Having seen enough, Han Yu straightened up.
"I would like to go deeper," Han Yu said calmly.
Disciple Cao glanced at him briefly, then nodded without objection.
"That's fine."
He took out a talisman and handed it over.
"This is a guiding talisman. It will help you navigate the explored areas of the mine. As long as you follow it, you won't get lost."
Han Yu accepted it.
Cao's expression turned slightly more serious.
"Do not go into areas that are not marked on the talisman. Those regions are unstable. So are completely unmapped. If sothing collapses, we might not co in ti to save you."
Han Yu gave a small nod.
"I understand."
With that, he turned and left.
The mont he entered the tunnel, the sounds of mining faded behind him. The environnt grew quieter, the only sounds being the faint dripping of water and the distant echoes of movent.
After a few minutes of walking, Han Yu slowed his pace.
He glanced around.
No one.
No presence.
No surveillance formations within imdiate range.
He stepped into a narrow rocky alcove, partially hidden by uneven protrusions in the wall.
Only then did he move.
From within his robes, a small figure erged.
Chitterfang.
The rat stretched slightly, its whiskers twitching as it took in the surroundings. Its eyes glead with excitent, far more alive than anything else in this place.
Han Yu crouched slightly.
"Go," he said in a low voice. "Explore."
Chitterfang tilted its head.
"Look for anyone from the Twin Leaf Peak Sect," Han Yu continued. "Anyone familiar. And rember the paths. Hidden routes. Anything unusual."
The rat nodded eagerly.
"I can do it!" Chitterfang said with confidence.
This was its domain.
Dark tunnels.
Narrow paths.
Hidden crevices.
It thrived here.
"I'll do my best," Chitterfang said before darting off into the darkness.
It vanished almost instantly.
Han Yu watched for a mont before stepping out of the alcove.
He resud walking.
This ti, his pace was slower.
More deliberate.
He examined the tunnel walls carefully as he moved. Even in these connecting passages, traces of Violet Spirit Quartz could be found. Faint crystalline structures embedded within layers of unstable material. The density varied wildly, making it difficult to predict where rich deposits might lie.
After so ti, he arrived at another mining chamber.
Smaller.
Roughly fifty ters wide.
Only about ten slaves were present here, working under the watch of a single curse master.
The man glanced at Han Yu briefly.
His gaze lingered for a mont.
Then shifted to the talisman at Han Yu's waist.
That was enough.
No questions were asked.
Han Yu moved freely.
Once again, he observed the slaves.
Carefully.
One by one.
Nothing.
No familiar faces.
No recognizable Qi traces.
Just the sa hollow expressions.
The sa lifeless movents.
Han Yu felt a faint unease.
But he did not linger.
He continued deeper.
One tunnel after another.
One chamber after another.
Each ti repeating the sa process.
Observe.
Analyze.
Search.
And move on.
Ti passed.
The tunnels beca more complex.
The air grew heavier.
The formations denser.
After nearly three hours of continuous exploration, Han Yu reached the end of the mapped section. The tunnel opened into a vast cavern. Larger than any he had seen so far. Nearly three hundred ters wide.
The ceiling was higher, supported by massive stone pillars reinforced with intricate formations. The glow of the spirit lamps was stronger here, illuminating a dense concentration of crystalline formations embedded within the walls.
Over a hundred slaves worked within this space.
The largest operation so far.
Han Yu stepped in slowly.
His eyes moved across the crowd.
One face.
Then another.
Then another.
And then... He froze.
Just for a fraction of a second.
A familiar figure.
Worn.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
'Senior Brother Duan…'
Han Yu's heart trembled.
But his face remained cold.
Unchanged.
As if he had seen nothing at all.
Han Yu stood at the edge of the cavern, his gaze sweeping across the mass of workers with a practiced calm, but the more he looked at the familiar figure, the more uneasy he felt. It was as if sothing within him stirred violently.
'Senior Brother Duan... So you're the first one I find...'
For a split second, the cold mask that was Ju Fan almost cracked.
It had been years.
Years since the fall of the Twin Leaf Peak Sect.
Years since that day of slaughter, fire, and helplessness.
And now… here he was.
Alive.
Broken, but alive.
Han Yu forced himself to remain still, his expression unchanged. His breathing did not fluctuate, his posture did not stiffen, and even the flow of his Qi remained steady. Only his thoughts surged like a storm.
He shifted his gaze away imdiately, as if Duan ant nothing to him.
But he did not leave.
Instead, he continued observing.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
And soon, he found more.
One.
Two.
Three.
Three more familiar faces.
All from the Twin Leaf Peak Sect.
All at the Core Condensation Realm.
Han Yu's heart sank slightly.
That confird it.
They had all been taken during the purge. The strongest of the younger generation. The ones worth enslaving. The ones worth breaking.
His eyes lingered for the briefest mont longer before moving on again, widening his observation.
He noticed others too.
Faces he did not know by na, but recognized faintly from past encounters. Disciples from the Nine Fists Martial Sect. A few from the Scarlet Cloud Sect. Their features were worn down, their expressions hollow, but their origins were still faintly visible beneath the layers of suppression.
This was not just a mine.
It was a graveyard of fallen sects.
A place where the remnants of destroyed legacies were reduced to tools.
Han Yu felt a cold resolve settle within him.
'At least they are alive.'
That alone was sothing.
But he knew better than to act on emotion.
Not here.
Not now.
He shifted his focus to observation, moving closer to the walls, running his fingers along the mineral surfaces while subtly extending his spirit sense.
At the sa ti, he began assessing the condition of the slaves.
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