Cultivation Online

After ignoring every Void Specter they encountered, Yuan’s group reached the Orange Zone in just a day. Since Unknown Ores were rarely found near its outskirts, they continued venturing deeper.

Before long, Yuan had gone farther into the Orange Zone than he ever had during any of his cleanup missions.

"Alright, let’s begin our search here," the squad leader said.

"Wait. Since this is Corporal Yuan’s first mission of this kind, shouldn’t we explain how it works first?"

"Oh, right." The squad leader turned to Yuan. "It’s quite simple. We’ll form a line with some distance between each person, then advance together. If anyone spots an Unknown Ore, they let the others know so we can stop and wait for them to retrieve it."

"..."

Yuan raised an eyebrow after hearing the explanation, unable to ignore how inefficient the method seemed. However, he also understood the need for order. If everyone searched independently, it would be easy for someone to get lost.

Thus, Yuan decided to try their method first before suggesting an alternative.

Soon, they formed an orderly line, leaving several hundred miles between each person, and advanced deeper into the Orange Zone, gradually drawing closer to the Red Zone.

Shortly after they began moving, Yuan asked, "Wouldn’t this method be more efficient with more people? Why did we split the group into several squads and send them in different directions?"

"Huh? You don’t know about ’that’?" The soldiers turned to look at him with surprised faces.

"What is ’that’?"

"We call it the Void Hunter. It’s an abnormal and mysterious being that appears when too many people are gathered in one place to hunt them."

"It’s so powerful and dangerous that meeting it is essentially a death sentence. Because of this, we tend to keep our numbers as small as possible."

"Is it anything like the Void Specters?" Yuan asked.

"Yes, but it takes the form of a human being."

"And how strong is it... roughly?"

"So strong that nobody has been able to defeat it. I heard that even the strongest cultivator in history, Tian Yuchen, was completely helpless against it."

"That strong?" Yuan’s eyes widened at this information, as Tian Yuchen was able to climb all the way to the 50th floor in Endless Assault. This meant that the Void Hunter was likely several times stronger than his bottleneck on the 46th floor.

However, he couldn’t fathom why such a being even exists. What was its purpose? Why does it only appear when many people gather in one place?

About two hours later, Yuan sensed an Unknown Ore not far away in the distance, but it was located ahead of another soldier.

Rather than announcing his finding, Yuan waited to see how long it’d take before they noticed.

Some time later, the soldier finally noticed the Unknown Ore and said, "Found one!"

The others immediately came to a halt and waited for the soldier to retrieve the Unknown Ore using Void Control, as the place was crawling with Void Specters.

’As expected... since they cannot sense Eternal Essence, they won’t be able to detect the Unknown Ores from afar and can only rely on their sight...’ Yuan thought to himself.

This meant that Yuan had an immense advantage when it came to finding Unknown Ores.

As they ventured deeper into the Orange Zone, they began encountering Unknown Ores more frequently.

However, they could have found far more, as Yuan sensed numerous Unknown Ores buried beneath the ground. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reveal their locations without raising questions about how he knew they were there.

Over the next several days, Yuan considered how he could collect the Unknown Ores buried underground without arousing suspicion.

An idea soon came to him, and he decided to put it to the test.

"I think I see something," Yuan called out.

When the others stopped to wait for him, Yuan used Void Manipulation to travel beyond their line of sight. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he quickly dug up several Unknown Ores.

However, in order not to go overboard, he did not dig up every Unknown Ore he sensed.

"Huh? You found three in one go?!"

The soldiers were shocked when Yuan returned with three Unknown Ores in his grasp.

Although it wasn’t unheard of to find more than one Unknown Ore at once, it was incredibly rare. As for three Unknown Ores... it had only happened two times so far.

"Damn! To find three Unknown Ores in one go during his first gathering mission! What a lucky dog!"

"How lucky are we talking about?" Yuan asked.

"As far as I know, it has only happened twice before, and the last time it happened was seventy years ago."

"Oh, I am only talking about the Orange Zone," he quickly added. "It’s common to find more in the Red Zone and beyond."

"Is that so? I should try going on those missions next then."

"It’s not that simple," one of them replied. "Even though they may be available on your mission list, you will need to pass a test before you’re allowed to partake in missions within the Red Zone. There’s a reason why many of us are doing this mission instead."

"What sort of test?"

"Your Void Control. Since the Void Specters become aggressive in the Red Zone, you will be required to use Void Control frequently."

"I see..."

"If you’re going to try, don’t bother. You may have learned Void Control in a few days, but the tests are a different kind of beast. Most people qualify only after decades of training. Even with your heaven-sent talents, you’ll likely still need at least a few years."

"I’ll keep that in mind. Here are the Unknown Ores," said Yuan as he handed the Unknown Ores to the squad leader, who was in charge of accounting for them.

Of course, he didn’t forget to absorb all of the Eternal Essence from them before doing so.

Time continued to pass, and in the blink of an eye, it was time for them to return to the city.

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