Chapter 676: Mysterious Map
Chapter 676: Mysterious Map
Xiao Chen glanced indifferently at everyone’s faces, revealing a deep disdain in the depths of his eyes. Then, he snorted coldly and left.
As the moon hung high in the sky, no one dared to say a word as they watched the white figure depart.
After Xiao Chen was long gone, Qiu Yi slowly recovered and pounded the ground violently with his right hand. “I won’t take this lying down!”
As the top inner sect disciple of the Full Moon Pavilion, Qiu Yi had become famous at a young age. He worked so hard all to become a true inheritor, joining the ranks of the geniuses.
However, because Qiu Yi had exhausted his Quintessence, a nameless brat humiliated him. How could he swallow this?
Qiu Yi slowly stood up. The footprint on his face had yet to fade away. When his lips moved, his swollen wounds hurt.
As he looked in the direction Xiao Chen had taken, a deep hatred burned in his eyes. He muttered to himself, “Don’t think that you’ll be fine after walking away.
“Someday, I will definitely go to the Supreme Sky Sect to challenge you. I will show you the meaning of regret.”
On the other side, Zhuo Ping also got to her feet slowly. When she tried a sneak attack on Xiao Chen, her nose ended up broken. She was in a sorrier state than Qiu Yi.
A malicious expression appeared in Zhuo Ping’s eyes. Then, without saying a word, she left.
“This Xiao Chen is probably in big trouble. Although we do not dare to go to the Supreme Sky Sect to challenge him, these two people are bona fide Rank 9 sect disciples. They will not let this pass.”
“Let’s go. This White Robed Bladesman is too arrogant. When the time comes, I will definitely go and watch him getting beaten up by Qiu Yi and Zhuo Ping after they’ve recovered their Quintessence.”
The group of sect disciples flattened by Xiao Chen angrily said a few sentences before leaving the place grudgingly.
When the City Lord of Heavenly Water City saw the rubble on the ground and the trashed City Lord’s Residence from outside, his face became even more unsightly than the others’.
However, Xiao Chen was a Rank 9 sect disciple, and he had also helped him kill Lone Wolf. No matter how depressed the City Lord was, the City Lord could not fault him.
After leaving Heavenly Water City, Xiao Chen did not rush to check out Lone Wolf’s spatial ring. Instead, he found a desolate place in a mountain forest and started to work on recovering his Quintessence.
Xiao Chen only opened his eyes when dawn arrived. As he watched the rising sun, he smiled gently and explored Lone Wolf’s spatial ring joyfully.
Usually, loose cultivators would not carry too many treasures on them. However, as Lone Wolf was a notorious bandit, he would definitely have more treasures on him than the Seven Black Wind Killers had.
The happiest moment of risking one’s life to kill loose cultivators would be inspecting the spoils of war.
Xiao Chen used his Spiritual Sense to take a peek into the spatial ring, and the first thing he saw was piles of glittering Superior Grade Spirit Stones. He counted them and found a total of three million Superior Grade Spirit Stones.
He could not help but radiate joy from every pore. No wonder those fellows were so greedy for Lone Wolf’s treasures.
Even if they split it evenly, with so many Superior Grade Spirit Stones, everyone would still gain a hefty sum.
After that, there were still several Rank 8 Medicinal Pills and natural treasures. Most of them were things that cultivators would need. If Xiao Chen did not need them, he could sell them for Spirit Stones.
However, after searching for a long time, Xiao Chen did not discover the thing he needed the most—Spirit Gathering Pearls. Not only did he not see Medial Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls, but he also did not see even a single Inferior Grade Spirit Gathering Pearl.
“This should not be the case. Not having any Medial Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls would still be understandable. However, there should be some Inferior Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls at the very least.”
Suspicion appeared in Xiao Chen’s eyes as he continued looking around, searching every corner of the spatial ring. He even repeated the search several times.
After a long time, a seemingly ordinary brocade box came to Xiao Chen’s attention. With a thought, he took out the brocade box.
This box was extremely strange. Xiao Chen’s Spiritual Sense could not penetrate it. However, it did not give off any Spiritual Energy and looked very ordinary.
“Hua!”
After hesitating for a moment, Xiao Chen opened the brocade box. He suddenly saw a brilliant light and found rows of Inferior Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls arranged neatly in the box.
He said joyfully, “This box is indeed strange. No wonder I could not find any Spirit Gathering Pearls. It turns out that they were all hidden here.”
Xiao Chen’s count came to two hundred Inferior Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls, which was not a lot. But for Zhong Li to have obtained this many as a loose cultivator, he had to have killed a large number of sect disciples and robbed many large clans.
A white light flashed as Xiao Chen unceremoniously placed all of them within his own Universe Ring. His low cultivation was still a glaring shortcoming, so he desperately needed Spirit Gathering Pearls.
When he was about to close the brocade box, he suddenly discovered a hidden layer inside.
“He did not even put the two hundred Spirit Gathering Pearls into this hidden layer. Could the things in there be even more precious?”
Xiao Chen opened the hidden layer and found a beast-skin map, which had an extremely ancient aura. There were all sorts of terrains and red marks on it.
The red marks were of varying shades. When Xiao Chen looked at the marks with a deeper shade, he could sense a dangerous aura that stirred fear in his heart.
What is this map?
Xiao Chen’s expression turned grave. As he looked at the map, the mountains and rivers, grass, trees, and beasts came out of it.
They quickly grew larger before Xiao Chen’s eyes. The clouds churned, looking vast and boundless. Ancient mountains, rivers, and palaces appeared.
At the same time, the beast-skin map burst out in light, and a horrifying savage Qi rushed into the sky, startling the beasts and birds of this mountain forest and creating a big commotion.
Xiao Chen’s face sank, and he quickly closed the brocade box. Only then did the ancient and vast savage Qi vanish without a trace.
After checking his surroundings, Xiao Chen looked at the sky and saw that the savage Qi had stirred up the clouds. He frowned.
“I have to leave this place fast. That earlier aura clearly has several ten thousand years of history behind it. This map must be very important. Who knows, some major character may have felt the aura.”
Fortunately, this strange brocade box could seal that aura. Otherwise, even if Xiao Chen placed it in his Universe Ring, he would still worry about covering up that overwhelming aura.
Xiao Chen summoned three Azure Dragon images. As the dragons roared, he vanished from this mountain forest, moving up and down and going as far as possible.
Shortly after Xiao Chen left, a black figure appeared near the mountain. This person’s aged face looked grave as he studied the clouds above.
Not long later, another white-haired old man flew over and spoke to him. “Old Man Qiu, you felt the savage Qi as well, right?”
Feeling regretful, Old Man Qiu replied, “It was definitely the Worldly Spiritual Map of the Savage Battlefield. That aura was definitely the real thing. However, it is now concealed by a treasure that can hide Spiritual Energy.”
After that, Old Man Qiu sighed again, “It’s such a pity!” Then, he ignored this white-haired old man and went far away.
The white-haired old man closed his eyes and used his vast Mental Energy to search the surroundings like waves on the sea. He initially checked the area within a kilometer, then extended the search radius to ten kilometers.
Even after doing that, the white-haired old man did not detect the treasure that gave off the savage Qi earlier. He could not help but shake his head and say, “The Demonic Barrier of the Savage Battlefield is weakening. If we can find this item, it would be a great help to our disciples entering the Savage Battlefield.
“I will try searching again and see if I get lucky.”
The white-haired old man’s figure flashed and turned into a beam of light. His figure seemed to merge with nature, allowing him to move strangely fast.
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In the following days, Xiao Chen did not open that brocade box again. He took out the mission sheets and started to fulfill the two-thousand-contribution-point missions one by one.
Although completing the remaining missions was still difficult, none of them were as challenging as the one to kill Lone Wolf.
Now that the hardest mission was dealt with, the rest was relatively easy. Xiao Chen still managed to snatch some time to use the Spirit Gathering Pearls regularly and raise his cultivation.
As time slowly went by and the month’s end approached, Xiao Chen completed all ten two-thousand-contribution-point missions.
The continual battles with the loose cultivators not only increased Xiao Chen’s combat experience but also contributed much wealth from the spoils of war.
Right now, he had more than seven million Superior Grade Spirit Stones and at least three to four hundred Inferior Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls.
However, Xiao Chen did not manage to obtain any Medial Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls. After all, if a loose cultivator managed to get their hands on such treasures, they would definitely use it immediately; they would not hide it and store it away.
“With twenty-three thousand contribution points, I should be able to get the top rank on the Contribution Ranking. If I do not, I can only try to think of another way to obtain Medial Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls.”
Now, with the aid of the large amount of Spirit Gathering Pearls, Xiao Chen’s cultivation had already reached peak late-stage Inferior Grade Martial Monarch once again. All he lacked was Medial Grade Spirit Gathering Pearls to help him break through the bottleneck.
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Five days later, Xiao Chen returned to the Supreme Sky Province, heading towards Supreme Sky City.
Right after Xiao Chen emerged from the ancient transportation formation outside the city gates, he sensed several gazes on him. His expression turned grave; he knew that something was going to happen.
Indeed, when the city gate was still distant, Yu Zhiqiang descended from the sky, the first among the leaders of the five factions to block Xiao Chen’s path.
Hiding the killing Qi in his eyes, he stood in the middle of the road, smiling gently, and said, “Junior Brother Xiao, it has been a long time. I trust you have been well since we last met?”
Lan Feichen looked even more pleased as he looked at Xiao Chen. Then, he directly mocked him, “Junior Brother Xiao Chen, after not seeing you for almost a month, your cultivation has grown rather fast. You already reached the peak of the late stage. Unfortunately, it is just the peak late-stage Inferior Grade Martial Monarch.”
As Lan Feichen spoke, he released his strong aura, showing off his peak late-stage Medial Grade Martial Monarch cultivation. It burst forth and created strong winds as he pressed it heavily on Xiao Chen.
A peak late-stage Inferior Grade Martial Monarch and a peak late-stage Medial Grade Martial Monarch. On the surface, it looked like there was an entire grade of difference.
However, Xiao Chen had refined his Quintessence twice. Before using the Quintessence Gathering Pill, he had already refined it once. When he fought with Lone Wolf, he had found that his cultivation was actually quite close to Lone Wolf’s.
The Lan Feichen before Xiao Chen had only just advanced to peak late-stage Medial Grade Martial Monarch. He was still weaker than Lone Wolf. How could he rouse any fear in Xiao Chen?
Xiao Chen simply ignored him and looked up at Yu Zhiqiang, who was leading the group. He said calmly, “There is no need to beat about the bush. Just say it straight.”
When Lan Feichen saw Xiao Chen simply ignoring him, like Lan Feichen was a clown performing, he felt humiliated and enraged. He wanted to attack immediately.
Yu Zhiqiang stopped Lan Feichen and said softly, “Junior Brother Xiao, well spoken. It is good to be direct. In that case, I will be blunt. Give us all the proofs of completion in your hands. Otherwise, you can forget about entering this city gate today.”