Martial Peak

Chapter 1729, Unexpected Discovery

Xiao Xiao was released by Yang Kai and allowed to roam around freely.

Over the past year or so, Yang Kai would occasionally land on some Dead Stars, and each time he would let Xiao Xiao out to explore and see if he could reap any gains.

Xiao Xiao did not let him down either. With his extraordinary innate talent, Xiao Xiao was often able to find some rare ores, but the number was not too great, nothing Yang Kai took to heart, so he simply allowed Xiao Xiao to refine and absorb them himself.

By absorbing the essence of these ores, Xiao Xiao was able to grow stronger.

Xiao Xiao quickly disappeared from Yang Kai’s field of vision, after which, Yang Kai took out various things from his Space Ring and began to arrange the Space Array.

The mountain valley he chose was not small, and if one looked down from high up above, it would seem more like a giant trench dug into the Dead Star.

Yang Kai found a well-concealed spot near one of the rock walls and began to melt the various ores he had brought out, moulding them into various parts of different sizes that he piled up nearby.

These parts would comprise the base of the Space Array, and as long as they were completely refined and assembled appropriately, all Yang Kai would need to do was use his Space Force to carve the Spirit Array into it and the Space Array would be complete.

This was not Yang Kai’s first time performing this work. Before leaving Shadowed Star, he had personally arranged a Cross-Cultivation Star Space Array, so this wasn’t a difficult task for him.

All it took was some time.

There were no other people here to help him, so Yang Kai had to handle everything on his own, which naturally meant it took a little longer.

Fifteen days later, Yang Kai had finished arranging the Space Array. With its small size and position beneath a rocky overhead, if one did not search for it carefully, it would not be discovered.

However, if it were just this, the safety of this Space Array could not be guaranteed.

As Yang Kai poured his Saint Qi into the Space Array in front of him, it began to change colour and soon blended in with the surrounding land.

At first glance, this Space Array would only seem like another rock. One would need to closely examine it to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Before leaving Shadowed Star, Yang Kai had gone to Coloured Glass Sect and collected a large amount of Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass for exactly this purpose. All along, he intended to use the Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass as one of the primary materials in the Space Array’s base so he could conceal it like this.

Although this was a Dead Star, who could guarantee that no cultivator would not come here? If this large, flat circle were spotted by a passerby, it would become troublesome.

But it was a different story with the Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass. Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass could assume a myriad of different forms, so by refining it into the array base and adding a concealment Spirit Array, Yang Kai was able to camouflage the Space Array almost perfectly.

Furthermore, by adding Thousand Illusion Coloured Glass into the array base, the Space Array itself became much sturdier, so even if it were struck by a meteor or hit by a storm, it would not be damaged.

After checking over his work and confirming everything was in order, Yang Kai nodded in satisfaction.

Done with the preparations, Yang Kai then began to engrave the Spirit Array into the base before finally pouring his Space Force into it.

The circular array quickly began to hum.

Yang Kai smiled, his expression was filled with joy. This slight movement meant that this Space Array had successfully connected with the one he arranged in High Heaven Sect, but whether it could teleport him there or not still needed to be tested and verified.

Naturally, he was the only one who could perform these verification tests. As Yang Kai was proficient in the Dao of Space, he did not need to worry about something going wrong in the transmission process as he could simply disrupt it or tear space to escape from The Void.

Summoning Xiao Xiao back with a thought, Yang Kai stood there and waited quietly.

It took a full day for Xiao Xiao to arrive, quite a long time all things considered.

If it was not for the special Soul connection between Yang Kai and Xiao Xiao, allowing the former to know the latter was safe, Yang Kai might have thought an accident had befallen Xiao Xiao.

Yang Kai glared at Xiao Xiao and was about to reprimand him when suddenly his gaze froze on the latter’s belly.

Xiao Xiao’s belly was actually completely round, and at a glance, it was obvious this little fellow had swallowed a massive amount of ore over the past half a month. If this weren’t the case, considering Xiao Xiao’s almost bottomless stomach, this would have been impossible.

Yang Kai was naturally quite surprised.

During his one year journey, Yang Kai had landed on many Dead Stars, all of which had been extremely barren. Some of these Dead Stars did not even have a single thing of value on them.

However, Seeing Xiao Xiao gain so many ores from this Dead Star, it was obvious that despite lacking any kind of World Energy, this place was definitely rich in ore.

Additionally, the grade of the ore the current Xiao Xiao would take interest in was not low.

“Spit it out and let me see,” Yang Kai said to Xiao Xiao.

Xiao Xiao scratched his head slightly, then opened his mouth and began spitting out a stream of ore without hesitation. These ores were different in size, shape, and colour, and continued to pile higher and higher until it gradually formed a small hill.

After spitting out its haul, Xiao Xiao patted his now flat belly with an innocent expression on his face.

“This is…” Yang Kai’s eyes lit up as he stared at the mountain of ore in front of him. Picking up a washbasin size piece of silver ore, Yang Kai examined it with his Divine Sense and quickly muttered, “Heaven Seeking Silver?”

Yang Kai was no longer a naïve backwater boy. After so many years of experience wandering the Star Field, his vision had become quite sharp and his knowledge was now quite deep. He did not dare claim he would recognize all the materials in the Star Field at a glance, but at the very least he could identify most of them.

This washbasin sized silver ore was obviously the Origin Grade High-Rank Heaven Seeking Silver! If a small amount of this was added to an artifact while it was being refined, it could greatly improve the elasticity of that artifact, making it much more difficult to damage during battle.

Heaven Seeking Silver was an extraordinary auxiliary material that could be added to almost any kind of artifact, a universally useful material. If a cultivator possessed an artifact which was extremely valuable to them, they would often try to find materials that could enhance their quality, often leading to fierce competitions.

Heaven Seeking Silver was such a material, and its value wasn’t low!

An egg-sized piece of Heaven Seeking Silver would sell for at least one hundred thousand High-Rank Saint Crystals.

In other words, this washbasin sized Heaven Seeking Silver lump was worth at least several million Saint Crystals!

Yang Kai had not even recovered from his surprise when his eyes were next attracted to a big piece of ore which was emitting a golden glow.

“Profound Star Essence!”

“Five Coloured Sand!”

“Blue Phoenix Tear Iron!”

…..

“So many Saint Crystals?”

Yang Kai checked through the hill of ore and was repeatedly stunned by the great harvest Xiao Xiao had reaped this past half month.

Quickly estimating the value of this pile of ore in front of him, Yang Kai was shocked to discover that Xiao Xiao’s half-month of work was almost equivalent to the value of an entire medium-sized Sect on Shadowed Star.

The ores in front of him were all excellent materials for refining artifacts and some were even Origin King Grade. What Yang Kai was most confused by though was the massive quantity of Saint Crystals Xiao Xiao had brought back.

It was at least somewhat understandable that this Dead Star had a great deal of precious ore, but without World Energy, how could Saint Crystals possibly be produced here?

Saint Crystals were generally only formed on Cultivation Stars where there was rich World Energy and should never appear on Dead Stars.

Yang Kai’s eyes flickered as two completely different guesses came to his mind. Without hesitation, he pointed at the pile of ores in front of him and asked Xiao Xiao, “Where did you find these? Lead me there!”

Xiao Xiao immediately used his hands and feet to scamper across the ground in a certain direction.

Ten thousand kilometres away from the mountain valley where Yang Kai arranged the Space Array there was a giant pit which Xiao Xiao jumped down into.

Yang Kai followed closely.

Before setting up the Space Array, Yang Kai had surveyed the surrounding three hundred thousand kilometre region, and though he had noticed this giant pit, he hadn’t cared about it at the time.

Xiao Xiao had obviously found something good inside of it though!

This pit was very deep, and as he descended it, Yang Kai was assaulted by loud gusts of wind. Of course, this was not a problem for Yang Kai and he ignored it while releasing his Divine Sense to probe the situation down below, getting a good picture despite it being pitch black.

After descending roughly three thousand metres, Yang Kai’s landed at the bottom of the cave.

Standing firm, Yang Kai began expanding his Divine Sense outwards.

After a brief investigation, he was immediately shocked.

This underground space was not a small, empty cavern like he had expected, but actually a massive subterranean space that even his Divine Sense couldn’t completely cover!

The air here was a bit dry, but it was not difficult to breathe, and under Yang Kai’s Divine Sense investigation, he surprisingly discovered a large number of broken and collapsed buildings nearby that seemed to extend outwards for a great distance.

It turned out to be a giant ruin!

And judging from the style of these buildings, it was obvious that they were relics from a very distant era, at least several tens of thousands of years ago.

From the layout of these ruins, it was also clear that it was once the headquarters of a great Sect!

“I see…” Although Yang Kai’s expression displayed shock, his heart remained quite calm.

All of this was like what he had guessed.

After discovering that Xiao Xiao had brought back a lot of Saint Crystals, Yang Kai came up with two possible explanations.

One possibility was that this Dead Star was remarkably close to forming its own World Principles. If that was the case, then while there would be no signs on the outside of the Dead Star, Saint Crystals could still be produced below ground.

These Saint Crystals would exude aura for countless years to come, filling the Dead Star with World Energy and eventually allowing life to evolve.

This was the process by which a Dead Star evolved into a Cultivation Star. Such a Dead Star could be regarded as a newborn among the stars.

However, Yang Kai had not discovered a single induction that World Principles were forming here.

As such, this possibility was quite remote.

Yang Kai’s second guess, and the one he thought most likely, was that this Dead Star was not dead a very long time ago, but a real Cultivation Star. However, due to some kind of change, the World Principles had collapsed, and its aura had dispersed, turning it into what it was now.

Tong Xuan Realm may have gone down this path to becoming a Dead Star after several tens of thousands of years if there was no outside intervention.