Chapter 324: Graveyard Blind Box

By mid-April, Zhang Yu, Yu Xinghan, Li Xiao, and other students had already made their way to the tenth underground level.

This cemetery renovation project attracted not only first-year students but also many excellent students from higher grades.

For instance, leading the group at this moment was a sixth-year student named Tian Yang, who was responsible for guiding, supervising, and coordinating the students' work.

As Zhang Yu walked through the wide underground passage, he increasingly felt the spiritual energy in the air growing denser.

Zhang Yu knew that the underground spiritual veins of Myriad Law University City were not naturally formed. Instead, when the university city was built, eighty-eight spiritual veins were gathered there by adjusting the terrain and channeling them into place.

The passage they were currently walking through led to one of these spiritual veins.

A moment later, a massive metal door appeared before them.

Feeling the faint flow of magical energy emanating from beyond the door, Zhang Yu could sense powerful formation energy surging behind it.

Tian Yang, who was leading, said, "That's the cemetery area ahead. Please line up and pass through one by one; don't crowd together."

In Zhang Yu's eye-sockets, a line of text also appeared on the gate: "Gathering Dragon Garden Mana Production LLC."

Zhang Yu realized that "cemetery" or "underground cemetery" were just common terms; this company name was the official designation.

The next moment, as the sealed door opened, a chilling current of air rushed out.

In that instant, the air around everyone seemed to become thick.

As Zhang Yu walked further in, not only did the air grow thicker, but he also felt the surrounding humidity increase. Spiritual energy began to float in the air like water droplets, forming a vibrant, colorful mist.

Zhang Yu took a deep breath. As the magical energy circulated within him, he felt a surge of spiritual energy, leading to a slight increase in his own magical power and a nourishing sensation in his flesh and blood.

Yu Xinghan, standing nearby, sighed, "No wonder this project has application requirements. Working here, just breathing is a benefit!"

Zhang Yu nodded slightly, thinking it was a good thing the spiritual energy on the second level wasn't this valuable, otherwise they might have to work with oxygen tanks.

Besides the increasing density of spiritual energy, the air temperature was also dropping.

Zhang Yu surmised this was likely to cool down the "corpse-components" that operated magical energy and absorbed spiritual energy day and night.

Simultaneously, a notification and a series of options appeared in Zhang Yu's eye-sockets.

Welcome to Gathering Dragon Garden!Tour GuidePay Respects to Relatives/FriendsProduct DisplayMerchandise PurchaseContact UsJob Openings

Zhang Yu randomly selected "Tour Guide" and found a map of the entire Gathering Dragon Garden appearing before him, showing areas like the Frugality Zone, Philanthropy Zone, Gratitude Zone, and Family Zone.

"What's the Frugality Zone?" Zhang Yu looked curiously and realized that this zone was designed to save space. Low-value corpse-components had unnecessary parts removed, then underwent structural optimization and compression before being stored in corpse cabinets, connecting them to the energy-absorption cluster with minimal footprint.

Just then, Li Xiao, who was beside him, said, "Look at the merchandise blind boxes they're selling here! There's good stuff inside!"

Hearing this, Zhang Yu looked at the merchandise purchase options displayed in his eye-sockets, thinking, "Discarded corpse-components can be sold as blind boxes after decomposition?" Seeing the various skin, flesh, hands, feet, meridians, and dantian that might appear in the blind boxes, Zhang Yu couldn't help but frown: "They can sell *this* stuff?"

Yu Xinghan commented, "Yeah, these corpse-components operate 24/7. What condition would organs salvaged from discarded ones be in? They'd be older than me! Can they even be used?"

Li Xiao couldn't help but say, "What if you could draw a Golden Core, or even Nascent Soul organs..."

Yu Xinghan dismissed him, "Li, why do you always have this speculative mindset? You're buying a blind box, but the person packing it isn't blind. Do you really think genuinely good, rare finds would end up in your hands?" He continued, "On the path of cultivation, this idea of taking shortcuts is the most taboo. Shortcuts are for the rich. We poor cultivators must be down-to-earth, taking loans step by step and repaying them step by step. Don't always dream of getting rich overnight." He added, "And also, think about how many corpse-components are discarded here every year. Can selling blind boxes really clear them all out? There must be other disposal channels. Who knows the origins or quality of the large quantities of corpse-components and organs constantly moving in and out of here..."

Just as Yu Xinghan was speaking volubly, a voice suddenly interrupted him.

"Student," the voice said, "Myriad Law University is a legitimate university, and Gathering Dragon Garden has always been a legally operated cemetery. It's not like Underworld University, where living people are sold as corpse-components. Every organ and every corpse-component here comes from a legitimate death, with clear origins and destinations."

Everyone looked towards the young man who had spoken. Tian Yang, the team leader, quickly said, "Manager Sun, my junior here doesn't understand anything; he was just talking nonsense. Please pay him no mind."

The man, addressed as Manager Sun, gave Yu Xinghan a cold glance before saying nothing more. He then looked at Tian Yang and said, "The area of the cemetery to be renovated this time is quite large. Thank you for your hard work, everyone."

After Manager Sun assigned the tasks, he departed. Tian Yang then began distributing the assignments.

Soon, arrow guides and individual task assignments began appearing in everyone's eye-sockets.

Zhang Yu followed the arrow's guidance and continued forward, gradually separating from his classmates.

He looked at the densely arranged rows of iron canisters on both sides, thinking that these must contain the corpse-components.

A moment later, Zhang Yu saw a large area where iron canisters were crushed and distorted on the ground. There was also extensive damage to the surrounding ground, formation keystones, spiritual energy circuits, nutrient pipelines, spiritual network, surveillance cameras, and other infrastructure.

Zhang Yu thought, "Is this the area I'm responsible for repairing? Even the network is disconnected?"

With a flash in his eye-sockets, the previously downloaded project files and repair schematics appeared before him.

"By the way... why is there such severe damage here?" he wondered. "Although the official explanation is that excessively high spiritual energy concentration caused corpse transformations and zombies, I always feel that the superficial explanations from universities and companies here in Kunxu cannot be easily trusted."

Zhang Yu shook his head, temporarily suppressing his distracting thoughts, and prepared to start working.

As for preparations before work, taking medicine was, of course, essential. After all, for Zhang Yu, getting free food and drinks was his main purpose for coming to the site; work was merely a sideline.

Thanks to Director Gao's special care, Zhang Yu could still receive up to 10 doses of life-shortening medicine for free each day he entered the worksite.

Calamity Blood Powder: Temporarily and violently expands blood vessels and meridians, stimulates the dantian and heartbeats, and drastically accelerates the circulation of vital energy and magical power throughout the body.

Spiritual Root Stimulant: Stimulates the spiritual root center, increases spiritual root sensitivity and thickness, and temporarily enhances spiritual root efficiency and endurance.

Zhang Yu administered various potent medicines into his body. This time, because he needed to focus on his energy absorption technique, most of the medicines he chose were related to the circulation of magical energy.

He sat cross-legged and began to cultivate the sixth set of energy absorption techniques from the "Qi Vein Eternal Flow" series—the "High-Grade Foundation Establishment Magical Energy Art."

Zhang Yu chose this particular energy absorption technique not just because it was part of the "Qi Vein Eternal Flow" set, but also because, while absorbing spiritual energy and circulating magical power, it could slightly improve the quality of his magical power.

As Zhang Yu activated the technique, the magical energy, already incredibly violent due to the stimulant, surged through his meridians like a raging dragon, seemingly letting out roars.

Simultaneously, his Qi Sea Spiritual Root, with 100% integration, grew thicker and more powerful under the influence of the medicine, furiously absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy.

The dense spiritual energy, which had been floating in the air like colorful mist, now rushed towards Zhang Yu as if being pulled by a tornado.

"It's too dense... this spiritual energy is incredibly rich..." Feeling the spiritual energy, which accumulated madly in his meridians like jade liquid, Zhang Yu couldn't help but exclaim internally, certain that he had made the right choice with this project.

After cultivating the energy absorption technique for a while, the "High-Grade Foundation Establishment Magical Energy Art" also broke through, reaching Level 3.

At the same time, Zhang Yu waved his hand, sending out streaks of vital energy and controlling the Formless Cloud Aura to sweep across the area, beginning to clear the site and start his work.

Although this method slowed down his work efficiency, Zhang Yu didn't mind, preferring to earn less in order to cultivate his energy absorption technique while working.

Over the next few days, Zhang Yu immersed himself daily in energy absorption and work, spending most of his time at the site, enjoying the continuous improvement of his magical power and energy absorption technique.

During these days at the worksite, Zhang Yu encountered Che Yufei and Shi Yunxiang again.

According to these two senior students, the cemetery project was considered a "wellness project" compared to fieldwork. It was not only much safer but also greatly beneficial for the body to be constantly immersed in such dense spiritual energy.

One day, Zhang Yu and Shi Yunxiang walked together towards their respective work areas.

As they reached a fork in the path, Shi Yunxiang said, "Zhang Yu, could you walk a bit further with me? It's not far, just a few steps."

"Hmm?" Zhang Yu looked at his classmate, who had a rugged face and a lion's head, and asked, "Are you... afraid of the cemetery?"

"What's there to be afraid of in a cemetery? Would you be scared in a magical bone shop?" Shi Yunxiang shook his head. "I'm afraid of people." He added, "Haven't you noticed... many colleagues have designs on me?"

Zhang Yu replied, "Huh?"

Shi Yunxiang sighed, "Every year, lone demon-descendants get eaten, sometimes even by groups of people. The cemetery area, being sparsely populated, is a high-incidence area for such cases, so I usually try to avoid moving alone." He continued, "I can feel that your gaze doesn't carry that kind of desire."

Zhang Yu pursed his lips. Although he was hungry and craved meat, he genuinely had no interest in eating intelligent creatures.

Zhang Yu asked, "Since you're a demon-descendant, why didn't you go to Heavenly Demon University?" Zhang Yu recalled that in Songyang City, almost all top students from Red Tower High School had gone to Heavenly Demon University.

Shi Yunxiang shook his head. "Heavenly Demon University assigns majors based on bloodline. I could only get into their Reproduction Department, and I didn't want to study that, so I worked hard to get into Myriad Law University."

As they spoke, Zhang Yu had already seen Shi Yunxiang to his work location, then walked back by himself.

However, on his way back, as he passed through a severely damaged area without network coverage or surveillance, Zhang Yu's gaze suddenly sharpened.

In the comprehensive view provided by his Third Eye ability, he saw a figure dart out from the darkness, rushing towards him like black lightning.