“A-choo!”

Shen Yuan, who had just got off the car, couldn't help but sneeze.

Shen Yuan rubbed his sore nose and felt a little puzzled. He had already entered the realm of refining essence and with the breathing method he circulated through the body, he could be immune to cold and heat, so there was no possibility of him catching a cold.

"Could it be that someone is talking about me?"

Shen Yuan muttered something casually and didn't pay any attention to it. He walked straight towards his rental house.

Wencheng, where Shen Yuan is located, is a typical resource-based industrial city. It began to develop because of a giant coal mine, and many factories were built around the coal mine, eventually forming a city.

But like the fate of most resource-based industrial cities, Wencheng lost its development vitality after the giant coal mines were exhausted, leaving behind large areas of abandoned factories and residential areas in the old city, and placing the focus of the entire city entirely on the new city area.

Shen Yuan has moved to this old town three months ago, and the main reason for moving to the old town is that the housing prices here are cheap, and he can rent an independent courtyard for a few hundred yuan.

Although the location is a bit remote, it is not a problem at all for Shen Yuan who has no travel requirements.

And because the surrounding factories have been abandoned for more than ten years, the lack of factory pollution has made the environment of the old city quite good. Even the abandoned mines not far away have shown some signs of revival in more than ten years.

Crossing a remote alley, Shen Yuan walked towards a small courtyard covering an area of ​​only more than 100 square meters.

Unlocking the rusty door lock, Shen Yuan pushed open the door. What came into view was a gravel floor and a wooden corridor with an ancient charm, with green vines entwined on it.

On the left side of the yard, there is a jujube tree with lush branches and leaves. On the square stone table under the tree, there is a Go board with intertwined lines.

However, Shen Yuan didn't know how to play chess, so the chessboard carved out of the stone table was of no use.

Throwing his backpack aside, Shen Yuan sat down in front of the stone table, his mind immersed in this familiar environment and gradually relaxing.

During the days leading to the Yunwu Mountains, Shen Yuan seemed to be relaxed and comfortable along the way, but in fact he was very tense.

Especially after experiencing the incident in Luoyun Cave, facing the power that wiped out all the living beings in the cave was completely beyond Shen Yuan's cognition, and Shen Yuan's mental pressure reached the limit.

Only when he returned to his own little courtyard could Shen Yuan truly relax.

Sitting in front of the stone table, Shen Yuan's breathing gradually became long and slow, and the cloud and mist breathing method seemed to blend into his peaceful mind, emitting a mysterious rhythm.

As time passed, the entire courtyard seemed to be completely immersed in tranquility.

After an unknown amount of time, a crisp sound like breaking glass rang out in Shen Yuan's heart. The mysterious rhythm brought about by the breathing method began to spread in all directions, and spiritual energy began to gather within a radius of more than ten meters.

The leaves of the jujube trees in the courtyard rustled, and the green ivy on the corridor swayed in the breeze. The instinct of the living creatures made them actively accept the gathering spiritual energy.

When the spiritual energy followed the rhythm of the breathing method and merged into the great circulation in Shen Yuan's body, Shen Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

A cold light flashed in the pair of black and white eyes on the handsome face, and the breeze in the courtyard turned into a cold autumn wind in an instant.

The branches were shaking, and a large number of fallen leaves were falling with the wind. The leaves that had just fallen from the branches were stained with a dim yellow color that did not belong to this world.

But everything was just fleeting. When the cold light in Shen Yuan's eyes disappeared and returned to peace, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

“Finally a breakthrough!”

Shen Yuan let out a long sigh and a smile appeared on his face.

After experiencing the events in Luoyun Cave, the cloud and mist breathing method he had practiced for a full six months finally helped him to achieve a breakthrough, successfully advancing from the early stage of the Essence Refining Realm to the middle stage.

The most important task in the Refining Essence Stage is to accumulate and strengthen one's own essence in preparation for the next Refining Essence into Qi, so there is not much difference between the early and middle stages. The Cloud and Mist Breathing Method is a foundation-building method. After Shen Yuan officially entered the middle stage of the Refining Essence Stage, the effect it can exert is already minimal. As for using the Cloud and Mist Breathing Method to break through to the Qi Transformation Stage, there is no possibility.

Fortunately, Shen Yuan has already obtained the subsequent exercises. In the next period of time, Shen Yuan can formally practice the subsequent "Zixia Qi Refining Method". The speed of practice will increase rapidly for a period of time. It can be foreseen that breaking through the Qi Transformation Realm will not be difficult.

After seeing the tragic situation in Luoyun Cave, Shen Yuan began to feel a little eager to improve his own strength.

He inherited the position of the leader of the Luoyun Sect. No one can be sure whether the disaster that occurred in the Luoyun Cave Heaven will also affect him. He must obtain enough strength to protect himself before he actually encounters the disaster.

Shen Yuan was about to get up and go back to his room to begin comprehending Zixia's Qi refining method, but he suddenly heard a low rumbling sound from his stomach. Then he remembered that he had not eaten anything all day.

Moreover, during the few days in the Yunwu Mountains, Shen Yuan only ate some compressed foods prepared in advance and had never had a proper meal.

To strengthen oneself in the state of refining essence, one needs not only spiritual energy, but also part of it needs to be supplemented by external food.

Shen Yuan once found some legends about ancient practitioners. In an era when spiritual energy was scarce, there were geniuses who entered the realm of refining essence and could not get the replenishment of spiritual energy from the outside world. They had to eat a lot of ordinary food to replenish their essence. There was even a legend of eating a cow a day.

However, the spiritual energy in the modern world where Shen Yuan lives is far from being scarce to that extent, but food supplements are still necessary.

After returning to the room and taking a look at the empty old-fashioned refrigerator, Shen Yuan turned around and walked out of the yard, closing the door casually, and headed towards the vegetable market.

There are not many people on the streets of the old city. Even in the vegetable market, you can only see some elderly people buying vegetables and preparing dinner. There are no young people at all.

The aunties who were setting up the stalls were skillfully picking vegetables and chatting about family matters. But suddenly, the words said by one of them attracted Shen Yuan's attention.

"Have you heard? Someone saw a dragon over at the old mining area."

As soon as these words were spoken, they immediately aroused the interest of many uncles and aunts, and everyone began to discuss this topic.

"You mean the incident that happened the night before yesterday?"

"A few unemployed hooligans heard from others that there was an ancient tomb under the old mine, so they ran to the old mine in the middle of the night to rob the tomb. As a result, they were scared half to death. When they came back, they told everyone that they had seen a dragon."

"You are old employees of the mine, but you still believe such things?"

"That's not the case. Look at the internet. There are all kinds of strange things happening recently. Some people say they saw a monkey king as tall as a mountain in Changbai Mountain, and some people took a photo of a giant snake with nine heads at the abandoned nuclear power plant in Yingzhou.

Even the Yunwu Mountains, which are only a few hundred kilometers away from us, seem to have some abnormalities. The Zhennan Marquis Mansion dispatched the Zhennan Army to block the Yunwu Mountains. There was not even much news about this incident on the Internet.

If my second uncle’s nephew hadn’t been a staff member at the scenic spot, I definitely wouldn’t have known about this.”

“So for some things, it is better to believe that they exist than to believe that they do not exist.”

Originally, Shen Yuan just listened to the conversations of these uncles and aunts for fun. After moving to the old city for more than half a year, he could hear various rumors about the old mining area every now and then.

Even at the beginning, Shen Yuan thought that some rare treasure had really been unearthed in the old mining area. He ran into the mining area late at night and stayed there for half the night but found nothing. Later, he got used to it.

But when Shen Yuan heard a certain old man confidently talking about the news about the Yunwu Mountains, he was a little stunned.

This was the first time he heard about the Zhennan Army blockading the Yunwu Mountains, and judging from the time of the army's blockade, it was just shortly after he left the Yunwu Mountains.

Recalling his experience in the Yunwu Mountains, a bold idea arose in Shen Yuan's mind.

"The fact that Zhennan Hou blocked the Yunwu Mountain Range doesn't have anything to do with me, right?"