Chapter 261: A Secret Stronghold
In a notoriously deadly area of the Void Illusion Mountain Range, where even the strongest spirit beasts didn’t dare to enter…
It had already been three days since Ma Jiu had led his men into the area to chase after Pei Qiqi, Cai Yuan, and Nie Tian. Their eager pursuit had caused them a few casualties.
Even still, Nie Tian and his group had gradually disappeared from their sight.
After spending an enormous amount of mental and physical effort, Pei Qiqi finally led Nie Tian and Cai Yuan through the area where no sign of life was seen.
Pei Qiqi let out a sigh of relief and said to Cai Yuan, her voice filled with exhaustion, “You’ll have to lead the way for us from now on. We need to find a secluded place that’s out of Ma Jiu’s reach to recover our strength as soon as possible.”
“No problem, Qiqi.” Cai Yuan assured her. “You’ve shouldered the burden for so long. Leave the rest to me.”
Having fought in the Void Illusion Mountain Range for years, Cai Yuan knew its complicated terrain like the back of his hand, so he was obviously a much better choice for a guide than Pei Qiqi.
Following his lead, the three of them marched through a few mountain valleys towards the direction of the Blood Skull’s base.
By sundown, Cai Yuan led them to a place that was halfway up a short mountain. As he cast a secret spell, a stone gate opened, leading them into a spacious stone room.
As soon as they entered, Cai Yuan seemed completely relieved as he said, “This is one of our secret strongholds in the mountain range.”
He took out and placed some fruits, cooked meat, and water from his ring of holding on a stone table in the middle of the stone room.
Without saying any pleasantries to Cai Yuan, Nie Tian and Pei Qiqi sat down at the table and started munching.
While eating, Nie Tian kept glancing around, and found that not only was the stone room quite spacious, but there was also a special spiritual power ward sealing it from the outside world, which even his Heaven Eye couldn’t see through.
Cai Yuan noticed Nie Tian’s curious gaze, and thus explained to him, “This stone stronghold was set up by one of our Worldly realm experts. Not only is it completely soundproof, but it also can’t be detected by psychic awareness. Even if Qi warriors were searching in the vicinity, as long as their cultivation bases aren’t higher than his, they won’t be able to discover this place with their psychic awareness.
“Ma Jiu is only at the late Greater Heaven stage, so there’s no way he’ll find us here, not even if he tracked us to this mountain.”
With those words, Cai Yuan rose to his feet and began to set up a delicate, miniature spell formation in a corner of the room.
Nie Tian watched him with a curious gaze and found that, after finishing setting up the spell formation, his lips began to move subtly, as if he were whispering something into the spell formation.
After a short while, Cai Yuan stepped back to the table and with a broad smile, he said, “It’s done. I’ve informed my Blood Skull brothers of our location. Reinforcements are on the way.”
Puzzled, Nie Tian asked, “What’s that spell formation?”
“It’s similar to a Sound Stone.” Since Cai Yuan was in a good mood, he elaborated to Nie Tian, “Sound Stones are very convenient to carry around, but the coverage of their signals is very limited. As for that spell formation, it’s like an upgraded version of a Sound Stone; the signal covers the entire Void Illusion Mountain Range. Therefore, I can use it to communicate with men at our base.
“However, one of its major downsides is that it can’t be stored in a storage spiritual tool.”
At that moment, Pei Qiqi, who was taking small, graceful bites of a fruit even though she was famished, jumped in and said, “Cai Yuan, Hu Han has exposed the location of my teleportation portal. I need to find a new location to set it up again. Since you know every inch of the Void Illusion Mountain Range, can you help me with that?”
Cai Yuan didn’t even think before promising, “Consider it done!”
Nie Tian seemed puzzled as he asked, “Are there any special requirements regarding the location of a teleportation portal?”
Pei Qiqi looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, as if she was annoyed by his strong, unwitting curiosity.
After noticing her disdainful gaze, Nie Tian rubbed his nose and said with an embarrassed smile, “I’m new to the Realm of Split Void, so it’s understandable that I don’t know certain things.”
“Yeah, it’s true. After all, the Realm of Split Void is different from the other nine realms.” Cai Yuan seemed rather acquainted with Nie Tian as he took the initiative to explain to him, “Normally, there aren’t any special requirements to find a location to set up a teleportation portal. For example, technically, the inter-spatial teleportation portal in Shatter City can be set up anywhere within the city.
“The only reason it was set up in the central square was to make it easy for its users, so that people from every corner of the city can get to it fairly easily.
“However, it’s different within the Void Illusion Mountain Range
“In here, there are too many spatial rifts here, and the fluctuations of spatial energy are also very unstable. Therefore, not only is it very hard to set up a teleportation portal here, but a suitable location also needs to be selected.
“It’s not like Qiqi can take all the necessary materials and set it up in a random location. It doesn’t work like that.”
Nie Tian nodded and said, “Oh, I see.”
“Alright, I don’t have the time to chit chat with you two. I need to recover my strength as soon as possible.” After eating nothing but a few fruits, Pei Qiqi moved to a distant location in the stone room, where she sat down and began to recover her spiritual and psychic power with medicinal pills and spirit stones.
“Okay, Hua Tian, if there’s anything you’d like to know, we can talk after we get our strength back.” With those words, Cai Yuan also found a place to sit down and start cultivating.
After seeing both of them recuperating silently, Nie Tian quietly cleaned out every bit of food and water left on the table. Only then did he begin to recover his strength with spirit stones.
During the process, he gradually had a feeling that the fruits and meat he had just consumed contained rich energy, as he could feel wisps of flesh power being generated in his stomach, which soon spread to every muscle and bone in his body.
That was when he realized that the food Cai Yuan had provided didn’t consist of ordinary fruits and meat.
Even though he had killed more than a dozen Dark Moon experts, the strength he had consumed was far less than Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan, who had drained their spiritual seas.
Hence, he recovered faster than the other two.
When he felt that his spiritual sea was brimming with spiritual power and he was full of spirit, he found that both Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan were still in the middle of their cultivation. From the look of it, they wouldn’t wake up within a short time.
Slightly bored, he grabbed his leather pouch from his waist and poured out all the bracelets of holding inside before he emptied them on the stone floor.
Moments later, a substantial amount of spiritual materials, spirit stones, and medicinal pills piled up in front of him.
Then, he took out the ring of holding he had looted from Yang Ling from within his inner garment pocket, and stored all the spirit stones and spirit jades in it.
As he did, he counted 7,000 spirit stones and 13 spirit jades.
Those Heaven stage cultivators must have prepared those spirit jades for their future breakthroughs.
Afterwards, he picked out and put away all the fire-attributed and wood-attributed spiritual materials in his ring of holding.
To his surprise, he also discovered eight peculiar rocks that contained star power within the pile of items.
They were all grayish-brown and surprisingly heavy, with bright sparks shining inside.
Since all of them came from one bracelet of holding, Nie Tian wondered how that Qi warrior had obtained them. Nevertheless, it was his lucky day to gain such a rare fortune.
Then, he singled out a handful of relatively high-level fire-attributed and wood-attributed spell scrolls from the pile and stored them away.
Finally, he selected and added a few medicinal pills that could help him temper his fleshy and psychic strength to his ring of holding.
After one last check, he was certain that there wasn’t anything he needed left in the pile of items.
Then, he went on and stored everything on the floor within some of the bracelets of holding, as he prepared to entrust Cai Yuan to convert them into spirit stones.
As Nie Tian examined the valuables inside his ring of holding with a wisp of psychic awareness, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and a feeling that he had finally become rich rose from the bottom of his heart. “The Void Illusion Mountain Range indeed is a Blessed Land for me!”
He believed that with such a large amount of spirit stones in his possession, he would be able to live any sort of life he wanted in Shatter City for a long time. His former spirit stone shortage would no longer be an issue.
While he was feeling complacent with himself, Pei Qiqi awoke from her cultivation.
Watching him sort through the bracelets of holding with a face filled with smiles, Pei Qiqi said with a disdainful tone, “Petty man.”
“What?!” Nie Tian blurted with a puzzled expression.
“Adding every spirit stone, spiritual material, medicinal pill, and spell scroll together, it won’t be worth more than 30,000 spirit stones,” Pei Qiqi said with a taunting tone. “It’s only barely enough for Li Ye to gather the materials and forge a Premium grade spiritual tool that suits you.”
“A Premium grade spiritual tool that suits me!” A thought was born in Nie Tian’s mind.