He then addressed the collective group, saying, “we’ll trouble you to show us exactly where you last saw them.”

A long time after they left, a quiet rumbling took place.

****

As Long Di and the others made their way down the path, a glint in the darkness caught their eye.

Yaomu Baiyin wordlessly made her way over to it. Seeing as how it was stuck in the wall of the tunnel, she spent a little time before she fully dug it out, causing it to drop to the ground with a clink.

Shing!

A blinding light erupted, nearly blinding everyone. The cave was so dark before that it took everyone a moment to acclimate to the sudden brightness.

Yaomu Baiyin took out a small cloth to mask some of the brightness and picked it up in confusion before her hand started to tremble in shock.

Yaomu Shou noticed her little sister’s strange behaviour and called out, “Baiyin’er? Are you alright?”

Earlier, Yaomu Shou was upset with Yaomu Baiyin because of the latter’s first choice in following Nao Shan and the others, but it didn’t mean she wanted anything bad to happen to this clumsy younger sister of hers.

Besides, she came back to her in the end didn’t she?

“L-L-Lady Yaomu Shou, t-t-this is a medium-grade spirit stone!”

Yaomu Shou nearly tripped over herself upon hearing this, “What!? Let me see!”

She quickly took it from the trembling Yaomu Baiyin’s hands and held it for everyone to see.

Shing!

As the cloth fell from it, its radiance shone unbound once more, causing everyone to squint their eyes again. This time it was better and after a while, they could see it clearly.

“Oh, wow!” was the general consensus in the room.

Long Di remembered when he first took out spirit stones. He had likened them to gems that rivalled the stars.

Stars? Stars!? Compared to medium-grade spirit stones, regular spirit stones were like a half-dead filament light bulb that a cockroach was crawling around in.

The medium-grade spirit stone was like a true sun displaying its brilliance!

It put the normal spirit stone he had before to shame.

Yaomu Shou stared at it in shock, and a slight spot of greed appeared in her eyes.

Long Di had never seen her like this. Sure, she was easily excited when a treasure appeared. But for the most part, she wished to give it to Long Di so he could grow stronger and eventually help her out when the time came.

Now, however, he wasn’t sure if he got better at reading people or if her sense of wanting grew strong enough for him to sense it. But he knew, this was a case that whatever this was, she wanted it. She wanted it for either herself or her family.

She then looked to him, “Long Di, I-”

“Let’s find it first,” he said, cutting her off. “No sense in asking. I have goals and experiments I wish to carry out, but considering all you’ve done for me, or will do with me, I won’t allow you to lose out.”

She smiled upon hearing this. On this day, Long Di had truly gained some tact.

He finished off by saying, “Besides, you already gave me enough where I can consider you an underage sugar momma.”

Unfortunately, that same day he was victim to a robbery of extreme prejudice that had him lose the tact he had gained.

“Here,” Yaomu Shou shoved the spirit stone into Lu Pei’s hands.

“I-”

“Don’t even think about denying me, boy!” Yaomu Shou said with a smirk.

Lu Pei’s expression darkened. “I may not be as experienced as you or as powerful as you yet, but don’t belittle me by calling me a boy!”

Yaomu Shou’s mien underwent a transformation, sending an imposing and regal pressure upon Lu Pei.

“Truly?”

Yaomu Shou’s voice echoed with a stately prestige!

Though it was asked as a question, the power that infected each word made it all too obvious that this was no such thing.

The pressure was so overbearing that it sank into the depths of Lu Pei’s soul and touched upon some taboo thing there.

Shing!

The character King, as if provoked by some unworthy fledgling, erupted of its own accord, showering the tunnel in its golden splendour.

Both Long Di and Yaomu Baiyin didn’t expect this, and were caught off-guard by the standoff!

The imperious nature that flourished from it besotted Yaomu Shou’s imperiousness, causing her to take a step backwards in shock.

Never before had her own deeply seated royal air ever been defeated or beaten back like this. All of her imperiousness, all of her regal demeanour was overwhelmed.

Once it sensed that there was no challenge to its place, only then did the seal of the King slowly fade away.

Lu Pei wasn’t even aware of its reappearance as he stood his ground against Yaomu Shou. Everyone else could tell this was the case as well.

Yaomu Shou was the most shaken up by this. For the longest time, she had never met anyone that had been able to go against her in such a way.

A lengthy moment had passed before she was able to recover from this. Thinking back on it, she had smiled wryly to herself.

How could someone who had come from the same hometown as Long Di be normal?

She looked again at this Lu Pei and saw him staring back at her with an unwillingness to submit.

The earlier indifference she had towards him receded, and a small smile crept its way to her face. The blush that flushed his cheeks caused that same smile to widen ever so slightly.

“It is true,” she said, confirming her own earlier ‘question.’

She then tightened his grip over the medium-grade spirit stone when she felt the sign of his refusal before advising, “This’ll be the least of what we find in this place, I’m sure. We’ll benefit a lot. So my giving you this can be considered a shameless attempt to bribe you into not giving you anything more. Medium-grade spirit stones are worth a thousand regular spirit stones, so you’ll be able to get a lot stronger.”

After hearing how she put it, Lu Pei then accepted the medium-grade spirit stone. He remembered this matter in his heart as he placed both Yaomu Shou’s and Yaomu Baiyin’s faces in his memory. He didn’t know when, but he’d repaid them for this.

“That seems excessive,” commented Long Di upon hearing the conversion rate for the regular low-grade spirit stones to medium-grade spirit stones.

Yaomu Shou shook her head. “You can’t think of it like that. It takes a great amount of pressure for a spiritual stone to undergo any sort of qualitative change. For a regular spirit stone, it takes 1000x the regular amount for it to become a medium-grade spirit stone. The purity and density of the spiritual energy contained in a medium-grade spirit stone is just… a regular low-grade spirit stone can’t compare.”

After realising what they could be encountering, Long Di and company continued down the path. They found more medium-grade spiritual stones and even a few regular low-grade spirit stones.

“So you can still encounter low-grade spirit stones in such a place?” Long Di asked as he took up another one to inspect.

“Yeah,” Yaomu Shou nodded. “They’re the minority here though so it’s weird to get used to.”

Yaomu Baiyin only followed behind Yaomu Shou and observed everything without a word.

Lu Pei was the same as far as being mute was concerned, but the reason for his silence was different. He was simply shocked into speechlessness.

Did these people not realise they were picking up money off the ground!?

Even if a normal mortal can’t use a spirit stone, just selling even the lowest grade one would allow them to enjoy riches and luxury for the rest of their life and the lives of several of their generations!

As they went along the tunnel, the mist soon cleared up while the spiritual energy grew.

Yaomu Shou quickened her footsteps, compelling everyone else to see.

The cave twisted into a bend, and when they turned the corner, a stunning sight greeted them.