Chapter 356: An Underground Immortal Abode
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: Hitesh
The company flew nearly one hundred miles further into the tunnel. Then, Wu Qi suddenly caught a glimpse of a broken pale-purple colored flying sword, which measured nine-inches in length. It laid quietly on the ground, and was frozen under a layer of ice. Although this little flying sword had already broken into a couple of fragments, each of them was still exuding immortal energies. Every now and then, tiny bits of cold breeze would burst out from it.
Wu Qi even had a feeling that this flying sword was actually breathing by itself. It was absorbing the surrounding cold element energies, using them to slowly heal its damage. If it were given with enough time, it could even borrow the vast energies in the atmosphere to completely heal itself, forging back its broken body.
It was a flying word with a self-healing ability. According to Scroll of Stealing, it was not a realm which any lower-grade immortal item could have achieved. This flying sword must be an immortal item that belonged to a Heaven Immortal of at least the Eighteenth Tier. Maintaining his composure, Wu Qi came right next to the flying sword, dug out the ice, and collected all eight fragments of it. Its item spirit had already vanished, leaving behind only the most basic seal of a divine will that existed in a muddle-headed manner. After a brief moment of pondering, Wu Qi brought all the fragments beside the earth element dragon scale shield before everyone.
A puff of earthy-yellow mist sprayed out from the shield, wrapping around all the broken fragments of the flying sword. Gradually, these fragments, getting beyond their item spirit’s control, melted down into drops of purple fluid, then fused into the shield. A layer of glossy, pale-purple gleam emerged on the once pale-yellow wrist shield, with countless purple specks that were as small as the tip of a needle blinking rapidly.
A faint cold breeze began to exude from the shield, while waves of a consciousness could be clearly sensed coming out from it. Wu Qi quickly sent his divine will into the shield. The shield trembled slightly, then just like the immortal armor which Wu Qi seized from Lin Qiuluo, it transformed into a ball of yellow fluid with a slight tinge of purple, slowly fusing into his skin, leaving behind a tiny dragon scale symbol on top of his skin.
Wu Qi smiled. As he had expected, this broken immortal sword had an extraordinary quality. Although the earth element dragon scale shield had just fused with a part of its energy essence, it had pushed the shield's quality towards the grade of an immortal item. It made him wonder what the wrist shield would look like once it fully digested this broken sword. During his journey on Xue Yuan Planet, the earth element dragon scale shield had obtained too many benefits. With Innate Earth Element Energy Essence's unique characteristic of being compatible with everything, it gave the wrist shield an endless potential to evolve.
Everyone saw what Wu Qi was doing, yet none of them made a sound. Including Xiong Wanling and the rest of the old demon kings, nobody regarded this flying sword as something valuable. In their opinion, once a flying sword was broken, it was destroyed completely, losing all of its original value. By fusing it into his defensive treasure, Wu Qi could at most give the defensive treasure a little bit more raw material. Apart from that, it did not serve any other purpose.
Sensing the indistinct ripples of consciousness emanating from earth element dragon scale shield, Wu Qi's heart was filled with wild joy. He broke into a loud laughter and said, "Let's move on. I'm really curious to see what is waiting for us in front! Hehe, we've found an Eight-Nine Fragrant Ganoderma just now, and now a broken immortal flying sword. What would be the next? A dead Immortal?"
A mere saying from Wu Qi turned out to be a reality. After flying five miles further, they came to an enormous dorm-shaped hall with ten miles diameter. In this spacious hall, three corpses still emitting faint gleams were seen lying face down on the ground, their heads pointing at the tunnel. There were wounds on their back. Obviously, they were killed by someone from behind while they were trying to rush into the tunnel.
The company came right next to the corpses carefully. Wu Qi ripped and removed their broken robes, revealing the fatal wounds behind their back. The wounds measured three inches long, with an opening as narrow as a thin sheet of paper. The muscles around the wound had taken an azure hue and crystallized. Evidently, an extremely cold immortal sword with incredible power had pierced through their bodies from behind, seizing all their life forces in an instant.
Wu Qi gave the people around him a glance, then opened his mouth and spat out the Sword of Greedy Wolf. Gripping its hilt, he followed the pattern of the wound and made a slight cut on one of the corpses' back. Dazzling sparks jumped and shot out from the contact point, while the sword could only leave behind a white line on the skin, unable to make even the smallest cut.
Wu Qi nodded and said, "These are corpses of Immortals, they truly are corpses of Immortals. Tsk, they might even be the corpses of some high-leveled Heaven Immortals. Therefore, unless we are using sharp weapons of that immortal item grade, there is no way we can cut their bodies apart."
Zhao Kuo rolled his eyes about, and he caught a glimpse of an exquisite blue ring worn on one of the corpses. However, before he could reach out to it, Wu Qi had already sized the ring. A black dragon soul suddenly flew out from Black Dragon Spirit Ring, opened its big mouth, and devoured the ring. Then, it burped satisfyingly as the blue ring flickered inside its half-transparent body before disappearing completely.
Zhao Kuo was taken aback. He stared shockingly at Wu Qi and asked, "Why is everything that you own so strange and eccentric?"
Wu Qi laughed dryly and did not answer the question. But, he gave it a thought. It seemed Zhao Kuo was correct, as all the treasures he owned did have strange and eccentric characteristics. Earth Element Dragon Scale Shield could devour immortal items to improve its power; Sword of Greedy Wolf could devour cultivators' Nascent Souls and Nascent Divinities; Cold Electric Mirror could devour essences of immortal items having similar element as it, while for the eighteen celestial fiend puppets, everything was welcome as long as they were materials containing energies.
Shaking his head, Wu Qi removed the storage rings worn on the fingers of the other two corpses. He fed them all to Black Dragon Spirit Ring.
After that, he waved his hand and said in a flat tone, "Inside this three storage rings are thirteen broken immortal items, two immortal items in good condition, and thirty-two bottles of immortal pills. However, all the pills have decomposed into ashes. Apart from these, there are also some energy stones and immortal talismans. Those immortal pills are useless now, and I don't think anyone of you would want those energy stones and immortal talismans. I'll take all the broken immortal items. As for the immortal items in good condition, we will decide their ownerships once we leave this place. What do you think?"
Although Black Dragon Spirit Ring had devoured all three storage rings, the odds and ends inside of those rings had been transferred into its own storage space. With just a glance using his divine will, Wu Qi was able to find out what was contained in the three rings. Nobody was objecting to his suggestion, and nobody would dare to object his opinion. Among the people present, they either owed him a great favor, or were having their lives controlled in Wu Qi's hand. Therefore, what he said would naturally be agreed upon by everyone.
Seeing that nobody was objecting to his suggestion, Wu Qi performed a last search on the three corpses. After making sure there was nothing valuable to be found, he waved his hand and shoved all three Heaven Immortals' corpses into the Spirit Breeding Ring. Although they were dead for many years and their immortal souls had long perished, Wu Qi could still use the Divine Flame of Order to refine their strong fleshly bodies, which could yield him some blood crystals that contained powerful blood essence and immortal energy. It was like recycling waste, and Wu Qi would never throw away such a precious waste.
Finally, after settling the three corpses, Wu Qi and his companions began to run their glances all over this spacious hall.
Obviously, this was a man-made hall. It was built precisely according to the Fengshui theory of 'Circled Sky and Square Ground'. It had four walls that were made out of cold element energy stones, with some strange-looking drawings of floral, birds, insects, and fishes engraved on their surfaces. It seemed the hall was originally protected with numerous immortal restrictive spells. However, judging from the dilapidated condition in the environment, all the restrictive spells had been forcibly destroyed by someone many years ago clearly.
Right in the center of the hall was a large hole that plunged straight down. It measured one thousand feet in diameter, with water vapor swirling and dancing inside, while dense energies kept bursting out from it and soaring high up into the ceiling. A total of 1,280 fist-sized blue pearls were originally mounted on the floor near the hole, but they were all broken now. The pearls on the outermost ring even broken into fine powder.
Apparently, the hole was protected by a very powerful defensive mechanism. But judging from its current condition, the entire mechanism had been violently destroyed by someone.
"Let's go down the hole and have a look," said Wu Qi with a nod. "We might find something surprising down there. Seems like someone had cleared out a safe passage for us a long time ago. It is safe for us to go straight down."
Although he said like that, Wu Qi still called upon Zhao Kuo, asking him to sprinkle out a handful of silver beans and summon a group of over one hundred armored soldiers, each standing ten feet tall, to lead the way. After that, the company followed behind these armored soldiers, riding on clouds as they carefully flew down into the hole.
The hole plunged straight down for over one thousand miles. The deeper they went, the further the temperature dropped down. The father and sons from Tian clan had their bodies shivering violently, as they could hardly endure the extreme coldness, and it looked like they were going to freeze into ice cubes. Noticing they could not withstand the extremely cold temperature, Wu Qi waved his hand, cast out a beam of white light, and brought them into Spirit Breeding Ring, throwing them right next to the three Immortals' corpses.
After flying down one thousand miles at top speed, they suddenly came into a brightly lit area. Before them was a great lake of clear water.
Obviously, this was an underground world opened up by some Immortal with a mighty divine ability. It measured one thousand miles in circumference, and about one hundred miles in height. Moon and stars were glinting brilliantly on the cave ceiling, a feature created using immortal restrictive spells as well. The spacious underground world was entirely occupied by a great lake of clear water. Its surface was as calm and smooth as a mirror, and when measured with their divine will, it went ten miles deep.
Countless huge, pale-golden leaves shaped like lotus plants were spread across the water surface. They were interconnected with golden roots, while beneath these thick roots hung countless aerial roots that were as tiny as hair. The fine and pure-white aerial roots swayed freely in the water, with some of them stretching several miles long. At the end of these aerial roots hung countless fist-sized fruits shaped like pomegranates, yet glittering and translucent like gemstones.
At the center of this lake, right below Wu Qi and his company, was a thin leaf carved out from green jade floating on top of the water. An exquisitely built, pale-purple palace was seen sitting firmly on the leaf. The palace had three main halls, a side hall, and a garden to its left and right. Atop the roof of the center hall, which was also the largest hall, was placed a vase with an exceedingly beautiful design. A stream of dense water element energy was pouring out endlessly from the vase.
Right when Wu Qi and his companions came out of the tunnel, an enormous force suddenly came smashing at them.
The force was frighteningly powerful. Before Wu Qi and his companions could react, and they did not even have the ability to resist, their visions were blurred, and they felt their bodies were dragged away. When they regained their senses, they found they were standing inside a tall, spacious, and pale-purple hall. There was a tall dais carved out from green jade erected right in the center of the hall. Atop the dais, a lady with peerless beauty, clad in a pale-purple long robe, was seen hovering above a pale-purple lotus flower.
Wu Qi and his companions gave the lady a glance. She snorted lightly. In the next moment, an immense pressure came crashing down from above, forcing Wu Qi and everyone to fall on their knees.
Amidst the thuds of knees clashing with the ground, the skin and flesh on Wu Qi and his companions' knees broke. Blood splashed and splattered everywhere.