Chapter 109: Nie Tian’s Unruliness (1/2)
Right after Yu Tong and Feng Luo left, an old woman with a wrinkled face slowly approached, supporting herself with a serpent staff. “Where is Little Tong?”
Upon seeing her, numerous experts from the Blood sect all greeted her with a humble attitude, one after another. “Grandma Shen.”
Her name was Shen Xiu, and her status in the Blood sect was only second to the sectmaster. She was also Yu Tong’s master.
The scarlet blood strings that had emerged from underground were from the Earth Web spell that she had cast. The reason why she had hurried to this place was that she was worried that Yu Tong would act rashly.
Yang Yuan answered without thinking, “Yu Tong went after the juniors from the Cloudsoaring sect. Grandma Shen, it seems that the Earth Web… wasn’t fully formed, was it?”
Considering Shen Xiu’s cultivation base, if the Earth Web had been completely formed, every Qi warrior in the valley would experience disorder in their blood for at least a quarter of an hour.
Given so much time, the experts from Blood sects could have started a massacre and gained an overwhelming advantage.
However, Yang Yuan had noticed that the scarlet blood strings that emerged from the ground hadn’t actually bound their opponents down for very long. Furthermore, they failed to extend outside of the valley to pursue Nie Tian and his group who had escaped.
“There is flaming magma and earth flame running deep below the ground of the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range, so down there the activities of the Earth Web are quite limited.” With a brief frown, Shen Xiu continued, “What’s more, the grand Heaven Burning Earth Flame formation seems to have reached deeply into the ground. There were even networks of it within the boiling magma.
“Never underestimate their grand Heaven Burning Earth Flame formation. From what I see, this enormous spell doesn’t only cover the valley where the Spiritual Treasure sect resides.
“The whole Scarlet Flame Mountain Range, including the extinct volcanoes on its perimeter, seems to also be within its coverage.
“As soon as my Earth Web reached deep towards the earth’s core, it was immediately influenced by the network of the grand formation and couldn’t fully condense.”
With these words, Shen Xiu suddenly looked down beneath her feet and said, “For some reason, I have a feeling that there is something odd deep below the ground of the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range. I can’t say for sure what it is, but I keep having the feeling that the spell formation doesn’t just exist to protect the Spiritual Treasure sect.
“I could also sense an aura… of suppression and sealing from the network of the flames.”
Before she could finish her words, the master of the Spiritual school, Hou Zhengchen, suddenly appeared in the distance and dashed towards her. “Shen Xiu!”
There seemed to be a trace of anxiety and worry in Hou Zhengchen’s eyes. He seemed… to not want Shen Xiu to say too much.
The serpent staff in Shen Xiu’s hands abruptly gave off an immense amount of bright, bloody light rays as she charged towards Hou Zhengchen.
…
Below a short, sparsely-vegetated mountain in the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range…
“We should have a rest.” Pan Tao stopped. As the night gradually lifted, he looked at the bright and clear morning sky and said, “We’ve spent the entire night marching at full speed. Plus, everyone spent a large amount of spiritual power earlier dealing with the scarlet blood strings that emerged from the ground. If we keep hastening on blindly and don’t stop to recover strength, we won’t be able to deal with any unexpected crises that pop up.”
Nie Tian subconsciously unleashed his psychic awareness to scan his surroundings. Luckily, he didn’t detect any sign of life fluctuations.
He nodded and agreed, “He’s right, we do need some rest.”
He glanced around and saw lots of caves of unequal sizes on the side of the sparsely vegetated mountain, which seemed dark and deep, their insides hard to see clearly.
An Shiyi noticed his sweeping glance, and explained to him in a soft voice, “We are still within the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range. There are a large number of extinct volcanoes in this area. It’s said that there are still many high-ranked fire-attribute spirit stones hidden deep under them.
“Disciples from the Spiritual Treasure sect would often try out their luck in these extinct volcanoes and see if they could find some high-ranked fire-attribute spirit stones.
“That’s also why they drilled open a large number of caves inside these mountains.
“Every single cave is connected to the belly of the mountain peak or even to the deepest part of the earth. Those people all dreamed of getting lucky and obtaining some high-ranked fire-attribute spirit stones. No matter whether they used them to refine spiritual tools or advance their own cultivation, they’ll benefit a great deal from them.”
Pan Tao added, “Within the entire Scarlet Flame Mountain Range, the only active volcanoes that can still channel raging flames from the earth’s core are the three volcanoes surrounding the Spiritual Treasure sect’s valley. The seniors in the sect have been using the grand Heaven Burning Earth Flame formation to restrain the three of them from erupting, as well as to take advantage of the raging flames from the earth’s core to refine spiritual tools.
“After many explorations, the other volcanoes are determined to have long since grown inactive. However every one of them used to be active and violent ten thousand years ago.
“As long as lava had once filled the belly of a mountain peak, its interior part might possibly produce fire-attributed spiritual materials. The majority of the spiritual materials have long since been mined, leaving behind only a very little portion in the deepest parts. It would require a lot of work as well as good luck in order for one to obtain some of the remaining pieces.”
Pan Tao led everyone into a cave for a short rest while explaining.
An Shiyi raised her voice and said, “We can rest here for two hours at most. In two hours, no matter how much strength we’ve recovered, we’ll have to head out again.”
With Liu Yan, Shi Yi, and Luo Xin gone, she was the person with the highest cultivation base among everyone.
Naturally, she became the leader of the group of juniors.
Soon, everyone had picked a cave and hidden themselves within, using spirit stones to recover their strength.
The caves were very close to each other. So long as one person spoke, others would be able to hear them.
The group, bent on leaving the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range as soon as possible, wasn’t in the mood to explore the seemingly bottomless caves. The fire-attributed spiritual materials that could possibly still be remaining in the caves didn’t interest them in the slightest. Instead, all of them concentrated on regaining strength.
Nie Tian felt the same.
After finding a cave and hiding himself within, he took out a spirit stone and was about to restore the spiritual power in his spiritual sea.