The mere sight of the husk filled Xu Yunfan with a sense of awe, and an instinctual feeling of his own inferiority.

The next instant, he cast the thought from his mind.

What weighed on his mind was that the shell hadn’t looked so radiant yesterday.

’Is it because it defeated me and absorbed the Pure Yang Inner Breath from my body?’

Otherwise, when he cultivated the Pure Yang Qi Skill today, the Pure Yang Inner Breath deep in his flesh wouldn’t have been inexplicably diminished.

"Defeat me, and I will let you go..."

Xu Yunfan mulled over these words, his eyes downcast.

’I refuse to believe it...’

He flipped the shell over and caressed the tear along its spine. Back when that woman, who looked like an Exiled Immortal, had fallen from the Ancient Jade Pendant, her body had slowly dissolved, leaving only this gash.

Suddenly, Xu Yunfan’s ears twitched. He quickly put away the Extreme Dao Relic Shell and pulled open his door, just in time to see Zhan Yan pushing open the courtyard gate and walking in.

"Master..."

Zhan Yan looked thoughtful and spoke slowly.

"...I found some information from Hall Master Mo. It might not be of much use right now, but there’s a chance you’ll need it later. With the way the world is changing, it’s impossible for the Extreme Dao’s vessel to devour you immediately. It can only entangle you, progressing step by step until you can’t hold on any longer. So, you still have a considerable amount of time to prepare."

Hearing a potential lead, Xu Yunfan’s spirits lifted. "May I ask, Master, what do I need to prepare?"

"The Crystal Core of a Profound Yin Jade Marrow. This item is a treasure even when the Heaven and Earth Primordial Spirit re-emerges. It can nourish the body and physique, thereby preventing the Divine Soul from decaying..."

Seeing Xu Yunfan’s slightly dumbfounded expression, even Zhan Yan couldn’t help but give an awkward cough. "We may be in the End of the Dharma era," he said, "but after that Old Witch gathered the Incense and Candle Sect for a blood sacrifice, some Primordial Spirit has ultimately stirred in the world. You might just get lucky and find one."

Xu Yunfan nodded. "Master, I will take this to heart."

"Good. I’ll ask around about it. You don’t need to worry too much."

After saying this, Zhan Yan fell silent for a moment before changing the subject.

"The Ice Soul Stone on the third daughter of Wang Sheng, the Manor Master of Chixiao Manor in Yu Jing State of the Jade Capital Dao, can greatly slow the activity of the Extreme Dao relic. It might be able to suppress it for a considerable amount of time... That girl was born with an Innate deficiency. If not for the Ice Soul Stone suppressing it, she’d be soaking in medicinal baths just to stay alive by now. Even so, her days are numbered. If you get the chance, you should take it."

"..."

「By the time Zhan Yan left, nearly an Hour had passed.」

After seeing Zhan Yan off, Xu Yunfan slowly sat down, replaying his master’s proposed solutions in his mind.

’Find someone on the verge of death but not quite dead, and put this Extreme Dao Relic Shell on them. That might be a way to get rid of it. But the precious treasures needed for this process... he’d never even heard of them. Perhaps in an era with abundant Primordial Spirit, these things were common, but in this age, a single one would be considered an unparalleled treasure.’

After a long while, Xu Yunfan returned to his room and looked at the husk he had haphazardly stuffed under his quilt.

He hesitated for a moment, then rolled it into a ball and shoved it into a hidden compartment under his bed.

The Celestial Craft Cave might lack other things, but it was full of all sorts of mechanisms and contraptions.

He had built this hidden compartment’s mechanism himself. Unless someone’s skill with mechanisms far surpassed his own, it would be impossible for an outsider to find it.

He stopped thinking about the shell. There was still a long time to go. He would just have to see if this so-called Extreme Dao Relic Shell could outlast him.

Although his mind was still on it, Xu Yunfan knew there was no rush. According to his master, Zhan Yan, it would be a considerable amount of time before the Extreme Dao Relic Shell could truly use his body as a vessel to be reborn.

He immediately left, grabbing his Profound Steel Mining Pickaxe on the way and sprinting toward the underground training area of the Melt Gold Hall.

Today, he planned to raise his mining Skill Level to Great Success.

He was only a dozen or so points of Skill Level away. It was a day’s work.

By the time he was nearly three hundred *zhang* underground, the ambient temperature had become quite scorching. More than sixty ventilation devices, jointly built by the Mechanical Hall and the Celestial Craft Department, were constantly spewing fresh air from the surface, channeling it through the main cavern and into the various branch tunnels.

When Xu Yunfan arrived in the main cavern of the mine, he was immediately noticed by many of the bare-chested, brawny disciples of the Melt Gold Hall.

Some disciples even came up to greet him. Xu Yunfan, of course, returned their greetings with a smile before hefting his Mining Pickaxe and ducking into an unoccupied mine tunnel.

Staring into the rugged mine tunnel ahead, Xu Yunfan lit the gas lamp on the wall and let out a long breath.

’I can’t believe after all this time, I’ve ended up back in the mines to work out.’

Xu Yunfan’s shoulder blades bulged abruptly. His Profound Steel Mining Pickaxe tore through the air with the howl of a wolf.

The instant the pickaxe’s tip struck the iron ore, his arm muscles contracted into iron balls. Sparks rolled down the taut, bulging muscles of his shoulders and neck.

The diamond-shaped muscles on his bare back swelled, undulating with the movement of his spine. Faintly, they seemed to take on the shape of a demonic face coming to life.

CLANG!

A three-hundred-jin chunk of iron ore cracked and fell away.

Shards splattered against his sweat-slicked chest, but with a slight tremor of his skin, the reverberating force he’d trained with the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer instantly pulverized the fragments into dust.

Xu Yunfan’s exhaled breath was like thunder. The muscles of his lower back twitched and jumped, and beneath his Bronze skin, his blood vessels bulged like coiling dragons. Each swing of the Mining Pickaxe in his hands was heavier than the last.

Iron dust trickled from the vibrating tunnel walls. A muffled boom, like distant thunder, echoed from deep within the branch tunnel, traveling through the winding passage and into the main cavern, causing many of the Melt Gold Hall disciples to look over.

"That’s some serious power!"

One Melt Gold Hall disciple clicked his tongue in amazement. "If that Senior Brother Xu accidentally dropped his Mining Pickaxe on you, you’d be black and blue."

"Black and blue?" A bear-like disciple next to him sneered in a rumbling voice. "This is the guy who easily defeated Qi Huan, the top disciple of the Hidden Blade Pavilion. If the tip of that Profound Steel Mining Pickaxe fell on you, I’m afraid your body would be split in two."

Seven *zhang* away, Yan Yuwei, having heard that Xu Yunfan had entered Melt Gold Hall’s territory, rushed into the mine cavern, her eyes sharp and urgent.

To her, training in a place like this was undoubtedly a provocation.

"Senior Sister!"

The Melt Gold Hall disciples all shouted in unison.

Yan Yuwei’s expression was icy. She didn’t respond. With a sudden motion, she raised her thick, vein-covered arms and ripped apart her crimson sash, baring her upper body.

The sound of tearing brocade startled three disciples into dropping their Mining Pickaxes. In the firelight, her bronze abs glinted with the cold light of a blade’s edge.

Her body was a mass of bulging muscle, with no discernible feminine features. All that could be seen was a chest and shoulders even broader than the other disciples’ around her.

Then, under the astonished and shocked gazes of the disciples, she asked which branch tunnel Xu Yunfan was mining in and walked inside.

After a long while, a Melt Gold Hall disciple finally broke the dead silence in the main cavern.

"...Senior Sister... That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her like that..."