PFC Chapter 183 Wilderness 4
Chapter 183 Wilderness 4
While Cheng Jiu was recovering his spiritual power, the others were not idle either. Gong Cheng and Gong Yu were calculating the natural illusion arrays that might form in this deadly ice field, while the other two were searching around for anomalies and dangers in the ice field.
The two dared not go too far. The situation here was unclear, and to avoid falling into the same situation again, they returned just in time.
"You're back? Did you find anything?" Cheng Jiu, having also recovered his spiritual power, asked curiously.
"That's strange!" The two of them actually made a discovery.
"What's strange about that!"
"That's really strange!"
"Stop playing games, senior brothers!" Cheng Jiu was getting impatient. What was strange? Tell me!
“These don’t seem to have grown from the ground.” Shangguan Song scratched his head. “I have an earth elemental root. When I cultivate, I like to lift those big rocks to train. The feeling I get from those mountains is that if I’m strong enough, I should be able to lift them, just like those rocks!”
"You mean those mountains aren't mountains, but huge rocks!" Cheng Jiu looked at the majestic mountains around him. Although these mountains couldn't compare to the Qingli Mountains, they were still quite tall and imposing. How could they be rocks?
"Junior Sister Cheng Jiu, I've discovered that these stones form an illusion array, and the core of the array seems to be right around us!" As he said this, Gong Yu's tone was full of hesitation and doubt. There was something else he didn't say: he felt that this was not natural, but man-made.
Cheng Jiu and his group had passed through the narrow passage where they had been buried and entered a relatively open ice field. They were surrounded by mountains, silent and covered with flying snow.
And this was actually the core of the illusion array! It's such a beautiful illusion array, how lucky they were to have survived!
"Senior brother, do you have a solution?" Cheng Jiu asked. Although she could recommend one herself, weren't there already some here? They were all her friends, trustworthy.
“It’s up ahead!” Gong Yu said with certainty after some deduction.
"Let's go!" Knowing their destination, the group immediately decided to set off. Cheng Jiu took out four pill bottles from his pocket: "These are Qinghuan Pills. Their effects only last for two hours. Remember the time and take them on time so you won't be affected by this formation."
"Okay!" The group reached out and took the pills. As soon as they swallowed them, they felt a cool sensation rush to their heads. They felt they had never been so clear-headed before.
Following Gong Yu's array guidance, breaking the array is never an easy task, especially this huge illusion array. The closer you get to the core, the more changes there are. Every step must be taken with caution and careful deduction.
Despite the extremely cold weather, hot sweat kept appearing on Gong Yu's forehead, turning into ice crystals that dripped onto the ground. His spiritual energy and mental power were also being consumed at an exponential rate, making it extremely difficult for him to manage on his own.
Cheng Jiu silently took over the formation deduction from him, and the two of them worked together to rest. The other three people quietly took care of the two of them to prevent them from overdoing the deduction and collapsing from exhaustion.
After a day and a night, we were almost at our final destination.
Gong Yu watched as the compass in his hand swung wildly: "Oh no! The formation has been activated!"
"What?" The other four were shocked to hear this, completely caught off guard and unprepared.
Visible to the naked eye in the sky, the dazzling aurora borealis enveloped the world like a dream, causing the ground to shake violently. Several people lost their footing and fell to the ground.
The last thing Cheng Jiu saw was a glimmer of colorful light, like a candy wrapper shimmering in sunlight, full of beauty and illusion, before he was plunged into an endless black dream.
After an unknown amount of time, Cheng Jiu seemed to see a bright light. As if she had been in the darkness for too long, she kept running towards the light, like a person who had been suffocating from lack of oxygen finally breathing air after a long time.
She sat up and carefully examined her body. The spiritual energy within her was surprisingly abundant. She hadn't been injured or lost anything; it was as if she had just taken a nap and was perfectly fine.
After confirming that nothing was wrong, Cheng Jiu subconsciously looked around. A soft, furry texture appeared in his hand. Cheng Jiu instinctively grabbed it and looked down to see that it was an unknown piece of fur, but it was warm and quite comfortable.
This place seemed to be a huge cave. Apart from the fur she was lying on, the largest furry object in the exposed cave was a large nest made of fur and soft grass on the opposite side. There was nothing else there.
The cave is quite dry and warm. The entrance is sealed with a single piece of stone, and it would be difficult to spot unless you look closely. The lighting inside the cave comes from bright beads that emit a gentle, non-glaring light.
There was no one else in the entire cave except her. She felt uneasy. Where were her companions? And where was she? Could she have been carried back to her lair by some unknown monster?
Her mind was in turmoil with all sorts of thoughts, but the only good news was that she was still alive! As long as someone is alive, there is hope; maybe her friends are alive too!
Cheng Jiu stretched her body, tiptoed to the cave entrance, listened carefully but there was no sound. She carefully moved the large rock and peeked out to look around.
"You're awake?" A clear and pleasant voice rang in Cheng Jiu's ears.
Humans, how can anyone live in this godforsaken place!
Cheng Jiu's eyes searched everywhere.
"Stop looking, look ahead!"
Cheng Jiu looked ahead and saw a head of extremely smooth black hair, long hair hanging down to the ground, with a piece of ice jade that looked extremely valuable hanging from the end of the hair.
The young girl had a slender figure and looked exceptionally beautiful. She was dressed in a simple, elegant dress and sat alone on a large rock.
Cheng Jiu walked over and said, "Greetings, senior! I am Cheng Jiu, thank you for saving me!"
The girl slowly turned her head, startling Cheng Jiu. The girl was extremely beautiful, but where there should have been a pair of bright black eyes, there was only a pair of whites. Not only her eyes, but also her eyebrows and eyelashes were white, like a snow fairy, eerie yet with an inviolable beauty.
Cheng Jiu was secretly surprised, but he didn't show it on his face.
“Master is right. People outside are indeed very knowledgeable. You don’t seem afraid of me at all!” The girl turned around again, her fair hand holding a crimson and gold fishing rod.
Phoenix wood! Cheng Jiu recognized the material of the fishing rod and secretly guessed the girl's identity.
"Senior, what's wrong with you?!"
"I'm fishing! Do you want to try?" The girl handed the fishing rod to Cheng Jiu.
For some reason, Cheng Jiu found it hard to refuse, reached out and took the seat, and sat in the girl's place instead.
"Great! I'll leave it to you then! You need to catch ten in total! Otherwise, they won't have enough to eat, and Master's two pets will start fighting." The girl said with a flat but delighted tone, "I'm going to sleep now! I'll leave the next few days to you!"
Without waiting for Cheng Jiu's reaction, he walked into the cave Cheng Jiu had just come out of, and the frozen door closed tightly.
Suddenly the door was opened again, and the girl had changed into another set of more casual clothes, clearly in a sleeping position: "By the way, some more babies are coming later, you have to feed them all, otherwise it will be a big problem if they cry!"
After thinking for a moment, the girl blinked her innocent eyes and said, "Okay, that's all! Nothing else!"
The ice cave door slammed shut again.
Cheng Jiu was left holding his fishing rod, staring at the large ice cave in front of him, utterly bewildered.
She seemed to have just come to check on the situation, so how did it turn out like this?
Thinking of that girl, Cheng Jiu felt that perhaps she was just too irresistible.
A strange cave, a strange place, a strange fishing. They remembered that they came here to destroy the core of the illusion array. How did they end up fishing?
Ugh!
The fishing rod in my hand suddenly plummeted downwards; a fish had taken the bait?
"It's so heavy! How can it be so heavy!" Cheng Jiu considered herself to be quite strong, after all, she had never slacked off in body training since she was a child, and her physical cultivation was among the best of her peers, but this fish was just too heavy!
Cheng Jiu kept adjusting his posture and strength, and the little black dragon and the little cloud beast also flew out to help Cheng Jiu pull backward.
"Charge! Pull!" Cheng Jiu steadied his strength and shouted the slogan. The little black dragon and the little cloud beast also followed the slogan and exerted their strength.
With each shout, it seemed as if they were struggling with the fish below.
"We're up! We're up! Ha!"
With a splash, a fish about the size of a person crashed heavily to the ground.
Before Cheng Jiu could even get close, a powerful blast of cold air struck him directly in the face: "Holy crap! Nascent Soul stage! This is deadly!"
They actually caught a Nascent Soul stage fish beast! It's incredibly wild!
The Heavenly Wood Sword flew out of thin air, carrying unparalleled momentum as it thrust towards the fish-beast.
The fish-beast used its tail to send the Heavenly Wood Sword flying.
That's some serious defense!
Cheng Jiu gripped the flying Heavenly Wood Sword and charged towards the fish beast. So what if she was weaker than it? She wasn't afraid of it!
The icy plains greatly limited Cheng Jiu's abilities. After all, she had a wood spirit root and couldn't use plants to attack fish and beasts on the icy plains. She could only rely on her sword cultivation and body cultivation.
Bloodthirsty Thorns spread from Cheng Jiu's wrist. Relying on Cheng Jiu's own spiritual energy, the use of Bloodthirsty Thorns was not greatly affected. However, the opponent's consciousness had almost fallen into a deep sleep in the freezing cold.
Cheng Jiu constantly dodged the attacks of the fish-beasts, lashing out with the Bloodthirsty Thorns in his hand. Like a bloodthirsty dancer, he moved on the edge of a blade, yet remained unharmed, while the poison in his hand had already seeped deep into the marrow of his opponent.
As some bloodthirsty thorn seeds are planted into the other's body.
"Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Source!" With a loud shout from Cheng Jiu, the swords around him multiplied from one to two, then from two to four, instantly filling the sky with countless swords. With a single swing, all the sword light, carrying a green glow, pierced through the fish beast's abdomen through the wound torn open by the Bloodthirsty Thorns.
The fish-beast struggled twice, then collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
Cheng Jiu was panting heavily. As expected of her, even a Nascent Soul cultivator in the Ice Plains was no match for her.
"Oh no, Xiao Jiu, look! That ice cave!"
Upon hearing this, Cheng Jiu didn't rest and ran over, only to find that the originally spacious ice cave had begun to freeze and shrink.
Sparks and lightning crackled around the little cloud beast as it tried to stop the other party from freezing further, but to little avail, only providing temporary relief.
Cheng Jiu picked up a fishing rod from the side and put it into the seawater, and the ice cave stopped freezing.
"I'm sorry, Xiao Jiu!" Yun Bao and Mo Yu flew over and looked at the ice cave, which had shrunk in size, and said apologetically.
Upon discovering that the ice cave was shrinking, Rainbow Dash and Jade tried their best to slow it down. However, the ice here was very strange, and their flames had little effect on it, only slowing down the shrinking of the ice cave.
"It's alright, babies, you've already done your best!" Cheng Jiu saw their efforts. She was so focused on fishing that she didn't notice the ice cave shrinking, and she didn't even know the fishing rod had this function.
"Let me enlarge this ice cave!" Cheng Jiu was unaware that Yun Bao and Mo Yu had tried to enlarge the ice cave.
"Ten Thousand Swords Return to Their Origin!"
Seeing the small pits appearing on the ice, Cheng Jiu fell silent! No way!
"Ten Thousand Swords Return to Their Origin!"
"Ten Thousand Swords Return to Their Origin!"
The crater expanded, but it didn't even damage the surface of the ice.
"Sword Domain Open, Myriad Wood Technique!" Green light rose from Cheng Jiu's body, and the Heavenly Wood Sword in his hand shone with an even brighter green light, incredibly sharp.
Cheng Jiu charged toward the ice with a powerful aura, and a sickening sound rang out continuously, as if a sword was cutting through the ice.
After a long silence, Cheng Jiu, kneeling slightly, looked up and met the gazes of the little black dragon and the little cloud beast who had been watching their master break the ice.
"This ice, it must be made of iron!"
Cheng Jiu stared incredulously at the ice layer, which had sunk only slightly deeper than the small pit from before. Tiny cracks spread outwards like a spider web, but that was all.
Undeterred, Cheng Jiu continued to poke downwards with the Heavenly Wood Sword. He hadn't even chipped away much of the ice yet, and looking at his precious Heavenly Wood Sword, Cheng Jiu felt a pang of heartache.
Fine, if we can't break it, we can't break it! She's not one to be stubborn.
"Woo!" the little cloud beast cried out urgently.
"Another fish has taken the bait!" the little black dragon shouted, struggling to wrap its body around the phoenix wood fishing rod, and together with the little cloud beast, they pulled the fishing rod back to prevent it from being dragged down by the strange fish below.
Cheng Jiu's vision went black; the spiritual energy he had just used hadn't recovered yet, but he didn't care!
She remembered that the fishing rod didn't have any bait, so how come it took the bait so quickly?
She quickly went over and grabbed the fishing rod. Together, the two of them, one human and one animal, worked hard and cast another strange fish onto the water.
As soon as it appeared, the fish scales on the strange fish turned into millions of crystal chips and shot out in all directions. Cheng Jiu took out a large shield and covered her, the little cloud beast, and the little black dragon.
Hmm, a metal-attribute fish-beast!
As the ear-piercing crackling and teeth-grinding sounds subsided, to prevent the fish-beast from attacking again, Cheng Jiu carried his shield and approached the fish-beast. The fish-beast lay quietly on the ground, occasionally struggling.
Cheng Jiu didn't have any spiritual energy to use her swordsmanship right now. She picked up the ninth-grade shield, took a deep breath, and slammed it down on the fish-beast. At first, the fish-beast was struggling, its whole body radiating golden light, like a slender needle, constantly piercing into the shield.
But with each subsequent struggle, the fish-beast's efforts weakened until it gradually came to a complete stop.
Cheng Jiu was so tired that he felt even his fingertips were too weak.
"Master! Another fish has taken the bait!"
"What! Not again?" She was truly exhausted!