Mu Xiaoyan took out a sachet that was quite exquisite, but it didn't have any spiritual energy fluctuations. It seemed to be an ordinary object, looking like a personal item embroidered by a young lady.
The overall shape resembled a hexagonal purse, embroidered with some floral and bird patterns. On one side, there were even two mandarin ducks, one blue and one red.
Mu Xiaoyan then patted a spirit beast pouch on her waist, and several flower butterflies flew out. They circled the sachet a few times before flying in all directions.
After a moment, the butterflies gathered together and flew towards the left, their speed not fast, but their destination seemed clear.
Mu Xiaoyan's face lit up with joy, and she quickly ordered the white eagle to carry them both, following the butterflies.
This method of identifying people by scent is common in the cultivation world, especially for cultivators who are skilled in beast control.
Zhang Ling's mind turned, and he thought that he also raised several kinds of spirit insects. When he returned, perhaps he could get some insect-breeding tips from this girl.
A quarter of an hour later, Zhang Ling and Mu Xiaoyan arrived at the depths of the Bewildering Forest.
Besides encountering some low-level demonic beasts, they also saw more than a dozen cultivators, all low-level cultivators around the Foundation Establishment stage. Seeing them riding a giant demonic bird, they either looked sideways or fled in panic.
This area is often entered by low-level cultivators searching for spiritual herbs and other things. But in reality, there are no precious spiritual herbs, and it can only be considered a training ground for low-level cultivators.
After traveling some distance, Zhang Ling noticed a huge object in the dim sand and dust. A scan with his divine sense revealed that it was a stone mountain with a considerable area, and it seemed that most of the mountain was buried in the yellow sand.
"Brother Zhang, we are close. I sense that my friend's aura is nearby," Mu Xiaoyan said with a smile. She directed the white-feathered giant eagle under her feet towards the south side of the mountain, finally landing on a cliff face.
This was a cliff several hundred feet high. The surrounding soil and rocks were made of materials similar to quartz, but even smoother. Occasionally, sunlight scattered from the dust shone on it, forming some glittering reflections.
This was a spiritual mine called Black Light Rock, rare in other places, but extremely common in the Black Cloud Desert. Its value was not high, and only a small number of cultivators would collect this material.
The butterflies that Mu Xiaoyan used to sense her friend's aura circled a few times in front of them, then flew down the cliff. She hesitated for a moment, looking at Zhang Ling as if wanting to say something.
Zhang Ling said without worry, "Your friend is down there, right?" After saying that, he transformed into a yellow light and fell down the cliff.
"Brother, be careful," Mu Xiaoyan shouted quickly, also bringing the white eagle down.
The cliff was not high, and Zhang Ling had already roughly checked the nearby situation with his divine sense. He discovered a place with obvious signs of artificial destruction.
Then, at the bottom of the cliff, he found several ground fissures that were several tens of feet long, with many scattered soil and rocks around them. It was dark inside, with gusts of cold wind blowing out.
"It's here. This sword mark was caused by my friend's natal magic weapon, the凝光 Sword (Níng guāng Jiàn)," Mu Xiaoyan said definitively after glancing at the several ground fissures.
Zhang Ling nodded expressionlessly. A flash of spiritual light appeared on his body, lighting up a thin layer of yellow light. He activated his protective spiritual light and entered first.
It was dark inside, but it didn't interfere much with cultivators who could use their divine sense to explore. Entering it, the path sloped downwards, seemingly leading to the depths of the earth. But after walking for a while, Zhang Ling frowned slightly.
His divine sense detected a weak spiritual energy fluctuation in the depths, but it was a bit strange. The spiritual energy fluctuation was sometimes strong and sometimes weak, very unstable. Approaching it quickly, he soon saw a pile of broken earth and boulders, with a broken stone door blocking the way.
Zhang Ling estimated that they had reached a depth of thousands of feet underground.
Arriving here, Mu Xiaoyan also noticed the spiritual energy fluctuations inside. She rushed inside with joy. "There are spiritual energy fluctuations, maybe they are breaking the formation."
"Wait."
Zhang Ling flashed in front of her. With a wave of his hand, he sent several nearby boulders flying to the side, making a muffled sound. A strange thing flew out from under the stones.
Looking closely, it was actually half a centipede's corpse, but it was also about two zhang long.
"Rock Shell Centipede, Brother, it's just the corpse of a low-level demonic beast, is there something wrong? Strange, there are many of these in the Black Cloud Desert," Mu Xiaoyan glanced at it and recognized what kind of demonic beast it was.
The centipede's carapace was like rock and soil, with segments of earthy-yellow hard shells. Zhang Ling naturally knew that this was the corpse of a low-level demonic beast. He reached out again, shaking the half-section of the centipede's corpse, and several translucent threads fell down. These threads also reflected some purple light.
"Then do you recognize what this is?"
"Huh, I haven't seen it before, it's like the fluff grown by some spiritual plant," Xiaoyan curiously walked over, picked up a translucent thread and pulled it, feeling very tough. At the same time, she pinched it with her hand and felt it was a bit sticky.
Zhang Ling didn't know what these things were either. But they didn't feel like they grew on plants. Because there was no trace of grass or wood spiritual energy on them, but rather a very small amount of bloody aura.
He shot out a fireball, burning the threads into wisps of green smoke. Zhang Ling clapped his hands, no longer delaying, and walked in. "Be careful." At the same time, he instructed Mu Xiaoyan behind him.
Xiaoyan responded, took out a long colored ribbon, and wrapped it around her body, forming a layer of fire protection.
Behind the stone door was a hall that was neither too big nor too small, with some traces of fighting, and also the corpses of several Rock Shell Centipedes. Zhang Ling paid special attention to these centipede corpses, which were also stained with some small amounts of threads.
There were two stone doors on the left and right sides of the hall, but they had already been opened. Inside, besides some stone tables and chairs, there was nothing else. Obviously, the cultivators who came earlier had searched them.
There was also a straight passage in front, seemingly leading to a larger space. The two directly walked towards that side, able to sense that the spiritual energy fluctuations there were even stronger.
At the end of the passage, a layer of yellow light curtain blocked the way. It was a restriction, with some spiritual patterns engraved on the walls on both sides, but there were many cracks, obviously damaged.
This layer of light curtain was not strong either. Zhang Ling threw out two sword lights, easily breaking a large hole in it. The two passed through it, the passage shook, and the hole broken in the yellow light curtain recovered as before, but the emitted light became weaker.
Although this restriction could recover on its own, it also consumed something. It wouldn't be long before it was completely destroyed.
Arriving on the other side, the scene suddenly opened up, revealing a cave the size of a hundred zhang. The cave was very deep, and a layer of yellow mist was swirling below, making it difficult to see what was inside. But the banging sounds, as well as various explosions, came from below, seemingly indicating that someone was fighting fiercely down there.
The yellow mist also had the effect of interfering with divine sense, and it seemed to be another kind of restriction.
Zhang Ling became more cautious, not rashly entering inside. He first mobilized his divine sense power, intending to forcibly explore the situation inside before making a decision.
As his divine sense spread, it offset some of the interference from the yellow mist. Allowing him to see some things clearly, but it was different from the scene he imagined of several cultivators being trapped inside.
Inside, there was a huge bronze cauldron, with more than a dozen huge pillars standing around it, seemingly forming some kind of formation. Thick blue chains were wrapped around the pillars, with the other ends wrapped around the bronze cauldron, sealing the bronze cauldron in the center.
But half of the pillars had collapsed, and several chains were broken. The power of the seal formation was weakened a lot, causing the sealed bronze cauldron to emit bursts of muffled clanging sounds.
What was being sealed was not the bronze cauldron itself, but something inside.
Strangely, four cultivators, three men and one woman, and three demonic beasts had joined forces and were destroying the remaining five or six pillars.
This situation made Zhang Ling feel very strange. Immediately after, he noticed that the lid of the bronze cauldron had been pried open, and many purple glittering threads were wrapped around it. These were the threads that had been found on the centipede corpses earlier.
Many of these threads were wrapped around the four cultivators and three demonic beasts, making them glow with purple light. Seeing this, Zhang Ling realized that the purple light seemed to be some kind of control method, bewitching these people and demonic beasts.
With a loud rumble, another spiritual light pillar was destroyed and collapsed.
Immediately, the bronze cauldron sealed in the middle transmitted a huge vibration, suddenly bouncing up from the ground. Bang bang, there were two more muffled sounds, and two chains were directly broken.
A deafening beast roar came from the bronze cauldron, scattering a lot of the yellow mist in front of it.
"You really are in there, uh, Wu Yun what are you doing?" The yellow mist in front was scattered, and the interference with the divine sense was weakened a lot. Mu Xiaoyan also saw some of the situation clearly, and immediately stared at one of the men among the four cultivators.
Zhang Ling also glanced over following her gaze. He was an elegant man wearing a white robe, seemingly not very old, but with a hideous scar on his face, marring his appearance. But his cultivation was even higher than Xiaoyan's, a Golden Core late-stage cultivator.
It seemed that this person was Mu Xiaoyan's friend, unexpectedly a man. Seeing Mu Xiaoyan's concerned expression, their relationship was not ordinary.
Mu Xiaoyan also discovered that the situation in the yellow mist was not right. The colored ribbon wrapped around her body rolled in the air, turning into a long streamer, and rolled towards the man called Wu Yun.
Intending to pull this person up directly.
Zhang Ling also made a move at the same time. Three flying swords appeared beside him, and with a flick of his finger, they directly attacked the three demonic beasts that were destroying another pillar.
One was a Rock Shell Centipede with a body length of more than ten zhang, emitting the aura of a fifth-order demonic beast. This kind of centipede didn't have high aptitude, and the number that could reach the fifth-order was extremely small.
The other two demonic beasts were a giant lizard with a completely red body, and a giant scorpion with a completely black body. Both had sixth-order strength.
But facing Zhang Ling's flying swords, they didn't have the slightest power to resist. Three rays of green light flashed, and they were easily killed.
To be precise, they didn't resist at all, as if they were completely controlled by something in the bronze cauldron, only caring about frantically attacking and destroying the stone pillars.
However, Mu Xiaoyan encountered trouble. The ribbon she released hadn't wrapped around Wu Yun yet, and this person seemed to retain some instinctive consciousness, sensing the danger, and dodged with a sway of his body.
"Wu Yun what's wrong with you, wake up quickly," Mu Xiaoyan shouted with an ugly face, wanting to awaken her friend.
Wu Yun seemed not to have heard, and went to the other side, controlling a white glittering flying sword, and slashed at another stone pillar that was about to collapse, cutting a deep gash in the stone pillar.
Zhang Ling also frowned slightly, directly leaping into mid-air, clapping his hands together. First, a yellow wind mass pressed down, scattering the layer of yellow mist below that was interfering with divine sense.
Immediately after, he shot out a yellow light mass, the size of a head, flashing with dazzling bright yellow light. When the light ball approached the ground, it burst into a thick layer of yellow light, pressing down like a layer of light curtain.
Only a muffled sound was heard, and the bronze cauldron vibrating on the ground, as well as the four unconscious cultivators who were still attacking the stone pillars, slowed down a lot, as if they were frozen.
This was naturally the Heavy Yuan Profound Light with the power of gravity. Even if Zhang Ling didn't use the strength of the Nascent Soul stage, it was easy to fix a few Golden Core cultivators.
A colored ribbon rolled, wrapping Wu Yun in it. Mu Xiaoyan's face was overjoyed, and she pulled this person up.
At this moment, with a thud, a purple light shot out from the bronze cauldron. The entire lid of the bronze cauldron was instantly pushed out, and countless translucent purple light threads shot out from inside, sweeping towards Zhang Ling like hair.
Zhang Ling frowned, unexpectedly the thing inside had broken through the Heavy Yuan Profound Light, and its aura had also increased a lot. It seemed that it might also have the strength of the Nascent Soul level. But its aura was unstable, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, and it was impossible to judge what kind of monster it was.
He shook his sleeves, and a golden light flew out, circling around his head, and opened up, turning into a yellow umbrella to protect his whole body.
At the same time, a gourd appeared beside him. Zhang Ling flicked the gourd lightly. Immediately, the gourd shook gently, releasing a large amount of yellow crystalline quicksand, gathering in front of him into a semi-circular sand wall.
With a loud rumble, countless purple light threads crashed into it. Scattering a lot of yellow sand, but not breaking through the defense. Instead, the sound of sand rustling loudly, and the yellow sand quickly flowed, rolling the purple light threads that shot over into it, instantly tearing them to pieces.
However, after the thing in the bronze cauldron released this attack, it didn't attack again. Instead, it suddenly fell to the ground, with a loud noise, causing the entire stone cave to shake.
Immediately after, the few intact stone pillars seemed to have suffered huge damage, cracking countless cracks and collapsing and shattering. The chains wrapped around them lost their spirituality, and the light became dim.
With another loud rumble, cracks also appeared on the bronze cauldron.
