Heading off under the guise of exploring the town, Mei and the others waved goodbye to Shan Qiang before running off into a shady alleyway to teleport back down. He let them keep the pickaxes and masks, saying they were a gift.

"One, two, three..."

With a flash of light, the entire squad was back into the chamber lined with metal dregs. A rather... interesting choice.

"No humans nearby, except that merchant, about 2.3 kilometres away." Liu Qiang's guardian spirit said. "Shi Xin, do your thing."

The earth spirit let out a low cackle, conjuring a sphere of glass-like material to engulf them.

Around them, the very soil began to tremble, as the rock parted to form a tunnel.

"Hang on tight!"

Rapidly, they began to descend, digging through the ground and closing back the tunnel as they went.

Mei felt a little dizzy as they tumbled... she felt like they had all become hamsters in a ball... Inside, the elder spirits used qi sense to prevent the disciples from bumping into each other.

Moments later, the ball stopped. Under the light of the lanterns held, they saw a deposit of black ore lined with golden streaked.

"Hahaha! This is Darkgold!"

With a swift motion, Shi Xing separated the rock from the metal and deposited all of it into his storage jade.

Mei was in awe. So fast? If they were mining that massive vein, it might have taken them hours...

How much money were they going to make? They were going to be rich!

As the disciples chattered, to the side, Wang Wei took out a jade slip hurriedly. Mei turned over. Wait, wasn't that the overpriced Mapping Jade Yang Ning was trying to sell her for 200? What was he doing with that?

Wang Wei tapped a whole bunch of buttons before an array of illusionary characters appeared before him. He hurriedly tapped, writing out "Darkgold".

"And... search..." he mumbled.

A list of names popped out, each with a price tag beside them.

Million Assortments Artifact General Store: 153,500 Jade / Kg, will purchase up to 15 Kg

Myriad Realm's Warehouse: 99,999 Jade / Kg, will purchase up to 120 Kg

Jade Emporium: 95,000 Jade + 1000 VIP points / Kg, will purchase up to 200 Kg

...

More than a dozen shops were willing to buy, but they all had ludicrously high prices.

"What's this?" Mei asked.

"Oh, it's just the sect's newest mapping jade. It has a lot of handy features, this price check is just one of many!" Wang Wei said.

Wait, what? Yang Ning didn't even talk about those details at all... Okay, maybe it wasn't as useless as she thought it would be.

"Spare that effort searching up prices. As if I'd share any of it with you. I'm the one doing all the work, ahaha!" Shi Xin laughed.

"So selfish!" Liu Qiang said. "You could give us just a little at least."

"You disciples are getting us Elder Spirits as your bodyguards for free. Are you greedy enough to ask us to pay you as well?" he said.

"Geh..." the chubby boy didn't know how to retort.

"Oi, old fart." Liu Qiang's spirit asked. "At least spare some for us as well, your colleagues."

The other guardian spirits murmured in agreement.

"Cheh! Tu Teng, you just had to bring that up, didn't you? Fine!"

For the next hour, the Elder Spirits went around, harvesting all sorts of precious ores. Mei and the other disciples felt their hearts breaking as they saw the insane prices listed by the Mapping Jade, though none of it was as high as Darkgold.

...to think Shi Xin only got them to come down so he could loot everything with the other elders, how shameless! If she knew, she would have stuck with Shan Qiang. Come to think of it, he didn't even take any cuts! Mei was ashamed of thinking he was using them for free work...

Stupid guardian spirits...

At last, guided by Tu Teng's life sensing, they arrived at a huge cavern filled with all sorts of unusual plants and fungi. Wang Wei had asked them to find a cavern with an ecosystem.

"We keep everything we find here, right?" he said. "Just to confirm."

"Yes, yes, you've been nagging us the whole time. We're not that unreasonable." Shi Xin said impatiently.

Wang Wei nodded happily, rushing off.

Mei wandered over to a nearby huge mushroom with a strangely flat top. She was kind of queasy after the ordeal and wanted to take a proper sit... With a tap, she confirmed it was sturdy as stone and took a seat...

A surge of heat rushed over!

"Ow ow ow!"

She turned over and saw that the fungus was now red hot, covered in fire qi. What sort of stupid mushroom makes itself look like a stool and tricks people to sit on it?

Stupid self-defence mechanism. Mei for whatever reason felt like she had to get revenge and thought to herself for a moment. Aha!

"Xiuying, come here!" she said.

"Hm?"

"This mushroom is like sort of stove for some reason, we can use it to cook hotpot!" she said.

"What?"

For the next few hours, while the disciples went around gathering herbs, Xiuying and Mei tested trying to cook all sorts of things on it, mostly wild vegetables and fungi they found. Tu Teng could tell if food was poisonous and offered to help, ensuring their safety. Though, most of them had rather strange flavours...

At some point, Liu Qiang had been attracted into coming to watch and sample whatever monstrosities they were cooking up.

With how Xiuying kept stools on her, they were able to sit around the mushroom with proper seats that didn't threaten to burn them.

"Hmm, it's quite handy. I think we could bring this back to the sect to use as a portable stove."

"I guess? Though normally I prefer to use my flames." Xiuying said.

"In that case, mind if I take it with me? I kind of want it for some reason." the chubby boy asked.

"Sure, go ahead."

...didn't even ask Mei for permission despite being the original "discoverer"... oh well not like she cared.

As Liu Qiang began breaking the rock around the mushroom and trying to pry it from the ground, suddenly, the mushroom uprooted itself.

"Eh?"

Revealing its two legs, it let out a shrill squeak before running away while screaming.

"What the hell?" Liu Qiang said.