Chapter 504: Pseudocide and Semi-Escape

In his single wooden cell, Wang Sheng held the Immortal Stone and sat in silent meditation. The shackles on his hands and legs glowed faintly, suppressing his immortal power and Primordial Spirit.

After reaching the late stage of the Ascended Immortal Realm, he had absorbed primal qi continuously for three months. He had also kept the astral power flowing.

Wang Sheng now rather liked this blood mine. Cultivation here took a hundred times longer than on Earth, but the concentration of primal qi was roughly the same. If he stayed in the blood mine for a hundred years, he would likely reach the middle stage of the Primordial Immortal Realm.

Unfortunately, recklessly advancing in cultivation wasn't advisable. Progressing too quickly could easily lead to an unstable foundation or even devilish deviation.

Wang Sheng's cautious nature surfaced again. While cultivating, he constantly verified his own path to keep himself from straying.

Sensing a gaze fall upon him, Wang Sheng opened his eyes and discovered that it wasn't one of his fellow miners thinking about how to use him as a tool. Lan Huilin, who was in the mine a distance away, was watching him with a trace of helplessness and regret.

Regret?

To prevent the True Immortals of the Celestial Wind Sect from suspecting anything, Wang Sheng kept a small amount of fiend-blood energy enveloping him to mislead everyone. It couldn't harm his immortal body at all.

During the upcoming mining days, Wang Sheng planned to gradually increase the fiend-blood energy around him until he had enough to kill an average Ascended Immorta. He would then fake his death in the mine and cultivate right inside it.

In accordance with his pseudocide plan, he would gradually dig a downward tunnel, minimizing the chance of the True Immortals or other miners discovering it.

It was the best he could do. Considering the aura he unleashed was only at the early stage of the Ascended Immortal Realm, he'd certainly draw suspicion if he went down the mine and remained unharmed too many times.

If his true cultivation was revealed and others saw how fast he was improving, the Celestial Wind Sect would undoubtedly give him special attention. While they would not dissect him, they would most likely annihilate him immediately.

Lan Huilin behaved exactly the same as before, unchanged during every descent into the mine. Not a trace of fiend-blood energy clung to her. Wang Sheng wanted to warn her, but she couldn't summon heavenly tribulation like him. The energy was toxic enough to corrode even a True Immortal if it invaded their body.

She had to have thought she was prepared for it. However, reality seemed to have proved otherwise.

One month passed, which was no more than two rounds of meditation. The Tian Division miners were once again due for a descent. Wang Sheng rose calmly, the ends of his long hair now tinged faint red.

Another unaffiliated practitioner had joined the Tian Division. Two different True Immortals led them this time, but the wooden platform and chains remained the same.

Wang Sheng moved the fastest this round. He rushed straight to his previous tunnel, found the familiar fork, and tossed an Immortal Stone that had been drained of primal qi onto the ground.

With fiend-blood energy surging from all around, Wang Sheng felt a pang of emotion. Cultivators avoided this poison at all costs, unaware that heavenly tribulation could purify it into primal qi. It was essentially primal qi with a different "trait."

Cultivating in the immortal path was the process of transcending oneself. Hence, it also meant continuously interacting and merging with primal qi.

It was far less interesting than spending time with his senior sister, though.

Wang Sheng sighed and silently thanked the difference in time flow between the Realm of Exiled Immortals and the endless space. He then threw himself back into the great work of mining and training.

After mining for a while, Wang Sheng would find a fixed corner to sit down and use immortal power to blast open the blood soil below him, as though he were digging a well.

The pseudocide plan proceeded steadily.

Every time Wang Sheng descended into the mine, he'd leave with more fiend-blood energy enveloping him. He also only ever turned in the minimum required number of blood essence.

Moreover, Wang Sheng always went to the same tunnel and always rushed in ahead of everyone else. In the eyes of other miners, this mentality was entirely normal.

Everyone knew that the little Ascended Immortal would not last much longer.

***

Finally, after six years.

Wang Sheng's long hair had been dyed nearly half red, and his eyes had gone dull. Moreover, he leaned against the wooden cage as if he had already given up on meditation.

He wondered if the Celestial Wind Sect would show a shred of kindness and let a nearly dead man go. Unfortunately, they did not.

Capturing unaffiliated practitioners for mining was the sect's dirty secret. They would never allow any miner to leave this place.

A few celestial soldiers occasionally showed sympathy, but that was all.

Lan Huilin remained loyal enough. She kept watching him with pity and helplessness, which made Wang Sheng think she wasn't actually a bad person. He still didn't know her true name, though.

The fiend-blood energy in his body had already sunk deep into his bones. Once it reached his soul, he would collapse somewhere in the tunnel.

Before the descent, the True Immortal in charge of the Tian Division, a burly man in iron armor, tossed a porcelain bottle into Wang Sheng's arms. In a deep tone, he said, "Those are alchemical pills to lessen the pain when the poison erupts."

He then shook his head slightly.

The other unaffiliated practitioner miners seemed to sympathize as well, though they all kept their distance from Wang Sheng.

When the wooden platform dropped to the bottom, he again rushed out first. With many sympathetic gazes on his back, he vanished into the tunnel. This was the last time they'd ever see him.

Only a few would remember that an unaffiliated practitioner named Wang Qiu had perished in the blood mine and became one of the countless bones left behind.

***

Several thousand meters away in another tunnel, Lan Huilin sighed slowly. She blocked waves of fiend-blood energy, preventing even a trace of it from clinging to her.

You were a prodigious talent, Brother Wang. It is unfortunate that you died unjustly at the hands of the Celestial Wind Sect, but I will make sure they pay for making you suffer.

She continued deeper into the mine. However, she lowered her head and glanced at herself after only a few steps, realizing that for six years, fiend-blood energy had never once tainted her. Ascended Immortals couldn't possibly achieve such a feat.

Lan Huilin's expression shifted slightly. She was about to consider how she could salvage the situation when the two True Immortals in charge of the Xian Division quietly appeared at the tunnel entrance.

"What exactly are you hoping to accomplish by infiltrating our mine?"

Lan Huilin laughed bitterly. She calmly turned to the two True Immortals.

At that moment, she remembered that when she had passed the cultivation-concealing spell to "Wang Qiu," he had already been close to the late stage of the Ascended Immortal Realm. How could he have only lasted six years?

She laughed softly and shook her head.

Even if you were able to disguise yourself in this blood mine, how long could you really endure?

Before her, two waves of intense immortal power surged as the True Immortals summoned their celestial treasures.

Lan Huilin coolly asked, "Are you planning to fight me here? Are you not afraid of triggering a blood mine eruption?"

"

Hmph.

Capturing you will be a great achievement. The ancient battlefield has a shortage of everything, except for unaffiliated practitioners who are worth less than insects. If some die, we can just capture more."

"Aren't you afraid of incurring heavenly punishment because of how the Celestial Wind Sect is acting?"

"Take her!" one of her opponents shouted.

The two unleashed even more fierce immortal power. Since the tunnel was far too narrow to evade, she immediately counterattacked instead.

***

Meanwhile, in Wang Sheng's private tunnel.

After mining for half a day, Wang Sheng sat down in his usual meditation spot. Just as he wondered whether to begin taking action, the mine suddenly trembled. Booming noises echoed all over the place.

Yaoyun instantly warned, "

A fight's underway somewhere. It seems to involve True Immortals.

"

Wang Sheng raised an eyebrow. He brought over the pile of white bones that he had hidden in a corner and dressed them in his clothes. Afterward, he hit his meditation spot with a palm strike. The blood soil sank instantly, revealing a slanted, deep tunnel leading downward.

Without hesitation, he dropped into the shaft. The white bones he had prepared blocked the entrance perfectly.

The mine continued to tremble, spreading chaos throughout the tunnels.

By then, he had already vanished. The disturbance lasted for half an hour, just long enough for him to fill in the tunnel he had created and free himself completely from the control of the Celestial Wind Sect.

No one would search specifically for an Ascended Immortal, especially not while the female True Immortal who had infiltrated the mine had gathered all of the sect's attention.

The two True Immortals who had fought to capture Lan Huilin returned wounded, while Lan Huilin had disappeared into the blood mine. They brought in a Heavenly Immortal from outside the array to search the mine, but they failed to find her.

In an untouched section that had yet to be excavated deep within the Tian Division's mine, Wang Sheng sat in a narrow crevice, calmly absorbing fiend-blood energy.

He extended his spiritual perception as far as possible, but it only reached a little over three hundred meters.

"

Was Lan Huilin discovered? Was she the one fighting earlier?

"

"

Most likely,

"

Yaoyun replied calmly.

"

Forget about them for now. Focus on cultivating. The faster you grow stronger, the sooner you can bust yourself out of this place.

"

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Wang Sheng nodded slowly. He stopped thinking about anything and began his secluded cultivation.

In this blood mine, he had gained a small amount of freedom. Time, which meant nothing here, passed silently.

***

In an inconspicuous corner on the edge of the ancient battlefield.

A warped cluster of light drifted out from the wormhole inside a thousand-meter-tall statue. When it finally stopped under the statue, its twisting glow faded away, revealing what seemed to be a large Shadowless Shuttle.

The hatch opened, and a man with a small nose, narrow eyes, and a naturally troubled look popped out cautiously.

Wrapped in a layer of enchanted power, Shi Qianzhang floated out with his hands clasped behind him. Lacking gravity and unable to simulate it himself, he nearly drifted back into the wormhole.

"

Where are we?

"

"

Inside a giant Buddha statue,

" replied Huai Jing as he emerged from the Shadowless Shuttle.

Liu Yunzhi, who was in a Daoist robe, followed him. Other than Mu Wanxuan, who had remained in the Small Immortal Realm to open the gate, their small squad had gone out of the Realm of Exiled Immortals.

Liu Yunzhi held Nameless's ancient sword. Since none of the three had ascended, they could only rely on him to pilot the Shadowless Shuttle. The three took turns channeling enchanted power, Buddhist power, and a huge supply of Spirit Stones to keep the vessel running. Even so, it still took them quite a long time to reach their destination.

"

To think it took a year and a half to reach our destination from Eart—ahem, from our homeland.

"

Shi Qianzhang sighed as he looked up at the dark wormhole. "

This thing doesn't really look like a door. Why does it look more like a black hole?

"

Liu Yunzhi laughed and scolded, "

If it were a black hole, we would have died long ago. The distortion of heaven and earth probably created that wormhole, linking two distant points in space and time. A wall isn't the only thing separating our homeland and the endless space; there's also who knows how much distance between the two.

"

"

That sounds about right.

" Huai Jing intoned Buddha's name, then urged,

"

Counting the time that passed for us, it has been nearly five years since we last saw Fei Yu. We should pick up the pace and search for clues.

"

"

Why are you in a rush?

"

Shi Qianzhang chuckled.

"

A hundred days here is only one day on the other side. We can take our time.

"

At that moment, Liu Yunzhi called the other two over to the middle section of the statue, where a line of ancient text had been carved. "

There are markings here.

"