Chapter 785 - 779: The End of the Chase - Ghost Item on the Cover
Qin Feng had not been idle these past few days, either. He had joined the ranks of the immortals in pursuit of those witches lucky enough to have escaped.
A very small number of these witches had managed to flee from various battlefields, since not all immortals and divine beings were capable of detaining them. When encountering witches with unique methods, ordinary immortals were not necessarily their match.
But the immortal and divine side had strength in numbers, and even if they were not adept at one-on-one combat, there were other helpers and the vast armies of cultivators and plant troops to lend assistance.
Especially when the armies of cultivators from various sects formed into battle formations, they could unleash immense war power. Under the manipulation of the Supreme Elders familiar with the formations, defeating witches a level higher posed no problem.
Just like how Qin Feng previously commanded his million spiritual beasts to set up the Ten Thousand Beasts Formation, and left a sixth-level Great Witch embarrassed and in disarray.
Although not all battle formations from the sects were so powerful, as long as they were united and combined their forces, they had enough strength to help immortals fight beyond their levels!
Therefore, those scattered witches didn’t stand a chance.
In fact, very few had managed to escape unscathed. Most of the witches who had eluded the encirclement and fled were only able to do so because they were coincidentally not at the gathering spots.
However, the ensuing pursuit did not allow these witches to feel fortunate. Instead, they were constantly on edge, not daring to hide in one place for too long or to move about recklessly, for fear of being detected by the ubiquitous plant spirits!
This was a unique situation in the Canglan Realm.
The laws of this realm were very distinctive, particularly conducive to the growth of flora and making it easy for various plants to awaken their spiritual intelligence and birth wisdom.
These plant spirits were highly adaptive to their growing environments. Once they had gained spiritual intelligence and understood cultivation, whether it was the Gobi Desert or rugged mountains with rocks strewn about, they could make these places their abodes or grow there as long as they could establish their roots.
Normal plant spirits did not need houses; they were not afraid of rain, snow, wind, frost, or the scorching sun.
They also did not need food. With their vast root systems, they could draw the nutrients needed for growth from the ground, and their leaves could absorb energy from the sunlight, moonlight, and even the air.
Hence, plant spirits were widespread throughout the Canglan Realm.
That’s why even though many tribes had retreated in a frenzy due to the invasion of cultivator armies, countless plant spirits were still in the zones under attack, fighting and struggling against the cultivators—simply because there were too many to retreat completely.
Moreover, moving to the rear could easily lead to chaos. Therefore, when plant gods retreated, they only took care of their own tribes, disregarding other plant spirits. Leaving behind a vast number of plant spirits also slowed the advance of the cultivators, buying them more time!
What these plant gods never expected was that now the cultivators had stopped their eradication of plant spirits and instead joined forces with the Divine King Palace to deal with the witches.
With the cooperation of divine beings under the Divine King’s command, the various sects’ cultivators deployed various secret divine powers. As long as they could find the slightest trace of the witches, even if they could not locate the fleeing witches immediately, the gods would question the plant spirits in the area and often gain some clues.
During this process, those divine beings that had previously ruled over their territories in isolation had completely lost their voices, and not a single one spoke out against the Divine King anymore. None showed anger for the invasion of their territories by the group of immortals and gods, nor objected to their subordinates being commissioned to help search for the traces of witches.
The previous battle had made a huge commotion, with the Divine King teaming up with two Golden Immortal Ancestors to surround and kill the Truth Wizard, and these deities could not have failed to sense it.
It was precisely because they had sensed it that they realized the complexity of the situation far exceeded their expectations.
Aside from the deities who had already sided with the witches, none knew of the witches’ existence.
The thought that such a powerful Truth Wizard had infiltrated their world with its followers for years sent chills down their spines.
Now, looking back, many deities understood why the Divine King had remained secluded in the Divine Mountain for years—it was not due to guilt and letting them do as they pleased, but likely due to the fear of revealing himself and provoking the Truth Wizard!
With these realizations, those independent deities suddenly found themselves engulfed in complex emotions.
Now that things had developed to this point, what path were they to take in the future?
At the very least, the possibility of living freely and independently as they had before seemed impossible.
They did not believe the Divine King would let them go without holding them accountable and allow them to continue reigning over their own domains.
Even if it were possible, they would not be at ease.
The deities were now divided into two factions: one prepared to proactively go to the Divine Mountain to pledge loyalty to the Divine King.
The other faction thought it prudent to wait and see, to observe the Divine King’s next move before deciding.
If the Divine King continued his preference for secluded cultivation as before, wouldn’t they be able to live as they had in the past?
Yet deep down, they felt somewhat uneasy, vaguely perceiving that this possibility was extremely low.
Besides, apart from the tremendous disturbances of the Divine King and Human Clan Immortals joining forces to encircle and kill the Truth Wizard, battles had also erupted near the territories of many deities.
When those deities went out to investigate, they were terribly frightened to find that the cultivators and troops under the Divine King Palace were collaborating to surround and kill witches and a massive Monster Army.
One thing that shocked them was the alliance between the Divine King Palace and cultivators, and another was discovering so many formidable witches and countless modified monsters lurking near their territories.
They knew they wouldn’t stand a chance if either side attacked them.
No matter how high they had once held themselves due to the Divine King’s low-key approach, even the proudest of deities fell silent at that moment, allowing immortals and divine beings to move freely in and out of their territories, whispering not a word.
The pursuit proved to be rather smooth. In just over a fortnight, they had nearly hunted down all the witches of fourth-level and above listed on the obtained list after questioning.
And with that, all the Plant Gods who had turned to the wizards were slain!
Even if there were any Plant Gods that escaped the net, it didn’t matter, as all the Plant Gods who took refuge with the wizards had accepted transformations from the wizards to some extent. When, later on, the Divine King gathered all the gods at the Divine Mountain, they would know if there were any that slipped through the net!
After all, the transformed Plant Gods were absolutely different from before, and no matter how they tried to conceal it, it was useless!
However, such actions had caused even greater alarm among the gods. They hadn’t expected that the subordinates of the Divine King Palace and the Human Clan Immortals would directly target the divine beings themselves.
If it weren’t for their concern about the formidable power of the Divine King and the two Golden Immortal Ancestors with whom they could not contend, they might have joined forces to rebel!
Regarding this matter, the subordinates of the Divine King only gave a light explanation, saying that the slain gods were traitors who had turned to the wizards. Then, regardless of whether the other gods believed it or not, the pursuit continued!
Of course, their main targets were the wizards of the fourth, fifth, and sixth levels. As for those below the fourth level, the Little Wizards were not within the consideration of the Immortals.
Because wizards of that realm simply did not have the ability to escape the battlefield, and even if a few of them were lucky enough not to die, they would soon reveal themselves to the Plant Spirits and were not worth wasting their effort on.
Even if these Little Wizards survived, they did not have the strength to escape the Canglan Realm.
Moreover, without the protection of the Truth Wizards, they essentially had no chance of progressing further. Otherwise, as soon as their techniques improved and attracted the attention of the World Will, hiding would become impossible.
During this period, Qin Feng was very active, not only because he was an expert at tracking down wizards with his formidable strength and various methods, but also because he was the representative figure of the Beast Taming Sect, needing to set an example in front of cultivators from all factions.
Furthermore, it was unlikely that they would encounter any wizards for an extended period after this, so he wanted to take the opportunity to acquire more resources and treasures related to the wizards for research!
The wizardry, after all, was a very vast Cultivation System. Just the Meditation Techniques and Wizard Notes that Qin Feng had discovered during this time had triggered many inspirations in him, filling his mind with all sorts of ingenious ideas.
It was the same for the Immortals of all factions.
Initially, the small Druidism had brought significant benefits to the Beast Taming Sect, but now they were facing the wizards from the same Great World, and no Sect wanted to pass up the opportunity to learn from another Great World’s Cultivation Techniques.
The only regret was that the majority of these wizards following the Netherworld Fire were his disciples and juniors, with only a few belonging to other lines of wizards.
The wizards of the Netherworld Fire line, besides being adept at transforming monsters, many of their witchcraft involved the Undead Spirit Principle. Other than the Ghost Controlling Sect, who took a liking to it, it wasn’t quite suitable for other cultivators.
The wizards from the other lines were few in number, and these individuals carried the distinctive pride of the Wizard World, disdainful of surrendering to beings from other worlds. In their eyes, surrendering to experimental subjects was a disgrace, so they would rather die in battle than be captured alive.
Most importantly, these wizards were largely the more common Elemental Wizards, Mechanical Wizards, and Black Wizards, and the Meditation Techniques or witchcraft obtained by all Immortals were mostly from these categories. As for those exceedingly rare Destiny Wizards, Nightmare Wizards, and the like, there were none to be found.
All Immortals felt some regret about this, while the gods under the Divine King Palace were completely unaware and, on the contrary, excited about thoroughly eradicating the wizards.
There was nothing to be done; these Plant Spirits were unable to comprehend the books of wizards, nor could they grasp the methods of wizardly cultivation.
Even if it were explained to them, the cultivation techniques of wizards were simply not suitable for Plant Spirits to use, so a massive amount of spoils of war ended up benefiting cultivators from various sects.
On the pursuit trail, Qin Feng’s gains alone certainly couldn’t compare with the collective hands of so many immortals, yet he had other acquisitions that he had not presented—those treasures left in the Four Symbols Pagoda after he refined the Level Six Great Wizard Sajier.
During the pursuit, Qin Feng had taken the time to investigate a bit and discovered that inside those two space wizard artifacts, one of them actually contained items from the Netherworld Fire Truth Wizard’s laboratory.
Although many were laboratory equipment and appeared less valuable than those treasures imbued with various energies, Qin Feng didn’t just carelessly discard them. Instead, he planned to keep them for slow research later on. After all, he had plenty of space treasures; at worst, he could first toss them into the Demon Refining Pot without worrying about taking up space.
Beyond those ordinary items, what truly excited Qin Feng was the Wizard Notes of the Netherworld Fire.
These were the notes of the Truth Wizard, and their value could only be imagined.
It was also thanks to wizards conducting various experiments for years; they needed to record all sorts of experimental data and insights. Apart from wizards, across the Void Ten Thousand Realms, probably no other life forms had the habit of taking notes!
But it was precisely this good habit that gave Qin Feng many unexpected benefits!
Although he couldn’t understand over ninety-nine percent of the content in the Truth Wizard’s Notes for now, that was okay because he had already become an immortal, with a very long life ahead. He would take his time to study it leisurely in the future. Whatever the case, it was a testament left by a Truth Wizard advancing toward immortality; there was no way the notes only contained various experimental data—there would certainly be numerous benefits for him.
Another point was that the Netherworld Fire’s notebook itself was a peculiar witch artifact. The cover was sealed with a terrifying Ghost Item, and those eyes carried the intimidating power of seducing souls; black mist even spread from its mouth and nose. If it hadn’t been for Qin Feng not directly opening the notebook but instead seeing some witchcraft records from the notes of Wizard Sajier, perhaps he would have suffered a great loss had he rashly opened it.
To Qin Feng, this was not a surprise but a delight, which proved that the wizard’s notebook itself was a powerful treasure. If he could thoroughly study it, perhaps he could even release the sealed Ghost Item inside to help in battle!
Besides the Wizard Notes, there were also many treasures that contained powerful energies. These items, which were supposed to be lying quietly in a laboratory, now all belonged to Qin Feng.
If one were to add the Time Wand, which many immortals had seen, then Qin Feng’s gains this time were definitely far superior to those of all the immortals.
However, gains were not completely synonymous with benefits. How much benefit he could convert these gains into depended on his own abilities.
In this aspect, he was no match for several immortals of the Ghost Controlling Sect.
Because some of the Ghost Controlling Sect’s immortals had already deciphered some cultivation methods of the Death Ripple and had preliminarily cultivated some effects. Currently, it seemed that the immortal was quite compatible with this Supreme Witchcraft, and perhaps in the future, it was possible to advance her own path with this witchcraft, increasing the likelihood of advancing to Immortal Golden Immortal.
This made the Beast Taming Sect, Five Poisons Sect, Chaotian Palace, and several other major sects look on with envy, while the vassal sects were even more agitated.
Unfortunately, this was an advantage of the Ghost Controlling Sect, and they couldn’t learn it!