Chapter 91: 26 The Gold Sesame and Jade Leaves Flower
Seeing this, the female demon cultivator was momentarily stunned before she quickly changed direction and made a run for it.
Only then did she realize that earlier, Jiang Shimei’s cry of “Senior sister, make your move quickly,” was not really urging her to engage the enemy.
It was to distract the cultivator’s attention so she herself could seize the chaos to escape!
“Damn it!” she immediately activated the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique, with her cultivation dramatically increasing, and her essence blood beginning to burn furiously. Desperate to escape, she blasted herself forward while mentally cursing the junior sister countless times.
“Damn junior sister, after I escape this time and catch you, I will definitely skin you, pull out your tendons, crush your bones to dust, lock your soul in the Demon Refining Pot, and refine you for forty-nine days, turning you into a vengeful demon to suffer for eternity…”
Before she could finish her curse, she realized that despite the Sword Light reaching its peak speed, she had strangely not made much progress in her location.
To be more precise, the space had been oddly stretched by the formation…
Suddenly, both she and her Sword Light were completely devoured by the endless Five Elements Ultimate Extermination Divine Light.
Luo Yan staggered out from the Mount Sumeru Great Elaboration Formation, feeling his True Qi almost depleted.
The consumption of the Five Elements Divine Light was really exaggerated—it had only lasted for about four or five seconds…
When he arrived at where the demon cultivator had perished, he found that her body had already disintegrated into ashes, and the Flying Sword she had commanded had turned into a piece of scrap metal.
Luo Yan: ……
Did the Storage Bag and all the treasures inside also turn into ash?
Alright, from now on, unless necessary, I must not use the Five Elements Divine Light recklessly, lest it block my path to wealth and riches.
Luo Yan turned around again, looking in the direction where “Li Qinniang” had fled.
She fled quickly, just in the nick of time when I controlled the formation but had not yet used the Five Elements Divine Light.
After a brief hesitation, Luo Yan decided to abandon his plan to pursue her.
On one hand, she had already left the range of the formation, and there was no certainty of catching up; on the other hand, with Miss Shi still playing on Danzhi Island, the priority was to explore the ruins below as quickly as possible, without wasting any more time!
With that thought in mind, he took out an Elixir from his sleeve to recover his True Qi, then swiftly dove into the deep pool below.
With the help of the Kunlun Mirror, he effortlessly penetrated the Mount Sumeru Great Elaboration Formation and plunged into the Ren Water Dragon-Locking Formation.
As soon as he was underwater, what came from all around were immense pressure, cold, and darkness.
There are two types of true water, Gui Water and Ren Water; if the Gui Water True Essence is the Rootless and Unceasing Water, the “spring eye” of all rivers, lakes, and seas in the world;
Then Ren Water is the vast Beiming Water, a single drop possessing the terrifying volume of myriads of catties.
If it were any ordinary cultivator, they would have been crushed into meat paste, but Luo Yan was well prepared. Relying on the True Qi replenishment from the Elixir and once again stimulating the Five Elements Divine Light, he protected his body and with a forceful envelopment.
The pressure, cold, and darkness all receded in an instant.
By forcefully breaking the Ren Water Dragon-Locking Formation with the Five Elements Divine Light, Luo Yan only felt darkness before his eyes.
The True Qi that he had just restored using the Elixir was instantly depleted again.
Although frequently taking Elixirs in a short period of time was certain to increase drug resistance and decrease conversion efficiency, there seemed to be no better solution for the moment.
He took another Elixir, then peered inwardly, seeing the Qi Sea slowly filling up, with the enlightening glows of red, blue, yellow, white, and black among them. The black glow was notably deeper, clearly due to absorbing the Ren Water True Essence.
According to the mental method of the Five Elements Divine Light, if one could gather the Great Sun True Yang Fire, along with four other types of “Yang Five Elements True Veins”—the Ten-Thousand-Year Sky-Supporting Wood, the Deep, Thick, and Long Breath Earth, the Heavenly Meteorite Tai Bai Metal, and the Vast Beiming Water—combining them with the previously refined “Yin Five Elements True Veins,” the Yin and Yang Five Elements would complement each other and elevate the Postnatal Five Elements Great Extermination Divine Light to the Innate Rank.
Of course, that’s probably even harder than “becoming an immortal.”
For example, the Ren Water True Essence exists only in the depths of the Sea Abyss, ten thousand zhang beneath the end of the North Sea, unreachable by anyone who is not immortal.
The only way is to have a stroke of huge luck, like this time, finding a drop in ancient ruins.
Hmm, on careful thought, just four more similar strokes of tremendous luck would allow the Postnatal Five Elements Great Extermination Divine Light to upgrade. It seems not difficult…
Suppressing the torrent of thoughts, Luo Yan controlled the Sword Light to continue sinking, penetrating the water membrane.
Below the deep pool was a vast underground space, roughly the size of a football field.
Surrounding it were about a dozen stone houses, standing side by side, indistinguishable from each other on the outside.
In the very center was a large golden field, but it wasn’t wheat that was planted there, but some kind of bizarre plant, not a flower yet not a mushroom either, with petals or mushroom slices as thin as cicada wings, trembling up and down as if breathing.
Luo Yan cautiously drew out the Green Duckweed Sword, which hovered in the air, as if facing a formidable enemy, looking around vigilantly.
“Eh?” Green Duckweed Sword suddenly said, “Isn’t that the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower?”
“What?” asked Luo Yan.
“Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower,” Green Duckweed Sword replied. “It’s a hybrid of five species of mushrooms, watered day and night with flesh and blood, crossbreeding for over a hundred generations until the color gradually turns to bright gold.”
“Then they’re watered with hundreds of poisons to weaken the mushroom, making it increasingly frail until its thickness is as tender as a petal; the toxins inside are so violently extreme that it becomes the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower.”
“This thing is used to cultivate the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu; why would it be planted here… oh, this is a relic of the Intercepting Cult from ancient times, right?”
“How do you know that too?” Luo Yan said with an expressionless face, “Where is the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu?”
“It’s been over ten thousand years; while the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower, as a near-dead entity, can endure, the Golden Silkworm Gu as a living thing couldn’t last that long,” Green Duckweed Sword replied. “They should all be in the form of unhatched larvae. Look in the nearby buildings for some kind of sealing treasure containers, like a basin or bowl.”
Luo Yan did as instructed and began to search through the nearby houses one by one.
The first was an ordinary stone room, with only a bed, chest, table, and chairs, all empty.
The second was also an ordinary stone room, with an old meditation cushion in the center of the floor and nothing else.
The third room was slightly larger, but inside it was furnished like a prison, with stone bars dividing countless single cells, and their surfaces covered with talisman scripts emitting a sinister black aura, frightening to behold.
Luo Yan, who was not a talisman script researcher, could not understand them at all, so he dared not touch and exited carefully.
The interior of the fourth room seemed to be a storeroom, with plenty of stone cabinets and platforms for placing Elixir Bottles and Magical Treasures—but now they were all empty.
In other words, the owner of this dwelling had not fled in an emergency but had packed everything meticulously before leaving calmly.
So, the so-called Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu might also…
“Of course not,” the Kunlun Mirror reminded. “If the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu were not left here, the owner of the dwelling wouldn’t have left the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower either.”
“That’s right,” agreed Green Duckweed Sword. “The Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower is virtually a half-alive entity, extremely fragile, and almost impossible to transplant elsewhere.”
“Without the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower, once the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu hatches outside, it can’t be tamed and immediately poses the danger of turning against its master.”
“Similarly, without the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu, there’s no use for the Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flower; it’s better to uproot it, press out the juice, and extract the venom, for it is also a rare spiritual object.”
The Kunlun Mirror concluded:
“Since there are Golden Mushroom and Jade Leaf Flowers growing here, and the dwelling’s Formation is still in operation, it’s very likely that the owner would have also left the Hundred Poison Golden Silkworm Gu here, sealed somewhere, planning to return and deal with it later.”
After pondering for a moment, Luo Yan neither agreed nor disagreed, simply continuing the search in the next stone house.
After searching through seven or eight houses, upon entering a certain room, Luo Yan suddenly caught his breath.
He saw a palm-sized mortar quietly placed on a stone table, with a bell cover inverted on top, covering it.
The mortar and the bell cover were both swirling with radiance, clearly Magical Treasures specially used for sealing.