Chapter 772: Picked up a Gourd
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Su Ming was not in a hurry to leave and move forward. He was not really attracted to the power of the World Plane in the deeper parts of the seal. Instead, he had mainly taken the risk to come to this place for the stones that possessed physical power.
For example, the deep blue stone walls around him. These stones alone possessed power that caused Su Ming to feel his heart pound in excitement.
To Su Ming, this place was where his best serendipity lay. That was why he had never even thought about going outside the stone wall and leaving the place. Instead, once he sent a divine thought to the bald crane, he closed his eyes in the stone wall. His flesh and blood in instantly withered away, and in the blink of an eye, he was reduced to only skin and bones.
However, almost at the same time Su Ming's entire body withered, a vast suction force that came from his body sucked away all the physical power contained in the stone wall around him. It surged into Su Ming's body, so he swiftly and visibly recovered from his emaciated state. In fact, he even looked slightly stronger.
Yet soon, Su Ming's body withered once again. Just like that, he continued withering, then recovering, then withering again, and recovering once more. As this process repeated, Su Ming's physical strength, which wasn't weak to begin with, continued increasing.
It could be said that the training of physical bodies would never end based on the Surging Indulgers' divine ability. As long as they had enough physical power which they could absorb at their disposal, they could continue training with this Art endlessly.
Su Ming could sense that his physical body was slowly getting stronger. In fact, if he brought out all his physical strength, he could fight against a cultivator in the initial stage of Man Cultivation Realm.
However, this was too weak in Su Ming's eyes. His aim was to push his physical body to reach Heaven Cultivation Realm or even higher. In fact, it would be even better if he could reach the status of World Paragon just by his physical strength alone.
As Su Ming was devouring the physical power from the stone wall, Sun Kun was within one of the holes in the seal that looked like a beehive, which was located in the depths of the ground. As his body distorted, he turned into a semi-transparent state, as if his body did not exist in the same dimension. Wherever he went, ripples would spread in the air. His expression was grave as he moved step by step farther into the tunnel in the hole.
Even though he did not run into much danger in this condition, the seal that looked like a beehive still made him feel as if he was in a maze. It was not easy to search for the path that truly led to the depths.
Sun Kun had already been moving through this place for a long time, but he still had not managed to find the correct path.
At the same time, the slightly hunchbacked old Long Li charged through the seal that took the form of the beehive once he turned into an endless amount of black shadows that swept up his body. He could no longer be seen clearly, and only black fog could be found filling the air in the tunnel as it enveloped him and charged forward.
His speed was much faster than Sun Kun's, and by the looks of it, he did not seem to be running about wildly at a loss. Instead, he seemed to have a goal in mind, but he was not heading to the depths of the center. He was running in another direction.
After a moment, the black fog came to an abrupt halt and stopped moving forward. Long Li's sparkling eyes could be seen faintly within the fog.
'It should be around here. If the records on the ancient scroll I obtained all those years ago are true, then this is where the secondary core of the six Dao Seals lies.
'The main core of the six Dao Seals is where the person who is sealed lies, that's why there are several secondary cores of unequal power lying around. The ancient scroll mentioned that each of the secondary cores of the six Dao Seals is at least a World Stone that has gathered together all the power of one World.
'As long as I obtain that World Stone, I can begin improving my cultivation base after it had stayed stagnant for so long.'
A hint of excitement appeared in Long Li's eyes as he remained in the fog. His breathing had even become rapid. After all, it could be considered a blessing from heaven to simply be able to run into this sort of thing once in a lifetime. To most people, this sort of change in a cultivation planet and such an opportunity to reach the seal was just a dream.
While Long Li searched everywhere, Tian Lin's body floated in the tunnel. He had his divine sense completely spread out, but he could not cover the entire seal. He had lost his sense of direction in this beehive seal, as if his mind had become disoriented. He frowned. This beehive was simply too big, and from a hundred to a thousand branches would appear in the beehive every set amount of distance. Entering a single wrong path would make it extremely difficult to reach where the Duke of Crimson Flame was truly sealed.
Which was why Tian Lin touched the ground in one of the forks with a dark expression on his face. He closed his eyes, and tree bark immediately manifested on his body. In the blink of an eye, his body turned into a gigantic tree. As that tree swayed, it grew hundreds of branches that numbered nearly a thousand. Then, they started squirming and worming their way into all the holes in the beehive in an incredibly bizarre fashion.
Clearly, Tian Lin wanted to use this method to search for the correct direction to the place he wanted to go. This method might be extremely taxing on his mind and he would also definitely spend a lot of time for searching, but once he located the right place, the direction he got would be very accurate.
As these people executed their divine abilities, Su Ming remained in the stone wall, exercising his breathing to absorb the power from the stone. Time passed. In the blink of an eye, three months went by. Su Ming was no longer in his original spot, but had instead slowly moved into the deeper parts of the stone wall.
The bald crane had also decided to no longer take the form of a stone wall. Su Ming's body was already located deep inside the inner part of the stone wall, so there was no longer any need for the crane to hide him.
After the three months, most of the stone wall around Su Ming's body was no longer deep blue. A large portion of the physical power contained within the wall around him had already been completely absorbed. Every single time this happened, Su Ming's body would slowly move deeper into the stone wall and head towards a spot where there were even more physical power contained.
His physical strength had also increased by leaps and bounds due to obtaining a sufficient amount of physical power during these three months. By then, there was only a sliver left till he reached the peak of Human Cultivation Realm.
It was no longer far away from reaching the same level as Su Ming's level of cultivation!
Su Ming was confident that as long as the physical power in this place was enough, then he could even hone his physical body to reach a terrifying state by using the Surging Indulgers' divine ability.
However, he could also sense that once his physical body had been strengthened to a certain point, it would be extremely difficult to make it any stronger. He would need to devour physical power that was as numerous as the water in the sea to continue making himself stronger.
But Su Ming was not in a hurry. He did not make a conscious effort to search for a direction, but headed slowly towards the few regions where he could sense the most physical power. Once he got close to those places, he would begin to meditate and absorb the power there, while his body continued getting stronger through the cycle of withering and being restored.
In fact, not even Su Ming himself noticed that he was moving in practically a straight line through stone walls in the beehive seal with the way he progressed forward. And… in a spot less than three thousand feet away from he stopped was an empty region. That region was about a thousand feet in size. There were nine big flags erected on the ground and a Rune shining in a strange light on the ground. There was also a stone the size of a fist floating at the center of the Rune.
That stone was transparent, just like a crystal. There seemed to be nothing strange about it, but if someone looked at it for a prolonged period of time, their minds and souls would be immediately sucked inside, and they would feel as if they had been placed in an unfamiliar world. They would even be able to see other people go through their course of life and everything that could possibly happen in a world.
This item was a World Stone that possessed the power of one World!
In another direction that was about three thousand something feet away from the World Stone was Long Li, whose eyes were shining with a dark light. There were about hundreds, close to a thousand, holes resembling a beehive around him. He knew that one of them led to the place where the secondary core of the seal, the World Stone he desired, lay, but he did not know which hole it was that would lead him to it.
He had been stuck here for half a year, trying again and again, but even after nearly a hundred tries, he had yet to succeed. In fact, if he had not noticed that he had taken the wrong path early on and immediately retreated, he might have continued onwards, and who could know where he would have ended up?
'Damn it, according to the ancient scroll, the secondary core of the six Dao Seals should be around here, but why can't I find it..?
'And this beehive seal is seriously annoying. Even if I end up in the right path, I will still usually end up walking in circles. It makes people think that they're walking further and further away when they enter the hole, making it difficult for them to persevere.'
Long Li lifted his right hand and continued calculating with his fingers. He would occasionally bring out an ancient scroll that was made from some unknown skin. Upon taking it out, he would examine it carefully for a long time before cautiously selecting a tunnel to enter. Not long after he entered, however, he would exit it with a dark expression on his face.
Fortunately for him, he never tried going through the tunnel himself. There was a gourd placed right before him, and black smoke was rising from within it before turning into ten black shadows that were entering and exiting the tunnels slowly.
'In another few months' time, I'll be able to check through all of the tunnels. At that time, I'll be able to pinpoint the tunnels that have the highest possibility of being the right path!' Strong desire appeared in Long Li's eyes as he continued prodding the gourd to continuously let out black shadows. He would also frequently enter some hole to investigate it.
Su Ming's absorption and devouring of the blue stones was also slowly going on. As the color of the stone walls by his side became duller and fainter and the physical power within them disappeared, he continued onwards without stop.
The bald crane was by Su Ming's side, having return to its bald-headed self. There was a lazy, lackadaisical look on its face. Occasionally, it would look around and mumble nonstop.
"Darn, I must have come here before, or else why would I find this place so familiar..? Could it be that the brilliant, heroic, an intelligent me had truly walked out of the Barren Lands of Divine Essence?"
As the bald crane mumbled, it looked at Su Ming. It felt bored and decided to seep into the stone wall to head further into the distance to examine the area.
The bald crane was not far away from where Long Li was...
Almost at the instant it popped its head out of the stone wall behind Long Li, its head immediately turned into a stone wall, and not a single hint of it could be seen. When Long Li personally flew out once again and rushed into the tunnel, he left behind a gourd on the ground.
Wisps of black smoke would occasionally spread out from the gourd before turning into black shadows that rushed into the other tunnels in the beehive.
It was also at this moment that the bald crane quickly crawled out from the stone wall. As it let out bouts of dry coughs, it looked around with shifty eyes while mumbling to itself.
"Hmm? Why is there a gourd here? Someone must have forgotten about it here…"
The bald crane put on an incredibly shocked face, then pounced on it without any hesitation. Once it grabbed the gourd with its claws, excitement appeared in its eyes, and it swiftly crawled into the stone wall by its side.