Kid, you can pretend all you want usually, but I have no time to play mind games with you now.

Su Ji's bewildered expression was not faked.

He truly did not understand what baleful aura invading the body had to do with the Black-veined Iron.

Zhang Kui looked at his genuinely foolish appearance, then glanced at Qin Feng, who was rapidly growing cold on the ground. The impatience on his face deepened.

"You brat, enough with the acting."

"I don't have time to play mind games with you right now."

He kicked a protruding rock nearby, sending crushed stones flying.

"Why do you think this hellhole is completely barren and never sees the sun or moon?"

"And why is there so much Black-veined Iron that it can never be fully mined?"

Zhang Kui's bell-like eyes stared fixedly at Su Ji, his voice carrying an indescribable chill.

"Because this entire Great Wasteland is, in fact, a massive graveyard!"

A graveyard?!

These two words made Su Jiu, residing within Su Ji's mind, cry out in alarm.

"Senior Brother, you actually guessed right?"

Su Ji did not respond.

He looked at Zhang Kui's rugged face, which for the first time revealed a solemn expression, and the frivolous thoughts in his heart quietly faded.

Zhang Kui seemed too lazy to keep him in suspense any longer. He stretched out his large, fan-like hand, pointing at the gray, cracked earth beneath their feet. His voice was as dull and heavy as beating drums.

"What we are stepping on are corpses."

"The air we breathe is filled with lingering resentment."

"These Black-veined Irons we mine..."

He paused, forcing a smile that was uglier than crying.

"They are the iron ores formed by the unyielding flesh of ancient mighty figures who died countless millennia ago, forcefully twisting the laws of this world and mutating ordinary stones!"

So the strangeness of this place was entirely due to the undissipated resentment and killing intent of ancient mighty figures after their deaths!

In life, they were all supreme experts who had climbed to the peak stepping on mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Even though their bodies perished and their DAOs faded, that unyielding nature and hostility were enough to turn this world into a death zone.

And mining was tantamount to breaking ground on their bodies, digging up their graves, and gnawing on their bones.

"So, newcomer, don't blame me for not warning you."

Zhang Kui's voice pulled Su Ji back from his shock.

"The biggest taboo here is using spiritual energy."

"The more you channel spiritual energy, the easier it is to attract special attention."

"Once this baleful aura enters the body, it is basically incurable."

He pointed to Qin Feng, who had begun to twitch on the ground.

"He is the perfect example."

"So full of himself. Perhaps he saw your haul yesterday and felt unwilling to accept it. Today, he used some unknown method to bypass the restrictions of the Spirit-locking Ring, wanting to use spiritual energy to take a shortcut. Now look at him, he's not far from death."

Su Ji looked at the dying Qin Feng on the ground, feeling speechless.

Bro, you really weren't faking it?

You went down just like that?

I was still counting on you to be my free labor for a few days.

"Brother Zhang, then... can he still be saved?"

Su Ji's face showed just the right amount of pity, along with a bit of fearful sympathy for his fellow miner.

Zhang Kui glanced at him and shook his head.

"Saved?"

"Unless Old Man Zhao is willing to step in and use his Soul Formation realm cultivation to forcefully force the baleful aura out."

"But do you think Old Man Zhao would waste his cultivation on a piece of trash?"

Speaking up to here, Zhang Kui glanced at another unlucky bastard on the ground who had completely passed out, and added a sentence.

"As for this one, he's beyond saving. Just wait for death."

"The baleful aura has already invaded his Golden Core. Even if a True Immortal came, there would be no saving him."

Right at this moment, Qin Feng, who had been twitching, suddenly opened his eyes wide.

His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Su Ji. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he could only let out wheezing sounds like leaking air.

He reached out his hand, using his last ounce of strength, to grab at Su Ji's ankle.

In those eyes was a pure desire to survive.

Su Ji was taken aback by this sudden action.

Beside him, Zhang Kui's brows instantly furrowed.

"You brat, what do you think you're doing?"

He took a step forward, about to kick Qin Feng's hand away.

"Wait!"

Su Ji suddenly spoke up, stopping him.

Zhang Kui paused, looking at Su Ji in confusion.

Su Ji did not answer, but simply crouched down, looking at Qin Feng's face that was twisted in pain.

"You want to live?"

Wheezing sounds came from Qin Feng's throat. He used all his strength to nod.

He reached out and gently patted Qin Feng's shoulder.

"Alright."

"Seeing as we are from the same batch of mine slaves, I will give it a try."

"But whether it succeeds or not depends entirely on your luck."

"If it fails, then it is your fate, and you cannot blame me."

As soon as these words came out, not only Zhang Kui, but even Su Jiu was stunned.

"Senior Brother, you..."

Zhang Kui looked at Su Ji with an expression reserved for idiots.

"Are you crazy?"

"I told you, he's beyond saving!"

Su Ji ignored Zhang Kui, simply pressing his palm against Qin Feng's chest.

Then, he closed his eyes.

A surge of pure and overbearing spiritual energy quietly flowed out from his palm.

This spiritual energy was precisely the thoroughly tempered power of the Desolate Fallen Dragon Art.

It did not try to clash with the violent baleful aura in Qin Feng's body. Instead, like an agile swimming dragon, it traveled down Qin Feng's meridians, accurately locating that cracked ninth-grade Golden Core.

Then, the spiritual energy transformed into an invisible net, gently wrapping around the Golden Core that was on the verge of shattering.

A warm and powerful life force began to slowly nourish the Golden Core.

Qin Feng's pale face started to regain color at a visible rate.

His violently trembling body also gradually calmed down.

Although the baleful aura that had invaded his heart meridian still existed, his dying flame of life had been forcefully extended by Su Ji.

Zhang Kui stood to the side, his eyes almost popping out of his head as he watched this unbelievable scene.

What was he seeing?

This new kid was actually saving him?

And from the looks of it, it was actually working?!

How was this possible?!

Su Ji slowly retracted his palm and let out a long breath of foul air, his face showing just the right amount of exhaustion.

He swayed slightly, as if he would collapse at any moment.

"Phew... finally... managed to save a life."

He looked at Zhang Kui's ghost-seeing expression and forced out a weak smile.

"Brother Zhang, my physique is a bit special."

"I happen to have some resistance to these baleful auras."

Zhang Kui's gaze shifted slightly, seemingly pondering something.

Su Ji also knew that this step was very risky.

The more he exposed his special traits, the more dangerous it was.

But it was also easier to integrate into the circle of the overseers.

Everything carries risks.

It just depends on how one weighs the pros and cons.

After all...

Although the Desolate Fallen Dragon Art was incredibly profound.

It could resist the Spirit-locking Ring, withstand the Black-veined Iron, and even neutralize the baleful aura.

But it could not create something out of nothing in this dead zone, nor could it convert the baleful aura into spiritual energy to improve himself.

Yesterday's meat was indeed a decent method of replenishment.

But...

If he were to achieve a breakthrough by consuming meat, the resulting deficit in spiritual energy could easily be calculated by Old Man Zhao, or even Zhang Kui.

He would have absolutely no way to explain it.

In other words.

Su Ji's cultivation was forcibly restricted to the first level of the Golden Core realm!

Naturally, this meant there was no longer any room for long-term planning.

The longer he dragged this out, the harder it would be for the situation to take a turn for the better.

He had at most only one month left...