Chapter 664 - 619: Reaching the Peak 28 (4,000 words)
Upon hearing Senior Brother Chen’s question, Junior Brother Liu immediately put on a bitter face. He untied the spatial bag from his waist to feed the blood-colored bug that looked hungry because it saw someone entering. Sighing, he said to Senior Brother Chen, "Lately, I don’t know if adventurers nearby have caught on to something, but they all prefer to travel in groups. It’s impossible to act, and it’s really hard to find solitary adventurers of low level. The yields have been quite disappointing."
Senior Brother Chen sighed as well, "My hunting hasn’t been as smooth as the past few days either. Although Mang Mountain is vast, there are always adventurers lost during exploration. Even if several adventurers go missing each day, no one finds it strange. But with more people disappearing, it still attracts attention. It seems we will have to relocate sooner or later to avoid drawing the attention of some major powers; that would be troublesome."
Junior Brother Liu removed the gourd from his waist that matched Senior Brother Chen’s, collecting the thin blood mist emitted by the blood-colored bug. Looking a bit worried, he said, "I don’t know when we’ll be able to settle down. Recently, I’ve caught fewer and fewer creatures for the Blood Ancestor, and obtained less True Water. The cultivation progress is too slow. I don’t know when I’ll advance in my cultivation level."
"Take it slowly, once your level is high, you won’t have to struggle as much to catch food for the Blood Ancestor. When the level of captured creatures is higher, you’ll obtain more True Water later, so there’s no worry about your level not rising."
"Ah, I hope so." Soon, Junior Brother Liu finished collecting the blood mist, and he and Senior Brother Chen left the place while chatting idly.
After confirming that no one was around, Tan Shuangshuang continued to operate the Stealth Technique and stealthily stood beside the blood-colored bug.
From the conversation between the two, Tan Shuangshuang sorted out some conclusions. Firstly, the practitioners in this place are undoubtedly evil cultivators, notorious and hunted by all.
Evil cultivators were originally righteous practitioners, but they couldn’t endure the bitterness of cultivation nor the difficulty of leveling up. They often resorted to practices that disgust righteous cultivators, such as this method of cultivating through the blood mist secreted by the bug.
And this disgusting blood-colored bug is related to the evil cultivators’ cultivation method. These evil cultivators must be consuming the diluted blood mist emitted by this bug after it feeds on people, using it to assist in their cultivation.
This method requires countless lives, so these people dare not stay in one place for too long to avoid being discovered by nearby major forces.
Evil cultivators are hunted by everyone. Once discovered, all families unite to clear out evil cultivators, and this time Lu Tianyi’s family being targeted could only be considered bad luck. Lu Tianyi’s entire family, including the guards, has low cultivation levels, making them easy targets.
While Tan Shuangshuang contemplated whether to kill the bug first, and if killing it would alert the underground evil cultivators, she heard the golden bell on her waist ring.
The sound of the golden bell was peculiar; it did not ring directly. The sound resonated directly in one’s mind. The bell’s tone was crisp and gentle, not piercing, but it rang in such a way that the holder could immediately notice it.
This was for personal safety. Practitioners often engage in dangerous activities, during which unexpected sounds might expose traces and lead to fatal disasters. But with sound resonating in the mind, there isn’t this concern. Neither worrying about missing the bell’s message nor attracting unwanted attention and resulting in disaster.
The person sending the message to Tan Shuangshuang was her grandfather, Tan Wencheng. After finding Fei Hu, Tan Wencheng decided to leave two guards with the tied-up people, serving as evidence for the City Lord Mansion to handle later.
Tan Wencheng, led by Fei Hu, followed the information from the contract to find this place. However, upon reaching the pond, Fei Hu became confused.
It sensed from the contract that Tan Shuangshuang was below the pond, yet Tan Wencheng and his men searched several rounds but couldn’t find an entrance to the underground passage, which prompted him to send a message to Tan Shuangshuang.
Tan Shuangshuang immediately remembered the thumb-sized black stone that Senior Brother Chen had left upon entering earlier. That black stone should be the key to entering the underground cave.
Tan Shuangshuang quickly relayed this information to Tan Wencheng. After receiving the message, Tan Wencheng promptly took a spatial bag retrieved from the previous individuals, and his Divine Sense began searching within.
The owner of this spatial bag seemed to be a skilled hunter, as the bag was filled with corpses, which made Tan Wencheng’s face look extremely grim.
These deceased were ordinary cultivators from around Qingyun City. Originally, survival and cultivation were challenging, yet now they must become food for bugs and be hunted. It was truly pitiful, causing Tan Wencheng’s killing intent towards these evil cultivators to grow even stronger!