged and its weight to be greatly increased.

While the volume and weight increase linearly, the flight speed must also be increased several times, which places extremely high demands on the power system, spiritual energy transmission system, drive system, sail auxiliary system and even the hull structure of the entire airship.

Each of these requires overcoming technical difficulties, a large amount of money and time investment, and a complete upgrade of related materials and magic arrays.
The Equipment Refining Hall was really stretched to the limit, and it happened that at this time Tao Zhongxian's research and development on the miniaturization of Taoist soldiers had made a breakthrough, so the Equipment Refining Hall put aside the development of the new type of airship and turned its full attention to the research of miniaturized Taoist soldiers.

After hearing the explanation, Lu Qian felt that he had taken it for granted. He agreed with Tao Boliang's suggestion to postpone the research and development of the new type of airship and first develop the technology of small Taoist soldiers to maturity.

"It seems like I really envy the Spirit Beast Sect." Lu Qian said with a smile, "They don't need to do such difficult research and development, they can just use various wind-controlling beasts to carry people."

Tao Boliang also laughed: "Master, you are joking. Every profession has its own specialty. The Spiritual Beast Sect also obtained the current Wind-controlling Beast through generations of hybridization, selection, and breeding. They spent no less time, energy, and spirit stones than us."

Lu Qian nodded: "It seems that we need to strengthen the training, selection and introduction of weapon-refining talents. In the next 'Six Six Carnival', Yunshan Sect plans to restart the 'Longmen Conference', mainly to introduce guest officials in the field of weapon refining. I hope to find some more seedlings for you brothers."

The reason why they are called "seedlings" instead of "helpers" is mainly because weapon refiners are scarce talents. All sects and schools are vying for them. How could the Yunshan Sect possibly pick up a ready-made one? In the past, it was very lucky to be able to accept the Tao brothers into the sect by chance.

We can only see if there are any talented people among the independent cultivators who are good at refining equipment and can be trained in the equipment refining hall. If they pass many tests and perform well, it is possible to formally introduce them into the sect and become Yunshan disciples.

However, both the number of people and the review standards need to be strictly controlled. On the one hand, we need to learn from the lessons of previous espionage cases, and on the other hand, we must not repeat the mistakes of the Xuanwei School, where there was a fierce conflict between the local "house-born children" and the foreign "wild fox Zen".

In October of the 442nd year of Jiashen, Yunshan Sect welcomed another great event.

The pacification envoy of the nine northwestern counties of Cangzhou, the head of the Yunshan School, Tianyuanzi Lu Qian, celebrated his 100th birthday.

Lu Qian couldn't be sure which day of his birthday was in October, so he just randomly picked October 15th.

October 15th, the 342nd year of Jiashen, was Lu Qian’s self-proclaimed birthday.

After the two souls of this world and the other world merged, Lu Qian also felt strange about his life experience.

He joined the Yunshan Sect when he was exactly sixteen years old. When the sect was destroyed, he was only twenty years old and had only been a member for four years.

Before he was sixteen, he was the adopted son of a wealthy family named Lu in a mortal county town within the jurisdiction of the Yunshan Sect, living a luxurious life with fine clothes and delicious food, surrounded by many servants.

Regarding his birth experience, his adoptive parents only said that they picked him up from the roadside in October of the 342nd year of Jiashen.

The adoptive parents had no children of their own. They ran a lot of businesses and were not at home for many years, allowing Lu Qian to do whatever he wanted in the mansion. Therefore, Lu Qian had no feelings for them, and he developed a selfish character that was self-centered.

Looking back now, the adoptive parents' attitude towards Lu Qian was very peculiar. Rather than doting, perhaps "polite" would be a more appropriate description.

The Yunshan Sect used to carry out a spiritual seedling screening every ten years, but perhaps the disciples who carried out the screening were careless and actually missed Lu Qian. As a result, Lu Qian was discovered to have spiritual roots at the age of sixteen, and was thus introduced into the Yunshan Sect.

Because he had a very rare dual spiritual roots and was the most talented person in the Yunshan Sect at that time, the third-generation leader directly accepted him as his disciple.

Afterwards, the sect was destroyed and several senior brothers were killed. Before his death, the master passed the position of the sect leader to Lu Qian.

Thinking about it now, there are of course some weird things, but the past is gone and it is beyond our reach, so why waste energy on these things?

He is the fourth generation leader of the Yunshan Sect, and is responsible for revitalizing the sect.

It's enough to know this.

After going through many ups and downs and making progress, I am now almost a hundred years old.

Different monks and sects have different views on this kind of birthday celebration. Some attach great importance to it, while others do not care about it.

Originally, Lu Qian didn't care about it and didn't want to do it, so as to avoid mobilizing a large number of troops and wasting time and money.

However, Jiang Qingfeng, Wang Yu and other fellow disciples believed that Lu Qian had worked hard and made outstanding achievements, and insisted on holding a 100th birthday banquet to celebrate.

The fellow disciples were all sincere and Lu Qian didn't want to insist on refutation, so he put forward a few requests, asking them to just hold a small event on Mianlong Mountain and not invite other sects to participate.

When the news spread, there was jubilation throughout Yunshan.

In fact, many disciples did not know Lu Qian’s exact age. Now that they heard that a 100th birthday banquet was going to be held, their first reaction was pride and honor.

The leader of our sect is only a hundred years old, but he has already created such a foundation from scratch!

The Spring and Autumn Period has just begun, and the Sect Master still has thousands of years to live. To what extent can he bring the Yunshan Sect?
Then there was the immense admiration for Lu Qian. Everyone knew the story of the rise of their own sect by heart, and it had now become the best annotation for Lu Qian's 100th birthday.

In short, the disciples are happy and full of energy. They want to host this birthday banquet well to express their sincere gratitude to the master.

The news that the Yunshan Sect was going to celebrate Lu Qian's 100th birthday naturally spread. Although no invitations were sent out, the Qinglian True Sect was the first to send a message, saying that Lianyi Lingjun would lead a team to come and celebrate Lu Qian's birthday.

When the news came out, the Spirit Beast Sect also stated that it would send Youde Lingjun to celebrate the birthday.

Afterwards, even the Xuanwei Sect responded. Miaomiao Xuanjun attached great importance to the Northwest Pacification Envoy and sent his "house-born son" Yuanying Lingjun to congratulate him.

The actions of the four sects in Cangzhou immediately caused a shock throughout Cangzhou. All kinds of messages and letters floated to Mianlong Mountain like snowflakes, and almost all the Jindan sects came to congratulate Tianyuanzi.

Now it was no longer Lu Qian's personal birthday. Lu Qian had to change his plan and ordered the Internal Affairs Department to hold this birthday banquet to the highest level.

October 12, three days before the birthday party, late at night.

The Yunshan disciples who were busy preparing for the banquet suddenly saw a five-colored light suddenly rising above the master's courtyard.

The five colored lights of white, green, black, red and yellow shot up into the sky, blocking out the moonlight and starlight, flowing back and forth endlessly.

In the void, light is floating, and tadpole script, bird seal script, fish and insect script fall from the sky, which is ancient, obscure and extremely mysterious.

Wonderful sounds rang out, including the sounds of stringed instruments, bells and chimes, zithers and harps, and praises, which were extremely beautiful and cleansed the heart.

All the disciples were dazzled and overwhelmed. (End of this chapter)