The speed I gained using [Lightning's Rush] while running was exhilarating. It had taken many stumbles and falls as I'd learned to use the technique effectively before I gained real mastery. My body, vision, and brain needing to learn how to move at such advanced speeds while registering the changes in the environment as I ran, as well as learning to react instantly to unexpected obstacles.

Elder Shadow seemed to delight in tossing those obstacles in my path as I ran, last-minute impediments that forced me to detour or crash headfirst and painfully, usually into broken training dummies he had stored. His training methods had resulted in more than a few embarrassing falls, especially when he'd improvised hazards.

It had taken me an entire week for people to stop laughing when they watched me embarrass myself after he'd tossed a steaming pile of dinosaur dung in my path and I'd been unable to dodge.

The memory of being sprawled face down in that pile of shit still stung. The roar of laughter from Trainer Hall lingering the entire day, especially because Elder Shadow had refused to allow me to clean up. I'd had to spend the rest of the morning training covered in shit. And no matter how adept I was at controlling my body, I wasn't perfect, so rivulets of sweat and dino dung stung my eyes and messed with my vision for the rest of the morning.

But I'd learned, and my ability to react to unforeseen obstacles or events had become superhuman. My Qi perception expanding as each spill and defeat honed those perceptions until no matter what or when Elder Shadow tried one of his tricks, I was able to respond and dodge.

In all the Xianxia novels I'd ever read, the main character read a bit of script and was immediately able to use abilities and techniques. In reality, it wasn't that simple. I had to train my body, open connecting tributaries, and expand the 78 meridian channels I had been gained from my Platinum spirit root to create a network of capillary offshoots that was patterned after my circulatory system. The extra meridian channels I gained from opening a higher tiered spirit root allowed me to form a capillary system that was more comprehensive.

The reason cultivators honed their skin, muscles, and organs was because of the immense pressure increased speed we could attain. That and the force that was exerted on our bodies when we struck or were struck with Qi enhancement. That force was enough to shatter bones and ruptured organs, and without those honing techniques, adapting and changing our cells very DNA to make use of Qi instead of mitochondria for energy exchange, no cultivator would ever survive.

Honing broke down and rebuilt the cell structure, transforming the nucleus of each cell to become a mini Qi power plant, replacing the mitochondria in every cell with Qi. The black gunk that the body excreted during the process were impurities that accumulated over time, but they were also the cell's structures that had been replaced by the much more efficient Qi stores.

Qi that was refined during cultivation was seized by these reformed nuclei and became fuel and energy for cell repair and division. The reason cultivators could heal so much faster than anyone else was this adaption of the cell's ability. Qi enhanced cells had an immediate reparative quality, allowing bruising, blood vessel ruptures, and micro-cracks to bones to be repaired at speeds that increased exponentially with the increase in Realms.

The trip to the eastern mountain ridge would have taken a normal Elf more than an hour's travel time. It took me five minutes. Impressive, but when you consider that my speed was related to [Lightning's Rush] and that I was in the early stages of refining and mastering that technique, it explained how the truly powerful could traverse the immense distances of the planet in a reasonable amount of time.

For those Elders that had advanced into the Immortal Realm, it would be nothing more than taking a step, a movement skill so advanced it would appear to anyone that could see the beginning and end, that the Elder simply left and arrived in the same instance.

At first glance, the mountain seemed much the same as the one I'd traversed when I'd descended into the Valley. Even an hour of intensive searching and expanding my Qi perception had turned up very little. I had found a patch of spirit grass that I harvested, but Thomas had been truthful when he said the area had been thoroughly harvested.

The signs of passage were easy to spot, the feet of Elves that had searched the area beginning to forge well-traveled paths, grooves that were becoming part of the mountain. Still, I followed each of these footpaths, refusing to believe there wasn't something here that Thomas didn't want me to discover.

Aside from the well-traveled areas, there was the occasional track, an outcropping from someone that had been adventurous, risking broken bones or worse to follow dangerous ledges and inching over barely stable, shifting gravel to explore remote areas.

It was while following one of these less traveled, dangerous paths, I found what I was searching for. I had to admit that Thomas, had taken time and effort to try to hide his passage, signs of tracks being obscured or erased, but his efforts were useless in the face of my Qi perception. The hole leading into the mountainside was small, barely large enough for me to wiggle through. There were a few turns that were so tight I had a brief moment of fear, that I would become trapped.

The only reason I continued forward was the light. Once past the opening, deep enough that the sun's ray offered no illumination, and with my body blocking most of the passage from what light the sun might offer, pinpricks of light became apparent. I had to travel more than a quarter-mile to be in range to test with Qi the properties of those bits of light.

I had noticed before entering the hole in the ground, the increased Qi density, and thought it likely that the tunnel opened into a cave. I had thought an expansive cave system would be home to bats, and that Thomas had stumbled upon a field of mushrooms. Bat guano made for nutrient-rich soil and Shitake mushrooms steeped in spirit would find this environment suitable.

But that theory was discarded the deeper I had crawled. The Qi density continued rising, to be expected the closer I got, but the rise was well out of proportion for spirit plants, even if the cave system was mammoth, this much energy would not form. As I continued to crawl, the passage began expanding until I could finally stand.

It may have eventually opened into a cave system, but once I was able to stand, I had reached the first of the light sources. Embedded jewels that were scattered and lodged between igneous rock, part of a volcanic explosion that had happened back when the mountain was forming. An area sprinkled with the remnants of volcanic rock.

The combination of volcanic rock and igneous rock was one of the signs prospectors searched for when looking for Spirit Stone seams. And this place was rife with those stones. The lights were Spirit Stones filled with the unique energy that Dharmic spells required. Similar to Qi, Spirit stones stored the elemental energy of the planet, as the core was perpetually rotating, transforming the world in a never-ending system of creation and destruction.

Diamonds begin the process of forming as carbon, spirit stones, likewise, begin the creative process as one of the planets most abundant element. Spirit Stones were formed in a process very like that of diamonds, it took immense pressure, heat, and time, a congruence of conditions that allowed the stones to form.

A spirit stone begins as solidified nitrogen. Nitrogen in its liquid form is cold, but to become solid the temperature needs to be below -210. How an element that requires such extremely cold temperatures to remain solid can then be heated and compressed remains a mystery. The process that diamonds undergo during formation; should never work on nitrogen. But it does, and this merging of heat and cold is believed to be the spark that gives these stones their energy.

Thomas trying to hide this mine explained so much. I still didn't know who he was working with, but I wasn't sure that mattered. What I could theorize was, that he hadn't filed a claim for the mine, something I wasn't going to be so stupid as to ignore. And because Cleave had ceded this Valley and the area to Flowing Water Sect making it part of their prefecture, the Sect would enjoy the tithes reporting this mine would engender.

The farmers would receive a share of the profits. Thomas would have received an equal share. But he had gotten greedy. And by not reporting this fine, his failure became my opportunity. I would gain a share of monies from the mine, but more importantly, I would gain a stream of contribution points from the Sect, commiserate to the value they received for their share.

I wouldn't be immensely wealthy, but I was no longer the poor scholarship outer sect member that had joined Flowing Waters.