Chapter 181 – Re-entering the Red Lotus Demon Cavern Dungeon, Collecting Exotic Metal Ore (5k)
by spirapiraAfter a round of explanations, Su Xing realized he’d made a complete blunder, and an awkward silence fell over him.
He hastily changed the subject:
“Ahem, Sister Xue, how’s business at the Tarot Society been lately? Is there anything I can help with?”
The moment proper business was brought up, Jin Congxue’s attention was instantly diverted.
“Business at the Tarot Society has been decent lately… Following your instructions, I’ve concentrated more manpower on white-grade equipment and exotic metal mining…”
Jin Congxue paused for a moment, then said with some worry:
“But just the employees mining the six exotic metal dungeons number in the thousands… That’s no small monthly expenditure…”
“And our trade association’s main source of income is still the Beauty-Preserving Pills. The customer base for Beauty-Preserving Pills has basically reached saturation now, and sales aren’t what they used to be, so cash flow has gotten a bit tight…”
Su Xing nodded slightly after hearing this.
He supplied several thousand Beauty-Preserving Pills per week, which came out to twenty or thirty thousand per month.
On top of that, a single Beauty-Preserving Pill could maintain one’s appearance for one to three months.
Some wealthy women had even stockpiled dozens of Beauty-Preserving Pills. The market was indeed somewhat saturated.
After thinking it over, Su Xing said:
“I can also refine a premium version of the Beauty-Preserving Pill that can maintain youthful appearance for one year, or even three years!”
“Not only can it preserve appearance, it can even make someone look more than ten years younger! I’ll hand the pills over to you later—they should bring in quite a bit of capital…”
What Su Xing had been refining before was always the basic version of the Beauty-Preserving Pill.
He’d been using ordinary ginseng the whole time.
But now, a large batch of ten-year spirit ginseng had matured in Su Xing’s spirit field. If he used those for refinement, he could produce genuine Beauty-Preserving Pills.
The medicinal potency would be incomparably superior to the basic version—for ordinary mortals, it would be nothing short of an immortal elixir!
Jin Congxue’s eyes lit up after hearing this, clearly very interested.
“Ten years younger… maintaining appearance for one to three years?”
“Hiss~ If such a pill truly exists, it would be worth its weight in gold—the price could be ten times or even dozens of times higher!”
“However… for these premium Beauty-Preserving Pills, we can’t sell them on a large scale like before. We need to use scarcity marketing!”
Jin Congxue truly lived up to her reputation as a formidable businesswoman, quickly devising several plans for selling the Beauty-Preserving Pills.
Su Xing was quite satisfied with what he saw. With Jin Congxue’s help, he had complete confidence in the Tarot Society’s development.
After thinking for a moment, Jin Congxue added:
“Boss~ I’ve also been thinking recently about expanding into overseas markets… America, Yellow Island Nation, and the other six nations across twelve territories would surely all be keen on the Beauty-Preserving Pills!”
“The domestic market is saturated, but the international market is still a vast blue ocean!”
Su Xing nodded slightly after hearing this:
“I’ll leave all of that to you. If any issues come up, just discuss them with me…”
After finishing their business discussion, Su Xing skillfully took a roundabout route, swept the area with his spiritual sense, then returned to the dormitory and entered the spirit field blessed land.
The new week’s goods had been converted into simulation energy, once again worth over ninety million.
With that, Su Xing’s energy reserves returned to the 150 million tier.
On the afternoon of September 9th, New Era 2024, Su Xing punctually initiated a new round of simulation.
“Begin simulation!”
【Ding! This simulation consumes 5,200 energy points. Remaining energy: 150.16 million points. Remaining simulation attempts: unlimited.】
【Simulation begins!】
【Drawing a blue talent costs 10,000 energy points. Drawing a purple talent costs 100,000 energy points. Would you like to draw?】
“Draw a purple talent!”
Su Xing said silently.
【Ding, congratulations! You have obtained the purple talent: I’m Definitely Not the Rain God!】
【I’m Definitely Not the Rain God】: Purple talent. Whenever you sing loudly with an audience of over ten thousand spectators, there is a 100% chance of rainfall in that area within seven days. (Please, please~ go hold a concert in the desert!)
Su Xing curled his lip after seeing the new talent, muttering:
“Good grief, another conceptual talent? A forced rainmaking talent… But this thing seems pretty useless!”
Su Xing shook his head slightly, unable to think of a suitable use case for this talent at the moment.
His gaze turned to the simulation panel.
【In the spirit field grotto-heaven, you became aware that you are in a simulation.】
【You stayed in the Capital City for a few days, then set out toward the northern frontier region of Great Xia.】
【You disguised your appearance and concealed your aura, cast a technique to shield yourself from heavenly divination, and flew by sword flight at an altitude of tens of thousands of meters.】
【Half an hour later, you arrived at Mayi City in the Northwest Province.】
【Following the information from your memories, you quickly found a heavily guarded dungeon—the Red Lotus Demon Cavern!】
【With a minor application of magic, you successfully evaded the Class Users standing guard and entered the Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon.】
Seeing this, Su Xing nodded slightly:
“During a previous simulation, I found a small high-grade exotic metal mining zone deep inside this Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon…”
“I wonder just how much exotic metal this dungeon contains?”
Su Xing fell into thought. His simulation energy was severely insufficient right now, and if he couldn’t find new means to obtain simulation energy…
Relying solely on the less-than-one-hundred-million energy supply per week would definitely not be enough for his upcoming cultivation needs.
Therefore, Su Xing had set his sights on this Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon he’d discovered before.
This mining zone dungeon might give Su Xing quite a pleasant surprise.
But to be safe, Su Xing planned to run a preliminary simulation this time, to see whether there were any risks involved.
With that thought, Su Xing said silently:
“Use the immersive simulation function, duration: 24 hours!”
【Ding, you have successfully activated immersive simulation. Cost: 2.4 million energy points. Remaining energy: 147.66 million points.】
As the simulator’s notification faded, Su Xing’s vision shifted and transformed.
The next second, Su Xing appeared in an unfamiliar environment.
The air temperature had suddenly risen by over fifty degrees, reaching a scorching high of nearly eighty degrees Celsius.
Su Xing frowned slightly, feeling the waves of heat rolling through the air.
Of course, this level of temperature had absolutely no effect on Su Xing.
“So this is the Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon?”
Su Xing surveyed his surroundings. The rocks all around had turned crimson red from the extreme heat, and placing a hand on them still felt scalding.
The space inside the cavern wasn’t large—barely enough for Su Xing alone.
Looking ahead, Su Xing saw that beneath his feet lay a bottomless cavern shaft, seemingly plunging straight toward the earth’s core.
“According to the descriptions from the previous simulation text… deep inside this Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon, there should be a flame demon. After defeating it and going even deeper… I should be able to find that exotic metal mining zone.”
Su Xing pondered. His purpose in using immersive simulation to explore was precisely to rehearse in advance for the real-world exploration that would follow.
Su Xing hesitated no longer. With a thought, he activated his primordial energy armor and Protective Hardened Qi simultaneously, enveloping himself in layers of protection.
“Well then… let’s explore the depths.”
Su Xing channeled his spiritual energy and flew rapidly down into the cavern below.
The deeper the cavern went, the higher the surrounding temperature climbed.
After roughly ten or so minutes, Su Xing estimated he had descended dozens of kilometers beneath the surface.
The surrounding temperature had continued to rise, climbing from the initial eighty or ninety degrees to over five hundred degrees Celsius.
“This Red Lotus Demon Cavern really is bottomless…”
Su Xing frowned slightly and picked up speed, continuing to explore deeper.
Another hour or so passed, and Su Xing estimated he was at least several hundred kilometers from the surface.
By now it was completely dark, with only temperatures reaching one to two thousand degrees Celsius. Ordinary living creatures simply could not survive here.
Along the way, Su Xing had actually encountered some special monsters that lived in these extreme temperatures.
Most of these monsters were Grandmaster-stage. Su Xing barely needed to channel his elemental energy before dispatching them with ease.
“Already several hundred kilometers from the surface… Just how deep does this Red Lotus Demon Cavern go?”
Su Xing sighed. Could it be that this demon cavern extended a full thousand kilometers below the surface?
Su Xing’s speed grew faster and faster, instantly killing any ordinary monsters he encountered along the way.
It wasn’t until several hours later that Su Xing felt the space opening up wider and wider, while the surrounding temperature had reached a staggering three thousand degrees Celsius.
Faint luminescence emanated from special ores embedded in the stone walls.
Su Xing slowed down slightly and extended his spiritual sense outward like a tide.
Sure enough, several thousand meters away, he detected the presence of a monster with an extraordinarily powerful aura.
“That… is that the flame demon?”
Su Xing paused for a moment.
Through his spiritual sense, the flame demon’s appearance bore some resemblance to the hellish demons of Western mythology.
Twin horns sprouted from its head, its body was composed of molten lava, and two blazing infernos burned within its eye sockets.
It stood a full ten meters tall, and an aura of malevolence radiated from every inch of its body.
“Judging by its aura… this flame demon is indeed at peak Martial Emperor strength…”
Su Xing frowned slightly. He felt that the Red Lotus Demon Cavern’s environment was simply too hostile for ordinary Class Users.
“Temperatures of several thousand degrees, an oxygen-starved environment… In a place like this, even Grandmaster-stage Class Users probably couldn’t survive…”
Su Xing had an uneasy premonition.
Such a hostile environment meant low-level Class Users couldn’t enter, which also meant Su Xing had no way to bring in large numbers of workers to mine the ore.
He couldn’t exactly hire Heavenly King-stage powerhouses to mine ore, could he?
That… seemed rather unrealistic.
“Never mind… let’s deal with this flame demon first. I’ll figure out the exotic metal ore mining situation afterward…”
With a thought, Su Xing shot toward the flame demon at breakneck speed.
“ROAR ROAR ROAR~”
As if sensing Su Xing’s rapidly approaching presence, the flame demon let out thunderous roars, beating its chest with both fists as though declaring sovereignty over its territory…
However!
Su Xing acted as though he hadn’t even noticed, and after closing the distance to the flame demon, he wrapped Elemental Force Entwinement directly around both fists.
No flashy moves whatsoever!
A single terrifying punch lashed out!
BOOM!
A million tons of force slammed directly into the flame demon’s chest in a single punch.
The two blazing flames within the flame demon’s eye sockets slowly extinguished…
With just a single punch, the Peak Martial Emperor flame demon was dead!
“Whew~” “With my current strength combined with Elemental Force Entwinement… no one below Legendary can withstand a single punch!”
The corner of Su Xing’s mouth curled slightly upward. He then rapidly spread out his divine sense, wanting to check whether any hidden enemies still lurked nearby.
After confirming there were no enemies, Su Xing entered the flame demon’s lair and, sure enough, discovered a cave several zhang wide with a seemingly bottomless depth.
“This cave… should be the one leading to the magma pool, right?”
Su Xing murmured.
In a previous simulation, he had bathed in this magma pool, hoping to use it to break through his limits—but unfortunately, he hadn’t succeeded.
And that exotic metal mining area was right near the magma pool.
Su Xing’s heart stirred, and he headed toward the magma cave.
As Su Xing drew closer to the magma layer, the surrounding temperature rose sharply.
It quickly soared past five thousand degrees Celsius.
Su Xing’s brow furrowed even tighter. At such extreme temperatures, no Class User below the Heavenly King stage could survive.
Before long, Su Xing arrived at the magma layer.
This was a relatively open, flat area of rock.
Before him lay a magma pool radiating waves of heat, and beside it were many black rocks.
Mixed within the rocks were some crimson-red, distinctive ores.
It was unmistakably exotic metal!
Su Xing slowly approached the rocks. After reaching out to touch them, he frowned slightly and said:
“This exotic metal is actually embedded within other ores… Doesn’t that mean it needs to be refined first before it can become pure exotic metal?”
Su Xing thought to himself that he had miscalculated somewhat.
Within these massive rocks several meters tall, the proportion of red exotic metal was probably only three to five percent.
If he wanted to purify it into exotic metal, who knew how much time that would take…
Su Xing was somewhat disappointed. The Exotic Metal Ore needed to be refined and purified to be fully obtained.
And since Class Users below the Heavenly King stage couldn’t enter the depths of this demon cavern, they couldn’t refine or purify the exotic metal either.
The situation… seemed to have reached an unsolvable deadlock.
“Wait… who said it needs to be purified before it can be converted into simulation energy?”
Su Xing suddenly had an epiphany.
His simulator absorbed all substances that contained energy—it wasn’t limited to only absorbing pure exotic metal.
This meant Su Xing could simply absorb the exotic metal together with the surrounding rock!
“That’s right! I can just absorb the entire block of rock directly… no refining needed!”
“It’s just that I’m currently inside a simulation and can’t use the simulator’s abilities…”
“But I can mine out all these ores containing exotic metal first!”
Su Xing suited action to thought. He drew the Blackice sword, infused it with elemental force, and began attempting to mine.
The Blackice sword sliced through the massive rocks as if cutting tofu.
Su Xing cut them into standard cubes, one meter in length, width, and height each, and stored them inside the spirit field grotto-heaven.
Each block of ore was exactly one cubic meter.
After busying himself for over ten hours, Su Xing had successfully mined close to one thousand cubic meters of ore, all of which he stored inside the spirit field grotto-heaven.
“Next, I just need to see how much energy this batch of rocks mixed with exotic metal is worth…”
The corner of Su Xing’s mouth curled upward slightly.
As for the method of checking, it was simple. Although Su Xing couldn’t use the function to absorb matter and convert it into energy while inside a simulation, after the simulation ended, Su Xing only needed to see how much energy this batch of ore was worth, then subtract the markup the black-hearted middleman took as profit, and that would be the energy value contained in this batch of ore.
Soon, the simulation time ended, and Su Xing returned to the real world.
“A full one thousand cubic meters of ore mixed with exotic metal—it should be worth quite a lot of energy, right?”
Su Xing rubbed his chin and murmured.
His gaze turned to the simulation panel.
【You obtained a total of one thousand cubic meters of ore mixed with exotic metal in the Red Lotus Demon Cavern.】
【The next day, you left the Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon and returned to Capital City.】
【Over the following period, you continued refining pills and practicing the Sword-Controlling Technique daily.】
【One month later, you set out for Shuangqing City.】
【You disguised your appearance and concealed your aura, and also shielded your heavenly secrets. This way, Zong Laogou could not sense the threat you posed to him.】
【You suppressed your divine sense and swept brazenly through Shuangqing City, attempting to lure out Zong Laogou.】
【Finally, three days later, Zong Laogou came to find you.】
“At last, here comes Zong Laogou! Before killing him in the real world, I should run through it in a simulation first…”
Seeing this, Su Xing’s heart stirred. He silently recited: “Activate immersive simulation function, duration one hour!”
【Ding, you have successfully activated immersive simulation. Cost: 100,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 147,560,000 points.】
The reason Su Xing used the immersive simulation function again was naturally because he had set his mind on killing Zong Laogou.
And if he wanted to kill Zong Laogou in reality, Su Xing—being cautious by nature—wanted to rehearse it in the simulation first.
The next second, the scenery before Su Xing’s eyes shifted, and he appeared in a wilderness area.
“Senior! May I ask which cultivation world you hail from?”
Behind Su Xing, an old man in a black robe spoke in a hoarse voice.
His tone carried a respectful deference toward Su Xing.
“This… is Zong Laogou?”
Su Xing’s heart stirred as he looked at Zong Laogou.
Zong Laogou’s appearance was utterly unremarkable, like an ordinary old man.
But Su Xing could tell at a glance that this was also a disguised appearance.
“Oh? You’re asking which cultivation world I come from?”
Su Xing didn’t answer directly, but countered with a question instead.
Zong Laogou’s heart jolted, as if he sensed something ominous in Su Xing’s tone.
But the Eight Trigrams Divination Art he had relied on for years hadn’t sent him any warning.
Zong Laogou relaxed somewhat and mustered his courage to speak:
“Senior, surely after the Great Severance of Heaven and Earth… you too have slumbered for a long time and are unfamiliar with this world?”
“This humble one awoke a century or two before you… and would be happy to serve as your guide!”
Zong Laogou smiled, his tone growing ever more deferential.
Because in Zong Laogou’s eyes, Su Xing right now was a Void Return cultivator with incomparably powerful divine sense!
Seeing Zong Laogou’s humble demeanor, Su Xing simply smiled.
The next second, he struck without warning!
Elemental Force Entwinement wrapped around both fists as millions of tons of force hammered directly into Zong Laogou’s body.
BOOM!
A look of shock was still frozen on Zong Laogou’s face at the moment of death.
He seemed unable to comprehend why Su Xing had attacked so suddenly, nor why the Eight Trigrams Divination Art he had relied upon for a thousand years had failed to give him any advance warning.
Zong Laogou’s body exploded on the spot, dissolving into a sky full of blood mist.
Su Xing picked up Zong Laogou’s storage artifact.
Then Zong Laogou’s soul escaped from his body, fleeing desperately into the distance.
But Su Xing immediately trapped it with the Separation Fire Technique.
Before death, Zong Laogou’s soul spoke in disbelief: “Senior, we are complete strangers with no grudge between us… Why did you kill me?”
Su Xing let out a cold laugh and replied:
“Heh, you don’t know me… but I’ve known you for quite a long time!”
With that, Su Xing wasted no more words and directly crushed Zong Laogou’s soul.
And so, Zong Laogou’s body and soul were both annihilated—he vanished completely from this world.
“Things… seem to have gone far too smoothly!”
Su Xing frowned slightly. He opened the storage artifact and only relaxed after confirming that all of Zong Laogou’s treasures were inside.
“So Zong Laogou was really killed by me that easily?”
Su Xing still hadn’t quite come back to his senses.
Just half a year ago, Zong Laogou had been an insurmountable mountain looming over Su Xing.
He had tormented Su Xing, nearly refining him into a Human Pill.
Yet now, with just a single punch, Su Xing had instantly killed Zong Laogou!
This was the gap created by absolute power!
“Indeed, it went a bit too smoothly…”
Su Xing was always cautious and couldn’t shake the feeling that some trap awaited him.
But then he shook his head.
“Well, it’s not like I’ve only been thinking about Zong Laogou for a day or two… I’ve run this simulation dozens of times. With the advantage of foreknowledge against his ignorance, isn’t his death a certainty?”
Su Xing summarized his analysis.
This time, his victory came down to having foreknowledge against an unsuspecting foe, combined with the element of surprise.
Although Zong Laogou was at Peak Spirit Transformation, his habits formed over thousands of years had made him overly reliant on his Eight Trigrams Divination Art’s danger warnings.
Yet he had run into Su Xing—a cunning schemer who had planned for hundreds of years in the simulator to kill him.
He had even rendered Zong Laogou’s Eight Trigrams Divination Art ineffective. Only thus was he finally able to slay him.
After killing Zong Laogou, Su Xing didn’t linger. He prepared to depart on his sword.
About half an hour later, Su Xing suddenly stopped high in the sky and flew toward a remote mountain.
At that moment, all was quiet. Only the occasional birdsong echoed through the mountains.
Yet Su Xing’s brow was tightly furrowed. He spoke loudly to the seemingly empty surroundings:
“Since you’ve come all this way, why not show yourself?”