Chapter 5 – Plan

　　 If one leaf on the talent tree carried a spirit pattern like Sharp, then what about the other leaves? Did they also carry their own unique spirit patterns?

　　 ‘If I can light up more leaves, wouldn’t I be able to gain more knowledge of spirit patterns?’

　　 Thinking of his talent tree’s huge crown and its countless leaves, Lu Ye’s heart became hot.

　　Lu Ye had some vague speculations on how he could go about lighting up the other leaves, but he had no way to try them out at present. He could only wait until later when he had a chance.

　　 What he could do right now was open more spiritual apertures as soon as possible to improve his cultivation.

　　 The first spiritual aperture opened by a cultivator was located at the pubic area, in the dantian. This was the starting point of practicing cultivation and was called the Source Spiritual Aperture. How the subsequent spiritual apertures were opened depended on what kind of cultivation art the cultivator practiced.

　　Different arts lead to different positions for the subsequent opened spiritual apertures, but regardless of the art, the following was true: the more spiritual apertures that were opened, the higher the cultivator’s cultivation base.

　　 The Free and Unfettered Golden Cicada Secret Art was useful!

　　 Lu Ye calmed himself down a bit from his excitement and picked up Manager Yang’s storage bag. It was only then as he started packing things up that Lu Ye was surprised to find that his palm that had been engraved with Sharp was riddled with holes just now, as if it had been pierced by countless needles. It was severely bleeding.

　　 In his excitement just now, he didn’t feel it.

　    Just after the moment he noticed it, he felt a heart-piercing pain that continued to stimulate his nerves.

　　 He inwardly reflected on this experience and thought,

　　‘If I get any more spirit patterns in the future, I cannot use them on myself easily.’

　　 Soon, he had packed up the things he had taken out before and moved far out of the range covered by the magnetic essence field.

　　 There were two options he could choose at the moment. One was to leave the mineral vein.

　　 The reason why Manager Yang had wanted to escape from the disaster was because the people of the Great Heaven League had come. With the amount of manpower stationed at the mineral vein, it was impossible for Evil Moon Valley to win the fight and keep control of the mine. Manager Yang’s thought process had been that by hiding in the mine he could avoid the confrontation altogether. Otherwise once the mine was captured, as a disciple of Evil Moon Valley, Manager Yang would definitely have faced disaster.

　　 If Lu Ye could connect with the cultivators of the Great Heaven League, then he could escape from his current life-threatening situation and in the future he wouldn’t have to stay here and be oppressed by others.

　　 But this was obviously not a wise choice.

　　 Manager Yang had already received the news of the Great Heaven League’s advances towards the mine and had thought to seek refuge in the mine tunnels, so there must be other disciples from Evil Moon Valley who would also do the same. This was the most chaotic time. It would be best if he could successfully get out of the vein, but if he accidentally encountered someone who was coming in, Lu Ye’s fate would be the same as that of the mining slaves who were casually killed by Manager Yang before.

　　 So he chose the second option, and stayed where he was for now.

　　 His current location was extremely hidden, ordinary people couldn’t find it, and Lu Ye could attack and retreat with ease. If any disciples of Evil Moon Valley did break in, Lu Ye could also use the magnetic essence field to insulate others, so they wouldn’t have as much power to fight back.

　　Furthermore, he had not yet healed from his injuries, making it difficult to move around.

　    He recalled what Manager Yang had said to him before. If he remembered correctly, Manager Yang said that when the people from the Great Heaven League came, the mineral veins could not be kept temporarily. But the Great Heaven League would not stay for long, only perhaps a month or two.

　　 The meaning of this was very obvious. Manager Yang felt that even if the Great Heaven League could conquer this place, it would be impossible for them to hold this vein for a long time. Therefore, within a month or two, the Great Heaven League would withdraw and the mine would return to the hands of Evil Moon Valley.

　　 Lu Ye meticulously went over all the information he had at the moment.

　     His conclusion was thus: Stay here to recuperate, practice, leave the mine within a month, go to the people of the Great Heaven League, and save yourself from this sea of ​​suffering!

　　 With his mind made up, Lu Ye felt a lot more at ease. His most difficult days had passed. Now, he had successfully opened his spiritual aperture and he had his talent tree alongside him. His future was finally looking brighter.

　　 After finding a suitable location, Lu Ye took out bedding from Manager Yang’s storage bag, spread it out, and sat quietly on it. He took out the Free and Unfettered Golden Cicada Secret Art to study it carefully.

　　 It was dark in the mine tunnel, which meant that Lu Ye was now successfully a cultivator, as otherwise he would not see anything at all. Soon, he discovered an interesting thing. When he focused his spiritual power on his eyes anything he looked at became clearer.

　　 It was a pity that he had only opened the Source Spiritual Aperture, so his spiritual energy was limited and he couldn’t maintain it for a long time.

　　 Lu Ye spent his time eating when hungry and sleeping when drowsy. Except for the surrounding environment, there was nothing else around him. But Lu Ye was now immersed in the excitement of opening his first spiritual aperture, so he didn’t mind the monotony.

　　 There was no way to calculate the time in the dark and Lu Ye didn’t know how long he had been there, but he guessed it had been a few days.

　　 All of his injuries were almost healed. After opening his first spiritual aperture and becoming a cultivator, it seemed that his physical fitness had also improved a lot. He had been stabbed in the thigh, but in only a dozen or so days he could easily walk around.

　　 Of course, this was also related to Lu Ye taking Qi and Blood pills daily.

　　 After studying the Free and Unfettered Golden Cicada Secret Art, Lu Ye found that it was temporarily unusable. It was not that there was something wrong with the Secret Art itself, but that Lu Ye had only opened up the Source Spiritual Aperture. In order to open the next spiritual aperture, there were some conditions he needed to fulfill.

　　 If a spiritual aperture were compared to a lake in a cultivator’s body, then the water in the lake would be the cultivator’s spiritual power. The more spiritual apertures the cultivator opens, the greater the spiritual power contained in their body.

　　 But if they wanted to open their next spiritual aperture, the prerequisite would be that the previous spiritual aperture had to reach its full capacity. Simply put, spiritual power would need to fill the spiritual aperture.

　　 Applying this to Lu Ye, what he needed to do right now was to let himself continue to practice, grow, and accumulate the spiritual power in his Source Spiritual Aperture. When the Source Spiritual Aperture was entirely full of spiritual power, he could open his second spiritual aperture.  Only then could he use the Free and Unfettered Golden Cicada Secret Art.

　　There were several ways to increase spiritual power.

　　 The most common was to take spiritual cultivation pills, which would transform into spiritual power and fill the spiritual aperture.

　　 The second was to intake spiritual energy from the environment. Spiritual energy existed in any environment; it was just a matter of how much. After opening the Source Spiritual Aperture, a cultivator could feel the presence of natural heaven and earth spiritual energy and could intake this energy through their breathing. This spiritual energy could be refined into their body, strengthening their cultivation.

　　 The third way was to use spirit stones. Lu Ye had only heard of them, but had never seen them.

　　 Then there was the last one, refining one’s own qi and blood energy.

　　 To use this method, a cultivator would first have to strengthen their body’s qi and blood, and then convert their body’s qi and blood energy into spiritual power.

　　The various methods had their own advantages and disadvantages. It was not good to generalize them.

   　 Although Lu Ye hadn’t stepped into the ranks of cultivators before, he often heard other miners mention cultivation. Everyone talked about these things in a yearning mood, hoping that one day they might be able to take flight like a chicken that transformed into a phoenix.

　　 Lu Ye was influenced from their discussions, and he also understood some basic things from them.

　　 At the moment, Lu Ye couldn’t use the first method. He didn’t have any spiritual pills suitable for cultivation. Although it was certain that there must be some in Manager Yang’s storage bag, there were so many bottles that he couldn’t tell which would be cultivation pills. He didn’t dare to try any of them rashly.

　　 As for the second method, Lu Ye had tried but he didn’t feel the existence of any spiritual energy. He didn’t know the reason why. Perhaps his current location was too close to the magnetic essence field. Regardless of the reason, he was currently unable to breathe in the environment’s spiritual energy.

　　 The only thing he could do at the moment was refine his own body’s qi and blood.