Chapter 3579 — Mining the Spirit Jade
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Junior Brother Lin, you know as well as I that spirit jade contains exceedingly rich heaven-and-earth spiritual qi, and within the spirit jade mine, even without any special channeling or gathering, the spiritual qi that naturally seeps out already far exceeds that of the outside world. Now, heaven-and-earth spiritual qi is something we cultivators of Heaven Rank and above can never have too much of—but for ordinary folk with no strength to speak of, it is no blessing at all. One of slightly weaker constitution might go down and, within half a day, be unable to withstand it and die as his body burst. And not merely ordinary folk—even cultivators below Heaven Rank cannot endure it!" Senior Kubi shook his head. "It is like an ordinary man, who cannot live without oxygen—yet put him in an environment of highly concentrated oxygen, and instead he is poisoned by it and dies!"
Wei Zhao nodded at this, and quickly grasped the principle: it was the classic case of a deficient body that cannot take tonic. Heaven-and-earth spiritual qi was a great tonic, but too much tonic becomes poison.
For cultivators like Heaven-Rank experts, the body had long been tempered a thousand times over, its strength surpassing that of ordinary folk by tenfold, a hundredfold and more. To them, spiritual qi was naturally a tonic; but to the frail and feeble common man, it was a veritable death-dealing poison.
Ordinary people and low-rank cultivators alike could not mine it, and the spirit jade mine was, after all, a vital strategic resource—outsiders could not be brought in to cultivate it. Reckoning it all up, the most suitable hands for the work were precisely the newcomers of the Welcome Pavilion; they were already outer disciples, after all—their own people, safe to use.
Of course, inner disciples of the three pavilions could do this task as well. But once one's strength reached the level of an inner disciple, one could take on challenge tasks with far better pay—why go down into the mine and grub alongside these newcomers? It would be a disgrace to speak of.
For a newcomer like Wei Zhao, there was of course no worry about losing face. And besides, he had already reached a bottleneck in his cultivation; no matter how he sat in meditation, in the short term he could make no progress. If he wished to break through quickly now, he could only pin his hopes on the Heaven-Dao Golden Pill.
Never mind the Heart-Devouring Lingzhi Grass—that would only be within reach when he entered the back mountain for the trial on the twenty-fifth. But if before then he could earn enough spirit jade, he could gather the ingredients all the sooner and begin refining. So in Wei Zhao's eyes, this mining task was in fact a rather good choice.
"Senior Ku, might I ask what the pay is for this mining task?" Wei Zhao inquired.
The pay was the key. Mining was hard labor, to be sure, but these were Heaven-Rank experts after all—the reward could hardly be too shabby, or no one would be willing to take the task at all.
"One in a hundred. That is, for every hundred pieces of spirit jade you mine, you receive one piece as reward; and if you have not yet reached a hundred, it is put on account, and you may collect your reward once you reach a hundred." Senior Kubi answered every question without the least impatience, then added, "On average, a newcomer can mine perhaps three to ten pieces a day; it is normal enough to get none at all. But one with experience and good luck may mine twenty or thirty in a day."
"That sounds rather decent, then?" Wei Zhao calculated. Even if he could mine only ten pieces a day, in ten days that would be a hundred—and one piece of spirit jade would be his reward. Compared with the single piece the Welcome Pavilion issued newcomers each month, this pay was not low at all.