Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Eternal Darkness

The Sea and Mountain Art was a very common cultivation technique, and the degree to which it separated heterogeneity was also unimpressive.

There were many cultivation techniques like this in South Phoenix, and most of them were used by small families or forces.

Even if cultivated to completion, they didn’t grant powerful battle prowess, and their descriptions were often exaggerated.

The saying that ‘Imps can move mountains and Chiefs can move seas’ was a typical exaggeration.

But in Xu Qing’s hands, this Sea and Mountain Art exploded out with unprecedented power. Even the creator of this cultivation technique most likely never reached such a level.

At the fifth level, his Imp Shadow was comparable to others at the sixth or seventh level of the Sea and Mountain Art, and now that he had broken through into the sixth level, he directly formed a Chief Shadow.

Although it was only a young Chief, its power far exceeded the previous Imp.

Xu Qing could imagine that once he reached the seventh level, the Chief Shadow would be fully formed.

A fully formed Chief Shadow was the endpoint of the Sea and Mountain Art for most cultivators.

Bu Xu Qing still had a ways to go.

“According to the description of the Sea and Mountain Art, the Chief Shadow is only formed after reaching the tenth level. At the peak level, the Chief Shadow will fully mature.”

Xu Qing’s eyes revealed a strange light as he sat in the medicine house.

“But for me, it should fully mature once I reach the seventh level, so what about the eight level? What will happen once I reach the ninth, tenth, or even the peak?”

Xu Qing felt a strong sense of anticipation in his heart as he looked down at his body.

This time, he didn’t bother testing out his speed and strength. He could already clearly feel that there was a power welling up within his body that far surpassed the previous fifth level.

This mighty power surprised even himself.

And it was the same for his speed. Xu Qing had a feeling that if he ran with all his might, only the wind could possibly catch him.

He didn’t know how many people in the camp were stronger than him.

But he was sure that he could now kill magic arts cultivators at the seventh level of Qi Condensation, like the black-clothed old man from a few days ago. In fact, he could even kill two of them at once.

After a while, Xu Qing inhaled deeply and looked down at the ground.

Right now, night had fallen outside, and the whole room was pitch black. However, Xu Qing could still faintly feel the existence of his shadow.

It seemed that his breakthrough had also affected the shadow, allowing it to absorb more heterogeneity and strengthening the subtle connection it had with him.

Time passed slowly as Xu Qing stared at the ground in silence. The sky outside brightened, and as sunlight poured into the simple medicine house, a blurry shadow appeared beneath Xu Qing, becoming clearer and clearer.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed as soon as it appeared.

He had been waiting for this moment. As he sent his will over to the shadow, he clearly saw it distort slightly.

Gradually, the shadow slowly raised its right hand.

Xu Qing’s breathing grew heavier. Staring at the shadow, he controlled its hand to move along the ground. When the shadow’s hand touched darkness, it merged into the darkness and disappeared. However, Xu Qing’s face didn’t change; he could sense that the shadow was still there.

Finally, under his control, the shadow’s hand reached one of the small wooden lattices. It slowly creeped up and grabbed a medicinal herb.

The moment the shadow touched it, the medicinal herb instantly turned blue-black as its heterogeneity surged.

At the same time, Xu Qing’s control reached its limit. He felt a boom go off in his head, and the hand that stretched out from the shadow immediately retracted, returning to its original shape.

After a while, Xu Qing raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a splitting headache. He immediately shut his eyes and adjusted his breathing.

Two hours later, Xu Qing opened his eyes again. They were no longer bloodshot, and his headache had receded.

“I still can’t control it freely.”

Xu Qing took a deep look at the shadow before withdrawing his control.

He wasn’t in a hurry. According to his current rate of development, he would be able to completely control the shadow sooner rather than later.

When that day came, the shadow… would become his secret trump card.

After resting for a while, Xu Qing raised his hand and made a grabbing motion, causing the mutated herb to fly toward him and land in his hand. He lowered his head to observe carefully.

“It’s just like when God’s eyes opened… It’s the same as the herbs in the city ruins’ pharmacy.”

“So, the shadow can infect anything it touches with heterogeneity?” Xu Qing muttered before trying to control the shadow again.

Four hours later, Xu Qing finally gained a general understanding of the shadow’s abilities.

The shadow didn’t automatically release heterogeneity into anything it covered. Only when it was being controlled by Xu Qing would it cause whatever it touched to mutate.

Its ability to spread heterogeneity was astonishingly lethal. In Xu Qing’s heart, he had always been on guard against this mysterious shadow.

Now, he looked at the spot where the purple crystal was buried in his chest. Xu Qing could sense that the purple crystal had a powerful suppressive effect on the shadow.

After a long time, Xu Qing withdrew his gaze. He put down the herb in his hand and looked at the small lattices all around him. At this point, the lattices were all empty; the herbs that had been in them were now mashed up inside the stone pot.

Glancing at the black liquid inside the stone pot, Xu Qing sighed.

He was a bit reluctant to just throw it away. After thinking it over, he felt that this black medicinal liquid could at least become a weapon if he used it well.

Thus, he shaped the medicinal liquid in the stone pot into pills one by one, and coated each one with an outer film of seven-leaf grass juice.

In the end, he had dozens of pills which were black on the inside and azure on the outside.

“I’ll call them Black Pills.” Xu Qing put the pills away and left the medicine house. He planned to go collect some herbs, and at the same time, he wanted to catch another black-scaled wolf.

During the past while, Xu Qing had become thoroughly familiar with black-scaled wolves as he used one as a medicine testing animal. Once he left the valley, he arrived at the temple complex soon after, and he ran towards the depths of the forbidden area without stopping.

After all, there were far more herbs in the depths than there were in the outer area.

Xu Qing had explored the jungle depths many times by now. Although he never dared to go very far, he still came out with quite a harvest each time.

Shortly after Xu Qing stepped into the depths of the forbidden area, a group of people was slowly exploring the outer area.

There were hundreds of people in this group, containing both men and women. On the edge of the group was a large number of guards, and there were several middle-aged men with extremely powerful auras looking around vigilantly.

The ones being guarded in the center were those young men and women who had come with that convoy and stayed outside the camp. There was no sign of nervousness on their expressions, and it seemed like this trip was like a vacation for them as they chatted and laughed among themselves.

The group’s guide was Old Stone. At that moment, he was full of helplessness as he glanced over at those young men and women from time to time. Watching their leisurely appearances, he sighed in his heart.

“This is the forbidden area…” Old Stone wanted to speak but hesitated. He knew that none of them would listen to his words. These people who had lived in cities all their lives thought they knew about the forbidden area, but their understanding of its horrors was far inferior to the scavengers.

One side only knew from books and conversations, while the other had personal experience.

“I hope the journey goes smoothly and nothing unusual happens. After getting paid for this, I’ll retire and never enter a forbidden area ever again.” Old Stone muttered in his heart as he moved forward with extreme caution.

However, there was something that no one, not even Old Stone, noticed. Among the group of young men and women, there was a beautiful girl with long black hair who was wearing a blue dress. As she chatted and laughed with an ingratiating blue-clothed young man next to her, she secretly sprinkled some medicine powder from her right hand.

As the wind blew, this colorless and odorless medicinal powder was carried away. The powder seemed to be some sort of catalyst, because it gradually caused some changes to arise in the depths of the forbidden area.

And Xu Qing soon felt this change.

As he carefully navigated his way through the jungle depths, he found that there were a lot fewer mutated beasts in the forbidden area today.

At one point, he saw a lizard whose aura was comparable to the sixth or seventh level of Qi Condensation. This lizard was usually very aggressive, but today it just hid in the mud. Even when Xu Qing drew near, it didn’t make a move, as if it was terrified of something.

This made Xu Qing extremely vigilant. A sense of unease rose in his heart as he looked around at the forbidden area jungle, and after picking a few herbs, he decided to leave.

But just as he was about to leave, an icy aura erupted from the deepest part of the jungle. This aura spread out instantly, causing the surrounding trees to freeze over.

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes and suddenly hid himself. Then he looked up and immediately saw translucent jellyfish flying out from the deepest part of the forbidden area.

There were six huge jellyfish being followed by hundreds of small ones as they flew through the sky in the direction of the temple complex.

It was as if something over there was extremely attractive to them.

The moment Xu Qing saw the swarm of jellyfish, they also noticed Xu Qing.

One of the big jellyfish paused in mid-air and turned to face Xu Qing. On its tentacles were densely packed eyes, and at that moment, they suddenly opened!

A strong feeling of crisis erupted in Xu Qing’s heart. He felt his whole body tremble, and the Chief Shadow suddenly appeared behind him, roaring soundlessly towards the jellyfish in the sky.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. He was no longer at the third level of Qi Condensation. Back then, under the jellyfish’s pressure, he was completely powerless to resist.

But now, as his qi and blood surged, with the Chief Shadow roaring out behind him, that jellyfish looking at him seemed to hesitate a bit.

Perhaps whatever was in the direction of the temple complex was more attractive, or perhaps it felt some danger from Xu Qing, but after hesitating for a while, the jellyfish turned around and floated away.

When the jellyfish left, Xu Qing also heaved a sigh of relief.

Looking around at his surroundings, he felt that the forbidden area was very strange today, so Xu Qing quickly left.

“Where are they heading… The temple complex? Or somewhere farther in that direction? I hope they’re just passing by, otherwise, I’ll have to take a detour around the temple complex...”

On the way, a look of contemplation appeared in Xu Qing’s eyes. However, his speed didn’t decrease at all as he continued shuttling through the jungle.

Time passed slowly, and two hours later, Xu Qing jumped up on top of a tree, looking at the temple complex in the distance.

He was still an hour away, but this was close enough for him to see the temple complex’s outline.

However, as soon as he looked, Xu Qing’s expression darkened. The scene he was most worried about had appeared.

He could clearly see the swarm of jellyfish floating in the air above the temple complex. There seemed to be people fighting them, and the sound of clashes was faintly audible.

But he was too far away, so Xu Qing couldn’t see the faces of the battle participants. After thinking it over, he cautiously made his way over.

At the same time, down in the temple complex, Old Stone looked around, trembling in despair.

There was a large number of corpses all around him, all followers and guards brought by those young men and women

As for those young men and women, they no longer had the carefree expressions from earlier. They all had injuries and were in a sorry state, and their pale faces were now filled with terror.

The remaining guards and followers protected them carefully, retreating slowly among bloody battles.

They were only fighting against the hundreds of small jellyfish. It was the several powerful middle-aged cultivators who fought in the sky with the six large jellyfish.

“How could this be, how could this be… Everything was clearly fine earlier…”

Old Stone trembled as he hurriedly followed those panicked young men and women, but he was too old. After only a few steps, a small jellyfish that made it past the guards rushed at him.

He didn’t have time to dodge, and the next moment… the jellyfish floated through Old Stone, swallowing his heart as it passed. Then it charged straight toward those young men and women.

Old Stone’s body fell down, twitching uncontrollably.

Blood flowed down his chest, pooling around his head, and flowed from his mouth unceasingly, as if it was quicksand drowning him. As his life came to an end, a single sentence flashed through his mind.

“I won’t be able to buy… the residence qualification….”

With his eyes open, Old Stone’s breath dissipated, and he stopped moving. Everything in front of him turned into eternal darkness.

Previous Chapter

Table of Contents

Next Chapter