Passing through the underground rock layers to a depth of three hundred zhang, Zhang Ling entered the earth fire vein beneath the valley.
He was about to head deeper in search of the Fire Essence when suddenly, his vision opened up, and he found himself in a spacious underground lava cave.
His eyes were filled with firelight, and waves of heat surged up from the depths of the fire vein. He could also see many hard, black-red rocks covered in flame spirit patterns. Wisps of firelight constantly emerged from the cracks in the rocks.
In an instant, he was surrounded by intense heat. Zhang Ling was no stranger to this environment; almost all earth fire veins had such lava environments.
But after taking a few more glances, Zhang Ling noticed that this lava cave was not naturally formed but artificially constructed.
In the firelight before him, stood several enormous pillars of flame, connecting the upper and lower layers. One end was embedded in the upper rock layer, seemingly leading to the surface, while the other plunged into the lava below.
Upon closer inspection, the fire spiritual energy entwined around these flame pillars constantly transformed into flame runes.
Zhang Ling moved swiftly to the side of the flame pillars and chuckled softly.
He recognized these flame pillars. They were not some sophisticated array or restriction but rather fire spirit pillars used to mobilize the fire spiritual energy within the earth fire vein.
In earth fire veins with owners, there were actually similar arrays to better mobilize the earth fire power for refining pills and weapons.
However, fire spirit pillars like these were relatively ancient, a popular method from twenty to thirty thousand years ago.
Seeing these fire spirit pillars, Zhang Ling had a slight guess in his mind. It indirectly proved that Long Bo was an ancient cultivator, but he wondered if the old monster's story about his origins was true or false.
The Wind Fire Orb in Zhang Ling's hand flashed, and he followed the fire spirit pillars all the way to the depths of the earth fire. But his mind was constantly pondering.
When he was trapped inside the cauldron, Long Bo's divine sense incarnation claimed to be a servant of the True Dragon clan's Dragon Island, who accidentally came to the human realm in ancient times. He was then besieged by several Transformation God stage cultivators, leaving him with only a remnant soul.
He had initially believed seventy to eighty percent of this story, but after the old monster tried to devour him, he now thought that the old monster's story about his origins was more like a fabrication to deceive him.
But regardless of whether the old monster's story was true or false, his origins must be extraordinary.
Zhang Ling speculated that Long Bo's strength at his peak was at least at the Transformation God stage. Moreover, he didn't know why the old monster was hiding in the cauldron.
Was it because he suddenly sensed his arrival and deliberately hid in the cauldron, wanting to lure him into the cauldron to devour him? Or was there another purpose? He had no way of knowing.
Traveling a thousand zhang deep into the lava, Zhang Ling accurately sensed the location of the Fire Essence and the Fire Yuan Gourd.
He stopped moving deeper and instead changed direction, using the Fire Escape Technique with the help of the Wind Fire Orb, flying horizontally towards a certain location.
He had released the Fire Essence to use this heaven and earth fire spirit's fire manipulation ability to control the fire spiritual energy in the earth fire vein, cutting off the spiritual energy supply to the fire-patterned stone in the valley, thereby allowing him to better collect the blue treasure cauldron.
The Fire Essence had indeed accomplished this, but he didn't know why it was now trapped down here.
Following the sensed location, Zhang Ling quickly traveled through the lava using the Fire Escape Technique. Soon after, he noticed a glimmer of white light emerging from the lava ahead.
The white light was very bright, overpowering the firelight in the lava.
He probed forward with his divine sense and clearly sensed that a white light pillar, covering a hundred zhang wide, abruptly appeared in the lava a thousand zhang ahead. It seemed to be a layer of array restriction.
With a few flashes, Zhang Ling approached the area. He immediately saw his natal magic treasure, the Fire Yuan Gourd, suspended in the light, being entangled by strands of white spiritual light.
After careful sensing, his face darkened. The Fire Yuan Gourd's spirituality had already been damaged.
He didn't know what kind of spiritual light the white light was, but it was rapidly devouring the Fire Yuan Gourd's own spiritual energy.
The Fire Yuan Gourd also trembled constantly, emitting clusters of cyan and white Five Elements Spiritual Light, constantly resisting the devouring of the spiritual light.
If he hadn't come, the Fire Yuan Gourd might have been directly destroyed before long.
The flames quickly contracted, transforming into a small flame figure. As soon as the Fire Essence appeared, it made a few strange cries, seemingly complaining to him.
The Fire Essence's aura had also weakened significantly, obviously suffering some damage.
But at the same time, dense five-colored runes emerged from the white light pillar. These runes flashed and transformed into strands of white spiritual light, entangling towards the Fire Essence and the Fire Yuan Gourd.
The flame figure revealed a human-like look of fear, clung to the gourd, and flew around rapidly, dodging the white spiritual light. At the same time, this fellow also released clusters of purplish-red fireballs.
But all attacks that came into contact with the white spiritual light became dim and were instantly devoured of their spiritual power.
Seeing this scene, Zhang Ling stopped outside the white light pillar, not entering it, lest he be trapped if he rashly entered.
Seeing his arrival, the flame figure transformed from the Fire Essence also kept rushing towards him.
The Fire Essence inherently possessed intelligence, although not high, it could be regarded as a low-level spirit beast. Zhang Ling was not surprised by this behavior.
The Fire Essence was very fast, but the spiritual light in the light pillar had become dense, like a large mass of white silk threads, forcing the Fire Essence to fly around randomly.
Zhang Ling waved his hand and released a yellow light, condensing it into a large yellow hand, grabbing towards the Fire Essence and the Fire Yuan Gourd inside. It would be best if he could retrieve his natal magic treasure from the outside.
But as soon as his large hand of spiritual light broke through the light pillar and entered inside, it was immediately entangled by the dense gray spiritual light.
In the blink of an eye, his spiritual power was also devoured.
Zhang Ling frowned slightly. It seemed that any spiritual power within the area covered by this light pillar would be rapidly devoured.
There were not few array restrictions that could devour spiritual power, but it was terrifying to devour the spiritual power released by his attack in an instant.
If he entered, he might instantly experience a leakage of his magic power.
At this time, under the sensing of his divine sense, Zhang Ling also noticed the source of this white light pillar, which was actually emitted from a huge stone slab with a diameter of a hundred zhang below.
This stone slab seemed to be a huge array, with many runes engraved on it.
Looking down at the stone slab, Zhang Ling suddenly revealed a look of joy, because he saw that the stone slab was also inlaid with top-grade spirit stones, and a full five of them.
Among them, a emerald green spirit stone was exactly the top-grade wood spirit stone he was looking for. The other four spirit stones also corresponded to the four spiritual power attributes of metal, water, fire, and earth.
In other words, this stone slab happened to be inlaid with five top-grade spirit stones corresponding to the five elements.
Zhang Ling seemed to have seen this kind of array pattern in that ancient book. Zhang Ling's divine sense looked back and forth at the stone slab several times. His eyes flashed with golden light, and he thought of an ancient array he had once seen. "Could it be the Reverse Spirit Sealing Yuan Array, which requires five top-grade spirit stones to set up?"
