Han Li rose to his feet immediately, left his residence, and departed from the inn.
He hailed a beast-drawn carriage on the street and headed straight for the same city gate.
That private mine obviously could not be located on the island itself, and its position was extremely remote. Even if he rode his escape light and flew directly, it would still take several days to arrive.
Three days later, Han Li transformed into a faint cyan streak hurtling through the sky.
Below, the rippling lake surface was gone, replaced by undulating dark-green mountain ranges stretching as far as the eye could see.
Suddenly, the mountains ahead leveled out, revealing a single peak that rose straight up like a colossal sword, towering over ten thousand zhang in height — an exceptionally majestic sight.
The moment Han Li saw the peak, a hint of joy appeared on his face. He murmured, "Finally made it," and immediately dove his escape light forward, descending toward the summit.
The cyan light faded.
Han Li's figure materialized atop a massive boulder at the peak's summit. He closed his eyes and released his vast spiritual Sense, sweeping it across the ground below.
After a brief moment, Han Li opened his eyes, formed a single-handed seal, and a cluster of faint yellow runes shimmered across his skin. His body twisted, and he vanished from the boulder without a trace.
The next instant, deep within the mountain's interior, a yellow glow flickered, and Han Li's figure reappeared in a blur.
He surveyed the dim surroundings and furrowed his brow. He reached out one hand, grabbed a handful of nothing, and tossed it upward. A white sphere of light shot from his palm, circled once, and hovered steadily above his head, illuminating everything around him as bright as daylight.
Though with his Spirit Eye ability, Han Li could see clearly in the dark with just a small expenditure of Magical Power, this was naturally more convenient.
Having done so, he found himself in a somewhat neglected mine tunnel. The walls on all sides were pockmarked with hollows and studded with worthless mineral scraps.
Looking ahead, a narrow, winding corridor snaked deeper into the darkness.
Judging by the gently sloping floor, the tunnel appeared to lead further down into the mountain's depths.
After sweeping his gaze across every surface, Han Li's eyes finally settled on a single, unremarkable mineral embedded in the wall to one side.
It was precisely the sort of low-value associated mineral that any person with the slightest expertise would pass over at first glance — its entire surface crisscrossed with fractures, utterly without appeal.
But after studying it for a moment, a faint smile played at the corner of Han Li's lips. His arm moved, and his hand opened wide as he reached toward the stone.
With a sharp "whoosh," the mineral shuddered and was ripped from the wall by an invisible force of enormous power. It shot in a streak of yellow light into Han Li's open palm.
He gave his fingers the slightest squeeze, and the mineral burst apart in a flash of yellow light.
When the glow faded, a faintly black talisman lay revealed in Han Li's palm, its surface flickering with dim, intermittent light.
"Heh heh — not bad. Some little ingenuity there."
His spiritual sense passed over the talisman briefly before he tucked it into his sleeve with a noncommittal remark. Then he strode forward down the tunnel.
The mine tunnel was exceedingly long and narrow, with countless branching paths cutting across one another in every direction like a spider's web.
Yet Han Li navigated as though he knew every turn by heart. Without so much as glancing at the passage walls, he turned left and right in rapid succession. In the span of moments, he had covered five or six hundred zhang before finally halting at a crossroads, where he looked left and right.
Crack!
Han Li flicked a finger, and a corner of stone at the intersection shattered apart. From within, another black talisman shot out.
His sleeve swept forward, and a wash of azure light surged forth.
The black talisman was caught in the radiant glow and drawn back into his palm.
After tucking this talisman away as well, Han Li's body flickered, and he appeared in one of the tunnels, continuing on his way.
Clearly, the talismans he retrieved one after another served as guides. Under their direction, Han Li headed straight for the deepest reaches of the private mine.
Thus, relying on the mutual resonance between the talismans, Han Li extracted one from somewhere along the tunnel at regular intervals.
After a full three or four hours, he had gone deeper and deeper underground, traveling farther and farther, while the branching intersections grew increasingly sparse.
The hollowed marks along the mine walls had also thinned out considerably. By the end, along a single long corridor, one could see only a hundred or so excavation scars on either side.
Yet the mineral scraps scattered on the floor told a different story — the variety and quality of the ore had improved dramatically compared to earlier.
No wonder those mine slaves, even knowing they had strayed from the original vein, had been unwilling to abandon this place easily, continuing to dig ever deeper.
Just as Han Li was mulling this over in his mind, his footsteps suddenly halted.
Ahead, the passage was completely blocked by a massive pile of rubble. An entire section of the tunnel had been deliberately caved in through sheer brute force.