Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

The next morning, Li Yuan led Ji Huaiyuan and Wang Ting'an back down into the mine tunnel.

The three stopped in front of the collapsed gap on the west side of the cave.

Li Yuan raised his hand and released a burst of spiritual energy, precisely pushing aside large chunks of rock on the surface of the rubble layer. He didn't rashly clear away all the rubble, but instead created only a narrow opening large enough for one person to pass through, trying to preserve the original structure of the mine tunnel as much as possible.

After clearing away about two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) of rubble, the space in front suddenly opened up.

A well-maintained mine tunnel, about five feet wide and seven feet high, came into view. The walls had been polished, and the surface of the rock strata still bore extremely ancient spiritual energy patterns. Although they had long since lost their function, the engravings were still clearly discernible.

A dull, musty smell permeated the air, mixed with extremely faint fluctuations of spiritual energy.

The three filed in.

Li Yuan walked at the forefront, his feet firmly planted on the ground, his senses from the Earth Vein Pivot continuously probing forward to explore the direction and structure of the mine tunnel.

The mine tunnel extended northwest for about two hundred feet, with no forks or traces of traps or formations along the way. The spiritual energy patterns on the walls became denser as they went deeper, eventually converging at the end of the tunnel into the remains of a simple spirit-gathering array.

At the end was a stone door.

The stone door was half-open, its hinges rusted and broken, and half of the door panel leaned crookedly against the wall. The incantation patterns carved on the door panel had long since faded and lost their luster.

Li Yuan slipped through the stone gate.

Inside was a small stone house, about three zhang square. The furnishings were extremely simple: a stone bed, a stone table, a wooden chair with a broken leg, and several rotten wooden boxes piled in the corner. Several niches were carved into the stone walls, containing scattered bottles and jars.

The cave dwelling of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Judging from the layout of the stone house and the specifications of the spirit-gathering array, the owner of this place is not highly skilled, probably between the early and middle stages of Foundation Establishment.

"A secluded cave dwelling." Ji Huaiyuan looked around, his tone calm. "Judging from the age of the remaining spiritual energy, it's at least several hundred years old."

Li Yuan walked to the stone table.

The dust on the table was half an inch thick, which he gently brushed away. Underneath the dust was a paper book, its cover yellowed and brittle, with most of the corners torn.

It's not a jade slip, but a handwritten note on paper.

Li Yuan carefully picked up the book. The pages were extremely fragile and would shatter at the slightest pressure. He used his spiritual power to form a protective film on the surface of the pages, and then slowly turned the pages.

Most of the pages were ruined beyond recognition by moisture and insects, with only about ten pages in the middle and back still legible.

The handwriting was messy, as if it was written in a state of extreme panic or exhaustion.

Li Yuan read on, page by page.

The first surviving passage records trivial details of daily training and mine patrols, offering little value. However, starting from the third page, the handwriting becomes more disordered, and a clear sense of panic permeates the sentences.

"...The sect leader has gone mad. In his attempt to break through to the Nascent Soul stage and ascend to immortality, he has sacrificed the entire sect..."

"...He said that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is gradually fading, and if we don't leave now, we'll never be able to leave again. I don't know if he's telling the truth, but he's already made his move..."

"...Most of the spiritual energy in Mozhou has been drained. On the surface, the spiritual energy is still there, but that's just a remnant. Once the foundation is broken, the spiritual energy will eventually be completely depleted. In a few decades, perhaps a hundred years, Mozhou will become a dead land..."

Li Yuan turned the page, and the text on the following lines became even more blurred, with only scattered fragments discernible.

"...Not just Mozhou. The sect leader plans to target Liangzhou as well. He wants everything that can provide spiritual energy—spiritual veins, demonic beasts, essence blood..."

"...The news has spread throughout the sect. Some elders may have already made secret contacts, planning to declare independence. But who dares to actually make a move? The sect leader is a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator..."

"...I'm just a disciple, there's nothing I can do. I'm writing this down in case someone sees it someday..."

The journal ends here. The following pages are all eaten away by insects and reduced to fragments, making them illegible.

Li Yuan closed the book and put it back on the table.

The root cause of the decline of spiritual energy in Mozhou lies in these few pages.

It was not a natural disaster, nor was it natural depletion; rather, it was because the Xuanyou Sect Master forcibly drained the spiritual veins of Mozhou in order to break through to the Nascent Soul stage.

He turned to check the drawer of the stone table. The drawer was jammed, but Li Yuan gently opened it with his spiritual power. Inside was a folded animal hide.

The animal hide had dried, cracked, and hardened, so Li Yuan unfolded it and laid it on the table.

It is a map.

It was badly damaged. Nearly half of the animal hide was torn apart, and most of the ink on it had faded and blurred. The only recognizable features were a few dots marked with special symbols and a few dashed lines connecting the dots.

There are no legends, no orientation markings, and not even a scale.

But Li Yuan's gaze stopped on one particular spot.

The relative location of that spot almost perfectly matched the valley where he had followed the demonic cultivator and disappeared two days prior.

He memorized the relative coordinates of every remaining point on the map.

"Senior Ji, Brother Wang, come and take a look."

Ji Huaiyuan and Wang Ting'an walked to the table.

Li Yuan briefly recounted the contents of the diary, and then spread the remaining map out in front of the two of them.

There was a moment of silence inside the stone house.

Ji Huaiyuan's face darkened. He stared at the tattered map, remaining silent for a long time.

"The relics of the Xuanyou Sect," Ji Huaiyuan finally spoke, his voice low. "The decline of spiritual energy in Mozhou has never been settled in the cultivation world. I never imagined the root cause was here."

He shook his head and pushed the incomplete drawing back onto the table.

"However, this map is too incomplete to find anything. There are only a few isolated points, without direction or scale, and it's impossible to even tell whether it's labeled as Liangzhou or Mozhou."

Ji Huaiyuan looked at Li Yuan.

"My advice is not to explore. The Xuanyou Sect was once a major sect for Nascent Soul cultivators. For us Foundation Establishment cultivators, encountering what they left behind would be a death sentence."

Li Yuan did not respond immediately, but turned to look at Wang Ting'an.

Wang Ting'an's expression was somewhat off.

He stared at those few points on the incomplete map for a long time, his brows furrowing and relaxing intermittently. His lips moved twice, as if he wanted to say something but then swallowed it back.

"What do you think, Brother Wang?" Li Yuan asked.

Wang Ting'an snapped out of his daze and forced a smile.

"Me? Like Senior Ji, I don't plan to take that risk." He dusted himself off. "My Wang family's businesses are all in this market town—mines, mining teams, a whole family—how could we dare touch something like this?"

He paused for a moment, then added another sentence.

"Besides, the Yuan Yang Sect has been operating in this area for so many years, they might know more about the Xuan You Sect's past than we do. If the sect already knows about these things, it might just cause trouble for us to investigate ourselves."

The tone is natural and the logic is sound.

Li Yuan nodded and did not ask any further questions.

He turned around and continued cleaning up the remaining items in the stone house.

In the corner, several wooden crates were rotten to the point of being just frames, their contents scattered all over the floor. Li Yuan examined them one by one and found several jade bottles, two fragments of array plates, a flying sword broken in two, and a damaged storage bag.

All the magic of the objects has vanished.

The pills in the jade bottle had turned to powder, the patterns on the fragments of the array plate had completely faded, and although the flying sword was still made of sturdy material, it was nothing more than scrap metal after losing its spiritual energy. The storage bag had long since collapsed, and there was nothing inside.

It's all junk.

Hundreds of years is enough to wear down all the possessions of a Foundation Establishment cultivator into a pile of useless rubble.

Li Yuan put the array plate fragments that were of reference value into his storage bag, and put the rest of the items back as they were.

Finally, he carefully put away the diary and the remaining map.

The logbook was made of paper and was extremely fragile. He sealed it with his spiritual power, wrapped it in three layers of soft cloth, and placed it deep inside his storage bag. All the location information on the fragmented map was already imprinted in his mind, but the original document itself also needed to be preserved.

The three returned to the cave along the same route, and then returned to the surface via the mine tunnel.

After leaving the mine, Ji Huaiyuan went straight back to the weapon-refining shop in the southern district. Wang Ting'an, accompanied by his guards, went to arrange the follow-up work for the mining team. Before leaving, he glanced back at Li Yuan, hesitated, and finally just nodded before leaving.

Li Yuan returned to the stone house alone.

With the doors and windows closed, he sat down at the table, took out a blank jade slip, and meticulously inscribed all the contents of the diary and the coordinates of every point on the incomplete map into it.

After doing all that, he took out a batch of spiritual herbs he had previously purchased from the independent cultivators' stalls and Yunyang Market from his storage bag and compared them one by one with the list of auxiliary spiritual herbs listed in the Core Formation manual.

The main ingredients for Shangyuan Dan are still missing two, and we need to continue acquiring them.

These two medicinal herbs aren't particularly rare, but they're seldom seen at the independent cultivator stalls in Misty Forest Market. Perhaps they can gather them all once that large merchant guild from Jingzhou arrives.

Li Yuan sorted and arranged the medicinal herbs, then swallowed a Qi-Condensing Pill.

[Conditions for permanent application of the Soul-Sealing Wall (Green): Take Soul-Sealing Pills continuously for 15 days (May 3th)]

He then got up and walked out of the stone house, went down the mine tunnel to the depths of the cave again, sat down cross-legged, and began to practice his internal energy cultivation.

The dense fire-evil spiritual energy in the cave enveloped him like warm water.

[Conditions for permanent Fire Spirit Tempering (Green): Cultivate continuously for thirty days in an environment with extremely high concentration of Fire Spirit spiritual energy (2/30)]