Yuan Ming carefully examined the stone wall in front of him, occasionally reaching out to touch and tap it.

After his investigation, he quickly discovered something unusual. When he tapped on a certain spot on the mountain wall, it produced a clear echo, indicating that there was something hollow inside.

“Could it be that someone has hidden some treasures here?” Yuan Ming’s heart stirred, and he took out the Green Fish Sword from his hand and stabbed it in.

With a light sound, the Green Fish Sword easily pierced through, almost without any resistance. It was indeed hollow inside, with the stone wall only three inches thick.

Yuan Ming pulled out the Green Fish Sword and stabbed a few more times. The stone wall completely shattered, revealing a semi-circular hole five feet high. Inside was a stone room-like space.

Huo Chan’er cheered and flew into it.

Yuan Ming was worried that there might be a trap inside that could harm Huo Chan’er, so he hurriedly followed.

Inside the entrance of the cave was indeed a stone room, about seven or eight zhang in size. It looked like someone’s dwelling, with stone beds, stone tables, stone stools, and everything one would need. There was even a bookshelf against the wall, with more than a dozen green-covered books on it.

These things were covered in thick dust, indicating that no one had lived here for a long time.

Yuan Ming looked around and didn’t find any dangerous mechanisms. He relaxed and walked to the bookshelf, taking the rightmost book. The cover read “Records of Strange Stones,” with the words “Volume One” in the lower right corner.

He flipped through it briefly, and the content inside was exactly as the title suggested, introducing various minerals in great detail, far surpassing the mineral books he had seen in the Guicang Pavilion.

Because he worked in the Fire Workshop, Yuan Ming thought he was quite familiar with various minerals, but the content in the book was several times more detailed than what he knew, and many of the contents were unheard of to him.

He took the other books, all of them were “Records of Strange Stones,” from Volume One to Volume Sixteen, collecting detailed information about thousands of minerals in the world, including their properties, origins, and uses. It was a comprehensive encyclopedia of minerals.

Compared to that, the “Hundred Herbs Collection” he had obtained before, as well as the “Essentials of Qi Refinement” from the Fire Workshop, were embarrassingly crude.

“Good, this is great.” Yuan Ming tightly held the book in his hand.

As a newcomer to the cultivation world, he needed this kind of specialized book to enrich his knowledge.

However, there was too much content in these dozen or so volumes of “Records of Strange Stones,” and he couldn’t finish reading them in a short time. So he immediately put all the books into his storage bag.

“I wonder who used to live here? To actually have such a set of mineral books hidden.” Yuan Ming looked around and felt curious about the person who used to live here.

From the situation here, it seemed that the other party had been gone for a long time. Yuan Ming didn’t know if they had temporarily left or completely abandoned this place, but in any case, they didn’t take away these precious books, which was a lucky break for him.

Just at this moment, a sound of “chirp chirp” came from the side, accompanied by Huo Chan’er’s urgent cries.

Yuan Ming looked over and saw Huo Chan’er clinging and scratching at a stone wall in the deepest part of the stone room.

“Oh, is this part also hollow?” He walked over, tapped the stone wall, and indeed heard an echo.

However, this time the echo was very weak, indicating that the stone wall in front of him was quite thick and not as easily broken as before.

“It seems that there is a secret room inside. Generally, the entrance to secret rooms is opened by mechanisms.” He searched nearby and soon found an inconspicuous protruding stone in a corner of the stone wall not far away.

Yuan Ming held onto the stone and moved it left and right. With a light sound of “crack,” the stone actually turned half a circle.

The stone wall slowly moved aside, revealing a dark passage.

Huo Chan’er’s face showed excitement and immediately flew in, but Yuan Ming grabbed her from behind.

“This place is strange, we must not be careless.” He said slowly, taking out the White Ape’s skin and draping it over himself. After transforming into the form of a White Ape, he cautiously entered.

The passage had limited height, and he had to slightly lower his head to pass through. He walked carefully all the way and arrived at the end after a while.

This was also a stone room, about the same size as the outside. Unlike the outside, there was a casting furnace placed here, and the flames inside had long been extinguished.

This casting furnace was much larger than the one in the Fire Workshop, with many mysterious patterns engraved on it, seemingly not an ordinary casting furnace.

Next to the furnace were anvils and shelves for forging, making it a complete refining room.

Huo Chan’er kept shouting at the shelves. On the shelves were four or five red jade stones that looked similar to Fire Agate Jade in appearance, but the fluctuations of fire attribute spiritual energy emitted from them were extremely astonishing, far surpassing Fire Agate Jade.

Yuan Ming also carefully explored the surrounding environment, confirming that there was no danger before walking over and picking up one of the red jade stones.

“This jade stone… could it be Fire Jade Marrow!” His eyes lit up.

Fire Agate Jade was formed by the fusion of the flames of volcanic lava with underground minerals. If the environment was suitable and the fire power was abundant, Fire Agate Jade could continue to absorb the power of fire spirits and evolve. After more than a hundred years, it could transform into a new type of mineral, Fire Jade Marrow.

Huo Chan’er squealed with excitement, her eyes fixed on the Fire Jade Marrow, and drool dripped down.

“You little glutton.” Yuan Ming smiled slightly and handed the jade stone to Huo Chan’er as a reward.

Huo Chan’er grabbed it and happily gnawed on it in her arms.

Yuan Ming took the opportunity to collect the remaining four pieces of Fire Jade Marrow.

The fire attribute spiritual energy contained in Fire Jade Marrow was more than ten times that of Fire Agate Jade. It was already considered a medium-grade spiritual material and had considerable value.There is a place in the Biluo Cave where spiritual materials can be exchanged directly for contribution points. It is called the Qingfu Hall. A piece of fire jade marrow can exchange for ten contribution points, which is equivalent to collecting one hundred pieces of green water stone. Yuan Ming is in a good mood. With these pieces of fire jade marrow, this dangerous situation is not in vain.

He walked around the stone room and came to the other side of the forging furnace, his footsteps paused.

There was a corpse lying quietly here, but it was not visible because of the cover of the furnace.

The corpse held a dark red iron hammer in its right hand. The handle of the hammer was made of ancient bronze-colored wood, and the hammer head was dark and shiny, with densely engraved flame patterns on it. It looked somewhat similar to the stone hammer pattern in the fire workshop, but there were ten times more of them.

Yuan Ming tried to pick up the hammer, but it turned out to be incredibly heavy. It was more than five times heavier than the forging hammer in the fire workshop. Fortunately, he was currently in the form of a white ape. If he were in human form, even if he could lift it, he would not be able to swing it easily.

He infused his mana into it, and with a muffled sound, a burst of fiery red light suddenly rose from the hammer, accompanied by a strong and unusual mana fluctuation, causing the nearby air to tremble.

“What a powerful hammer, could it be a magical tool?” Yuan Ming’s face lit up with joy, and he quickly tried to control it with his object-driving technique.

The dark red hammer kept flashing with light, showing a strong reaction to the object-driving technique, but that was all. It couldn’t be driven like the incense burner immediately.

Yuan Ming didn’t mind this. With a low shout, he swung the hammer towards a nearby stone wall.

With a loud bang, there was a sound of thunder and fire bursting out. The solid stone wall collapsed in large pieces, and cracks appeared on the other walls of the stone room.

This seemingly sturdy stone room was almost smashed by his hammer.

Yuan Ming was both shocked and delighted. He didn’t expect the attack power of this hammer to be so amazing. Even if it wasn’t a magical tool, it was not far off.

The only regret was that the hammer was too heavy. Even with the strength of the white ape transformation, it was not very agile to swing. It would be inconvenient to use it in battle.

He shook his head regretfully and put the dark red hammer into his storage bag before examining the corpse in front of him.

The corpse was quite tall and seemed to be from the Southern Region. The clothing on the body was also in the style of the Southern Region. It hadn’t decayed much, so it could be inferred that this person had died within the past year or two.

Yuan Ming carefully turned over the corpse, and with a light sound, a small black bag fell down, emitting a faint aura of prohibition.

He was not unfamiliar with this aura because he also had something similar. This small bag was a storage bag.

“There’s a storage bag. It seems that this person is also a cultivator, and his cultivation level is not low!” Yuan Ming’s eyebrows raised, and he carefully took the bag, infused his mana into it, and operated it according to the alchemy technique taught by the Third Cave Master.

The black bag was quickly refined, revealing its internal space.

He was surprised to find that the space inside the black bag was extremely large. The storage bag given to him by the Third Cave Master had a space of only five or six feet square, similar to the size of a wardrobe, but this black bag was as big as half a room.

Based on the information he had learned, in the Southern Region’s cultivation world, storage-type magical tools were precious, and the larger the internal space, the higher the value. This black bag’s internal space was so large that it could probably be exchanged for several attack magical tools.

Yuan Ming’s heart pounded, he tightly held the bag, turned around and looked around, as if afraid of being seen by someone.

But the next moment, he realized that this was a deserted island. Besides him, there was probably no one else on the island, so he couldn’t help but laugh.

The black bag was not empty. There was a thick white book and more than a dozen pigeon egg-sized red stones placed in the corner.

Yuan Ming took out one of the red stones, and a faint red light appeared inside it, emitting a spiritual energy fluctuation. Although it was not very strong, it was very pure.

“This… could it be a spirit stone!” he murmured to himself.

As the name suggests, a spirit stone is a stone that contains the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. It is the most common and important resource in the cultivation world.

The basic principle of cultivation for countless cultivators in the world is to absorb the scattered spiritual energy between heaven and earth and transform it into mana that they can control through various cultivation methods.

However, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth is scattered and mixed with each other, making it time-consuming and laborious to extract and refine a specific type of spiritual energy. This is also the biggest obstacle that hinders cultivators from advancing quickly.

In some blessed lands and immortal realms, the spiritual energy is naturally abundant, forming spiritual veins. Over the years, it is possible for spirit stones to be born near the spiritual veins.

Spirit stones contain the spiritual energy of the spiritual veins, which is extremely pure. They can be directly absorbed into mana without the need for refining through cultivation methods. This greatly accelerates the speed of cultivation.

With this effect, spirit stones can be called the number one treasure in the cultivation world, and they are even used as hard currency in transactions.

However, the function of spirit stones is not limited to assisting in cultivation. Through the research of generations of cultivators, they have been used in refining tools, refining pills, and setting up formations, etc. They can exert even more amazing effects. It can be said that as long as it requires spiritual energy, spirit stones can play a huge role.Such a multitude of uses made spirit stones highly sought after, with every sect and faction vying for this rare resource. Yuan Ming didn’t know about other places, but it was said that the only spirit stone mine in the Bi Luo Cave was treated as a sect’s important area, with a large number of cultivators dispatched to protect it. One of the most popular tasks in the Execution Hall was the duty of overseeing the spirit stone mine.

(Today we continue with four more chapters, please vote ^^)

(End of this chapter)