Money, and trouble

"Yang, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes Father, I need a place where I won't have to worry about anything so that I can cultivate in peace"

I watched as Father reluctantly opened the vault doors, leading to the main reason why the Volcanic Flame sect is one of the survivors of the war from a thousand years ago.

The Ancient Dwarven ruins.

In this world, aside from humans, there are many other races that exist.

During ancient times, all these races lived in harmony until war broke out and Humans banished all other races to another realm.

The Dwarves were one of those races and this ancient ruin that spans the entirety of the volcano on which the sect is located is one of the relics of those ancient times.

While the entirety of the structure has already been mapped by my ancestors, there are still many dangers across the entire structure due to its age and the traps laid down by my ancestors. There is also the fact that the main treasure of the sect, the Volcanic Dragon Heart, an elemental crystal that has primordial fire in it is located in this structure also contributed to why only the Sect leader, the Elders, and selected few disciples of the sect are allowed in here.

With that in mind, I decided to use this place for me to research a way to combine my bending and the Qi cultivation techniques and a secondary purpose in mind.

I had originally thought that it would be very easy to combine the techniques with my Chi manipulation techniques. The truth was exactly the opposite of my imagination.

Even after looking at the techniques and my knowledge for more than two weeks, I still failed to devise a way for me to combine my Chi meridians and Qi meridians. Even the theoretical part of combining my bending with cultivation techniques proved to be a very daunting part, so much so that I only have a very crude technique ready which will only help me until I reach the third stage of Body refinement.

Fortunately, while looking through the entire collection of techniques in the sect, I stumbled upon a few things that might prove to be helpful.

From what I learned, there are certain metals and herbs in this world that have miraculous properties in them, something that I could use to try and combine my meridians.

The problem? These materials are extremely rare and highly coveted across the continent.

Fortunately, my old self had a few ties with the Merchant Alliance, the faction that controlled the logistics of the empire, allowing me to have an advantage over others.

But without money, those advantages would be useless, hence my current visit to the ruins.

After I walked into the structure, Father closed the doors behind me as I headed deeper and deeper, using my seismic-sensing ability to sense the entire structure, identifying traps and weaker sections of the building that might collapse on me.

It took me two hours before I arrived at the base of the structure.

It is a breathtaking sight, looking at the lake of lava bubbling as if the volcano would erupt at any given moment. But it is a false sense of danger as the Volcano would never explode. The sect made sure of that.

located at the center of the lake of lava is a massive orange gem that levitated over a massive sealing array, powering it. This is the Volcanic Dragon Heart. A gem that was supposedly created by the Dwarves in ancient times by killing a fire dragon that was in the Concept Internalization realm and using its Qi, blood, and heart as the catalyst to transform a spirit stone into this Elemental crystal.

Now then, time to make some money.

I settled into a stance as I slowly moved, allowing my Chi to merge with the very earth and permeate through it, then pass into the lava lake.

With a jerk of my hand, Lava started to flow into the air. Impurities and unwanted materials fell back into the pool of lava as rare minerals started to solidify into lumps.

Within seconds, I had enough Gold to make a minor sect green with envy. But if I want to buy the materials I need, mortal Gold will not be enough.

With the Gold separated, I concentrated with my Seismic sense and located large deposits of Spirit stones, crystals filled with pure Qi that form naturally in this world and used Earth bending to force them out to the surface.

But here is the problem, even with my powers, the number of spirit stones I extracted was only enough to buy one of the nine materials I need. That means I will have to look for a different location to mine Spirit Stones.

But for now, I need to work on the cultivation technique.

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(POV Huoshan Liang)

"Sect master, are you sure you should be indulging Ying's obsession over the cultivation of all the elements at the same time?"

I looked to the Elder responsible for maintaining the Library, Feng Deming, and answered his doubts.

"While I have no idea as to why he has chosen that doomed path to progress, I will still support him since he has rarely ever made any mistakes in the past, especially when compared to all the other youngsters in the sect"

At my pointed look, he looked away from me in embarrassment as my words reminded him of his grandson's embarrassing actions last year when he forcefully abducted a girl from Garden City in the Eastern Frontier. As if that act of embarrassment was not enough, he then killed the girl's father when he came to the sect gates to demand justice in front of her eyes before killing the girl as well.

Needless to say, when I learned of the incident after coming back from a meeting of the Wu Xing sects, I immediately wanted to kill him. But thanks to the fact that this old man is an old Elder of the sect and that the Feng family is fairly influential in the Volcanic Edge City, he was called back home and was being cultivated to take over the roles of the family head by his father, escaping any real consequences for his detestable actions. Thankfully, the reputation that I gained during my youth was not for nothing and he now fears even stepping out of his clan compounds.

And as for the Elder's point, he was right.

Yang is not the only person in history with the ambition to cultivate multiple elements. There have been many a young genius who thought themselves superior to other cultivators and tried cultivating multiple elements, only to be permanently barred from breaking through to Dao Formation and above realms.

While the idea was sound in theory, the problem occurs when a cultivator with multiple elements reaches the peak of Qi core perfection.

To break through into the Dao Formation realm, a cultivator must grasp the very concept of the element that he or she is cultivating. The comprehension that a person has over the nature of the element they wield and the number of elements they wield is directly proportional to the strength of the tribulation.

This means that the person that wields multiple elements will have to face a tribulation that is literally impossible to pass.

This was the reason why the method of cultivating multiple elements was abandoned in favor of mastering a single element.

But now that Yang has decided to go down this route, I have no choice but to support him in his endeavors. The only thing I can hope for is that he is not foolish enough to try to break through into the Dao formation if he really cultivates multiple elements.

With that in mind, I walked out into the sect as I observed the Outer disciples working on their cultivation.

As I observed the proceedings, an Elder rushed over to me.

"Sect master! Xiuying is missing!"

"What??"

I rushed to her room as the Elder started to recount what he saw when he visited her to see how she was doing.

As I reached her room, I saw her maid trembling in a corner holding a letter out to me.

[Father,

I have something important to take care of so I am leaving the sect for some time. I will be back soon so don't worry about it. If anyone from the Royal family comes in the next few days to search for me, tell them that I left the sect permanently and will not be back.

Brother, I am sorry but I can't listen to your words. There are some things that I simply cannot avoid so I will have to break your trust this time.]

The letter was short and concise, just like how she usually is but the words provided enough clues to tell me what she was trying to do.

"Elder Tao! Contact the mayor of the Volcanic Edge city. Inform him that should Xiuying be spotted she is to be detained immediately and cannot be allowed past the territory of the Volcanic Flame sect!"

"Sect master, what is going on?"

"That foolish girl is heading to the Divine Thunder capital, she is trying to get revenge on the Third prince!!"