Chapter 402 - 385: Abyssal Rift Valley
The next day, after taking care of business in the Ghost Mist Marketplace, Li Yuan returned to his stone house and sat down cross-legged.
Two of his special equipment slots were empty. He had previously equipped the large Spirit Vein from Mozhou in one of them, but the slot had been freed up after the effect became permanent. With two slots now available, it was the perfect time to reconfigure his setup.
Directly beneath the Ghost Mist Marketplace was an Evil Vein, which he had been unable to equip before because all his special slots were full. Li Yuan extended his Divine Sense downward, touching the core node of the Evil Vein.
A panel popped up.
[Detectable Special Item: Evil Vein (Beneath Ghost Mist Marketplace)]
[Equip Trait Preview: Evil Vein Nurturing (Blue)]
"Equip."
[Equipped: Evil Vein (Beneath Ghost Mist Marketplace) — Special Slot]
Next, Li Yuan extended his perception along the Earth Vein toward Mozhou, once again touching the large Spirit Vein.
The content that popped up on the panel was different from before.
[Detectable Special Item: Large Spirit Vein (Mozhou Stone Wilderness)]
[Trait [Spirit Vein Spirit Nourishment (Purple)] has been permanently acquired. Equipping this item again will not stack the effect.]
[Upon equipping, you will gain: Spirit Vein Control]
[Equip?]
The trait’s effect wouldn’t stack, but he would still gain control of the vein.
This meant that equipping the Spirit Vein in a special slot would no longer provide a stat boost, but pure control. He could remotely regulate the Spirit Vein’s Spiritual Qi output, which would be crucial when he eventually shattered and re-formed his Golden Core.
’But I’m in no hurry to equip it. There’s only one special slot left, and I can save it for the Mozhou Spirit Vein’s control until right before I shatter and re-form my core. If I encounter another item that needs a special slot before then, filling it now would put me at a disadvantage.’
Li Yuan retracted his Divine Sense, stood up, and pushed open the door.
’Time to check out the depths of the Ghost Mist Forest.’
---
He fully activated Traceless Concealment.
Li Yuan’s figure completely dissolved into the dense fog, not even causing a ripple in the air. Empowered by his Golden Core Stage Cultivation, the Concealment effect had reached a near-absolute level. He was like a non-existent breeze, speeding through the Ghost Mist Forest.
His route avoided the area where the Primordial Yang Sect’s exploration team was active. He cut into the woods from the northwest of the marketplace, then turned southwest, following a beast trail unmarked by any faction deeper into the heart of the forest.
His Golden Core Stage Divine Sense, combined with the doubled perception range from his Spirit Vein affinity, gave him a degree of environmental control far beyond his Foundation Establishment days. The structure of rock formations hundreds of feet underground, the movement patterns of Demon Beasts over a mile away, and even the subtle changes in Spiritual Qi concentration carried by high-altitude air currents—all of it was projected clearly in his mind.
Two hours later, the terrain ahead suddenly sank.
A massive rift valley lay across the heart of the Ghost Mist Forest, tearing a wound in the earth over a hundred feet wide and bottomlessly deep. The cliff faces on both sides were nearly vertical, covered in large patches of dark green moss and writhing vines. A dense fog billowed up from the bottom, shrouding the valley in a grayish-white haze.
This was the Abyssal Rift Valley, the former location of the ruin’s Sub-Palace.
Li Yuan stopped behind a dead tree at the edge of the rift, leaning over to investigate what was below.
His Golden Core Stage Divine Sense was like a sharp blade, piercing straight through the churning fog and stabbing toward the valley floor.
Three hundred feet, six hundred feet, a thousand feet.
The full view of the valley floor gradually became clear in his Divine Sense.
Li Yuan retracted part of his Divine Sense and shifted his focus to the area around the rift.
’Something’s not right.’
The number of Tier Two Demon Beasts at the edge of the rift was abnormally high.
Within his range of perception, at least a dozen Tier Two Demon Beasts were active in an area roughly a mile from the rift’s perimeter. They weren’t staying in their own territories and avoiding each other like typical beasts; instead, they seemed agitated and frenzied. Several were pacing back and forth along the edge of the rift, letting out low roars, as if provoked by something they dared not approach.
Li Yuan sent his Divine Sense deep into the rift, carefully sensing the energy fluctuations at the bottom.
’Something is seeping out from the valley floor.’
Extremely faint Spiritual Power pulses. The frequency was very low and the intervals long, like the heartbeat of something deep in slumber. An ordinary Cultivator’s senses would be completely unable to detect fluctuations at this level, but under the absolute acuity of his Golden Core Stage Dark Evil Insight, every pulse was clearly registered.
Li Yuan focused, trying to distinguish the characteristic aura of these pulses.
’It feels familiar.’
It was the aura he had sensed in the core area of the Profound Nether Sub-Palace, from the Jade Bead that had been sealed by a giant fog Array. It wasn’t identical, but it was clearly from the same source. Like two leaves from the same tree—different patterns, but the same substance.
’There’s some kind of connection between the Jade Bead and these ruins.’
Although the Spiritual Power pulses had weakened to an extremely faint level by the time they spread outward, their effect on the Demon Beasts was still significant. The pulses might contain a special frequency that stimulated the beasts’ instincts, causing the surrounding Demon Beasts to fall into a state of sustained agitation.
Li Yuan recorded the frequency, interval, and intensity decay curve of the pulses, then moved east along the edge of the rift.
On the eastern wall of the rift, an inconspicuous stone cave caught his attention.
The cave’s entrance was mostly obscured by vines, making it almost indistinguishable from the natural rock wall from the outside. But his Dark Evil Insight detected the extremely faint traces of residual Demonic Qi inside the cave.
This wasn’t naturally occurring Demonic Qi, but the lingering aura left behind by the activities of a Demon Cultivator.
Li Yuan pushed aside the vines and entered the cave sideways.
The space inside the cave wasn’t large, roughly ten feet square. Dried food scraps and a few pieces of burnt charcoal were scattered on the ground. In a corner was a pile of casually discarded junk, including a few broken Spirit Copper tubes and some shattered Array Disc fragments.
’A temporary hideout for the Dark Abyss Association, abandoned for some time now.’
Judging by the concentration of the residual Demonic Qi, the last time someone used this hideout was about one to two months ago.
Li Yuan rummaged through the junk in the corner. Most of it was worthless; the Spirit Copper tubes were severely corroded, and the Array Disc fragments were just Low Tier items.
But in a rock crevice in the deepest part of the cave, he felt a hard object that had been deliberately stuffed inside.
He yanked it out. It was a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Opening the oilcloth revealed two things: a small bag of Array materials and a jade slip.
The Array materials were Dark Attribute Array Stones used exclusively by the Demon Dao. The quality was not high, but there was a decent quantity, enough to set up two or three Tier Two Arrays.
There was a simple Demon Qi Seal on the jade slip. Li Yuan gently brushed it with Demonic Qi from his Demon Essence Skill, and the seal dissolved without a sound.
He sent his Divine Sense into it.
Recorded in the jade slip was a partial topographical map of the Abyssal Rift Valley. It wasn’t very detailed, but it marked the general direction of the rift, changes in its width, and a few paths that could be safely used to descend to the bottom.
Two locations were also marked in red on the map.
Li Yuan compared the information on the map with the results of his own Divine Sense scan. The people from the Dark Abyss Association had only explored the outer edges of the rift and were completely ignorant of the full layout of the building complex at the bottom.
Although this intelligence was crude, it confirmed one thing: the Dark Abyss Association had coveted the Abyssal Rift Valley for a long time but had never been able to venture deep inside.
Li Yuan put the Array materials and the jade slip into his storage bag.
After leaving the cave, Li Yuan selected three concealed locations along the outer edge of the rift and began setting up monitoring Arrays.
The three nodes were arranged in a triangle, covering the main approaches from the east, south, and west sides of the rift. The Arrays used the Dark Attribute Array Stones as their core, were driven by his own Spiritual Power, and were concealed using spatial folding techniques thanks to his elementary grasp of Tier Three Arrays.
Once completed, any Cultivator or large Demon Beast approaching the rift from these three directions would trigger the Arrays’ passive sensors. A signal would be transmitted along the Earth Vein to his sensory network in the marketplace, allowing him to receive a warning even from dozens of miles away.
The deployment of the first and second nodes went smoothly. Setting up an Array in the complex terrain of the rift required precise calculations of the Earth Vein’s direction, the density of the rock layers, and the effect of spatial folds on the Array Patterns. Every variable was a continuous test of his practical application of Tier Three Array theory.
The third node was placed on a scree slope on the west side of the rift.
Li Yuan crouched behind a huge boulder, his Divine Sense probing the ground, as he calibrated the final positioning parameter for the Array Hub.
The passive perception network of his Dark Evil Insight suddenly caught a rapidly approaching life signature.
Tier Two High Grade.
Less than two hundred feet away, it was charging at full speed from the dense forest to the west.
Li Yuan looked up.
An enormous spider dropped from the canopy, its eight long, black legs stabbing into the ground like iron spears to support its massive body, which was over seven yards wide. Its torso was covered in a dark purple carapace, its abdomen constantly expanding and contracting as it spewed wisps of grayish-green mist from the glands on either side of its mouthparts.
’A Toxic Mist Spider.’
The mist spread extremely quickly, laying down a viscous curtain of poison on the ground. Li Yuan could feel the intensely corrosive toxins permeating the air. An ordinary Spiritual Power shield wouldn’t last more than a few breaths in such a toxic mist before being completely corroded.
The Toxic Mist Spider was clearly extremely agitated by the Spiritual Power pulses from deep within the rift. It hadn’t noticed Li Yuan at first, but in its frantic rampage, it was charging right toward the spot where he was setting up his Array.
’In a few more moments, it’ll crush the Array Hub.’
Before the Toxic Mist Spider could even fully land after dropping from the trees, Li Yuan unleashed his Divine Sense and pinned it in mid-air.
After advancing to the Golden Core Stage, his Divine Sense had become nearly tangible.
His Golden Core pulsed. The conversion of Demonic Qi to Spiritual Power was instantaneous.
’Void-Rending Slash.’
As the gray fissure swept past, the first thing it severed was not the spider’s body, but the churning toxic mist in front of it. The curtain of mist was sliced down the middle by an invisible giant blade, violently collapsing to either side. Immediately after, the spider’s head and forelimbs fell to the ground. The fissure’s remaining power carved a smooth gash over a hundred feet long into the rock wall behind it.
Li Yuan glanced at the trench carved into the scree slope, and the meaning of the words "Golden Core" truly sank in.
’This is beyond the techniques of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.’
Li Yuan withdrew his Spiritual Power and glanced down at the Toxic Mist Spider’s corpse. Its poison glands had ruptured, and green bodily fluids were corroding the surrounding rocks. There were no usable materials.
He waved his hand, releasing a Flame of Flame Fiend to incinerate the corpse on the spot.
Then he squatted back down behind the large boulder and continued with the final calibration of the third monitoring node.
The Array Hub’s positioning parameters were set, and Spiritual Power was injected. The Array Patterns under the ground lit up for an instant, then vanished into a layer of folded space, becoming completely imperceptible from the outside.
All three monitoring Arrays were now in place.
Li Yuan stood up and gave the churning fog of the Abyssal Rift Valley one last look.