Along the way, he encountered many phantoms, some of whom were familiar figures, sometimes ferocious demons, and sometimes former powerful enemies.
Even now, a flash of light and shadow appeared before him, revealing a ghost-masked youth with a chilling aura, who rushed over without a word.
He emanated a dense Yin煞 energy, and his entire body instantly transformed into a giant evil ghost, with a mysterious ghost seal held in one of his ghostly hands. A terrifying Yin煞 aura swept over.
Zhang Ling's face darkened slightly as he scanned with his divine sense, recognizing this powerful enemy he had fought half a year ago.
Knowing he was in an illusion, he still genuinely sensed the person's aura, which felt very real. It was as if this person was truly before him, ready to fight to the death.
He stopped walking and stood in place, allowing the transformed ghost-faced youth to rush toward him. Suddenly, a flash of azure light appeared in Zhang Ling's hand as he pinched out the Mind-Clearing Lotus Seed.
An unusual icy cold force instantly surged into his mind. Zhang Ling shook his head slightly, and when he looked at the scene before him again, the transformed ghost-faced youth had disappeared, and the surrounding floating mist had thinned out a bit.
"Heh, as expected, my divine sense was being interfered with."
Ordinary illusion formations can interfere with a cultivator's five senses, but as long as one guards their mind, they can avoid falling into them.
However, advanced illusion formations greatly interfere with the divine sense. Even if one can resist with a powerful divine sense, they will inevitably be affected.
The illusion formation here, relying on the special spiritual power of the mountain, is even more unpredictable.
Zhang Ling had already witnessed it on the mountain. He could resist with his own divine sense, but over time, his divine sense would inevitably weaken.
Cultivators rely on their divine sense for a long time, forming a habit. Advanced illusion formations may instead take advantage of this, trapping cultivators within.
When that happens, it will be dangerous.
Therefore, he directly took out this Mind-Clearing Lotus Seed, which could counteract some of the interference.
At the same time, the pace of his feet also changed. Sometimes he moved several dozen feet in one direction, sometimes he waited for a moment, and sometimes he retreated a distance, changing direction.
This strange way of walking was the method Ruolan had told him to quickly pass through this illusion formation, saying it was the array-breaking method left by Divine Light Real Person.
It was very similar to the methods used in the mortal world to break through maze formations.
After walking for another distance, Zhang Ling estimated that he was about to pass through the illusion formation. Suddenly, he saw a figure standing in the mist ahead.
He glanced at it and noticed that it was not a phantom, but a real person.
This figure was two zhang tall, wearing golden armor, and holding a dark red giant axe in its hand, but it had no head. Its body leaned forward, and one hand stretched straight out, still holding something.
Getting closer, he saw that it was another puppet. One of its hands was holding a human skeleton, the puppet's arm piercing directly through the skeleton's abdomen.
It looked as if it had killed a cultivator with a single blow.
Sensing it, Zhang Ling's eyes suddenly widened, because he discovered that this puppet was very unusual.
Although it was damaged, the golden armor on the puppet's body had cracks, and there was a large hole in the chest, the size of a finger, with a silver-white long needle inserted in it.
A faint spiritual light flickered in the hole, emitting a weak Nascent Soul aura.
Could this be…?
Zhang Ling's gaze swept over, and he clearly saw that in the hole in the puppet's chest, a silver needle was inserted into a palm-sized, emerald green humanoid jade statue.
The Nascent Soul aura was emitted from the jade statue, which was already damaged, with most of it shattered by the silver needle.
However, judging from the original shape of the carving, it was a seated child, with dense five-colored runes engraved on it.
It seemed to be the core of this puppet, but it was different from ordinary puppet cores. Zhang Ling not only sensed the spiritual energy of a Nascent Soul cultivator on it, but also a weak soul force.
It didn't seem to be a spiritual power core, nor a control core. From the feeling, it seemed that two puppet cores were fused together.
Moreover, the runes on it were very different from the core spiritual patterns for refining puppets recorded in the Heavenly Extremes Puppet Art.
However, the style of this cabinet was very ancient, like an ancient general.
Zhang Ling's gaze turned to the giant axe with the flashing red light in the puppet's hand. His eyes lit up again, this seemed to be an ancient treasure.
He flicked his finger lightly, and with a clear clang, a few strands of spiritual power wrapped around it, and he took the giant axe from the puppet's hand.
Spiritual power merged into it, and the giant axe became radiant with red light, a violent spiritual power flowing on the blade.
Sensing the spiritual power fluctuations on it, Zhang Ling held the giant axe in one hand and swung it to the side. A three-zhang-long red light slashed out.
With a ripping sound in his ears, the red light split the mist and crashed into a jade stone wall dozens of zhang away, directly splitting a huge gap in the jade stone.
"Hehe, not bad power."
Zhang Ling chuckled. This giant axe was indeed an ancient treasure, and it was very heavy in his hand.
Injecting a small amount of spiritual power to activate this treasure, the normal attack was no weaker than an ordinary magic weapon. Fully activated, the power was no less than a high-grade magic weapon.
Then Zhang Ling looked at the skeleton held in the other hand of the puppet. It was a male corpse, which had become a dried corpse. The chest and abdomen were torn open. Judging from the position, it seemed to be a sneak attack by the puppet.
The clothes on the skeleton had long rotted into strips of cloth, but there were two storage bags hanging around the waist.
Zhang Ling immediately became interested and pulled off the two storage bags to take a look.
One of the two storage bags was black and the other was cyan. The styles were very ancient. The black storage bag was a top-level storage bag, and the space inside was not small.
Divine sense penetrated into it, and the first thing he saw was a large pile of Yin spirit stones and many various spiritual ore materials.
Many of the Yin spirit stones were of middle grade, and there were also hundreds of high-grade Yin spirit stones.
Zhang Ling couldn't help but take a breath. The production of Yin spirit stones in the world of immortals was very small, but there were so many packed inside, it looked like there were five or six hundred thousand.
The remaining spiritual ore was also rare material.
"Oh, there is actually a piece of top-grade Shattered Yin Jade."
Zhang Ling squeezed the black storage bag, and a millstone-sized black jade stone appeared, with a faint glimmer of light flashing in it, looking very beautiful.
The black jade stone was Shattered Yin Jade, which was a top-grade Yin cold material.
In his Underworld King Art, there was a ghost magic weapon called the Shattered Soul Sword, which was made of this material.
The Shattered Soul Sword was slightly inferior to the Profound Moon Blade used by the ghost-faced youth, but it was also a top ghost magic weapon.
This Shattered Soul Sword was better at killing fierce souls and evil spirits. The more it killed, the Shattered Soul Sword would also absorb the fierce soul power, which was an evil treasure.
Then, he also found a few jade boxes in the black storage bag, which contained ghost pills. There were two or three dozen in total.
There were also some other sundries, which were also of considerable value.
However, when his divine sense invaded the cyan storage bag, Zhang Ling was slightly disappointed. This cyan storage bag was just a low-level storage bag, containing some clothes and a few ordinary magic weapons, which were of very low value.
He was slightly puzzled. The black storage bag was a top-level storage bag, and the cultivation of this skeleton must not be weak. How could he still carry a low-level storage bag?
He looked through the cyan storage bag and found an ancient character embroidered on it, "Chen." The handwriting looked very delicate.
"Chen, Ancient Chen."
Zhang Ling raised his eyebrows, "Could it be… Divine Light Real Person?"
He thought of the real name of Divine Light Real Person, and shook his head again, how could this be? He was startled by his own thoughts. Looking at the appearance of the skeleton, it seemed to be a sneak attack by a headless puppet.
Divine Light Real Person had the top strength of the late Nascent Soul stage, and also planned Ruolan's affairs. In his consciousness, this ancient cultivator should have died peacefully.
How could such a strong person be killed by a sneak attack.
Zhang Ling carefully looked at the skeleton again, and then found that the skeleton was also holding a strange black wooden stick, about a foot long and the thickness of a thumb.
He recognized it at a glance, the material of this short stick was also Soul-Nourishing Wood.
This Soul-Nourishing Wood had many dark red spiritual patterns on it. These souls formed the shape of evil ghosts gathered on it, emitting a fierce aura.
Zhang Ling frowned. Soul-Nourishing Wood can nourish the soul when worn on the body, without special refining.
This Soul-Nourishing Wood had obvious traces of being sacrificed and refined. Could it be related to this thing?
Staring at the Soul-Nourishing Wood short stick, he watched for a while.
Zhang Ling couldn't see what the spiritual patterns on it were for, but the spiritual patterns on it were very similar to the soul-banning curse or something similar. It may be used to seal Yin souls and ghosts.
This was indeed a function of Soul-Nourishing Wood.
This kind of divine wood was rarely able to refine other magic weapons, and was related to the primordial spirit and soul of the cultivators of the Dadu River.
With a thought, Zhang Ling took out a jade box and put the short stick away. It was not too late to study it after leaving this place.
At the same time, he also looked at the headless puppet and touched his chin. The child jade sculpture placed in front of the puppet's chest may be the core of this puppet, but it was already broken.
However, with a trace of Nascent Soul aura emitted on it, Zhang Ling guessed that this may be a Nascent Soul level puppet.
If it can be repaired, it must also be a great help.
Thinking in his heart, he flicked his finger, and the silver needle inserted in the child statue was pulled out by him.
This silver needle was surrounded by a light silver spiritual light, and there were many streamlined patterns on it.
The silver needle turned a circle in the air, and Zhang Ling injected a little spiritual power, the silver needle suddenly became transparent, and disappeared right in front of him.
Seeing this scene, Zhang Ling's eyes lit up. This was also an ancient treasure, and it had secret magical powers.
If it weren't for his spiritual power attached to it, he wouldn't be able to capture this silver needle.
Of course, with a sweep of divine sense, he could still slightly observe a trace of fluctuation.
But this was already very amazing. Flying needle-like treasures were difficult to refine, and there were extremely high requirements for materials and refining techniques. It was most suitable for sneak attacks.
Zhang Ling smiled. Speaking of which, he also had a similar ancient treasure in his hand, a rhombus-shaped green awl.
However, the body of the green awl was dozens of times larger than this silver needle, and it didn't have secret magical powers. With his current strength, he looked down on it a bit.
This silver needle could replace it.
With a slight thought, Zhang Ling controlled the silver needle to shuttle quickly around, extremely fast, and without any sound. He could only see a little silver light occasionally.
After experimenting, he was satisfied and hid the silver needle in his sleeve. He also pointed at the dark red giant axe, and this treasure was also reduced to a delicate small axe and put away.
These two were top-notch ancient treasures. If used well, they could definitely increase a lot of combat power.
Suddenly, a cracking sound came into his ears. He saw that the child jade statue floating in front of him had more cracks.
The green spiritual light on it flashed, and this time the things in the puppet core were directly broken into three pieces, and a lot of debris and fragments also fell off.
The trace of Nascent Soul cultivator's aura on it also disappeared, and it seemed to be completely destroyed.
Zhang Ling was silent for a moment, sighed, and waved his hand to put the broken child jade statue in a jade box.
The body of the headless puppet was also naturally put away.
Then he searched around the vicinity for a while, and found a watermelon-sized, broken golden-black head shell not far away. It seemed to be the puppet's original head. There were many cracks on it, as well as traces of flame burning.
There were also some puppet fragments, which were carefully put away.
Unexpectedly, there would be these gains in this place, which was considered a worthwhile trip.
...
Continuing forward, it didn't take long for Zhang Ling to pass through the illusion mist. He walked out of a green mist.
There was a hundred-zhang-sized stone cave in front of him, with five-colored spiritual light flashing dimly.
Under his feet were still sections of jade stone steps, extending downwards, a dozen zhang deep, there was a circular jade platform. The five-colored spiritual light was emitted from above.
Around the jade platform was a pool, surrounded by a cyan pool water, and the circular jade platform was located in the center.
Glancing at it, Zhang Ling noticed that the circular platform was actually a top-grade Five Elements Jade, which seemed to be natural. It was seven or eight zhang in diameter.
He couldn't help but swallow his saliva. There were also many cone-shaped Five Elements Jade stones in the sky, dripping with the sound of tinkling water.
At the same time, around the circular platform, there were also some square stone pillars, engraved with many spiritual patterns. Like pieces of jade talisman, there were black chains wrapped around them, extending into the car water, and it was unknown what their function was.
Glancing at it, he saw that on the circular platform, there was a green jade tree, three zhang high. It was covered with emerald-like leaves.
Among the leaves, there were several fruits hidden, shining in the white misty spiritual light.
"Mystic God Fruit."
Zhang Ling flashed and came to the jade platform, staring at this jade tree.
"One, two… five."
It seemed that this jade tree had lush leaves, but only five Mystic God Fruits were hidden inside. One of them was cyan, and the white light on it was dim, and it seemed not yet ripe.
Zhang Ling recalled the information about the Mystic God Fruit in his mind. This spiritual fruit was a sixth-grade spiritual fruit. It was said that only a ten-thousand-year-old Mystic God Fruit tree could bear spiritual fruit.
The time it took for each fruit to bear fruit was also very long, it also took thousands of years. And if each fruit was not picked for a period of time after ripening, it would dissipate on its own.
This spiritual fruit can be taken directly, without being refined into pills. But after taking it, it will fall asleep for a period of time. It was like being drunk, in a trance, in a mysterious feeling.
