Chapter 517 - 513: Spirit Nurturing Flower
Chapter 517: Chapter 513: Spirit Nurturing Flower
"It must weigh at least several hundred tons!"
Fang Han took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil within him as he strode forward.
Up close, the sheer size of this silver mine was even more apparent. It was like a small, silver mountain.
’I wonder how much wealth this will bring?’
Fang Han reached out, pressing his palm against the ore’s rough surface.
He summoned the system panel and focused his will.
’Deposit.’
The colossal silver mine, which had taken up more than half the clearing, vanished in an instant—as if wiped away by an invisible hand—disappearing without a trace.
All that remained in its place was a patch of heavily compacted earth and several deep, crisscrossing pits.
The numbers on the panel flickered and changed.
[Wealth: 620,000 gold → 720,000 gold]
Fang Han’s gaze lingered on the line of numbers for a moment, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
It was worth 100,000 gold, which converted to 500 tons of silver.
In other words, the silver mine had contained a full five hundred tons of silver.
In his previous life, if he’d had the good fortune to acquire such a massive silver mine, he would have been set for life. He wouldn’t have had to toil from dawn to dusk every day just for a meager salary.
Leaving the patch of earth that had been compacted by the silver mine, Fang Han resumed his exploration.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the canopy, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow on the ground.
The forest remained deathly silent. The only sounds were his own footsteps and the faint rustle of his robes cutting through the air, echoing through a primeval forest that had been still for ages untold.
After walking for about half an hour, Fang Han’s nostrils suddenly twitched.
An exceptionally faint, strange fragrance drifted on the air.
The aroma was different from the crisp, slightly bitter medicinal scent of the Star Orchid from before. This was a warmer, richer fragrance.
It was like fine aged wine being unsealed, or the sweet scent naturally released by a perfectly ripe fruit. Just breathing it in seemed to make every pore on his body relax and open up.
’More Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures?’
Fang Han’s interest was piqued, and he followed the strange fragrance deeper into the dense forest.
The farther he walked, the clearer the fragrance became.
It was no longer faint and elusive, but had coalesced into an invigorating warmth. With every breath, a gentle current of energy seemed to flood his lungs, causing the Inner Qi within him to circulate faintly faster.
After pushing through a dense thicket of brambles, the terrain ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a forest clearing, roughly thirty feet square.
In the center of the clearing grew a peculiar plant, about three feet tall and entirely pale blue.
Its stalk was straight as bamboo, with clearly defined nodes.
A single, long, narrow blue leaf grew from each node. The surface of the leaves was covered in fine, spiderweb-like golden veins that shimmered faintly in the sunlight filtering through the canopy.
At its apex rested a single, fully bloomed flower.
The flower was about the size of a small bowl and had nine petals, each a pale blue with a soft, jade-like luster.
The edges of the petals were trimmed with an extremely fine golden line that gave off a subtle, precious glimmer in the light.
At the flower’s center, a ball of pale golden mist slowly swirled, like a tiny lantern held aloft by an invisible hand.
That invigorating fragrance was emanating from this very ball of golden mist.
"The Spirit-Nurturing Flower."
Fang Han’s gaze fell upon the flower. He paused, whispering the name of this particular Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure.
According to the Sect’s records, the Spirit-Nurturing Flower was a rare type of Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure that required extremely strict conditions to grow.
Its effect was related to Inner Qi Cultivation. However, it didn’t raise one’s Cultivation level. Instead, it could allow an ordinary person who had never practiced martial arts to undergo a complete transformation, directly generate Inner Qi, and step into the Inner Qi Realm.
The Inner Qi Realm was the very threshold of the Martial Dao.
More than ninety percent of Martial Artists, limited by aptitude or resources, would languish their entire lives outside the Inner Qi Realm, unable to generate even a single wisp of Inner Qi.
But the Spirit-Nurturing Flower could shatter that barrier.
Fang Han recognized it at a glance because, several months prior, he had considered having his parents practice Martial Arts.
It wasn’t that he wanted his parents to become powerful enough to fight others, but rather for them to use it as a means of extending their lives.
By cultivating the Martial Dao, even just reaching the Inner Qi Realm could extend one’s life by ten to twenty years compared to an ordinary person.
If they could advance further into the Middle Three Grades, or even the Upper Three Grades, living past a hundred would not be impossible.
As for Grandmasters, they could live for two hundred years, their lifespan nearly three or four times that of an ordinary person.
However, he had quickly discovered that this idea was not feasible.
His parents were already getting on in years. Their physical functions were beginning to decline, and their Essence, Qi, and Spirit were no longer at their peak.
The normal method of Cultivation required using one’s own Essence, Qi, and Spirit as fuel to temper the body, only then could the first wisp of Inner Qi be produced.
His parents’ bodies, however, could no longer withstand such a tempering process.
The only solution was to rely on certain fate-defying Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to forcibly generate Inner Qi within their bodies using external power, thus bypassing the shackles of age.
Fang Han had pored over numerous Sect records and found several Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures with similar effects. The Spirit-Nurturing Flower was one of them.
’I can’t believe I actually found one in this Secret Realm.’
’It’s a shame there’s only one. If only there were two, it would be perfect.’
’I need to be careful!’
Fang Han didn’t rush forward to pick it.
After his harrowing encounter with the Grandmaster-level Demon, he had developed a profound wariness of the dangers lurking within this Secret Realm.
He pushed his *Thousand-Mile Soul Lock* to its absolute limit.
He unleashed the full power of his Tracking Secret Technique, now at the Realm of Perfection, extending his senses into the surrounding area.
He didn’t sense any Demons. The clearing was as quiet as a tomb, with only the invigorating fragrance of the flower silently pervading the air.
’No, something’s off!’
But Fang Han’s brow furrowed slightly.
His gaze fell back on the Spirit-Nurturing Flower. His senses picked up an incredibly faint, residual aura of a Demon lingering around the plant.
The Demon’s aura was exceedingly faint, so much so that it was almost nonexistent.
If he hadn’t cultivated his *Thousand-Mile Soul Lock* to the Realm of Perfection, making his senses sharp enough to pick up on a faint trace left over a month ago, he would have never been able to detect it.
’A Demon has been here before!’
Fang Han’s pupils contracted slightly.
There was no doubt that a Demon had discovered this Spirit-Nurturing Flower at some point.
But what truly baffled him was that the flower remained here, perfectly intact, without a single damaged petal.
’Given a Demon’s instinct to grow stronger, how could it possibly see a Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure like this and not consume it?’
’At most, it would have stood guard over the Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure, waiting for its medicinal properties to become more potent before devouring it at the opportune moment.’
’That would have left much more obvious traces—like a well-trodden beast trail, or the gnawed remains of animal bones.’
’But there was nothing like that here.’
’There was only that exceedingly faint, barely perceptible residual aura, as if the Demon had merely glanced at the flower from a distance before turning and leaving without a second thought.’
’This is definitely not normal.’
The faint sense of unease in Fang Han’s heart intensified.
His right hand never left the hilt of his Cloud Splitting Sword as his gaze swept over the forest clearing, inch by inch.
The ground was ordinary soil and gravel, covered with a thin layer of decaying leaves.
At the edge of the clearing grew a few low shrubs, their foliage sparse enough to see right through.
Beyond that lay the vast, dense woods, their canopies blocking out the sky and sun, enveloping the entire clearing in a twilight-like gloom.
’Spiritual Perception.’
Fang Han used his Spiritual Perception, but still found nothing out of the ordinary.
But the unease remained, clinging to him like a persistent chill he couldn’t shake.
Fang Han took a deep breath and slowly began to walk toward the Spirit-Nurturing Flower.
His steps were extremely slow and steady, each footfall precisely placed on a spot that would make no sound.
His *Returning Ruins Hidden Essence Skill* was constantly running at full power, suppressing his aura until it was nearly nonexistent.
The moment his right foot landed, his center of gravity had already shifted silently to the ball of his front foot, poised to erupt with his full power and retreat in an instant.
One hundred feet.
Fifty feet.
Thirty feet.
The Spirit-Nurturing Flower was nearly within reach.
The warm, strange fragrance was so rich it was almost tangible. With every breath, the Inner Qi in Fang Han’s body leaped joyfully, like a parched riverbed receiving a welcome rain.
Just as Fang Han was about to reach the Spirit-Nurturing Flower—
An extremely faint vibration traveled up from the soles of his feet.
The vibration was so faint, like a single leaf touching the surface of the water, that it was instantly swallowed by the sound of the wind in the trees.
If Fang Han hadn’t been straining his senses to their absolute limit, he would have never been able to perceive this tiny anomaly.
In that instant, his pupils contracted violently.
Without a shred of hesitation—he activated *Wind God Step* with all his might!
WHOOSH!
He unleashed his Grandmaster-level Body Technique, now at the Minor Achievement Realm, holding nothing back.
Like a willow catkin caught in a gale, Fang Han shot backward dozens of feet in the blink of an eye.
In the same instant he shot back, an earthen-yellow figure erupted from the ground.
The creature was astonishingly fast, like a bolt of earthen-yellow lightning shooting from the ground. It carried a foul stench and immense force as it lunged for the exact spot where Fang Han had just been standing.
Soil and gravel flew everywhere. The ground was gouged open into a deep furrow, and several half-buried rocks were shattered to pieces by the force of the lunge.
Fang Han steadied himself over a hundred feet away, his gaze fixed on the earthen-yellow figure.
It was a Demon that resembled a pangolin, but its body was countless times larger than an ordinary one.
It was over twenty feet long from head to tail, with stout yet extremely powerful limbs. But its most striking feature was its armor of scales—
Each scale was the size of a man’s palm, earthen-yellow in color, with a faint sheen flowing across its surface. They were incredibly tough and overlapped in dense layers, covering its entire body and leaving not even a hint of a soft underbelly exposed.
Its head was triangular, its eyes a pair of tiny, dark-gold beads. Its pupils were vertical slits, like a snake’s, radiating undisguised brutality and ferocity.
It had a long, narrow snout, and the fangs within its gaping maw were as white and sharp as daggers.
But the most terrifying part was its aura.
It was cold and savage, exuding a suffocating pressure that made one’s heart pound—a First-Grade Demon!
’Hiding underground... No wonder!’
Fang Han’s gaze was locked on the Mole Antelope Demon. The source of his persistent unease had finally been revealed.
By hiding deep underground, this Demon had evaded the detection of his *Thousand-Mile Soul Lock*, which was at the Realm of Perfection. It even possessed an ability to block Spiritual Perception.
As a Martial Artist at the Late Stage of Third Grade, his Spiritual Perception was keen enough to notice the slightest detail at close range.
And yet this Mole Antelope Demon had been lurking silently just dozens of feet beneath him, and he had been completely oblivious.
If he hadn’t maintained the utmost vigilance and reacted the very instant he felt the vibration from below, that single lunge would have left him severely wounded, if not dead.