The Daoist Priest stealthily sized up the only person in this group who had a composed expression: the young female leader Celestial Ni Chang from the Masked Moon Sect.
The sole female in the midst of these seven great Core Formation experts had not revealed any trace of worry ever since the disciples from the Seven Great Sects had entered the forbidden area.
The more the Daoist Priest watched the woman’s smiling appearance, the stronger his anxiety became. When he connected this to strange Senior Qiong’s expression of having a card up his sleeve when making the bet, he felt the blood of the flood dragon’s inner core seemingly fly away from his own pocket and had already become the possession of another!
As he thought this, the concerned expression on his face became even more strong! People who didn’t know this would have truly mistakenly believe that he was deeply worried for the disciples from his sect inside the forbidden area!
After some more time, the Daoist Priest finally could not endure it any longer. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was paying attention, he quietly moved closer to Martial Ancestor Li, asking with a concerned expression, “Martial Ancestor Li, the Yellow Maple Valley disciples that you sent out this time should be pretty talented! Even so, the people from our two sects might really lose to that strange Senior Qiong! Still, this Daoist Priest has some faith in the disciples from the Clear Void Sect that entered the forbidden area!”
“What are you trying to say? Does Daoist brother look down upon our Yellow Maple Valley?” Martial Ancestor Li began to display an expression of displeasure upon hearing this.
“Haha! Of course not, this Daoist Priest just feels a little peculiar about the disciples that the Masked Moon Sect sent out this time. I just can’t feel at ease!” the Daoist Priest laughed, explaining himself with a big smile.
“You’re not the only one! This Li also perceives that something is fishy. In previous times, when have the disciples the Masked Moon Sect sent out been so young? And they are all in male-female pairs! Could it be because they think this trip to the forbidden area is for the brats to play house?” Martial Ancestor Li said sullenly; apparently, he had also been unable to feel at ease concerning this time’s bet.
When the Daoist Priest heard what Martial Ancestor Li said, he incessantly and repeatedly nodded his head, apparently very much in agreement with what he had just said.
“However, this fellow Daoist should be at ease; since Li dared to make this bet, he definitely has some trust in the disciples from his sect. Their strength will definitely not be lower than disciples from your sect,” Martial Ancestor Li said slowly after giving the Daoist Priest a glance filled with deep meaning. His voice contained some heroic spirit.
“Heh heh! Since Benefactor has said this, this Daoist Priest feels much more relieved! Then I will not disturb you any more.” The Daoist Priest’s expression immediately relaxed upon hearing the answer that his heart wanted, and he laughingly took his leave. He returned to his original location and sat down to regain his composure, quietly waiting for the results to come out a few days from now.
Martial Ancestor Li, after following the Daoist priest as he left with his eyes, suddenly snorted softly. Using only a voice that he could hear, he faintly said to himself:
“Fu Yunzi, you old facetious Daoist, don’t think that I wouldn’t know whatever plan you come up with! Aren’t you hoping that our two sects will join hands to triumph over the Masked Moon Sect, only to have your Clear Void Sect come to pressure our Yellow Maple Valley? Heh heh! Although I don’t know what kind of impressive disciples the Clear Void Sect has sent into the forbidden area, but this time our valley has sent out the top three Qi Condensation disciples like a hive of bees. Otherwise, do you think I would have made this bet with you all?”
As Martial Ancestor Li spoke, his face revealed a bit of cunningness; no trace of the concerned expression from before could be found. Clearly, he was also an old fox who kept things hidden.
Han Li naturally did not know of the scheming of the two Core Formation experts outside of the forbidden area; his path was currently being blocked by a brown, massive wild boar.
This wild boar, apart from its skin color and huge body size, as well it being many meters tall, appeared to be exactly the same as a normal wild boar.
However, as soon as Han Li saw this beast, he immediately recognized that it was one of the most commonly seen demonic beasts on the ring-shaped mountain, the “Mountain Pushing Hog”. This demonic beast, other than having rough skin and a slightly larger strength, only knew an innate “Stone Skin Magic”. Its intelligence was also incredibly low, so it would not be hard to deal with.
At this time, the “Mountain Pushing Boar” huffed deeply a few times, and in a flash of yellow light, its entire body was covered by a shining white stone armor. In turn, it aggressively charged fiercely in Han Li’s direction.
Han Li’s expression did not change; he stood in the same place and quietly waited for the charging attack of this beast right until it was only about twenty meters away from it. He then waved his hand, and his figure flashed; he had already shifted behind the demonic beast.
“Mountain Pushing Boar.”
Its truly huge body continued to charge towards the direction Han Li was originally standing in for about ten meters before panting once; then, its entire body, from the tip of its nose to its tail, neatly split into two in one moment, and its multicolored internal organs spilled all over the ground. It had actually been completely cut open by Han Li’s thin thread magic tool!
Han Li retrieved the transparent thread. Glancing at the dead “Mountain Pushing Boar”, he gently shook his head and immediately jumped on top of a tree to leave this location. This was because he knew that soon the smell of blood from the demonic beast’s corpse would attract a huge wave of demonic beasts with extremely acute senses of smell. It would still be best for him to slip away luckily as early as possible!
It had already been a few hours since Han Li had entered the ring-shaped mountain’s dense forest. However, in this short amount of time, he had unfortunately encountered four demonic beasts.
Of these four, three had been low-level ones, and Han Li naturally slaughtered them in one blow without the slightest bit of courtesy. However, that medium-level Flying Feather Peacock had five-colored tail feathers that could independently chase after and injure both people and defenses, causing Han Li’s head to hurt quite a bit. Luckily, although it was classified as birdkind, its speed was not actually fast. Thus, afterwards Han Li decided he might as well practice his movement technique, and in one breath he left it behind, disappearing without a trace. It was only in this way that he had avoided this pointless battle.
Today, Han Li incessantly sighed as he leaped around from tree to tree as if he were flying.
Now, he finally knew the extent to which the ring-shaped mountains were populated with demonic beasts.
For the time being, he was still in the outer fringes; the majority of the demonic beasts he had met had been in the low-level and were not too hard to deal with. But in another period of time, when he had entered into the deeper parts of the ring-shaped mountain, perhaps medium or high-level demonic beasts would appear in waves. At that time, other than fleeing in a panic, Han Li was truly unable to think of any other tactic for escaping.
No wonder the amount of information on the hiding locations of these spiritual medicines was so little! Perhaps the disciples who had entered this mountain before had spent the greater half of their energy hiding from these demonic beasts, and the remaining time could only be used to search those seven or eight locations once. However, this was still not enough to guarantee a harvest every time one searched!
“It looks like my chances of gathering enough spiritual medicines is not too high,” Han Li thought with melancholy.
The direction Han Li was currently darting in was the a concealed cave where the “Purple Monkey Flower” grew.
Based on the information, this locati
on shouldn’t have any large value. Because this cave had been harvested once only in the past hundred or more years, the only things inside should be some seedlings close to becoming ripe; there was no way to use them to concoct pills.
“A seedling?” When Han Li thought of this, he couldn’t help but lightly smile for a moment!
What Han Li needed was this seedling that these bystanders would not touch!
The reason why he dared to take the odd risk of entering the forbidden area and why he was so sure that he could snatch food from the jaws of a tiger in the midst of all these “experts” to obtain the “spiritual medicines of heaven and earth”! The main reason was that from the start he had set his sights on the yet-to-ripen seedlings! Only in this way could he avoid clashing with disciples from other sects as much as possible. Then he would be able to run to a few more locations, and gather some more items that were useless in other people’s eyes.
When he took these spiritual medicine seedlings back with him, he could use the green liquid from the mysterious small bottle to hasten their growth. In this way, it was not too different from directly picking ripe spiritual medicines.
Although he had heard from that Martial Uncle Ma that these saplings could not be preserved for too long outside of the forbidden area, only able to survive one to two years or so, this amount of time was already sufficient to accelerate their ripening cycle. After all, in order to be used in the Foundation Establishment Pill, their age did not need to be too great; merely four or five hundred years was sufficient for them to be used to refine the pill.
Now, the only complication was that he didn’t know if the remaining three days were enough for him to harvest enough quantities of spiritual medicines. Because the locations where the seedlings grew were all over the place, and adding on the fact that he could be obstructed by those demonic beasts along the way or start conflicts with disciples from other sects, Han Li felt unsure about everything.
Chapter 197: Demonic Beast – Giant Centipede
“I’ve arrived. Which cave is this?” After four hours, Han Li stood on a black rock about half a person high. He was sizing up a cave opening that was several meters tall.
“It seems to be nothing out of the ordinary!” Han Li didn’t rashly enter but instead carefully observed the surroundings for a while. Although it could be said he was running short on time, he would never carelessly put himself into danger!
The secret cave mentioned in the information would appear quite unremarkable from the outside. As Han Li was traveling, he saw many similar simple caves in the wild that lacked even the slightest remarkable trait. He also didn’t know how the original founders were able to discover this cave. This caused Han Li to admire them even more!
After the time it took to make a cup of tea, Han Li was convinced that there weren’t any demonic beasts or anybody laying in ambush nearby and carefully walked toward the cave.
The cave was completely natural and consisted of a light azure mountain stone. There were no traces of artificial digging within. Han Li came to this conclusion after he looked at the cave walls as he walked toward the cave.
Then, Han Li’s body flashed and stealthily walked into the cave. However, just as he walked about ten steps, Han Li stopped. This was because after he turned two corners, his surroundings had already become pitch dark.
Han Li wrinkled his brow and searched through his storage pouch, taking out a moonlight stone the size of an egg. After he took it out, a soft white light clearly illuminated the vicinity. When Han Li saw this, he could not help but shake his head.
His original intention was to silently tread deeper into the depths of the cave and see whether or not there was a demonic beast guarding within. If there was one, Han Li would stealthily give it a lethal strike and save his effort! However, with the appearance of the moonlight stone, he became a clear target. How could he mount a sneak attack now?
Han Li lightly held the shining moonlight stone in his hand. After a moment of hesitation, he used his other hand to slap on an earth attribute defensive barrier. Then he crouched and continued on with light steps.
As the cave’s interior was not spacious like the wilds, his fast movement technique was certain to meet restrictions. With a layer of protection on his body, he was much more at ease. Although his speed was greatly reduced, he obviously couldn’t choose to have both speed and protection. Han Li clearly understood this and therefore had no complaints about it.
This cave was very long and narrow. After Han Li walked for no less than a quarter hour, he saw no sign of reaching the end. This caused his heart to feel apprehension, and he could not help but doubt that he had found the wrong location and instead found a nest of top grade demonic beasts!
Fortunately, after walking several tens of meters, Han Li’s worry had disappeared once he looked to the corner on his left. That was because at the left corner, there were many faint white lights illuminating his sight.
When Han Li saw this, his heart was filled with joy. He quickly put away his moonlight stone and quietly walked through. Since this place already had lights located at the corners, it seemed he would be able to continue on with his original plan!
Stealthily, Han Li slowly peeked the corner and what he saw caused him joy. But soon after, he was inwardly grumbling.
In front of him was truly the end of the cave. Furthermore it was a large natural stone hall. Not only were there many shining glittering stalactites, but near the interior there was a small purple stone wall with three to four small light azure flowers growing on it.
These small flowers were about an inch large. Their several petals were all bafflingly curled in the same direction, unexpectedly creating a unique appearance. From a distance it looked as if they were several small monkeys smiling at something comical; this truly caused one to be greatly startled!
“There is no question, these are definitely the 'Purple Monkey Flowers'. Although the color of its petals and stem were azure, it was because they aren’t mature yet.” After Han Li saw these flowers, he immediately thought this with a pleasant surprise.
However, when he turned his gaze toward the ground below the azure stone wall, Han Li’s expression immediately grew bitter. There was actually a giant centipede about three meters long lying on its stomach. It had shiny pitch black spikes on its shell, antennas about a meter long, and a terrifying sinister appearance. Without moving, Han Li became greatly frightened.
Although he had yet to kill any poisonous insect demonic beasts, he had long heard of their terrible reputation.
According to others, poisonous insect demonic beasts were far more troublesome than bird or beast-type demonic beasts. Furthermore, the majority of them had extremely powerful poison, often causing people to die immediately upon contact. That was why if it wasn’t required, it was no wonder people avoided provoking this kind of demonic beasts as much as possible.
Since the centipede was this large, at the very least, it should be a medium level demonic beast. Being high level also wouldn’t be out of the question. As such, how could Han Li not take in a cold breath and grimace?
Now, he had to provoke it as this centipede was guarding the “Purple Monkey Flowers. If he did not take care of this large poisonous insect, to think of picking the spiritual medicines off the wall was pure idiocy.
Han Li held his breath and slowly withdrew his head. His movements were extremely careful to avoid waking up the huge centipede that seemed asleep.
He leaned against the stone wall, and with wrinkled eyebrows, he lowered his head, pondering how he should deal with this demonic beast.
By relying on the might of his top-grade magic tools, attacking rashly wouldn’t be out of the question. By just using the golden light brick treasure talisman, he would be able to flatten the demonic beast in one slam. However, that action would consume quite a bit of magic power and he would be unable to maintain his peak condition.
The road back was still quite long! He was certain that he would
be facing more and more dangers, and because he had to rush against time, he could not spend half a day to travel back, meditate, and replenish his magic power.
After a long period of deep thought, Han Li had a moment of brilliance and thought of a good plan.
Before he made a move, he first cautiously stretched his neck to take a look at the centipede. When he saw that it was sitting there motionlessly, he calmed down. He then faintly smiled and disappeared into the darkness of the path.
Not long after, Han Li then returned, beaming with happiness.
The protective barrier he wore could no longer be seen. Furthermore, he did not continue moving stealthily but rather turned the corner with a swagger, walking into the large hall where the giant centipede laid.
With Han Li’s loud movements, how could the giant centipede not notice? If it hadn’t, a better name for it would’ve been ‘stupid beast’ instead of demonic beast. When it saw Han Li, The several meter-long centipede immediately grew vigilant and raised its head. It continuously waved two coarse long antennas that released strange and extremely frightening hissing noises.
When Han Li saw this, he did not say anything and merely raised his hand. Several small fireballs flew toward it at extreme speeds and struck the beast’s head, producing a series of explosions.
After the blaze faded away, Han Li clearly saw the demonic beast’s head remain a shiny jet black after being struck by the fireballs, and it actually hadn’t left the slightest mark, leaving Han Li speechless. It seemed that what others had told him wasn’t wrong. This poisonous insect demonic beast was truly troublesome!
Although the huge centipede did not receive any injuries, it was thoroughly infuriated by Han Li’s recent provocation!
From its mouth’ two sharp teeth, it shot out a cloud of red poison mist, overbearingly surrounding Han Li. It seemed it wanted to drown Han Li in the poison.
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 98