Chapter 158: An Inferior Version of Jiang Li? (1/2)

Jiang Li isolated a space without yin qi in the coffin and let these new friends use the dense spiritual qi in the coffin to recover first.

In the outside world, he and Shenshan Qiuhua encountered a ten-meter-tall mud monster that was as powerful as a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

However, at this moment, the mud monster was firmly tied to the spot by some force. It could not move, and it could only throw mud at Jiang Li and Yan Hong from afar.

This was clearly the work of the combined competition authorities. They believed that this monster was too excessive. If they did not restrict it, the Qi Refinement realm cultivators might not even have a chance to escape.

If one did not consider a certain cheater, this was indeed the case.

Shenshan Qiuhua could already be considered an extremely excellent first-tier Qi Refinement realm cultivator in this competition.

However, her Fire Water Sword Technique that specialized in both offense and defense had completely lost its effect here.

The thickness of the mud monster's body was unknown, but it was at least a few meters thick.

Under the effect of the monster's power, the seemingly ordinary mud became abnormally defensive. It was very difficult to deal with.

When the explosive fire sword qi struck it, it was unable to penetrate the mud layer. Instead, the mud layer was like a swamp that directly swallowed the sword qi and disappeared.

Even if she did not use sword qi and instead used fire-attribute spell techniques to roast the mud on its surface piece by piece, it could still be replenished using the mud that was everywhere!

Shenshan Qiuhua, who was known as the Water-Fire Dual Absolute Divine Mountain Sword, attacked her opponent for a long time but it was still standing there perfectly fine. In fact, she got exhausted first.

Even the Shu Mountain sword cultivators could not casually cross realms in battle. Their true strength came only after they had awakened their Sword Heart talent.

The Sword Heart that could ignore defenses and the terrifying might of the sword technique were the powers that awed the Great Mountain Region. However, in the initial stages, they were only slightly stronger than others.

Seeing that Shenshan Qiuhua could not be defeated after a long time, Jiang Li also joined the battle.

As usual, he used his Demon Awakening Technique.

Almost endless dark green light blossomed. A forty-meter-long wooden dragon landed in the mud, stirring up a vicious wind.

The mud monster and Qiuhua were dumbfounded. What was wrong with this guy? Why did he use such a powerful technique immediately?

Was he not going to probe the enemy first? Did he not want to check if there were other monsters around?

Looking at the huge wooden dragon, Shenshan Qiuhua felt a sense of familiarity from Jiang Li.

One of her senior brothers from the Fire Element Peak was like this. He attacked with flashy moves that had astonishing power, and the output was continuous.

This kind of fighting style where one did not need to consider the expenditure of spiritual qi was really enviable.

The mud monster was restricted by the runes and could only watch as the wooden dragon approached.

The ten-meter-tall mud monster was entangled immediately.

Through the wooden dragon, Jiang Li could sense that the mud monster was sliding down. It was probably trying to escape by abandoning the mud outer shell.

However, how could Jiang Li let this guy escape?

The four claws of the wooden dragon dug deep into the mud, firmly grabbing its body. Then, it pulled and tore it apart. Finally, it retrieved an ugly head from within.

The huge body collapsed weakly. A large amount of mud flowed out after losing its support, revealing a headless, long-haired demon.

After this demon grew larger, it seemed to have become even more ugly.

Huh?

”What's this?”

As the mud peeled off, a square wooden chest appeared beside the revealed corpse.

However, this wooden chest was also covered in layers of mud. It did not look like a treasure chest but trash instead.

”Junior Sister Qiuhua.”

Jiang Li controlled the wooden dragon and grabbed the wooden chest with its claws, then handed the wooden chest to the other party.

Without needing Jiang Li to say anything, Shenshan Qiuhua already understood. With a raise of her hand, a stream of water landed on the wooden chest, and it quickly washed away the dirt on it.

However, to Jiang Li's disappointment, this wooden chest was not some extremely precious treasure of the ancestors, and it was only a treasure chest that the sect's combined competition authority had placed here in advance.

With a wave of his hand, he used his spiritual qi to open the lid. Inside were two tokens shimmering with spiritual light.

After all, they had defeated the Foundation Establishment demon, so it was not too much to give them some spoils of war.

The two tokens did not look any different. The spiritual qi on them was not very strong either. It looked like they were only two ordinary tokens and not any special artifacts.

Jiang Li took one and observed it carefully before passing the other to Qiuhua.

He looked at the patterns on the token and felt that it was a little familiar. He was thinking about where he had seen it before.

However, he realized that no one took the token he handed over after a long time. Shenshan Qiuhua, who was standing beside him, did not have any intention of taking it.

”Junior Sister, what are you waiting for?”

Jiang Li asked curiously.

”That demon was killed by Senior Brother alone. The things in this box should naturally be Senior Brother's spoils of war.”

Shenshan Qiuhua's values were really very rigid. She felt that she had not done anything in the battle just now, so she did not plan to share the spoils of war.

In the future, if someone wanted to pursue her as their Dao Companion, it would be difficult to even give her a gift.

Jiang Li was somewhat used to her personality. He reached out and stuffed another token into her arms.

”Junior Sister, don't say such things. We were working together just now. Without your distraction, I wouldn't have been able to kill it directly.”

”This token is the entry ticket for this maze formation. As long as you hold it, you won't be affected by the fog anymore. However, the effect of holding one token is exactly the same as holding two.”

”If you don't take this, it's useless for me to keep a second one. Thus, junior sister, you should take it.”

Looking at the introduction of another piece of paper in the wooden box, he finally understood the use of this thing.

It seemed that the wooden sign at the entrance of the swamp did not only refer to the literal ”nearest path” but also the use of the two tokens.

Jiang Li held the token. He finally recalled where he had seen the patterns on it.

This was very similar to the patterns on the array foundation stone that he had dug out back then.

However, many of the runes on the formation foundation stone were very ancient. The patterns on this token were filled with the style of the Great Mountain Cultivation Realm that Jiang Li was familiar with.

Clearly, this was an array formation expert from the various large sects. After breaking through the illusionary realm of this Misty Mountain Range, they had created the authority token based on the array foundation runes.

It was equivalent to opening the lock and matching the key according to the lock core.

Jiang Li, who was also a Runic Array Master, knew that the difficulty here was extremely high. At the very least, he was far from reaching this level.

Even if he could barely reach the standard, this was a job that required a considerable amount of time and effort. Generally speaking, it was not something that an array master could do.

Otherwise, he would have gone to test it out himself when he dug out the array foundation stone.

Jiang Li took the token and walked into a fog. Although his vision was still blocked, the strange feeling of him moving up and down did not appear again.

He turned around and steadily walked out of the fog. As expected, the effect of the maze was blocked.

The young lady from the Shenshan Clan was also shocked when she saw this. The effects of this maze formation were tormenting all the cultivators.

With this token, it meant that they could directly fly to the end point. Didn't that mean that they had passed the first test?

She hesitated for a moment before accepting the token upon Jiang Li's insistence.

After all, it was a shame to waste it.

In any case, she had to repay him for saving her life. She would repay him more later on.

As if thinking of something, Shenshan Qiuhua's face flushed red.

There were still many traps and poisonous miasma on the two large mountains ahead. However, they no longer needed to undergo those trials. They only needed to take the tokens and fly to the end.

Shenshan Qiuhua stepped on the flying sword and rose into the sky. Jiang Li also stepped on the air and rose up step by step, disappearing into the clouds.

He originally wanted to stay a little longer and try to carve a copy of the token himself, but he discovered that the rune on this token had been done with a rather brilliant secret precaution. With his standards, he could only give up.

The speed of flying was naturally much faster than walking on complicated paths.

After breaking through the second mountain, the third and fourth mountains appeared before them.

The competition authorities deliberately used the fog to form a huge maze, covering the last two mountains and linking them together.

The competitors had to move through the maze and face all kinds of dangerous traps.

However, in this maze, besides danger, there were also many good things, such as artifacts, medicinal pills, tokens similar to those in Jiang Li's hands, and many special Miasma Removal Pills.

These were pills prepared to deal with the poisonous miasma on the fourth mountain.

In this aspect, those rich cultivators were at an advantage.

This was because as long as it was a higher quality detoxification pill, eating a few more would be able to deal with the poisonous miasma. They did not need to spend much effort to specially search for the Miasma Removal Pills.

Buzz~ Buzz~

Right at this moment, the small white whistle that Jiang Li wore suddenly vibrated slightly.

He had long forgotten about this small prop and did not expect it to react at this moment.

He silently counted the time when the whistle sounded and used the Bodhisattva Heart Sutra to increase his hearing to search for the direction of the sound.

This was a cry for help from a fellow disciple!

”I saw the two of you. Hand that thing over obediently. If you wait for me to act, it won't be so easy for you.”

In the maze below, a young man held two large dark red walnuts the size of a child's fist in his hand and skillfully rotated them in his palm.

Opposite him were two disciples of the Scripture Storage Valley.

This person had an unfamiliar face and wore gorgeous clothes. He did not seem to be a local cultivator of the Great Mountain Region. He seemed to be quite relaxed against two people.