Soon they arrived at a large crack in the ground. They looked at the fissure solemnly, unsure about how to proceed. There, within the cracked earth, was a chunk of something Cha Ming had only read about: life-leaching gold. The emerald metal glittered brightly for everyone to see; it also increased the strain on everyone’s vitality. Despite the drain, however, they didn’t move away. Such a deposit was extremely rare and had a correspondingly high value on the exchange board.
“Do you think we’ll have time to take it before the demons come?” Bear Four asked, looking around worriedly. As a combatant with not many auxiliary skills, he was their first line of defense against the denizens of the canyon.
Bear One looked around worriedly. “This is worth more than we’ve gathered in the past month. We should at least try and take whatever we can.”
“All right,” Bear Two said, nodding. “Move quickly.”
“Pai Xiao, Bear Five,” Bear One shouted. He waved them over. “We’ll have to approach this one differently. Life-leaching gold is extremely heavy, so we’ll need to limit our extraction range and speed. Once we pull it out, we’ll need to send it out farther away for processing, so it doesn’t wear away at us as we work. Even Bear Five won’t last long if he’s near it.”
Cha Ming nodded. They began shifting the earth, slowly but surely pulling out small golden clumps from the ground. Despite their small size, each fist-sized clump weighed around 10,000 jin. Whenever they managed to work one to the surface, Bear Two was the one to retrieve the ore, using the unusual slurry around his body to surround the ore then pull it way from the tired miners for retrieval later.
Half an hour passed, and the small pile grew substantially in size. They continued digging, but Bear One often had them stop to look over his shoulder. “Stop,” Bear One said. They did so and noticed that their surroundings had grown eerily quiet. Each one of them had the distinct impression they were being watched.
Then Cha Ming saw them: black spiders with metallic legs, crawling along the cliffside. They chittered as they walked, and gravity didn’t pull them down—they were moving sideways toward the cliff.
“Incoming,” Bear Four said, drawing his sword. Bear Two held his tentacles in a defensive pose, and Bear Three joined them.
“We’ll finish this final pull and gather what we can before fleeing,” Bear One said. “Those are shattered remnant spiders, dangerous demons. They’re not uncommon, but even ten of them are a threat to our group.”
Cha Ming nodded. There were twenty in total.
As he worked to pull out as many golden chunks as possible, however, he noticed they’d only gathered around a tenth of the deposit. Did they really need to leave it there? Unfortunately, there was little he could do about it, at least, not without exposing his hand.
“Look out!” someone shouted. It was Bear Four, the swordsman.
Cha Ming glanced up and noticed that three spiders had broken through their defensive line. Further, it seemed some others had arrived—small crowlike birds with vicious glowing violet eyes swooped down and pecked at their defenders. They cawed, and as they did, the spiders fought harder and faster.
Seeing their dire situation, Cha Ming mulled over his options. He could easily destroy all these creatures, but he preferred to avoid violence if possible. They were the ones intruding on beast territory, after all.
Then he had an idea. There was a way out of this that didn’t expose his cultivation. “Keep mining,” Cha Ming said, stepping toward the demons.
Bear One began to protest, but his piercing blue eyes seemed to catch a hint of what Cha Ming was planning to do. He looked to Bear Five, who looked at Cha Ming uncertainly. “Well, you heard the man. Keep digging.”
They obeyed.
Cha Ming didn’t draw his staff, nor did he summon sigils or formation flags; instead, he opened his eyes. Violet rings appeared around his irises. They were accompanied by his Eyes of Pure Jade, and to his surprise, a thin golden ring had also appeared there unknowingly. He glared at the demons, and his eyes burned as he did. The demons, including the ones Bear Four and Bear Two had been fighting with, froze. Then, to everyone’s surprise, they shivered. They gave a light bow—at least, it seemed like a bow when given by these creatures—to Cha Ming, whose eyes glowed bright violet. Each bow he received caused the Demon-Subduing Intent in the eyes to grow stronger, and the strain on them to increase. When the last of the demons retreated, he shut them, exhausted. The demons didn’t double back, however. They’d admitted his superiority, and they wouldn’t dare take that back.
“What are you all gawking at?” Bear One yelled, seeing that the demons were all gone. “Bear Five, keep helping. Bear Two, move that ore out.” Then he looked to Cha Ming uncertainly. “Bear Six, are you all right?”
Cha Ming was kneeling down on one knee, massaging his temple. What the hell just happened? he thought. When did using my eye techniques become so taxing? Did it have to do with the mysterious yellow circle that had appeared around his irises? He reached out to Huxian but got no response. His frown deepened at that—they should be able to talk anywhere on the continent.
“Bear Six?” Bear One said again.
“I’m all right,” Cha Ming said. “Give me a moment.”
They continued mining, and his headache faded in seconds. Then, grinning, he joined Bear One and Bear Five in extracting the life-leaching gold. Soon they had a small mountain of it sitting prettily off to the side. Bear One walked up to it and retrieved a tenth of the mountain. The others did the same, one by one, until half the mountain remained. Cha Ming raised an eyebrow.
“Do not misunderstand,” Bear One said. “We split everything evenly,
