Martial Peak

Chapter 1234, Travelling Deeper

Not long after, Yang Kai arrived in front of Dai Yuan. After this short break to restore herself, Dai Yuan’s condition had improved noticeably. When Yang Kai came over, she opened her eyes as she had detected him. However, instead of saying anything, a hesitant expression appeared on her face, making Yang Kai curious.

“Junior Brother Yang, my restoration pills have been used up, do you have any to spare? I can pay Saint Crystals for them.” As Dai Yuan spoke, a faint twinkle flashed across the depths of her beautiful eyes.

Yang Kai didn’t mind. Although at first, he found it strange that Dai Yuan had used up all her restorative pills, after thinking about it, he realised that she hadn’t anticipated entering the third layer where her consumption had dramatically increased.

Not suspecting anything, Yang Kai immediately took out a bottle of pills from his Space Ring and tossed it over with a light smile, “Don’t bother with the Saint Crystals, it’s just one bottle of pills.”

Dai Yuan caught it and with a look of gratitude nodded, “Then Dai Yuan will thank Junior Brother Yang for his generosity.”

“Alright, let’s continue forward,” Yang Kai said before taking the lead.

After Yang Kai turned around and started walking, Dai Yuan quickly opened the bottle of pills, glanced inside, and after seeing the contents, her tender body couldn’t help trembling as a look of elation filled her face.

When she raised her head and stared at Yang Kai’s back, her beautiful eyes flashed with excitement and enthusiasm. Immediately putting away these pills, without saying a word, she quickly followed after him.

The third layer Flame Area was indeed many times more precarious than the first layer. Although the environments of the two were similar, the dangers lurking in each couldn’t be compared.

When Yang Kai traversed the first layer, with the exception of the strange mountain valley where he was besieged by an unending stream of Fire Spirit Beasts that took some effort to solve, he had basically been able to wander about freely and hadn’t even needed to protect himself with his Saint Qi before he reached the second layer.

However, in the third layer, Yang Kai had to constantly push his Saint Qi to resist the ambient heat and fire poison. Not only that, but the strength of the Fire Spirit Beasts here was also far greater, with Seventh-Order and Eighth-Order ones constantly appearing from the cracks in the ground. Additionally, there were all sorts of strange barriers and Spirit Arrays.

The Fire Spirit Beasts didn’t pose too much threat to Yang Kai and Dai Yuan. As long as their numbers weren’t too large, the two of them could kill these beasts and harvest their Fire Crystal Stones.

However, after witnessing the ancient Spirit Array Wei Gu Chang and his group had fallen into, Yang Kai had been extremely vigilant of any place that seemed dangerous and did not easily dare to enter them. Once Yang Kai discovered such a place, if he could avoid it, he did, if he couldn’t, he would use his Demon Eye of Annihilation secretly to see through its risks.

Along the way, Yang Kai was constantly on guard.

Had it not been for his Divine Eye of Annihilation, this incredible Divine Ability which could see through all illusions, these past few days, he and Dai Yuan would have fallen into at least five ancient Spirit Arrays. These Spirit Arrays were extremely well concealed and were not something Saint King Realm cultivators could handle. If he had fallen into any of these formations, Yang Kai estimated that his fate would be quite miserable.

Because Yang Kai was secretly using his Demon Eye of Annihilation and had brought Dai Yuan safely through these dangerous places, this woman from Coloured Glass Sect hadn’t noticed anything and instead found herself doubting whether this third layer Flame Area was a bit unworthy of its reputation.

Unaware of the surrounding crisis, she simply followed behind Yang Kai in a relaxed manner.

Unfortunately, although the Demon Eye of Annihilation was one of Great Demon God’s supreme Divine Abilities, Yang Kai had only obtained and refined it for his own use after the fact, so it wasn’t omnipotent.

As such, Yang Kai and Dai Yuan fell into an ancient Spirit Array that even Yang Kai failed to notice eventually. When this formation was activated, the surrounding environment changed dramatically, the originally extremely hot area suddenly becoming bitter cold with icy winds howling around them and stinging snow whirling about the sky.

It was the complete opposite of their former environment.

Sharp icicles immediately stabbed towards the pair from all directions and dragons condensed from the harsh winds began appearing in their surroundings, spitting frigid breath filled with wind blades from their mouths. Dealing with this sudden barrage of attacks was quite difficult.

Fortunately, since Yang Kai and Dai Yuan were both Alchemists, one of them originally cultivating a Yang Attribute Secret Art while the other cultivated a Fire Attribute Secret Art, the pair’s Saint Qi was useful in resisting this particular Spirit Array’s attacks.

Even so, it took the two of them three days to break this formation and escape.

In the process, Dai Yuan suffered some injuries, and if Yang Kai had not rescued her at the critical moment, her wounds would have been significantly more serious. In such a place, where just moving about was dangerous, receiving grievous wounds was basically a death sentence.

After this incident, Dai Yuan no longer dared to underestimate the dangers of this third layer and even more carefully followed behind Yang Kai.

Yang Kai had also been injured, but compared with his restorative abilities, such minor wounds weren’t even worth thinking about. After escaping from the ancient Spirit Array, Yang Kai immediately brought Dai Yuan to find a small mountain where he opened up a hidden cave. The two hid inside this cave and, like wounded beasts, silently licked their wounds.

Only three days later did Dai Yuan recover from her injuries and the two set out again.

The various means Yang Kai demonstrated along the way, along with the combat effectiveness he displayed made Dai Yuan thoroughly understand that this First-Order Saint King was completely different from any other she had ever encountered. His true fighting strength wasn’t under hers in the slightest and he possessed many methods that left her in awe, and these were just the methods he was willing to show her.

No wonder the proud Wei Gu Chang was so polite towards him, he likely was aware of just how extraordinary Yang Kai’s abilities were.

Along the way, the pair encountered a number of extremely rare Fire Attribute spirit grasses and spirit medicines.

Whenever they found such a spirit herb, Dai Yuan would volunteer to collect it, displaying excellent harvesting skills and always preserving them in the most optimum way.

He didn’t know why it was so, but Yang Kai discovered that this woman seemed to be very interested in these herbs. After picking each one, she would begin rambling on and on about these spirit herbs’ properties, growing requirements, and uses in pills. She would also talk about condensing medicinal liquids, Alchemy techniques, and auxiliary Spirit Arrays freely, discussing all of these secrets as if she couldn’t wait to share them.

During this time, Yang Kai kept silent and only listened quietly.

Normally, he too would be interested in conversing with Dai Yuan about Alchemy. He could see that this woman was actually knowledgeable in the Alchemic Way, and although she wasn’t on his level, there was no harm in discussing such things with her.

Unfortunately, at this moment, Yang Kai’s mind was entirely focused on refining the Profound Yin Sunflower Water and he wasn’t in the mood for idle chatter, so he simply brushed off the opportunity to have an Alchemy exchange with this woman.

Yang Kai’s silence made Dai Yuan feel a little disappointed inside and she even began to doubt whether her previous conjecture was correct. If this wasn’t the case, how could Yang Kai say nothing about these spirit grasses and spirit medicines nor show any excitement?

She even deliberately made some mistakes in her descriptions of these herbs, but Yang Kai never showed any intention to correct her, depressing her further.

Dai Yuan naturally didn’t try to take sole possession of the spirit grasses and spirit medicines she picked. She was well aware that without Yang Kai, it would have been impossible for her to arrive here, so whenever she divided up the harvest, she always took the smaller portion while giving the larger part to Yang Kai.

Regarding this, Yang Kai didn’t try to refuse. He didn’t have a deep relationship with Dai Yuan and was only cooperating with her to penetrate the third layer, so he saw no reason to reject these small benefits.

After the pair travelled ten days into the third layer, Dai Yuan began having difficulty continuing.

The intense heat in the air felt as if someone was constantly launching a Fire Attribute attack towards her tender body. Even with the protection of her Artefact Armour and her pink cloud artefact, Dai Yuan couldn’t help sweating profusely, causing her soaking wet robes to tightly cling to her body, exposing her mesmerising curves.

If not for the pink cloud camouflaging her figure, at this moment, her appearance would be quite indecent. Fortunately, it was only her and Yang Kai in this place, and Yang Kai was always walking in front, never showing any intention of turning his gaze back to her.

Every step forward consumed a tremendous amount of Dai Yuan’s strength and she couldn’t help trembling somewhat as a layer of black Qi lingered about her body.

This black Qi was the fire poison which permeated the Flowing Flame Sand Field. Dai Yuan couldn’t completely resist the fire poison here anymore and was slowly but surely being invaded by it, gradually worsening her situation.

At this point, thoughts of withdrawing began crossing Dai Yuan’s mind and she was beginning to regret travelling this deep into the third layer.

However, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She and Yang Kai had been traversing the third layer for more than ten days already; even if she wanted to retreat now, she wasn’t certain she could do so safely. She was now riding a tiger.

She could only stand firm and continue following behind Yang Kai without saying a word.

Although Yang Kai wasn’t in as poor a state as Dai Yuan, he was also by no means comfortable at this moment. His skin felt as if it was constantly being burned and the waves of heat and fire poison which were constantly pressing down onto him made it feel like he was being crushed by a wave of fire.

If it weren’t for his huge reserves of Saint Qi, Yang Kai would have constantly needed to find a place to restore himself.

As he led the way forward, Yang Kai was constantly using his Divine Sense to monitor Dai Yuan’s movements, so he was well aware of her difficult appearance, but he didn’t rush to help her either.

The environment here was extremely harsh, but by continuing to persist, one could use it to temper the purity and density of their Saint Qi, which was of great benefit to any cultivator.

Helping Dai Yuan to withstand the heat and fire poison here wouldn’t be difficult for Yang Kai, but if by doing so he made her lose an opportunity to become stronger, it would do her more harm than good.

As the pair travelled deeper and deeper, their speed continued to decrease, soon slowing to a virtual crawl as the environment around them became even harsher.

Yang Kai’s eyes gradually showed some excitement though because what he needed now was an extremely hot environment, so the worse things got, the better.

After observing his surrounding carefully, Yang Kai secretly estimated that as long as he continued forward another five days, he would be able to find a place where he could begin refining the Profound Yin Sunflower Water.

The only troublesome thing now was what he should do with the woman following behind him.