Chapter 344: Gold Source Mountain
One hundred days passed in the blink of an eye.
After the last day, Yu Nianzhen was ejected from the tower of time and teleported to a small mountain.
The mountain was covered with golden rocks and the sun hit the rocks at different angles, causing the mountain to shine brightly.
"Gold source stones." Yu Nianzhen muttered and his heart fluttered.
Gold source stones contained extremely pure metal element qi.
For a metal element cultivator, cultivating with gold source stones would result in twice the result for half the effort.
’The tower of time is too powerful.’ He thought and then calmed his heart.
"XiaoYue and the others are not here." He said and immediately checked his soul contract.
After a moment, he breathed a sigh of relief and his body relaxed.
’XiaoYue is fine but he is a little far from here.’ He thought and his heart fell into conflict.
On first instinct, he wanted to use the golden teleportation talisman to find Jiang Yue.
However, reason stopped him.
If his situation was anything to go by, Jiang Yue should have been teleported to a good place.
In that case, there was no need to hurry.
Although he missed Jiang Yue and wanted to see him right away, their first priority was to enhance their strength.
Before he went to find Jiang Yue, he needed to take advantage of the opportunity in front of him.
"XiaoYue, wait for me." He muttered and began to look around.
After a moment, he took out his map of the secret realm and began to study it.
"This place is not the metal mountain." He observed.
From what he knew, there were many metal deposits in the metal mountain.
However, there were no gold source stones.
"I can’t find this place on the map." He said and frowned.
He tried to find some distinctive markers but had to give up when he didn’t find any.
"I will figure it out after I collect the gold source stones." He decided and put the map away.
With that, he walked towards the gold source mountain and didn’t stop until he was five metres away.
"Gold source stones are good but mining them is not easy." Yu Nianzhen said and narrowed his eyes.
From what he knew, gold source worms inhabited places with gold source stones.
The worms liked to eat gold source stones and didn’t take kindly to those who tried to take the stones.
"Gold source worms are invulnerable to ordinary methods of attack. The easiest way to destroy them is by using heaven and earth fires. Unfortunately..."
With that, his longing for Jiang Yue broke out and he almost decided to find his lover.
Fortunately, he calmed his mind and suppressed the longing.
"If I can’t use heaven and earth fire, I can use sword intent or soul fire."
After Yu Nianzhen cultivated his soul to the fifth level, it birthed a soul fire.
In this situation, he was eager to try his soul fire.
"I still have a lot of leaves from the soul-raising tree. It won’t be a problem to exhaust my soul power." He decided and a soul fire appeared on the palm of his right hand.
The soul fire was silver and had no temperature.
However, it emanated a sense of danger that threatened the gold source worms on the mountain.
Soon after it was released, a crackling sound reverberated on the mountain and Yu Nianzhen tensed.
"It doesn’t matter if they are aware. All I need to do is destroy them."
After saying that, Yu Nianzhen walked forward.
As he neared the mountain, the crackling increased and a sense of danger rose from the bottom of his heart.
Aside from liking gold source stones, gold source worms liked the origin of metal element cultivators.
From the moment Yu Nianzhen appeared, the worms thought of him as nutrition.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t leave the mountain and had to wait for him to get closer.
Now that he was close enough, millions of worms launched themselves at him.
"Looking for death." Yu Nianzhen shouted and threw the soul fire.
At the same time, he released his sword domain and thousands of gold source worms were immediately destroyed.
Unfortunately, the number of gold source worms was too much.
Individual gold source worms were nothing to worry about but millions of them were not easy to handle.
After fighting for three days, Yu Nianzhen exhausted his soul power and qi but the gold source worms showed no signs of abating.
’I need to replenish.’ He thought but the worms did not give him a chance.
Whenever he tried to retreat, the worms would surround him, forcing him closer to the mountain.
At a loss, Yu Nianzhen removed a soul-raising tree leaf and a bottle of qi replenishing pills.
He swallowed three pills and hastily absorbed the soul power from the leaf.
As his qi and soul power replenished, Yu Nianzhen continued to fight.
Originally, his soul fire and sword intent were separate methods of attack.
However, after fighting for a while, he thought about integrating them.
At first, he couldn’t do it and when he did, the combination would fall apart after a short while.
Fortunately, Yu Nianzhen wasn’t discouraged.
He continued to practice and eventually found a way to perfectly integrate his sword intent and soul fire.
As a result, he created an extremely domineering sword art that destroyed both the body and soul.
’The sword art is not perfect but it’s a good start.’ He thought and continued to fight.
Seven days later, he managed to destroy all the gold source worms on the mountain.
In that time, he used countless qi replenishing pills and soul-raising tree leaves.
However, the fight was not just a waste of resources.
It helped him condense his qi, soul power, and body cultivation.
After the practice, Yu Nianzhen felt light and a little more powerful than when he first left the tower of time.
"Condensed qi is a good thing but...." He started and sighed.
His qi had condensed a lot which decreased the quantity in his qi ocean.
Although his cultivation realm had not fallen, his qi quantity was only equivalent to that of a third-level origin tempering realm cultivator.
This made Yu Nianzhen feel uncomfortable and he couldn’t wait to cultivate.
"Fortunately, I am in a gold source stones’ mountain." He said and began to search for a place to settle down.
A quarter of an hour later, he found a tunnel on the back side of the mountain.
The tunnel was narrow and its walls shone with a golden light.
After finding it, Yu Nianzhen did not hesitate.
With a sword in hand, he entered the tunnel and followed it into the depths of the mountain.
At the end of the tunnel, he discovered mounds of gold source stones and he couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.
However, his surprise was only momentary and he soon regained his composure.
"My first priority is to increase my qi quantity to match my cultivation level. After that, I will collect the gold source stones and then find XiaoYue."
With a goal in mind, Yu Nianzhen didn’t waste time.
He climbed one of the gold source stones’ mounds and sat cross-legged at the top.
Soon after, a steady stream of extremely pure metal qi entered his body and his qi quantity began to rise rapidly.
Three months later, his qi quantity reached the early stage of the sixth level of the origin tempering realm and Yu Nianzhen stopped cultivating.
"I finally feel comfortable." He said as he stretched his body.
His bones creaked, and his muscles relaxed, but his entire self was refreshed.
When he was relaxed, he naturally thought about Jiang Yue.
From their soul contract, he knew Jiang Yue was safe but he still wanted to see him.
"I will see him soon." He said and stood up.
After that, he began to collect the mounds of gold source stones.
"It’s too bad I can’t take them out of the Nine Treasures secret realm." He lamented but didn’t dwell on it.
There were more than fifty years before the close of the secret realm.
In that time, he planned to use as many gold source stones as he could.
Whatever he couldn’t use would be traded or left behind when he left the secret realm.
"Fifty years is enough to refine four more origin treasures. If things go well, I may break through to the core formation realm before I exit the secret realm. When that happens, the gold source stones will come in handy."
With these thoughts in mind, Yu Nianzhen continued to collect the gold source stones and soon came to the core of the mountain.
The core of the mountain was surrounded by high mounds of gold source stones.
These gold source stones were of better quality than before and Yu Nianzhen couldn’t help but be excited.
’These source stones are perfect for breaking through to the core formation realm.’ He thought and quickly collected them.
When the high mounds of gold source stones were removed, the core of the mountain was revealed and Yu Nianzhen trembled in excitement.
