Chapter 278: Traveling Alone in the Divine Wilderness
To many Tai Ah Divine City cultivators, going out into the Divine wilderness to hunt desolate beasts was a big deal. Their training expeditions would often last for about half a month. They had to make all sorts of preparation for the long periods outside.
It was insufficient to just be strong if one planned to go out alone into the wilderness. One had to know all sorts of skills and survival knowledge to survive out in the wilderness.
Before Yi Yun left, he spent another 50,000 dragon scale runes to buy a interspatial ring with a larger capacity than the ones he got from the Capital’s Four Bully Lords.
Following that, Yi Yun used an entire day to buy various supplies.
It included bone relics, medicine, life-protecting disk arrays, spare weapons, etc.
Yi Yun also bought a detailed map of the Tai Ah Divine City’s surroundings. He used some time to familiarize himself with the Divine wilderness’ terrain and every desolate beast that he could encounter. By the end of the day, he understood the beasts strengths, weaknesses, habits…
All this preparatory work had to be done perfect. Every year, 99% of the Tai Ah Divine City cultivators who died, died while training in the Divine wilderness. As for those who died accidentally in arena battles, those were few and far between.
Most of the time, this seemingly inconspicuous knowledge could save lives.
Yi Yun had recently overheard that a small group of three cultivators died a few days ago. The reason was because they misidentified a Heart Piercing Snake as a Golden Line Snake.
Both snakes are entirely gold in color, about two meters long, and have virtually no differences in their external appearance. But, a Heart Piercing Snake is more than ten times stronger than a Golden Line Snake. It also has a fatal venom. Even an early-stage Yuan foundation realm warrior will die in five seconds upon being bitten.
The Heart Piercing Snake and the Golden Line Snake cannot be distinguished through their appearances. The only difference between the two is in their behaviors. A Golden Line Snake will meander sideways as it moves forward, creating a curved trajectory. As for the Heart Piercing Snake, it will move forward in a straight line.
Many of the cultivators in the Tai Ah Divine City not only died because of their lack of strength, but also mainly because of their carelessness.
Yi Yun’s current strength was not bad, but compared to the cultivators ranked ahead on the Earth roll, he was still far worse. Even cultivators ranked ahead on the Earth roll could die on their training expeditions, so Yi Yun had to be careful.
Yi Yun did not team up and was going to train alone. As such, his training expedition’s risk increased a lot.
This day, the sky was clear and the Sun was shining high up in the white cloud-littered sky. Yi Yun brought all the items he had prepared and headed into the Divine wilderness for training.
Yi Yun had previously left the Tai Ah Divine City to go to herb mountain #60 for herb-picking. Back then, Yi Yun used a teleportation array.
But today, Yi Yun was using the main gate to leave the Tai Ah Divine City.
When he reached the Tai Ah Divine City’s city gate, he looked down from a height of 10,000 meters at the expansive wilderness below him.
The endless Desolate Lands connected with the sky, appearing both majestic and ancient.
Water-bucket sized black metal chains linked the jagged parts of the cliff to the plains tens of thousands meters below. It was a vast expanse of mist.
This was the path that led from the Tai Ah Divine City into the Divine wilderness. To defend against beast hordes, the Tai Ah Divine City’s entrance was a natural barrier, allowing one man to hold back all enemies.
Yi Yun took a deep breath and leaped up. He lightly landed on the chain.
Then, Yi Yun placed a stout rope over the chains, and slid downwards with the help of gravity while holding onto the ends of the rope.
Using a rope to go down from 10,000 meters was almost at the speed of a free-fall.
Yi Yun could hear the howl of the wind by his ears as he saw the ancient desolate wilderness approaching him.
The Divine wilderness had existed for an unknown number of years. Deep in the Divine wilderness, there were unknown numbers of secret treasures. Similarly, it also buried an unknown number of bones that belonged to past elites…
But now, Yi Yun was going to use his own feet to explore this land.
“Boom!”
Yi Yun landed on the ground. Due to the extreme speed, when Yi Yun’s feet landed on the ground, they stirred up a cloud of dust.
The Desolate Lands in front of him was covered with sparse patches of grass. The plains were black in color with many exposed rocks. There were also many strong and tall ancient trees that went way into the distant horizon.
Yi Yun locked onto a direction and began running.
A typical warrior would choose an appropriate speed while running in the Divine wilderness. One could not be too fast, not because of stamina, but because one might not be able to discover desolate beasts lurking in one’s surroundings due to the fast speed. By not being vigilant enough, one could easily receive a surprise attack from desolate beasts.
It was not uncommon in the history of the Tai Ah Divine City’s to have examples of cultivators who ran too fast, accidentally entering a desolate beast nest, resulting in there not even having a single piece of their corpses left.
But one could not go too slow either. As the Divine wilderness was too vast, being too slow would waste plenty of time. One could only explore a tiny area if one did, resulting in many missed opportunities.
Yi Yun first used a normal speed to cover tens of miles before he picked up his speed. At the same time, Yi Yun opened his Purple Crystal energy vision.
In the energy vision, every embodiment of energy returned to its original fundamental state, leaving no way for them to hide.
With the Purple Crystal, Yi Yun did not need to spend too much effort in being vigilant.
There were not many desolate beasts that could be killed surrounding the Tai Ah Divine City. Strong desolate beasts were afraid of the Tai Ah Divine City’s energy, so they would all flee far away.
Yi Yun’s destination was the Meteorite Abyss. Legend has it that tens of millions of years ago, a huge star, that burned with Yang flames, fell from the sky, crashing into the Divine wilderness. It broke up a mountain ridge that went on for tens of thousands of miles, creating a huge deep abyss.
This deep abyss was the Meteorite Abyss!
Back when the star landed, its Yang flames swept through the Divine wilderness, burning countless numbers of strong desolate beasts to their deaths. If they were close to the center of the explosion, even primordial species would not survive. They too would instantly be turned to ashes!
After tens of millions of years, the destruction left behind by the fallen star had already been restored. However, the Meteorite Abyss left behind by it was like a huge scar left on the Divine wilderness.
The star had merged with the Meteorite Abyss. Although the Yang flames that swept the Divine wilderness had been extinguished, there were still rainbow Yang flames burning deep within the Meteorite Abyss. All the Yang Qi in a radius of millions of miles was gathered here!
Hence, there were a large number of pure Yang-elemental desolate beasts in the Meteorite Abyss.
Yi Yun’s first attribute choice for cultivating the ‘Ten Thousand Beast Totem’ was pure Yang.
Hence, the Meteorite Abyss was Yi Yun’s first destination.
But, with Yi Yun’s current strength, he did not dare to venture deep into the Meteorite Abyss. He could only kill the desolate beasts, in the exterior perimeter of the Meteorite Abyss, to condense his Aspect Totem.
Yi Yun flew forward with the wind ringing in his ears.
After crossing a large tract of the wilderness plains, he encountered grassland. The grass was about half the height of a person and was called Frost Star Grass.
The leaves of the Frost Star Grass had cold frost dew formed over the years. This frost dew’s temperature was below freezing points, yet it did not form into ice. If a mortal were to cross into the Frost Star Grass grasslands, just a few steps would leave them frozen due to the frost dew.
Yi Yun gathered Yuan Qi and circulated his body’s Qi and blood, creating heat that emanated from his body.
He then rushed into the Frost Star Grass grassland. The glistening beads of dew reflected the dazzling sunlight. It made Yi Yun’s body wet, but Yi Yun only felt some slight cold at his exterior, it did not affect his movements.
With perfect movement techniques and the Purple Crystal’s energy vision, Yi Yun traversed the complicated terrain like a eagle in the sky, and at times, like a lurking python.
On the way, Yi Yun also encountered some desolate beasts. For example, the Specter Python that hid ten meters underneath the wilderness plains, or a creeping Three Spotted Tiger on a hilltop. These were all detected by Yi Yun using the Purple Crystal’s energy vision, allowing him to avoid them early.
Yi Yun’s goal in this expedition was clear. It was to kill pure Yang desolate beasts, absorb their body’s pure Yang power and blood, and condense an Aspect Totem.
Unless there were very valuable desolate beasts along the way, Yi Yun would not stop.
The Meteorite Abyss was very far away. Yi Yun managed to cautiously and stealthily make his way. Only when the dying Sun was swallowed by the horizon, and the star constellations in the sky began to appear, did Yi Yun have to stop.
He had come to a barren plain. The night breeze blew, causing pebbles to roll as it constantly shattered the quietness of the night.
Night time in the Divine wilderness was even more dangerous. Yi Yun had to use sleep or meditation to maintain his stamina.
Yi Yun used the Thousand Army Saber and quickly dug a pit that he could sleep in. He carefully laid soft hay, suitable for sleeping, in the pit.
Although warriors are physically strong, the Desolate Lands’ Frost Star Grass’s cold dew was biting to the bone. It was inevitable for some of it to enter a warrior’s body, creating a bit of unnecessary damage to his Qi and blood.
Yi Yun dug a few traps around the pit and placed triangular disk arrays within them.
Each disk array was about the size of a fist, containing a weak explosive energy within it. This was a necessity that many Tai Ah Divine City warriors would bring along when they went into the Divine wilderness for a training expedition, the “Ignition Disk Array”.
This “Ignition Disk Array” could not kill desolate beasts, but it could be used as a warning. After all, warriors would still lose some perception of the surrounding environment when they slept or meditated. On the other hand, there were also some desolate beasts who would be skilled in concealment. Many cultivators would often die while sleeping or meditating due to these surprise attacks.
Sleeping and meditation was indispensable. If one was high-strung and vigilant of one’s surroundings for a long time, one would end up becoming mentally exhausted even without being attacked by desolate beasts, greatly reducing their combat strength.
Hence, most of the time, these affordable “Ignition Disk Array” had the miraculous use of saving lives.
After setting up the “Ignition Disk Array”, Yi Yun took out a cloth bag from his interspatial ring. He then spread all the powder within the cloth bag.
This was the powdered feces of King-ranked desolate beasts. This powder would emit a special smell that only desolate beasts could detect. This would make other desolate beasts mistake this area as the territory of a King-ranked desolate beast, hence they would avoid entering.
With two levels of protection set up, Yi Yun wore a fine scale armor, his Thousand Army Saber by his waist, the Tai Cang Bow behind his back and entered the pit.
To not separate from their weapon was a habit warriors had to have when they were out hunting desolate beasts. The moment there was any commotion, they could quickly enter a combative state.
There were all sorts of dangers in the Divine wilderness. One had to be careful with everything.
But even with all of this set up, it was impossible to guarantee that nothing would go wrong…