After taking a night-light stone from his storage pouch, he held it in his hand and examined the surroundings closely.
The entire mountain cavity was about three hundred square meters with a height of over ten meters.
The stalactites hung in uneven rows, more than a dozen of them.
Near-liquid spiritual energy gathered on the stalactites, dripping down slowly like dewdrops before finally falling.
Directly beneath them was a spiritual spring about ten square meters in size.
Its color was like misty clouds and its spiritual energy was extremely dense.
This earth spring was actually formed from liquefied spiritual energy.
Within the spring, silver light shimmered, and countless finger-sized silver fish were swimming about.
The surrounding area was mostly the same as outside, composed of blue-green rocks, with only the innermost area near the mountain wall growing dozens of plants.
Immediately, the original book's description flashed through his mind.
Ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs?
Xiao Shou immediately felt a surge of joy.
His Absolute Fusion ability was already at the bottleneck of the third level and only by fusing higher-grade items could he break through to the fourth level.
If these were truly ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs, then fusing them once would definitely allow him to advance.
After all, he did not know how to refine pills, and in this mid-level cultivation world where even thousand-year herbs were extremely precious.
With her current level of cultivation, even after another hundred years he would not dare to take ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs out to sell.
Xiao Shou rushed forward anxiously and picked the ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs one plant after another.
Only after finishing the collection did he notice that there were only eight ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs.
The rest were thousand-year or several-thousand-year spiritual herbs.
Those were also good items, but they could not be used for upgrading his ability.
And his ability, whether it was level advancement fusion or random formula fusion, required at least ten items.
More could work, but not fewer. Yet right now there were only eight ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs, just two short.
Could it be that fate was preventing his ability from upgrading at this moment?
No.
Xiao Shou looked at the rocks exposed beneath the dug-out spiritual herbs and suddenly noticed the lower-grade spirit stones revealed underneath.
He immediately recalled the settings regarding spirit veins and spirit stones in the original book.
In that setting, spirit veins were formed from the condensation of heaven and earth spiritual energy.
The first thing formed was a top-grade spirit stone.
top-grade spirit stones could absorb spiritual energy and grow.
As long as the spiritual energy within a top-grade spirit stone was not completely depleted, it could automatically absorb spiritual energy to recover.
Once fully replenished, it would continue absorbing spiritual energy.
However, at this stage, the absorbed energy would undergo transformation over time, gradually giving birth around it to high-grade spirit stones, mid-grade spirit stones, and low-grade spirit stones.
In this way, a spirit vein embryo would be formed.
The more top-grade spirit stones there were, the larger the spirit vein would become.
A small spirit vein usually had only one to ten top-grade spirit stones.
A medium spirit vein had ten to a hundred.
A large spirit vein had one hundred to a thousand.
Above large spirit veins were giant spirit veins, which contained one thousand to ten thousand top-grade spirit stones.
In other words, as long as top-grade spirit stones existed, spirit veins and spirit stones would exist.
Spirit stones could regenerate over long periods of time.
As long as there were top-grade spirit stones in the Heaven Origin Realm, the Heaven Origin Realm would not degrade into a mortal world.
There was a spirit vein here.
Where there was a spirit vein, there must be top-grade spirit stones.
And top-grade spirit stones were equivalent in value to ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs.
As long as there were two top-grade spirit stones within this small spirit vein, his ability could advance.
Once the upgrade was complete, he would have as many top-grade spirit stones as he wanted.
It's a gamble.
He would definitely find two top-grade spirit stones.
After sensing how he was nothing more than an ant in this world, Xiao Shou's desire to become stronger and his belief that his Absolute Fusion ability was the foundation of his strength intertwined together.
The upgrade of his ability became an obsession.
Without caring that his body was already exhausted from three consecutive days of intense labor, he picked up the mining chisel once again and began digging into the spirit vein.
One strike after another, lower-grade spirit stones, mid-grade spirit stones, high-grade spirit stones… inside the mountain cavity there was no distinction between day and night.
No one knew how many days and nights had passed.
Xiao Shou's cultivation unknowingly advanced from Qi Refining Layer Twelve to Qi Refining Layer Twelve Great Perfection.
The mineral vein had also been excavated hundreds of meters deep into the mountain cavity.
All spirit stones were stored inside his storage pouch and when the pouch could no longer hold them, they were piled up directly inside the mountain cavity.
Until this day, even the high-grade spirit stones were completely mined out.
At the very center where the high-grade spirit stones had been, a thick milky-white spiritual mist formed from concentrated spiritual energy gathered into a single mass, like a goose-egg in size.
Looking at this cluster of spiritual mist, Xiao Shou knew that the top-grade spirit stone was inside it.
His heart kept hoping: two, two…
He reached out and picked up the top-grade spirit stone.
The moment his hand touched it, the spiritual mist dispersed.
A stone the size of a duck egg appeared in his palm. It was smooth and round, milky-white in color and warm to the touch.
This was the top-grade spirit stone.
There was only one.
Two thoughts filled his mind.
One short, one missing.
Just one more and he would have been able to break through.
While holding the top-grade spirit stone, he climbed out of the pit in a dazed state, repeating the thought over and over in his mind.
Where else are there ten-thousand-year spiritual herbs?
Where are there top-grade spirit stones?