Chương 310: The strange mission

"Mm. They'll do." The old man nodded imperceptibly and lowered his head again. The warden nodded then chose a tunnel and led the four youths into the darkness, leaving the old man behind. The four youths followed behind the warden in silence for nearly an hour again, feeling stiffled by the sheer darkness of the tunnel. It wasn't untill they spotted some light ahead that they felt lighter.

They soon realized that the lights weren't gotten from the bright stones, instead, they were emitted by several shining crystals embedded deep into the tunnel walls. They were scarce at the beginning but they soon became so numerous that the four couldn't help be stunned.

"Are those… Imperial crystals?" Long Feng muttered dryly. He was rightfully shocked. These were much larger than the normal sized Imperial crystals; some of them were as big as small boulders! He had slightly over a hundred thousand Imperial crystals in his void ring right now, but just a casual glance revealed far more than that in this tunnel; they would easily surpass a million. What was more surprising was that they were left here without anyone mining them out.

The supreme heaven sect apparently didn't care about these Imperial crystals at all. If anything, they were like weeds growing around the true treasure.

"So wasteful…" Long Feng thought with a sting in his heart. He was already beginning to plan on how to get as much Imperial crystals as he wanted. After all, he would soon became an Imperial and he would need as many Imperial crystals as he could get to quickly increase his strength. The tunnel also slowly filled with dense natural energy due to the presence of so many Imperial crystals, but Long Feng realized that the energy was a bit murky and hard to refine.

They walked through the now bright tunnel until they exited, finding themselves in another large cave. Even before they left the tunnel, metallic sounds faintly echoed in their ears. The closer they got, the louder and clearer the sound became. This was a unique cave. It was as wide as any normal cave, but more than that, it was extremely long, extending to unknown places. There was no light in it's depths, only a suffocating darkness that could scare anyone.

It also had an underground river flowing through the center of the cave into it's depths. The cave was extremely bright. Nearly ninety percent of this vast cave was filled with Imperial crystals of various shapes and sizes that hadn't been mined. Massive stalactites of Imperial crystals hung from the cave ceiling, further illuminating the cave like stars. Long Feng couldn't help but curse at this sight. This was practically a waste of good resources!

The sect could easily mine millions of Imperial crystals from this place, yet they didn't even care about it in the slightest! The underground river flowed from an unknown source and it's destination was similarly unknown. It flowed silently, vanishing into the depths of the cave. The source of the metallic sounds were dozens of bare chested men raising large axes and bringing them down on the floor or walls, breaking through hard rocks and revealing some irregular shaped stones beneath the rubbles.

These were apparently the miners. Besides them, there were some youths dressed in the robes of the Supreme Heaven Sect's outer peak, showing their status as disciples. They numbered eight exactly, gathered together as they watched the miners work with serious expressions. The disciples all had dour expressions and constantly looked into the darkness far behind them with unease in their eyes.

The entrance of the warden and the four youths behind him startled everyone in the cave slightly before the disciples paid their greetings to the warden while the miners continued their work silently. Long Feng's gaze swept through this entire part of the cave, pausing briefly when he looked into the darkness. He suddenly felt a faint unease in his heart and quickly looked away. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He then quickly observed the eight disciples and noted their cultivations. Two of them were rank eight Imperials, three were rank seven and the final three were all rank six Imperials. This was quite surprising. Long Feng expected to find weaker cultivators being the most here. After all, only weak disciples would choose to pick this mission. Finding two rank eight Imperials and three rank seven Imperials was slightly unexpected but nothing unusual.

What was worth mentioning was that all eight of them looked extremely exhausted and pale. The rank six Imperials especially couldn't conceal the fright and unease in their eyes enough. This caused Long Feng to frown, but he didn't think too much about it. He moved his gaze to the dozens of middle aged miners. He easily saw through their cultivation. The strongest among them was a rank four spirit realm warrior. They looked about fourty at least, meaning they were already considered as middle aged.

With such cultivation at this age, no force in the mainland would accept them for anything more than workers and slaves. If they were in any low or mid ranked continents in the continent zone, they would still be able earn respect and fame across the lands. Heck, even old men at the spirit realm would be respected in low ranked continents. Their chest and faces glistened with sweat as they lifted the heavy tools and broke through the hard rocks to reveal the true treasures in this place; Essence stones.

They also came in different sizes. They would later be cut to specific sized and shared out to the disciples.

"The four of you will join them in protecting the miners. Stay alert always and do not let your guard down." The warden slowly spoke, referring to the four youths behind him. He then turned around to leave without waiting for a second more.

"Senior! -" one of the rank six Imperials in the cave shouted in a shaky voice. The warden paused and glanced at the youth calmly.

"Do you have something to say?" The youth shivered under the warden's gaze but somehow gathered his courage to speak.

"S-senior, can I quit the mission?" He asked. He seemed to have exhausted his remaining strength after saying that and he stared at the warden hopefully. Long Feng's eyes instantly narrowed with a hidden glint. He already had a feeling that something was off about this mission to protect the miners. This youth just confirmed it. From his tone, he certainly wasn't trying to quit due to normal reasons. The fear and unease in his voice was clear to all.

"You accepted the mission for three months. Only one month have passed. I'm afraid there's no way to quit." The warden calmly replied, causing the hint of hope in the youth's eyes to flicker out. The warden then walked into the tunnel and left calmly and no one stopped him again this time. Long Feng instantly noticed the solemn atmosphere that filled the cave after the warden left. The original disciples in the cave didn't even bother to glance at the four of them.

They continued whatever they were doing, always paying attention to the darkness behind them. The other three beside Long Feng weren't fools. They also picked up on the signed and noted that something was off. There was silence for a few minutes as the four of them thought of what to do first. Long Feng's first thought was to find out exactly what was going on. From what he could see, this 'easy mission' wasn't as easy as he thought it was.

Several more minutes passed and the only sound in the endless cave was the constant metallic sounds caused by the indifferent miners. Then the rank six Imperial who came along with Long Feng took a step forward and approached the other disciples with a genial smile.

"Fellow disciples, I am Gui Wu. I just joined the sect last year during the recent enrollment." He introduced loudly, smiling warmly. Unfortunately, none of them even reacted. They completely ignored the youth named Gui Wu and barely gave him second glances. Gui Wu's smile slowly turned stiff and forced as he felt embarrassed. Were all these disciples deaf or what? He cleared his throat and tried again.

"Fellow disciples, I have several good pills with me. Could someone enlighten me to what we're required to do here?" He went ahead and took out some pill bottles from his void ring. Considering that the disciples all looked exhausted and ruffled, he thought some good healing pills would do the trick. Again, none of them reacted. It was as though they couldn't hear Gui Wu's words at all. Gui Wu's smile once again froze. Lost for words, he began again.

"Fellow-" One of the rank seven Imperials glared at him.

"Listen, it'd be best if you shut up and saved your strength. You'll need it soon." He snapped. Gui Wu froze for a few seconds then snorted slightly. These guys didn't bother to give him face at all even after he lowered his head. He might be weaker than some of them but he wasn't afraid of anyone. He huffily walked to a corner and sat down, keeping his guards up. Long Feng and the other two naturally wouldn't try to waste their time asking questions; Gui Wu was an example. No one would listen to them.

It was better to rest and wait to see whatever was going to happen. The sound of mining continued for hours. Throughout that time, Long Feng was alert, but nothing happened. The miners soon dropped their tools and gathered at a side where they rested and ate some food. A few of them even bathed in the river before they all sat in silence. The atmosphere could only be described as scary. No one said a word.

Long Feng estimated that it would be nighttime outside, but it was obviously impossible to notice that from down here. Besides, no one was in the mood to fall asleep. From the disciples to the miners, they were all cultivators. They could go a few days without sleep and nothing would happen. Long Feng found it hard to calm down and cultivate in this situation. He couldn't rest unless he figured out what exactly was going on. But for the whole night, nothing happened; everything was normal.

The miners picked their tools and continued to work, harvesting essence stones which they gathered in several special void rings. After another day, Long Feng was finally able to calm his mind and continue to comprehend the sword concept in the memory fragment of the Firmament Sword Saint. When he tried to cultivate by absorbing the natural energy, he found that it was extremely hard to do so. The energy here was turbulent and hard to absorb.

It was filled with impurities and one would need to refine it multiple times to cultivate. That would be extremely stressful and not worth the effort. In the end, Long Feng decided to cultivate using spirit crystals. He had an abundance of those, but his appetite was similarly large. He needed nearly ten times the amount of spirit crystals to achieve the same results as normal people in the spirit realm. That was one of the disadvantages of his spirit energy.

It's density was comparable to Imperial energy, meaning spirit crystals weren't enough to satisfy him. At the same time though, Long Feng wasn't sure if his body was strong enough to withstand Imperial crystals. The days passed slowly. The disciples barely exchanged a single word and everyone mostly belittled Long Feng due to his cultivation. Based on cultivation itself, Long Feng was barely higher than the miners themselves. As such, he wasn't regarded by the other disciples at all.

He was actually more familiar with some of the miners after a few days. One of them was called Yu Zihao, a rank three Spirit realm warrior. He was the person Long Feng spoke to the most in the past few days. The man had approached him suddenly and sat beside him.

"Kid, are you also a disciple of the Sect?" He asked in disbelief even after recognizing the robes Long Feng wore. He had simply never heard of a rank six spirit realm warrior as a disciple. It wasn't as though the sect didn't have such disciples. In fact, they had several weak disciples. But those were special. They were all great talents, each at least mid earth grade talents handpicked at birth and nurtured by the sect. They could reach the spirit realm by ten to twelve and the Imperial realm by fifteen.

They were all raised in the Inner peak and were considered Inner disciples from birth. They were unlike Long Feng, who had joined the sect as a teen and actually passed the entrance test somehow with his rank six spirit realm cultivation.