Lu Qian found Lu Kuang and greeted him with a pleasant demeanor before saying, "Fourth Brother, your Second Brother and I have something we want to discuss with you today."

Lu Kuang replied coldly, "If you have something to say, just say it. I'm busy."

Normally, Lu Qian would have started cursing by now, but since he needed Lu Kuang's help, he held back and smiled, "Fourth Brother, the assassin in the city hasn't been found yet. Big Brother wants you to help check on the shops."

Lu Kuang flatly refused, "I don't have time!"

With that, Lu Kuang turned and walked inside, while Lu Zhan, standing at the door, also looked at them with a cold expression.

Seeing Lu Kuang about to leave, Lu Qian shouted, "Fourth Brother, the Lu Family was left to us by our father. As a member of the Lu Family, can you really bear to watch it decline and be removed from the Four Great Families?"

Hearing this, Lu Kuang stopped in his tracks, his expression becoming complicated as he struggled internally, for he still had feelings for the Lu Family.

Seeing this, a hint of joy appeared on the faces of Lu Qian and Lu Meng as they approached him.

Lu Meng smiled and said, "Fourth Brother, we are brothers. Although there have been some conflicts in the past, we should unite against external threats, right?"

As soon as Lu Meng said this, Lu Kuang's wavering heart became firm again. He shouted angrily at the two, "Now you know we should unite against external threats? When Third Brother was crippled, why didn't you unite then? When Chen'er was crippled and the Lin Family blocked the main hall, why didn't you unite then?"

Lu Meng shouted angrily, "Fourth Brother, you're insane! You're actually siding with two cripples against Big Brother and Second Brother."

The word "cripples" from Lu Meng's mouth stabbed deeply into Lu Kuang's heart, not only hurting Lu Yi and Lu Chen but also himself.

At this moment, looking at Lu Qian and Lu Meng, who didn't feel they were wrong at all, Lu Kuang felt there was no cure for them, and it was pointless to argue.

Afterward, Lu Kuang struggled to control his emotions. After a while, he said expressionlessly to the two, "Leave. I don't want to see you."

With that, he took Lu Zhan back to the courtyard, leaving them with a loud slamming of the door.

Outside, Lu Qian and Lu Meng were dumbfounded.

In their memory, Lu Kuang, like Lu Yi, had always prioritized the family. If the family was mentioned, Lu Kuang would never refuse.

But now, not only did Lu Kuang refuse, but he also yelled at them, something that would never have happened before.

"Big Brother, let's go. Don't bother with this stubborn fool," Lu Meng said angrily, pulling Lu Qian away.

...

Inside the Stone Pearl World, Lu Chen was unaware that Lu Qian and Lu Meng had sought out Lu Kuang. Without spirit crystals, he had been focusing on enhancing his soul power.

At night, Lu Chen didn't go out to commit crimes and plunder spirit crystals as he used to. Instead, he chose to lay low for a few days.

In the blink of an eye, three days passed.

That night, just as Lu Chen was about to cultivate, he released his soul power to monitor the outside world and detected something unusual.

Abandoning his cultivation, Lu Chen walked to the spent stones he had discarded earlier and picked one up from the desert, examining it closely.

After a thorough check, Lu Chen found that, as he sensed, the side of the spent stone close to the desert had somehow regained a small amount of earth-element spiritual energy.

After examining this piece, Lu Chen checked the other spent stones and discovered that all the discarded stones had regained spiritual energy, with the earliest discarded ones having the most.

Looking at the hundreds of spent stones before him, Lu Chen had a hypothesis: the desert in this world could restore spiritual energy to the spent stones.

Although the spiritual energy in these stones was currently minimal, given enough time, they could become spirit crystals suitable for cultivation again.

With this hypothesis, Lu Chen immediately dug a large pit in the desert and collected all the spent stones, throwing them into the pit.

After doing all this, Lu Chen returned to the outside world and used the Soaring Heavens Step to reach the Lu Family Back Mountain.

The Lu Family Back Mountain was a barren hill, not very high, only a few hundred meters, with no large trees, just some low shrubs.

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As a member of the Lu Family, Lu Chen knew there was a hundred-meter-deep pit in the back mountain where all the family's household waste and spent stones had been dumped over the years.

Tonight, Lu Chen's intention was to go to the pit to collect spent stones and then bury them in the desert of the Stone Pearl World, "turning waste into treasure."

However, when Lu Chen actually arrived at the back mountain, a strange look flashed in his eyes, and he began to observe the mountain seriously.

As a former Martial Emperor, Lu Chen's knowledge was beyond ordinary people. With just one glance, he noticed something unusual about the mountain.

Under normal circumstances, except for rocky mountains, no matter how barren, other mountains would not only grow small shrubs but also trees.

Based on his past life's experience, Lu Chen speculated that there might be an undeveloped ore vein beneath the mountain, which had "siphoned" all the spiritual energy from the area, preventing trees from growing.

Suppressing his excitement, Lu Chen released his soul power and carefully sensed the area, discovering that the earth-element spiritual energy here was less than one-tenth of that in the Lu Family.

With this discovery, Lu Chen smiled, for he was now certain there was an earth-element ore vein beneath the back mountain.

Following the soul power's guidance to the area with the densest earth-element spiritual energy, he knew this spot must be closest to the ore vein.

Soon after, Lu Chen stopped, finding himself above the pit where household waste and spent stones were discarded, standing right over it.

"It seems the entrance to the ore vein is beneath this pit," Lu Chen muttered to himself, smelling the foul stench wafting up from below.