Mortal: Starting by joining the Falling Cloud Sect

After the two men left the mine, they called over the mine supervisor who was in charge of overseeing the miners' work in the area.

"How has the production of spirit ore been in recent months? Has it changed?" Zhou Qing asked.

"Master, there are indeed changes. At first, they weren't obvious, but they only became noticeable last month. The amount of spirit ore handed over has decreased by at least 30% compared to the previous few months," the mine supervisor replied, bowing and trembling.

"Have you found out what the cause is?" Zhou Qing continued to ask.

"According to the immortal master who confiscated the spirit ore, there were some substandard and defective products among that batch of red crystal stones, so only 70% were confiscated," the mine supervisor replied.

"I understand, you may leave." After obtaining the necessary information, Zhou Qing waved his hand, dismissing the mine supervisor.

After piecing together all the information, Zhou Qing had a guess in his mind. Instead of keeping it to himself, he spoke it out.

"It seems someone tampered with the ore vein, reducing the fire-attribute spiritual energy within the ore and drastically decreasing its hardness, thus turning it into a defective product. This landslide was likely caused by this as well."

"Someone tampered with it? This mine is so heavily guarded, and there are cultivators patrolling it every day. How could someone possibly have the opportunity to tamper with it? Could it be one of our own?" After hearing Zhou Qing's speculation, Lu Gongshu was initially incredulous, but upon further reflection, he felt it was somewhat possible.

After all, he had just witnessed the conflict between the cultivators of the Nine Kingdoms Alliance, with their open and covert struggles continuing. He thought that perhaps someone was deliberately doing this to create some commotion.

Zhou Qing didn't have that idea. He always valued empirical evidence, so he asked the miners to inform the other cultivators about the mine collapse, and then he led Lu Gongshu and the mine supervisor to explore the mine again.

This vein of minerals is not long, but it has several branches that extend for about ten miles in total.

After searching the mine for a while without any results, they flew into the sky and searched along the vein of the mine from the air, but still found nothing.

"Could it be that my judgment was wrong?" Seeing that he had not found a single clue, Zhou Qing began to doubt his own judgment.

"Are all the mine shafts of this vein located in the area we're stationed in?" Zhou Qing asked, still somewhat unwilling to give up.

Upon hearing this, the miner thought for a moment and replied, "Almost all the cave entrances are in that area, except for one entrance in another place, which has long been abandoned due to poor geology."

Upon hearing this, a glimmer of hope rekindled in Zhou Qing's heart: "Let's go and take a look at that abandoned cave entrance."

Then, Zhou Qing asked the mine supervisor to point out the location of the tunnel entrance, and the three of them headed straight there.

Soon, the three of them arrived near the cave entrance.

This place has indeed been abandoned for a long time. Most of the cave entrance has collapsed, and rubble has blocked most of the passage, which is overgrown with weeds.

Zhou Qing and his companion took precautions, leaving the mine supervisor outside the mine before cautiously entering the mine.

Guided by the light of the moonstone, the two continued deeper and soon reached the end of the mine.

Zhou Qing looked around and extended his divine sense, finally discovering a strange array in an extremely hidden place.

Zhou Qing didn't recognize the formation, so he turned to Lu Gongshu and asked, "Junior Brother Lu, do you recognize this formation?"

Lu Gongshu examined it carefully and finally nodded: "I have seen this great formation in the sect's records before. It should be called the Zhenmai Formation. After this formation is set up, the spiritual energy of the nearby spiritual veins will continuously dissipate, and it will be done silently."

"No wonder there are so many defective spiritual ore in this vein. It turns out that the spiritual energy in the vein has dissipated." At this moment, Lu Gongshu also realized what had happened and understood everything.

However, he immediately added, "All the sects in Tiannan strictly forbid their disciples from studying this formation, because if the spiritual energy of the spiritual vein is allowed to dissipate unchecked, the vein will soon be destroyed. Who would do something so heinous?"

"Judging from this, it shouldn't have been done by cultivators from the Nine Kingdoms Alliance; it's most likely by the Muran people!" Zhou Qing calmly analyzed.

Unexpectedly, these Mulan people, having failed to plunder the spirit mines, resorted to secretly sabotaging them instead. They really haven't given up on their thieving intentions!

Thinking of this, Zhou Qing bent down and dug a few times along the magic circle. Sure enough, hundreds of spirit stones buried under the ground were revealed. A small portion of these spirit stones had dimmed their spiritual light, clearly indicating that they lacked spiritual energy.

"Junior Brother Lu, come and take a look. Can you deduce how long these spirit stones can keep the formation running?" Zhou Qing asked.

Lu Gongshu counted the number of spirit stones, silently calculated in his mind, and finally gave the answer.

"It should last for about two more months!"

It seems the Mulan people intend to completely destroy this mine after two months.

However, Zhou Qing thought again that their shift would last much longer than two months. If the Mulan people realized that the mine had not been destroyed, they would most likely come back to check the formation.

All we need to do is set up an ambush and we'll teach them a lesson!

He then collected all the spirit stones and split them 50/50 with Lu Gongshu. Afterward, he put the array plate and array flags into his storage bag.

"Let's go back first and tell the other cultivators in our group about this. We don't know how many Mulan people will come, but there won't be too many. Otherwise, it would be too easy to expose us. It's hard for the two of us to take all the credit. It's better to involve others."

Zhou Qing was not blinded by the great achievement before him. He calmly analyzed and judged the situation and made what he considered to be the safest decision.

"Good, that's exactly what I was thinking. Many hands make light work! Although this formation can only last for two months at most, the Mulan people may come to inspect at any time, so it's best if we send people to keep watch here. As long as the formation is set up in advance, we can temporarily trap them, and when reinforcements arrive, it will be easy to deal with them." Lu Gongshu nodded and replied.

After the two reached a consensus, they left the abandoned mine shaft and, together with the mine supervisor, returned to the main mine area.

Upon returning, Zhou Qing discovered that the other cultivators in his group had gathered near the mine, discussing whether to continue mining spirit ore after resolving the collapse.

Although mining spirit mines is the responsibility of mortals, forcing them to mine spirit mines knowing that there may be dangers is tantamount to driving them to suicide, and is truly an inhumane act.

Even though the cultivators of the Southern Heavenly Realm consider themselves immortals, vastly different from mortals, and aloof, they would never do such a thing.

Seeing this, Zhou Qing and Lu Gongshu recounted everything they had discovered in the abandoned mine, and revealed the Mulan people's array plates and flags.

Upon hearing this, the cultivators of the other nine kingdoms were shocked, but at the same time they realized that if they could kill or even capture the Mulan scoundrel who had set up the formation to destroy the mine, it would undoubtedly be a great achievement.