“Does this mean that we’ve rendered contributions this time?” Li Tieniu asked with doubt.

　　“Haha, from the look on the manager’s face, this ore is definitely extraordinary! Perhaps we might even be able to skip being honorary outer court disciples, becoming the Heaven Domination Sect’s core disciples!”

　　Shi Yun’s face shone with crazed excitement.

　　One had to know that even if they dug in the mines for a whole 10 years, they would still need to participate in the Dragon’s Gate contest to fight for the limited slots to become an honorary outer court disciple. Even then, an honorary disciple’s status was still very different from an official disciple’s!

　　Although nothing was confirmed yet at this point, that did not stop everyone from daydreaming about the future. If everything went well, they might really be able to transform into sect disciples!

　　Very soon, countless people were awoken from their slumber, and marched into the deepest part of the mine to begin digging around the huge ore.

　　10 days later, a humungous ore had appeared at the bottom of the mine, stretching over a hundred li, seemingly boundlessly long!

　　Over 100,000 people were working around the area now. The small tunnel had already been widened into a large cavern, linking up with the other tunnels nearby.

　　Fortunately, the Star Illumination Stone ore was often clustered together in huge, giant pieces. Otherwise, the cavern would have collapsed long ago.

　　Beside the cavern, hundreds of core disciples had arrived at the location under the leadership of a sect elder. Wei Shibing had become a tiny figure among them, and the cold arrogance that he always wore on his face was nowhere to be found. Instead, a forced fawning expression had taken its place.

　　“Not bad, you did well this time.”

　　After personally testing the toughness of this ore, Han Xin smiled widely as he stroked his long beard. Although he didn’t know what this ore was as well, based on the toughness of the ore, it was definitely a precious treasure!

　　Wei Shibing’s face lit up as he said respectfully, “This disciple is not worthy of such compliments; to serve the sect is something that this disciple should do.”

　　The several hundred core disciples could see that with this contribution, the status of this Wei Shibing would surely rise! There was no escaping the promotions that would follow. If this ore really turned out to be some kind of top-tier treasure, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to be elevated to the position of a core disciple as well!

　　For this reason, the core disciples did not put on airs around Wei Shibing, and even greeted him. However, as true core disciples, these people also had their own pride. They would only go as far as greeting him, and that was it.

　　Time passed slowly, and more and more of the ore was dug out. However, it was still impossible to detach even a single piece.

　　The clustered ore that was revealed had already reached 500 li long, and each piece of ore had also become smaller and smaller, from the size of a horse cart each, to the size of a face basin now.

　　For some reason, as more and more of the clustered ore was unearthed, the ominous feeling in Han Xin’s heart deepened.

　　‘Perhaps I’ve exhausted too much energy by tangling with the five great sects lately.’

　　Han Xin shook his head. The five great sects had shown more and more strength in the recent days, and the Heaven Domination Sect had not prepared well enough against them.

　　For some reason, the temperature in the cavern had become lower and lower, and several thousand people had already frozen to death in the last few days. But despite searching for an entire day, the source of the cold couldn’t be found.

　　“Che, this damn ore must really be worth a lot! Even the sect elder has come over here personally.”

　　“A pity this ore wasn’t discovered by us.”

　　“Exactly, Shi Yun and the rest have really gotten lucky this time.”

　　A group of workers chatted as they dug, and their words were filled with envy.

　　“Haha, I, Zhang Laosan, can be considered someone that’d seen the world now too. In any case, I had a hand in digging this thing up too! I gotta take a good look at it.”

　　A pockmarked middle-aged man spat a globule of saliva on his hand and rubbed his hands together before placing them on the huge silver ore and caressing it.

　　“Haha, Zhang Laosan, what’re you standing there touching the stone for? Go back home and touch your wife!”

　　The others laughed loudly.

　　However, Zhang Laosan seemed to have fallen into a trance, and their words could not reach him. The patterns on the stone were simply too beautiful, and they constantly moved about in a mystical way.

　　“Eh? Zhang Laosan! Zhang Laosan!”

　　The others initially did not mind waiting for him, but after 10 minutes, even the jokes had turned dull. After calling out a few times, Zhang Laosan did not respond at all.

　　“This damn place, it’s getting colder again.”

　　One of the men cursed, making a breath of cold white mist spread out before him as he shrunk his neck into his shirt. Walking forward, he placed his hand on Zhang Laosan’s shoulder and tried to pull him around.

　　‘Hm? Why is it so cold?’

　　This thought flashed through the man’s head as his consciousness sank into the darkness.

　　“Ka-cha!”

　　A faint sound like ice shattering rang out as a strange blue frost quickly covered the two’s bodies.

　　“Two more people had frozen to death!”

　　The people nearby hurriedly moved to the side and stood a clear distance away. Such incidents had been pretty common these days, and many people suddenly froze like that and died.

　　“Hu!”

　　“Ka-cha!”

　　“Boom!”

　　A fierce wind suddenly rose up from an unknown place, instantly blowing up large patches of Star Illumination Stone dust.

　　A rumbling sound rang out from within the dust cloud.

　　Far away, Han Xin furrowed his brows as he looked at the sudden dust cloud. Waving his hand lightly, a tornado appeared on the spot and sucked in all the dust, forming a room-sized ball of dust.

　　Several kilometers away behind the place where the silver ore had been unearthed, a large pile of Star Illumination Stone ore had crumbled apart, revealing two 200-meter-wide irregularly shaped holes.

　　As numerous waves of clear breeze wafted out from the caves, Han Xin brought the several hundred core disciples forward to investigate.

　　‘There’s a huge treasure!’

　　In an instant, the same thought flashed across everyone’s heads. A mentally refreshing fragrance floated into the cavern with the wind, causing everyone to feel at ease.

　　‘Could it be that there’s some Heaven Earth Spirit Milk in there? Or perhaps its some other natural treasure?’

　　Han Xin’s interest grew as he got closer. Some heavenly treasures were known to exist in mines.

　　“This is the lucky opportunity you’ve all been waiting for, go in and seek it yourself,” Han Xing said to the several hundred core disciples behind him with a wave of his hand. Such natural treasures were already useless to him, but to these disciples, they were still rather useful.

　　“Many thanks, Elder!”

　　The core disciples cupped their fists and shouted their thanks before dashing into the cave.

　　“Chi! Chi, chi!”

　　After about 10 minutes, a terrifying energy suddenly blasted out of each cave!

　　At least two-thirds of the core disciples had been blasted out, and were caught by Han Xin.

　　The remaining one-third was slightly stronger or had secret treasures on their bodies, which allowed them to remain unharmed.

　　“Ka-cha!”

　　Numerous cracks suddenly extended from the walls of the mine, revealing more of the countless silver ores underneath it.

　　“It moved! The ore moved!”

　　Numerous loud shrieks rang out. Following those excited shrieks, however, was sheer terror! When faced with the unknown, these miners who were only slightly stronger than normal humans were all scared out of their wits, and stampeded towards the level ground like a horde of panicking rats.

　　Han Xin did not bother about the rushing horde of miners. In that moment, he only felt as if a terrifying lifeform had turned its eyes on him!

　　‘What the hell is that? It’s too terrifying! Even the grand elder or the patriach are not so powerful!’

　　Just as the core disciples were in a state of shock and confusion, they suddenly saw that Elder Han Xin, who usually dared to even talk back to the patriarch, was currently looking extremely wretched.

　　His face was marked with pure terror, and snot and tears flowed freely from his nose and eyes. His thin figure seemed exceptionally frail in that moment, and he was trembling like a leaf.

　　Be that as it might, but his pants had a wet patch on the front, and some liquid was flowing down his legs as well!

　　The group of core disciples all looked at each other with shock. What the hell? The elder had wet his pants in fear? Now that this kind of ugly matter had been seen by them, would the elder just kill them all to silence them after this?

　　The first thing that everyone thought of was this. But immediately after, a more important thought struck them. What happened to Elder Han? What kind of thing could have scared him to such an extent?

　　“Boom!”

　　Countless large pieces of Star Illumination Stone fell from the ceiling, stirring up a huge patch of dust.

　　As the dust cloud spread out, the true face behind the chaos was finally revealed!

　　Snake!

　　A terrifyingly huge snake!

　　When the dust settled, everyone’s bodies instantly stiffened. In that moment, they finally knew what had scared the elder to that degree!

　　Not to mention Elder Han, they themselves were frightened out of their wits! Just the head of the creature was over tens of thousand meters tall, and five, six hundred li long! How was the huge cluster of ‘ore’ before them still ore? It was the scales of the gigantic snake!

　　At this time, nobody had the mind to think about the people who went into the snake’s nostrils. Instead, they felt incomparably frightened. The “caves” which everyone had entered earlier were actually the nostrils of this huge snake!

　　This snake was completely silver-white in color, and its scales were covered in countless intricate patterns. Each scale contained a mysterious rune!

　　Normally, such a terrifying snake should have evolved into a dragon long ago. But this fellow did not seem any different from a regular snake. It was like an ordinary snake, mangnified by thousands to tens of thousands of times!

　　Bei Feng held the fishing rod in his hands and sat firmly on the fishing platform. The surrounding scenery was exceptionally beautiful, and numerous terrifying beast roars rang out from the depths of the Hundred Break Mountain Range from time to time.

　　Bei Feng could only see a sea of silvery white in the visual range 500 meters around the hook.

　　“This doesn’t seem like a place with anything valuable…”

　　Bei Feng muttered, and controlled the fishing line as he brought the hook farther away.

　　Inside the mine, the lifeless-looking huge snake that didn’t seem to have a single shred of vitality suddenly began to awaken!

　　A pair of huge silver eyes snapped open, and a bright silver light burst out of its eyes!

　　“Gulp!”

　　Everyone turned their heads around stiffly and gulped down a mouthful of saliva in fear as they looked at the long tunnel that’d been blasted into the side of the wall. Big brother, this little one has a weak heart, could you not scare us like this?

　　It was just a single glance, yet the energy from its gaze already shot out tens of kilometers away, directly piercing its way through to the surface. Sunlight immediately flooded in from the outside, but nobody felt any warmth from it. Instead, their bodies shivered even harder as cold sweat poured down their backs.

　　“Pu! What the heck was that? Eyes?!”

　　The energy beam projected from the snake’s eyes had passed by right beside Bei Feng’s fishing hook. Bei Feng also happened to meet the eyes of the huge snake through the magic vision.

　　A huge tremor passed through Bei Feng’s mind, and he spat out a large mouthful of blood. Those eyes were simply too terrifying!

　　Although they were in two different worlds, he actually received an internal injury just by meeting the eyes of the other!

　　Bei Feng very nearly threw the fishing rod into the water out of fear. He was 100 percent sure that the huge ball of silver he’d seen was an eye!

　　Just an eye was already hundreds of meters wide. In that case, how large was the owner of those eyes? Bei Feng did not dare to imagine at all.

　　To Bei Feng, that eye was like the eye of heaven, lofty and domineering, looking down on the universe with cold indifference. There wasn’t the slightest ripple in that eye at all. In that moment, that eye had been imprinted in the deepest parts of Bei Feng’s soul!