Looking across the vast Xuanyuan Star, if one could obtain an Earth-grade cultivation technique from the very beginning—even if it were only a lower Earth-grade technique—it could be almost certainly predicted that this person’s future achievements would be extraordinary.

Looking at the nine great sects that control Xuanyuan Star, which of them does not possess a Heaven-grade technique as their sect’s foundation? The supreme status the nine great sects enjoy today is inseparable from the Heaven-grade techniques that have been passed down in these sects for tens of thousands of years.

Chapter 3: The Beginning of Cultivation

Deep within the dark, cavernous mine, a group of rugged-looking miners was making their way inward.

At the head of the group was a man with a hideous centipede-like scar on the left side of his face, carrying a ghostly green saber. One look and it was clear he was no decent person.

The six men following behind him were also fierce in appearance, each wielding a weapon. If not for the mining picks strapped to their backs, there would be nothing miner-like about them at all.

“Mr. Grant, if we go any deeper, it’ll be hard to make it back to the market today. We’re running low on food and water…”

“We’ve only robbed a little over fifty lower-grade spirit stones—barely enough to pay this month’s head tax. We’ve been down in this damn mine for three days and this is all we’ve got. Don’t waste my time. There are more clever folks now, all digging deeper. We’ll go in a bit further, take out a few more, and once we’ve got a hundred lower-grade spirit stones, we’ll head back.”

Scarface barked impatiently, taking the lead and quickening his pace toward the depths of the mine.

“Mr. Grant, there’s firelight ahead.” After another half hour of trekking through the winding tunnels, a short man among the six suddenly flashed a murderous grin and said excitedly.

“Finally caught some! Brothers, grab your weapons—same old rules, leave no survivors.”

At Scarface’s command, the group immediately brandished their weapons and charged forward with vicious intent. Judging by their moves, they clearly had some martial training—far superior to ordinary laboring miners.

“Mine robbers… run!”

This was a space about ten zhang across. Eight miners, covered in dust, saw Scarface and his men rushing in with weapons and immediately scattered like startled birds.

“Kill!”

Faced with these ruthless killers who lived by murder and robbery, the eight miners had no power to resist. In just a dozen breaths, six were hacked to death on the spot. The remaining two, quick to react, managed to escape through the winding tunnels.

Wiping the thick blood from his saber, Scarface picked up the scattered spirit stones one by one, a cruel, greedy smile curling at his lips. “These bastards sure know how to hide, but they still ended up dead by my blade. Little Henry, count the spirit stones. If we’ve got enough, we’ll head back.”

“Got it!”

This was the farthest Scarface’s gang had ever ventured in their years of murder and robbery, but that was because, in recent years, more and more gangs had started robbing mines. Now, ordinary miners, fearing robbery, all tried to dig deeper into the tunnels.

As Scarface’s group was counting the spirit stones, a sharp-eyed fellow suddenly pointed down a side tunnel and exclaimed, “Boss, there’s a light ahead! Looks like heaven’s helping us—haha, another good haul!”

Scarface said no more, signaled with his eyes, and followed the faint light down the side tunnel, saber in hand.

The six men rounded a bend, ready to charge, but were stunned by what they saw.

There, several zhang away, sat a young man, naked except for a cloth around his waist, cross-legged with eyes closed. In each upturned palm, he held a lower-grade fire spirit crystal, glowing with a faint red light.

Scarface, seasoned as he was, recovered from his shock in an instant, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. “Ran into a lone wolf. Brothers, get him! He’s in the middle of cultivation—if we wait, we’ll be the unlucky ones.”

The person cultivating deep in the mine was none other than Evan Parker, who had purchased the “Three-Yuan Blazing Fire Technique” three years ago. Indeed, as Scarface said, Evan Parker was at a critical point in his cultivation.

Cultivating in the mine was something Evan Parker had planned from the very beginning.

Back when he first entered the mining area, he started preparing. In half a year of desperate mining to accumulate wealth, Evan Parker spared no expense in surveying every vein within a hundred li, and, relying on his background as an engineer, marked over a hundred rich ore spots in the winding, complex tunnels.

It was precisely because of this that Evan Parker was able, in just three years, to use the resources from these rich ore spots to cultivate the “Three-Yuan Blazing Fire Technique” to a state of mastery.

Six days ago, Evan Parker found this rich ore spot and mined nearly a hundred lower-grade fire spirit crystals. Together with the fire spirit crystals he had previously saved, he finally managed to gather enough resources to attempt breaking through the acquired-stage bottleneck.

As a basic fire-element cultivation technique, the “Three-Yuan Blazing Fire Technique” was, for Evan Parker, the key to stepping from the acquired stage into the innate stage and becoming a true cultivator.

Fire-attributed spirit stones provided the greatest boost to Evan Parker’s cultivation. To ensure the best chance of success in this final breakthrough, Evan Parker had gone to great lengths over the past three years to gather this batch of fire spirit crystals.

After all, when breaking through the acquired-stage bottleneck, using pure fire spirit crystals as consumables increased the chance of success by at least thirty percent compared to using spirit stones of other attributes.