Chapter 88: The Owl Squad

In the lush green slopes of Verdant Peak Mountain near Prosperity City, the season already carried a hint of the early spring of the south.

Today the sun shone bright, the flowers were in bloom, and the scenery was lovely, yet Shen Xin could not feel the least bit cheerful.

Near Verdant Peak Mountain, he spotted several tents, which meant someone had arrived before them. Sure enough, when he drew closer, he saw four people gathered around an iron pot eating breakfast.

Those four stood up warily and eyed Shen Xin and the other man with open hostility.

Shen Xin cupped his hands and smiled. “Fellow Daoists, we are disciples of the Azure Origin Sect. And you?”

A bald, middle-aged man in tight leather clothes grinned. “So we’re from the same school. Have you eaten yet? Want some?”

Shen Xin smiled back. “We already have. Any discoveries, senior brothers?”

The bald man said with a bitter expression, “Not much luck. The sect only gave us an approximate location, and this mountain is huge. It’s difficult.”

After a moment of silence, Shen Xin said, “Then I’ll go search the other side of the mountain. I won’t disturb you any longer. See you around.”

With that, he mounted the big goose and flew off.

After Shen Xin left, the only woman among the four asked curiously, “Brother Xu, why didn’t you even verify their identities?”

The bald man sat down and picked up his chopsticks. “Was there any need? If they could find their way into this deserted mountain, how could they be outsiders?”

Another man with a crew cut asked, “Brother Xu, we’ve been searching for five days, and we still haven’t found even a shadow of any spirit stones. Should we change places?”

The bald man picked up a large piece of meat and gave a sinister smile. “Didn’t a free scouting party just come along? Shadow, follow them. If you see them dig up any ore, come back at once and tell us. The rest of you keep searching nearby.”

“Understood, Brother Xu.”

The speaker was a lean youth of about fifteen or sixteen, his face still youthful and innocent. As soon as he finished speaking, he turned into a faint shadow and sped away, heading in the direction Shen Xin had departed.

Seated on the goose’s back, Shen Xin looked down over the land. His eyes had a peculiar ability: he could read the flow of vital energy. Soon he found a place with green mountains, clear water, and thriving vegetation. Faint currents of spiritual energy could dimly be seen there.

“Ziran, down.”

After landing, Tang Ziran prepared to climb down as well, but Shen Xin quickly stopped her. “You stay up there. I’ll go down.”

“Brother, many hands make light work.”

Shen Xin still shook his head and explained, “There are other people here. If we both go down, we could be ambushed.”

“Brother, they’re fellow disciples. Fellow disciples aren’t supposed to kill each other.”

Shen Xin smiled. “In the face of absolute profit, who would still care about that? Just keep watch up there. My safety is in your hands.”

Tang Ziran nodded vigorously and scanned the surroundings with vigilance.

Only then did Shen Xin feel at ease enough to burrow into the ground. As expected, before long he found a spirit stone, and after putting it away, he soon found dozens more. He was overjoyed. At this pace, finding several thousand spirit stones in three to five days would be no problem at all.

As for reporting it to the sect—let them go to hell. He would only consider that after he no longer wanted to mine.

By the end of the day, Shen Xin had lost count of how many spirit stones he had dug up. In any case, it was a lot. He tossed out all the less valuable items from his gourd to make room for the spirit stones.

At present, the gourd already held at least fifteen hundred spirit stones, along with some pills, weapons, armor, and the like. By rights, it should have been full, but he discovered that the space inside it kept expanding. The more spirit stones he stored, the faster that space grew.

By evening, Tang Ziran had already set up the tent and was simmering a pot of fragrant braised wild boar.

“Brother, come taste it and see whether it’s good. Has it stewed soft enough?”

Shen Xin picked up a large piece of pork, blew on it, and put it in his mouth. One bite and the fragrance burst forth, rich oil filling his mouth.

“Delicious. If only there were some cinnamon, star anise, and bay leaves, it would be perfect.”

Tang Ziran laughed in exasperation. “Just make do with what you have. Where are we supposed to find those things in the wild? The boar was even caught by the goose.”

Shen Xin took out a Blood and Qi Pill and fed it to the goose, stroking its neck as he smiled. “What a good goose you are, coming to repay kindness.”

The goose stretched its neck and cried out in smug honks twice, then lay down on the ground to digest the pill’s effects.

An ordinary adult goose already had formidable fighting power, let alone this mutated goose, which stood five meters tall.

With that plumage of its, neither blades nor swords could cut through it.

Its combat strength was no less impressive. One casual peck could pierce a stone as large as a washbasin.

Its claws were equally sharp, over ten centimeters long, and could easily shatter great rocks. Capturing a wild boar was hardly a challenge.

Tang Ziran said unhappily, “The goose is a good goose, but what about me?”

“You’re good too. Without you, how would I be eating braised pork?”

“That’s more like it. Oh right, Brother, did you find the spirit stone mine?”

Shen Xin lowered his voice. “Found a little.”

Tang Ziran could not help asking, “Where did you hide the spirit stones?”

Shen Xin pointed to the gourd at his waist and whispered, “Here.”

“So that’s it. I used to think it was just an ordinary gourd.”

“Shh. Keep your voice down.”

After glancing around and finding nothing unusual, Shen Xin finally let out a breath of relief. The gourd was a fine treasure, and he did not want anyone else to know about it. At least for now, he had not seen a single shop anywhere selling spatial artifacts.

...

In the distance, a shadow quietly departed and returned to the original camp.

Once back, the shadow immediately revealed his true form.

The bald man asked, “Shadow, you’ve been tracking them all day. Found anything?”

Shadow lifted a can of milk and drained it in one gulp before saying, “Not really sure. That man spent the whole day using earth escape to search underground, but he doesn’t seem to have found much. Right now they’re eating dinner.”

The bald man pondered for a long while and said, “Tomorrow morning, we’ll move to another place.”

“Brother Xu, don’t we want to search a little more? We’ve already looked for so many days, and only one third of Verdant Peak Mountain remains unsearched.”

“Exactly, Brother Xu. Over these past few days, we’ve at least found more than a dozen spirit stones. That’s already pretty worthwhile!”

The bald man shook his head firmly and explained, “Can any of you use earth escape continuously through an entire day?”

“Of course not. One use alone requires at least half an hour of rest, right?”

“Then why still don’t you understand? That man’s strength far exceeds ours.”

Someone said in confusion, “So what? We just won’t provoke him.”

The bald man sighed. “A wise man does not stand beneath a crumbling wall. Move. We leave now. No need to wait until tomorrow.”

The crew-cut man said unhappily, “Brother Xu, aren’t you being a little too cautious? We didn’t offend him. What is there to fear?”

“If you won’t leave, I will.”

The bald man packed up his backpack and left without looking back.

The three who remained exchanged glances, stunned for a moment, then hurriedly packed up and followed after him, not even bothering to take the tent.

Only after seeing his teammates catch up did the bald man smile. “Our Owl Squad has considerable strength, but if we want to live long, we need even more caution. We must always keep a sense of crisis. I’m already in my forties this year. Back when I was in the Xu family, I was a marginal figure, and there were countless people with better talent than mine. But now? I’ve become a core member. What I relied on was steady footing and a sense of crisis. Do you remember that?”

“We remember!”

“Remember my ass. Especially you two, Zhang Ping and Liu Ying. If I hadn’t been keeping you in check, who knows how high your tails would be sticking up!”