Yuan Ming carefully examined the stone wall before him, occasionally reaching out to touch and knock on it.

After a thorough search, he quickly discovered something odd—there was a spot on the mountain wall that produced a distinct echo when knocked, as if there was an empty space inside.

"Could it be that someone hid some treasure here?" Yuan Ming's heart stirred, and he drew out the Green Fish Sword, stabbing into that spot.

With a soft "put" sound, the Green Fish Sword easily penetrated, almost without feeling any resistance; indeed, the space inside was hollow, with the stone wall only three inches thick.

Yuan Ming withdrew the Green Fish Sword and stabbed a few more times, shattering the stone wall completely, revealing a semi-circular entrance five feet tall, leading to a space like a stone chamber.

Huo Chan'er cheered and darted into it.

Worried that there might be a trap inside that could harm Huo Chan'er, Yuan Ming hastily followed.

The entrance indeed led to a stone chamber around seven to eight zhang in diameter, looking like someone's dwelling, with a stone bed, stone table, stone bench - nothing was missing. On the wall side, there was even a bookshelf with a dozen or so books bound in green covers.

Thick layers of dust covered these items, clearly indicating the place had been uninhabited for a long time.

Yuan Ming looked around and, finding no signs of traps or other dangers, he relaxed and walked over to the bookshelf, picking up the book on the far right. The cover read "Record of Strange Stones," with the small characters "Volume One" on the bottom right corner.

He skimmed it briefly, and the content was just as the title suggested, introducing various minerals, with each one detailed extensively—far surpassing some of the mineral classics in the Gui Cang Pavilion.

Because of his work in the Fire Workshop, Yuan Ming considered himself fairly familiar with various types of minerals, but the content of the book was several times more detailed than his knowledge, with many things he had never even heard of.

He picked up other volumes, all parts of "Record of Strange Stones," from Volume One to Sixteen, collecting the properties, origins, uses, etc., of thousands of minerals in the world, covering every aspect, incredibly detailed, practically an encyclopedia of minerals under heaven.

Compared to it, the "Herborist" he had received earlier and the "Qi Refining Fundamentals" from the Fire Workshop seemed embarrassingly crude.

"Good, this is great," Yuan Ming gripped the books tightly in his hands.

As a newcomer to the Cultivation World, he was in need of such specialized classics to enrich his knowledge.

However, there was too much content in the dozen or so "Record of Strange Stones" for him to read in a short time, so he immediately stuffed all the books into his Storage Bag.

"I wonder who used to live here? To think they had hidden such a set of mineral classics." Yuan Ming looked around, curious about the person who had once resided here.

From the looks of it, the person had left a long time ago; it was unclear whether they had left temporarily or abandoned the place completely. In any case, by not taking these precious classics with them, they had inadvertently benefited him.

Just then, a "crackling" sound came from the side, along with Huo Chan'er's urgent cries.

Yuan Ming looked over and saw Huo Chan'er crouched against the stone wall at the deepest part of the stone chamber, scratching and clawing at it.

"Eh, is this also hollow?" He walked over and knocked on the stone wall, and indeed, an echo came back.

But this time the echo was weak, signaling that the stone wall was quite thick and could not be broken through as easily as before.

"It seems there is a secret chamber behind here, and generally, secret chamber doors are opened by mechanisms." He started searching nearby and soon, in a corner of the stone wall, discovered a protruding stone that was inconspicuous.

Yuan Ming grasped the stone and moved it left and right, and with a "click" sound, the stone rotated half a circle.

The stone wall slowly moved to the side, revealing a dark passage.

Huo Chan'er showed an excited expression and immediately dashed in, but Yuan Ming grabbed it from behind.

"This place is strange, we must be careful," he said slowly while donning the White Ape Skin over his body, transforming into his White Ape form before cautiously entering.

The passage was of limited height, necessitating him to duck his head slightly to pass through. He moved very carefully, and it took a good while to reach the end.

Here was another stone chamber of about the same size. Unlike the previous room, this one contained a casting furnace, whose flames had long been extinguished.

This casting furnace was much larger than those in the Fire Workshop and was engraved with many mysterious patterns, seemingly not just an ordinary casting furnace.

Next to the furnace, there was also an anvil platform, a rack for holding things, and the like—clearly a complete Artifact Refining Room.

Huo Chan'er wouldn't stop yipping at the rack where four or five red pieces of jade were placed. They resembled Fire Jade with the emitted fluctuations of Fire Attribute Spiritual Power, which were astonishingly strong, far surpassing that of Fire Jade.

Yuan Ming also carefully inspected the surroundings for danger before approaching, picking up a piece of the red jade.

"This jade... could it be Fire Jade Marrow!" A glint of joy shone in his eyes.

Fire Jade was born from the merging of the power of the flames within volcanic lava and underground minerals. Given the right conditions and plentiful fire power, Fire Jade could continue to absorb the Fire Spirit Power and evolve, possibly transforming into a new mineral—Fire Jade Marrow—after a hundred years or more.

Huo Chan'er squeaked sharply, eyes fixed on the Fire Jade Marrow, drool dripping down.

"You little glutton," Yuan Ming said with a slight smile, handing the piece of jade in his hands to Huo Chan'er as a reward.

Huo Chan'er grabbed it with delight, hugging it tight to its chest and munching joyfully.

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

The Fire Jade Marrow contains Fire Attribute Spiritual Power that is more than ten times that of the Fire Jade and is considered a medium-grade spiritual material, highly valuable.

In Biluo Cave, there is a place where one can directly exchange spiritual materials for Contribution Value, known as Qingfu Hall. A single piece of Fire Jade Marrow can be exchanged for ten points of Contribution Value, which is equivalent to gathering one hundred Bishui Stones—definitely not something to let Huo Chan'er consume entirely.

Yuan Ming felt elated. With these pieces of Fire Jade Marrow, this dangerous venture wasn't in vain.

He walked around the Stone Chamber to the other side of the casting furnace and stopped in his tracks.

He saw a skeleton lying quietly here, which was previously unseen due to the obstruction of the casting furnace.

The skeleton's right hand clutched a dark red hammer, its handle made of bronze-colored wood, of unknown species. Its head was dark and shiny, engraved with a dense pattern of flames that seemed somewhat similar to those on the Gravel Hammers in the Fire Workshop, only ten times more numerous.

Yuan Ming tried to pick up the hammer and found it surprisingly heavy, more than five times heavier than the casting hammers in the Fire Workshop. Fortunately, he was in his White Ape Transformation; in human form, even if he could lift it, it would be difficult to wield effortlessly.

Channeling his Mana, he infused it into the hammer and with a "boom" it burst into a flame-like red light, and a violently strong Mana fluctuation erupted, making the surrounding air buzz and tremble.

"What a powerful hammer, could it be a Magic Artifact?" Yuan Ming's face lit up with joy, and he quickly used the Exorcism Technique to try to control it.

The dark red hammer's light flickered incessantly, reacting strongly to the Exorcism Technique, but that was all; it could not be driven as effortlessly as the incense burner.

Undeterred, Yuan Ming shouted lowly and swung the hammer at a nearby stone wall.

With a thunderous "boom" that sounded like a burst of thunder and fire, the solid stone wall collapsed in a large portion, and cracks appeared on the other walls of the Stone Chamber.

This seemingly sturdy Stone Chamber almost collapsed under his single strike.

Yuan Ming was both shocked and delighted; he hadn't expected the hammer to have such astonishing offensive power. Even if it wasn't a Magic Artifact, it wasn't far off.

The only downside was that the hammer was too heavy. Even with the augmented strength from the White Ape Transformation, it was not very agile to wield and inconvenient to use in battle.

He shook his head with regret and stored the dark red hammer in his Storage Bag, then turned his attention to the skeleton before him.

The skeleton was rather tall, suggesting it belonged to a Southern Border Person. The garments were also in the style of the Southern Border and hadn't decayed much, indicating that this person had died only in the last year or two.

As Yuan Ming carefully turned over the skeleton, a soft "clink" sounded, and a black bag fell, enveloped in a light aura of a Forbidden spell.

He was familiar with this aura, as he owned something similar: the black bag was a Storage Bag. Find the translation on MV&LEMPYR.

"With a Storage Bag, it seems this person was also a Cultivator, and with no low level of Cultivation!" Yuan Ming's eyebrows rose as he carefully picked up the bag, channelled his Mana into it, and operated it according to the Refining Technique taught by the Three Cave Masters.

The black bag was quickly refined, revealing the space within.

He looked surprised; the space inside the black bag was quite large. The space in the Storage Bag given to him by the Three Cave Masters was only about five or six square feet, similar to a wardrobe, while this black bag was half the size of a room.

Based on the information he had gathered, in the Cultivation World of Southern Border, storage-type Magic Artifacts were already precious, and the bigger the internal space, the higher the value. With such a large space inside this black bag, selling it could probably directly fetch him several attack Magic Artifacts.

Yuan Ming's heart pounded, clutching the bag firmly before turning his gaze around as if afraid of being seen.

But the next moment he realized that this was a deserted island, and apart from him, there probably weren't any other people on the island, prompting a somewhat self-deprecating chuckle.

The black bag was not empty; in a corner, there lay a white book as thick as a brick and about a dozen pigeon-egg-sized red stones.

Yuan Ming picked up one of the red stones, which glowed faintly with a fire-red light. A wave of Spiritual Power diffused from it, not very strong but extremely pure.

"Could this be a Spirit Stone?" he murmured to himself.

A Spirit Stone, as the name implies, is a stone containing nature's spiritual energy and is the most common and important resource in the Cultivation World.

The quintessential aspect of a myriad of Cultivators' cultivation is to absorb the Spiritual Energy scattered throughout nature, transforming it through various Cultivation Techniques into Mana they can control.

However, the Spiritual Energy in nature is dispersed and mixed, making it time-consuming and laborious to extract and refine a single type. This is the biggest obstacle preventing Cultivators from advancing their Cultivation rapidly.

Some Cave Heaven Blessed Lands naturally have abundant Spiritual Energy, forming Spirit Veins. Over the years, Spirit Stones may form in the vicinity of the Spirit Veins.

Containing the pure Spiritual Power of Spirit Veins, Spirit Stones require no Cultivation Technique to refine, and can be directly incorporated into one's Mana, making cultivation many times faster than regular practicing and meditation.

With this effect, Spirit Stones are regarded as the most precious treasure in the Cultivation World, even used as the universal currency for transactions.

But the functions of Spirit Stones are not limited to aiding in cultivation. Through the research of generations of Cultivators, they have been used in Artifact Refining, Alchemy, Array setting, and more, demonstrating remarkable and peculiar utilities. Simply put, Spirit Stones are hugely beneficial for any task requiring Spiritual Power.

With so many uses, Spirit Stones have become highly sought after, and every Sect vies for this rare resource. Yuan Ming didn't know about other places, but it was said that the only spirit stone mine in Biluo Cave was designated as a strategic location of the Sect, heavily guarded by many Cultivators. One of the most popular tasks in the Execution Hall was the stationary duty at the spirit stone mine.

(Continuing with four more chapters today, seeking your monthly ticket votes^^)