Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

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Behind the wooden shed was a row of low houses built against the mountainside, with earthen walls and stone roofs, each just big enough to fit a wooden bed and a small table.

Li Yuan chose the innermost room and quickly organized the items in his storage bag.

Sun Liang lived next door, while the others found their own places to settle down.

The handover guard led Li Yuan on a tour of the mine, briefly explained some precautions, and then left with the two guards who had stayed behind.

The mine is not large.

Three openings, a circle of earthen walls, a few wooden sheds, plus the row of low houses behind them—that's all.

There weren't many people left. Besides the six that Li Yuan brought, there were already four people in the mine: three miners in charge of mining, all at the second or third level of Qi Refining, and a processing cultivator temporarily stationed there, who was responsible for the initial sorting and processing of the mined ore under the shed.

The person in charge of the mine was a middle-aged man surnamed Liu.

He appears to be at the fifth level of Qi Refining. He is not tall, but has broad shoulders.

Manager Liu led Li Yuan to a spot on a flat, gravelly patch in the center of the mine and gestured around the area.

"The matter of the mine is very simple."

He pointed to a few inconspicuous stone pillars on the outside of the earthen wall.

"There's a detection array around the perimeter, but it's not very large, covering about 300 feet outside the mine. If any cultivators or demonic beasts approach, the array will give a response; the people on duty just need to keep an eye on it."

He then pointed to the monk sorting ore under the wooden shed.

"Old Zhou handles the processing. The ore goes through him first after it's mined, sorting and packing it. Someone comes to collect it every month."

Manager Liu put his hands on his waist and glanced at Li Yuan.

"You guards are mainly responsible for watching over the mine, but you also have to mine on a regular basis."

Li Yuan glanced at the three holes.

"Do we have to dig them all up?"

"If we have enough manpower, we can take turns, but since you're the leader, you don't have to dig," Manager Liu waved his hand.

"It's not that I'm forcing you to dig rocks all day long, but you can't just sit around doing nothing."

He paused, and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"But it's not without its advantages. The majority of the mined ore goes to the Wang family, but the scraps and lower-quality pieces can be kept without anyone saying anything. Just don't go too far."

Li Yuan nodded.

He wasn't particularly interested in mining, but the mine itself was worth a look.

What kind of minerals are found in the mine?

Manager Liu counted a few items on his fingers.

"It's mainly greenwood stone, which is wood-attribute, and the weapon refining hall needs the most of it. There are also a small amount of black iron fragments and red earth sand. Occasionally, you can dig out one or two spirit stones, but the probability is not high. If you can find three to five a month, you're considered lucky."

"Most of them are of the wood element?"

"Yes, the mineral veins in this mountain range are predominantly wood-based, with the deeper minerals containing a higher concentration of wood spiritual energy."

Li Yuan didn't ask any more questions, and glanced at the largest hole.

"I'll go in and take a look."

Manager Liu casually waved his hand, "Take a look around, just don't go too deep. There are many side passages inside, and it's easy to get lost the first few times."

Li Yuan entered the mine.

The cave entrance was supported by a rough wooden frame. After walking about ten feet inside, the light dimmed. Every so often, a piece of glowing fluorite was embedded in the cave wall, its dim yellow light only enough to illuminate an area of ​​two or three steps underfoot.

The mine tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The ground was pitted and uneven from the mining tools, with a thin layer of gravel mixed with mineral dust.

The deeper you go, the more branching paths you'll find.

After the main mine tunnel extended forward for about thirty feet, it split into two branch tunnels on the left and right, and then two more branch tunnels further forward, spreading out into the depths of the mountain in a crisscross pattern.

Some side passages are very narrow, allowing only one person to pass sideways; others are wider, with large areas of freshly chiseled cuts visible on the walls, and dark green veins interspersed among the gray-black rock layers—those are veins of greenwood stone.

Li Yuan continued walking deeper into the mine along the main tunnel.

The sound of footsteps bounced back and forth in the mine tunnel several times, mixed with the distant clanging and clattering sounds of mining.

After walking about fifty feet, a gray shadow suddenly darted past at my feet.

Li Yuan paused and looked down.

A grayish-brown rat emerged from a crack in the mine tunnel. It was a size larger than an ordinary rat, with glossy fur. Its two bean-sized eyes stared at Li Yuan for a moment before it darted into another crack.

After walking a few more steps, I saw two more, squatting at the corner of the mine tunnel, gnawing on something. They weren't afraid of people coming, and just slowly moved to the side.

Li Yuan glanced back and saw that Manager Liu had followed him in at some point and was leaning against the mine tunnel wall.

"Mining rats," Manager Liu gestured towards the rats. "We raised them ourselves."

"What are we going to do with raising them?"

"It can dig." Manager Liu tapped the cave wall twice. "These things are naturally good at digging along the veins, and they can dig much finer than humans. They often reveal good quality ore in the cracks they dig, saving a lot of work."

He patted the mineral powder off his hands.

"But that's just digging into the cracks; actually extracting the ore still depends on people."

Li Yuan stopped looking at the mine rats and continued walking deeper into the mine.

The concentration of spiritual energy was slowly increasing, and it was noticeably thicker than outside the cave. With each breath, one could feel the spiritual energy seeping into the meridians faster.

But besides spiritual energy, Li Yuan also sensed something else.

A very faint chill seeped up from the depths of the rock beneath my feet; it wasn't a cold in terms of temperature, but rather a dull, corrosive feeling.

A malevolent aura.

It was very faint, only slightly more so than the outside air, almost imperceptible to the untrained eye. But for Li Yuan, this malevolent aura was very clear.

The soul enhanced by the Soul-Illuminating Mirror is more sensitive to this kind of negative energy than ordinary people.

Li Yuan stopped, squatted down, and pressed his palm against the ground.

The malevolent energy seeped upwards in wisps from the cracks in the rock strata; the amount was small, but it was continuous.

Li Yuan took out the Gathering Evil Bowl from his storage bag.

The small, dark gray bowl rested in my palm, the spirit patterns on its surface gleaming faintly in the dim fluorite light.

Li Yuan poured a wisp of spiritual energy into the bowl.

The spiritual patterns on the bowl's surface lit up briefly, and then a very thin layer of gray mist appeared at the rim of the bowl—a sign that the evil-gathering bowl had begun to absorb the surrounding evil energy.

The gray mist slowly swirled, spreading about half a foot outward from the rim of the bowl before being drawn back in.

Li Yuan placed the bowl in a secluded corner deep within the mine tunnel, leaning it against the cave wall for stability. The bowl's rim faced upwards, and the spiritual patterns continued to glow faintly, like a half-open gray eye.

Manager Liu glanced at it from behind but didn't ask what it was.

Everyone in the mine has their own ways of doing things, and as long as it doesn't affect the operation of the mine, no one bothers with anyone else.

Li Yuan stood up and walked back out of the mine along the original route.

As we emerged from the cave, the sun was already setting, casting long shadows across the rocky ground.

Li Yuan stopped beside the wooden shed and watched Steward Liu follow him out of the cave.

"What's the situation outside?"

Manager Liu sat down on a wooden stump under the shed and patted the mineral dust off his trousers.

"The two sides have been fighting on and off at the border; you must have heard about that before you left."

"Specifically?"

Manager Liu thought for a moment.

"The Li family occasionally infiltrates this area in small groups of three to five people. Last month, one group sneaked to within ten miles of the mine, but they were spotted by patrols, a fight broke out, and two of them escaped."

He gestured with his chin toward the outside of the earthen wall.

"However, this isn't the front line, so the Li family won't specifically send a large force here to attack a small mine. They're more concerned with those strongholds and spiritual veins in the border area."

He glanced at Li Yuan.

"If they really come, we can use the detection array to give them an early warning. Within a 300-zhang radius, we can run. As for fighting... it depends on how many people we have."

Li Yuan hummed in agreement and didn't ask any further questions.

The mine is not a strategically vital location; it's just that its location is close to the border between two sides, so the risks cannot be completely eliminated.

As darkness fell, Li Yuan returned to his low-roofed house.

The room was smaller than the place to live in the market. The wooden bed was placed against the wall, and the table was only the size of a palm, barely big enough to hold an oil lamp and a water bowl.

However, something inconspicuous in the corner caught Li Yuan's attention.

Several faint spiritual patterns were engraved on the stone slab on the ground, forming a circle about the size of a fist. The engravings of the spiritual patterns had been worn away and blurred, but the flow of spiritual energy was still present.

Miniature spirit-gathering array.

The area was extremely small, only covering this low house. The effect was also mediocre; the concentration of spiritual energy was slightly higher than outside, but about the same as deep inside the mine, so it wasn't particularly good.

Li Yuan took out a section of the Ironhorn Antelope's hind leg from his storage bag and roasted it using his fire control technique.

The flames were kept low, slowly baking the meat, causing the oil to sizzle and the aroma of caramelization to fill the small house.

After finishing his meal, Li Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed and began to circulate the Spirit Guiding Technique.

As the night wore on, a low roar came from afar outside.

It's not a human voice.

The roar came from the depths of the mountain valley to the northeast of the mine. It was deep and long, like the howl of some kind of large monster. It crashed back and forth between the mountain walls several times in the night before gradually dissipating.

A few breaths later, another sound came, this time from a distance, slightly east of the first.

Li Yuan opened his eyes and glanced out the window.

Outside the mine, it was pitch black, with only the outline of the earthen walls faintly visible in the moonlight. The detection array hadn't sounded an alarm, indicating the monster was still three hundred feet away.

A sound of someone turning over came from next door. Sun Liang had been woken up. He mumbled something and then fell silent.

The distant roars rang out intermittently for a while, before gradually fading away.

Li Yuan turned his gaze away from the window, closed his eyes, and continued to practice his internal energy.