Chapter 188 Nine Dragons Guarding a Pearl (1/2)

Chapter 188 Nine Dragons Guarding a Pearl

Ye Fan returned to the stone village with Tomfool. Over the next few days, he seriously studied the methods for searching for Sources from the village’s seniors.

At the same time, he was actively making preparations to enter the purple mountain. He had to learn everything about it.

“If you’re asking this much, it should be that you’re thinking of entering the purple mountain right?” Ye Fan had been constantly asking questions about the purple mountain over these few days, so Fifth Grandpa Zhang noticed and frowned. “Don’t take such risks, otherwise you’ll just lose your life.”

“Don’t you want to bring the Heavenly Source Book back?” Ye Fan smiled.

“My ancestor lost it, and I naturally don’t want for that legacy to be cut off. But what can I do? That person from a thousand years ago didn’t listen to the ancestor, and used it to enter the purple mountain, never returning. It’s impossible to get it back.”

According to what he said, the Heavenly Source Book was a spiritual treasure that could be used as a weapon.

“If you tell me what happened back then clearly, maybe I can bring the Heavenly Source Book back.”

Fifth Grandpa Zhang shook his head. “You’ve done such great favors for our village. I don’t want to send you to your death.”

“I have my own means. Don’t be worried.”

But no matter what he said, Fifth Grandpa Zhang still remained oppose to this risk.

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Five days later, Ye Fan went to an ancient mine around fifty kilometers away from the stone village. This was the place Bandit Chen Da had found the ancient jade.

That ancient jade definitely had a relation to the purple mountain, so he naturally had to explore that mine a bit.

This was a desolate area with no signs of people. The ancient mine was filled with a dense, eerie aura. It had been abandoned for who knew how many years, and a kind of moldy smell came from it.

It was a huge mining shaft, like an enormous pit. It was completely pitch-black underground and so deep that the bottom could not be seen. Even just standing around could cause someone to shiver.

“I won’t disturb any evil spirits, will I?”

The bottom of the mining shaft was extremely quiet, without the slightest noise. Ye Fan had to descend for over a thousand meters before reaching the bottom. He couldn’t help but be amazed at how enormous this mining vein was. Such a thing was extremely rare, and back in the day they must have extracted a huge amount of Sources.

Unfortunately, everything was covered in dust before even the Ancient Desolation, so there was no hope for any precious Sources being left behind.

Crack.

His feet stepped over a withered skeleton. This was someone who had died within the past hundred years here, and not a corpse left from the ancient past.

The huge ancient mine was filled with pick and hatchet marks. These were all left by previous people, telling of the amount of blood and tears from those Source miners back in the day.

“Who left the ancient jade here? They definitely didn’t have ordinary statuses. It’s impossible for it to have just appeared here out of nowhere.”

Ye Fan quickly reached where they had found the ancient jade, but there was nothing special about that place. He searched the area for two hours before continuing forward, exploring deeper into the mine.

He walked for over five thousand meters, but still didn’t reach the end. This huge mine seemed as if it had come from the underworld, it was so pitch-black and silent.

After walking another three thousand meters, Ye Fan couldn’t help gasping at how endless it was. He had walked eight thousand meters in this ancient mine, and still hadn’t reached the end. What sort of concept was this?

Ordinary mines were only a couple hundred meters in size. This mining shaft was huge to an absolutely exaggerated level. There was no way this was a single Source vein. It had to be that several mining shafts had ended up meeting each other.

However, why was there only one exit, then?

“If this is actually a single huge Source vein, it might be a legendary dragon vein…” Ye Fan was very startled. This would mean that this place had very well likely held a couple Divine Sources.

It was very obvious that quite a few people had come here since the Ancient Desolation, as they left behind many marks.

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After walking nearly ten thousand meters, Ye Fan finally reached the end. He heard the gushing of water.

There was no path forward anymore. There was only a deep cave shaft that went straight down. The sound of water was coming from inside it.

Ye Fan looked down and felt that the underground river below was extremely sinister. It gave him the feeling of blunt blades cutting through flesh, an exceptionally painful sensation.

“How strange…”

He thought about it for a moment before deciding to jump into the water and get carried along by the underwater river.

The river was bone-chillingly cold. Even with divine energy protecting his body, he still felt the chill. After flowing around ten kilometers, the pick and hatchet marks that signified mining gradually stopped appearing.

Ye Fan ground his teeth and stubbornly continued forward. He noticed an extremely strange anomaly. The river only continued in one single direction, flowing completely straight. Even after another twenty kilometers it was still like this.

In the end, he travelled over thirty kilometers in the water before finally stopping.

He stopped because just at this moment, he felt a huge sense of danger from a huge black funnel that had appeared ahead. That underground river was constantly being sucked into it like it would never be full.

He didn’t know why, but at this point his spirit had started to shiver. That huge black funnel seemed as if it could swallow even his consciousness, causing him to feel his blood run cold.

“Since this place is so dangerous, there’s no point to me going further. I only came here due to the ancient jade. My main purpose is just to enter the purple mountain.”

Not wanting to go through that huge black hole, he followed back along the river until he finally arrived back out inside the ancient mine.

But at that moment, Ye Fan suddenly thought of something. “Could it be…”

He quickly charged back along the ten thousand meters and flew up out of the ancient main shaft. Once on the surface, he followed the direction the underground river had taken.

After rushing for tens of kilometers, and finally arriving at where that underground river ended, Ye Fan was stunned.

Just in front of him was a barren mountain range laying across the blood-colored ground. It was like a snaking dragon as it blocked his forward path. The mountain range meandered and wound, appearing majestic and lofty.