Only the Chief Supervisor of the Purple Crystal mine, Lord Li Qingliu, a third-grade Supreme Martial Artist, could neither flee nor hide. Steeling himself, he followed at Lord Zi’s side and put up with his incessant scoldings and grumblings.

“That bunch of idiots didn’t come and make trouble again, did they?” This question of Lord Zi’s stumped Li Qingliu straight off. He didn’t know how to answer him at all.

“I guess they wouldn’t anymore. If they did, Li Wubo might as well jump into a cesspool and just drown himself to death…” This was even harder to respond to.

Li Qingliu could only laugh in resignation.

Lord Zi continued speaking as though he was talking to himself as he walked further in. Li Qingliu steeled himself and followed behind him with a resigned smile. When they were about to reach the end, Lord Zi suddenly spun around. “Are you very free?”

“Uhh? Not really…” Supervisor Li Qingliu was rather confounded.

“Then why are you following me?” Lord Zi bellowed, “Hurry and get back to work!”

A frightened Li Qingliu fled as fast as he could.

Only a ghost would want to follow you… But if you don’t tell me to leave, would I dare to leave by myself?

Supervisor Li truly realized how much sense a certain idiom made now. After walking out a fair distance, he couldn’t help but sigh.

This is really f*cking… Accompanying a ruler is like accompanying a tiger…

…

Once again, Lord Zi settled at the most comfortable position — A mink coat beneath him and towering heaps of Purple Crystals left, right and behind him.

With an extremely reluctant expression, he reached out. With a glowing purple aura all around his hand, he laid his palm once more against that gap which had become the size of the mouth of a teacup…

Time to get to work!

The Sword Spirit darted out at once and slipped in at the speed of light.

Within the Nine Tribulations Space, it started to pour again.

Before long, the Sword Spirit’s excited voice could be heard exclaiming, “Lord Sword Master! Soul of the Purple Crystal! The Soul of the Purple Crystal has appeared!”

Chu Yang’s body shook. The purple aura around him almost dissipated. Frantically steadying the purple aura, his subconsciousness entered the treasure trove under the lead of the Sword Spirit!

Pieces of Purple Crystal Jade Essence entered his vision, surrounded by a sea of glowing Purple Crystal Cores. However, right in the center of the sea of Purple Crystal Jade Essence, an impressive cloud of purple aura could be seen.

Seemingly a solid mass, it wriggled up and down.

“Grab it for us to take a look!” Chu Yang instructed frantically.

“Alright.” With a whoosh, the Sword Spirit collected and took all the Purple Crystal Cores and Purple Crystal Jade Essence around him. In the blink of an eye, he had already collected several thousand pieces. At last, the true form of this so-called Soul of the Purple Crystal was revealed.

A piece of Purple Crystal covered in a purple glow from head to toe appeared quietly before them.

Other Purple Crystals, even the Purple Crystal Jade Essence, gave out only a purple sheen. However, this piece was constantly emanating a purple mist that circled around the crystal.

In just a mere moment, the area was shrouded in a blurry haze.

The color of every Purple Crystal enveloped in this aura seemed to be darkening bit by bit…

“I see, the Soul of the Purple Crystal can improve the quality of Purple Crystals!” Realization dawned upon Chu Yang.

“Yes, typical large-scale Purple Crystal mines in the Imperial Court would all definitely have one Soul of the Purple Crystal inside that slowly nourishes the Purple Crystals within. Even if that piece of Soul of the Purple Crystal was discovered, it definitely wouldn’t be removed because it would end up spoiling the fundamental core of the mine,” the Sword Spirit explained.

“I see.” Chu Yang’s eyes shone. “If that’s the case, how much cultivation can a piece of Soul of the Purple Crystal increase?”

“The Soul of the Purple Crystal only provides the purest spiritual energy of the universe. Converting spiritual energy into cultivation depends on the person himself… How can you say it like that?” The Sword Spirit was rather dissatisfied, though he continued to explain, “It can provide a steady flow of spiritual energy, no matter where you are… Nobody would bear to completely absorb a Soul of the Purple Crystal. Therefore, even I won’t know how much cultivation a Soul of the Purple Crystal of this size can increase.”

“I see.” Chu Yang nodded. Then, he issued the highest order. “Take them! Take them all!”

The Sword Spirit let out a sneaky laugh and started to plunder the area without any restraint right away.

Chu Yang’s subconsciousness exited the mine fully satisfied and content.

Yes, I’m the Nine Tribulations Sword Master, I don’t do this kind of manual labor. I’m only in charge of waiting in the Nine Tribulations Space…

Minister Chu’s subconsciousness sank into the Nine Tribulations Space. He carried a Purple Crystal chair over and sat on it with his legs crossed, watching Purple Crystals rain from the sky.

Purple Crystal Cores, Purple Crystal Jade Essence, Souls of the Purple Crystal…

It was only then that Chu Yang discovered that the Sword Spirit had already set up over ten huge storage warehouses in the Nine Tribulations Space. The largest one naturally stored the 100,000 regular Purple Crystals that Chu Yang had originally obtained from the outside world. They were haphazardly thrown into a heap by the Sword Spirit, as though a pile of rubbish.

Next were six other warehouses. Two of them were already filled to the brim. Inside, Purple Crystal Cores were stacked neatly in uniform rows, as though a military parade.

Following that were two other warehouses. Inside them were neatly arranged Purple Crystal Jade Essence.

After that was another small warehouse. Right now, there were already 17 to 18 Souls of the Purple Crystal inside. And they were still falling continuously from the sky… Falling…

Lord Zi worked overtime for a few days straight again. However, the duration was extended by another day this time.

Totaling four days.

The Sword Spirit was worked to the bone during these four days. In return, however, his accomplishments were notable.

All the warehouses that he had set up were all completely filled up.

Without any hesitation, the Sword Spirit set up another 20 large warehouses.

In the beginning, Minister Chu still went in very excitedly to count his spoils — One million… Two million… Four million…

Toward the end, Chu Yang had already become numb.

F*ck!

As if I have so much time to go in and count everything… They can just give me however many they want to…

The phrase ‘counting money till one’s hands were cramping’ was often said but right now, Minister Chu had clearly surpassed this stage and entered a new realm — He was already at a point where he was counting money till he was annoyed just seeing money.

However, Eldest Young Master Chu still cared very much about the quantity of Souls of the Purple Crystal. He counted them piece by piece, over and over. At last, the final quantity was determined — A total of 1,538 Souls of the Purple Crystal were collected over these four days.

There were innumerous pieces of Purple Crystal Jade Essence.

Purple Crystal Cores… Who had the patience to talk about that?

As for regular Purple Crystals…

Minister Chu had already reached a point where he wanted to just discard regular Purple Crystals as though they were trash… F*ck! So in the way! And taking up so much space!

…

Ten days went by just like that.

On this day, two-thirds of the treasures inside this gigantic Purple Crystal mine had already gone into the Nine Tribulations Space. Chu Yang had also enlarged the hole outside into the size of a basketball — This progress was undeniably fast!

When Li Wubo, the clan leader of the Li Clan, heard this piece of news, he practically woke up from his dreams smiling…

Of course, if he knew that what he had been excited about his entire life had all entered the pockets of others and he didn’t even get a single piece of it while others got to enjoy everything… He would probably wake up from his dreams crying.

And turn completely into an infant — Crying immediately after waking, and sleeping after getting tired from crying…

The Sword Spirit was also very excited. After continuous overtaxation and continuously putting in full effort into extracting these treasures, the Sword Spirit discovered that his mental energy had surprisingly nearly doubled.

Originally, it could only last three days, but now it could last five and a half days… This was an incredible improvement!

Of course, Chu Yang himself also improved by leaps and bounds during this period of time. The Earth Core Fire had already been more or less fully absorbed by him… The Li Clan’s Earth Core Fire could only provide the bare minimum warmth now…

After another short period of time when Lord Zi would leave, the Earth Core Fire would probably have frozen over by then too.

Seeing that they were already reaching the end of the Purple Crystal mine yet the Holy Crystal still hadn’t appeared, Lord Zi was rather anxious. He urged the Sword Spirit to intensify his efforts.

At last, on this day…

The Sword Spirit was in the midst of extracting crystals. After he collected the Purple Crystal Cores, Purple Crystal Jade Essence and Souls of the Purple Crystal which piled up to a few meters tall, dazzling bright purple light suddenly shot out from nowhere!

Brilliant and resplendent, this purple light was a world above others! As though the sun had suddenly appeared amongst the treasures!

“The Holy Crystal has appeared!” yelled the Sword Spirit in excitement.

Chu Yang entered the mine in a flash.

The objects in front of him couldn’t even be seen clearly. There was only a dazzling and brilliant purple light shining!

Chu Yang swallowed. “Hurry and collect everything!”

The Sword Spirit frantically intensified his collection efforts.

Swoosh swoosh swoosh! In the span of an afternoon, he had completely emptied the Purple Crystal mine!

Beneath him was already the ground.

It was only in mid-air that a dazzling purple light shone in all directions.

It actually stayed floating just like that in mid-air without falling.

When Chu Yang and the Sword Spirit saw this amazing scene, both of them were bedazzled and stunned.

Truly… too beautiful!

After a long while, when their eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, they noticed that the ball of light was made up of different objects.

In the center was a pigeon egg-sized round object giving out a brilliant purple shine. Surrounding it were 99 other round objects the size of hen eggs floating and traveling in a mysterious pattern. They formed a ball and circled around the pigeon egg-sized object in the middle.

“99 Holy Crystals… And a Divine Crystal!” murmured the Sword Spirit. His eyes were fanatical and he exuded a kind of hysterical excitement.

“So many!” Chu Yang got a shock.

The most exceptional treasures in the world!

One Holy Crystal was easily enough to create an expert of Ning Tianya’s class. And here… there were 99 of them!

Chu Yang’s breathing was ragged. “Hurry and collect all of them!”

Minister Chu’s face had even turned red.

“I can’t.” The Sword Spirit was helpless. He was much greedier than Chu Yang; when he had first laid his eyes on them, he already tried to move them into the Nine Tribulations Space. But even after trying a few times, this thing didn’t even budge.

“How come…” Chu Yang tried to grab them with his willpower, only to discover that they indeed did not budge at all.

The 99 Holy Crystals moved slowly along a mysterious trail and spun around the center. They hung in mid-air, neither going up nor down, with their blinding light shining everywhere!

“Try moving them with your hands.” The Sword Spirit said, “I’m in spirit form, so I’m not a physical body like you.”

Nodding, Chu Yang tried reaching into the purple light with his hand.

The moment his hand went in, his entire arm turned the color of Purple Crystals and darkened continuously. However, Chu Yang didn’t feel any discomfort. Instead, he felt a boundless sense of comfort, as though his entire self was soaking in a hot spring. His whole body was enveloped in warmth.

The next instant, Chu Yang’s fingers came into contact with a Holy Crystal!

Slowly, he closed his fingers around it and held the Holy Crystal in his palm. He could feel an inexplicable burning sensation in his soul.

Making up his mind, he forcefully plucked out the Holy Crystal.