A Mortal's Start in the Spirit Beast Mountain

Chapter 159 Hidden Dangers

"Two pieces of trash!" The ugly cultivator suddenly opened his eyes, a fierce glint in them, his voice hoarse and unpleasant. "One is in the mid-stage of Core Formation, and the other is in the early stage, yet they were defeated by a rogue cultivator who just formed his Core! They couldn't even escape with their primordial spirits! They have utterly disgraced my Extreme Yin Island!"

Through the faint connection between the corpse puppet and the soul tablet in his hand, as well as some kind of tracking technique passed down from the Extreme Yin Island, he spent several days barely managing to pinpoint the approximate area where the last trace of the aura dissipated, which was this sea area.

"Go! Search thoroughly! Don't miss an inch of seawater! Find every trace of that bastard's remaining scent!" he ordered the corpse puppet sternly.

The towering corpse puppet emitted a strange "hoarse" sound from its throat, its corpse aura billowing out like living tentacles, meticulously sweeping across the air and sea. Its perception of lingering spirits, blood, and magical remnants was, in some ways, even more acute than the divine sense of cultivators of the same level. Soon, it detected several extremely faint traces of Luo Ming's residual fighting aura, and an even fainter, unique, watery scent belonging to the Xuan Turtle.

Following the aura, the corpse puppet moved slowly, finally stopping at the spot where Luo Ming had ridden the Xuan Turtle into the deep sea. It stretched out its claws, covered in gray scales and with sharp, black nails, and made a few grasping motions towards the seawater below. Ghostly green flames flickered rapidly in its eye sockets. Then it turned to the ugly cultivator and stiffly shook its head.

"It went into the sea?" The ugly cultivator's face turned even uglier. He took a few steps to the corpse puppet and personally released his divine sense to investigate. Sure enough, the aura stopped abruptly at this point. It had not gone far into the sea before it was completely integrated into the chaotic ocean currents and the auras of countless sea beasts, making it impossible to distinguish or track it anymore.

"That cunning brat! He even brought along a turtle demon skilled in water-based stealth!"

The ugly cultivator gritted his teeth, his anger finding no outlet. His two capable subordinates from Tianxing City had died so inexplicably, forcing the mission there to be interrupted.

"You didn't think you could escape by running underwater, did you?"

As if he had just thought of something, the ugly man took out a round bead about the size of a fist, as black as ink, from his pocket.

As he made a hand seal, the round bead suddenly shone brightly, followed by a cloud of emerald green corpse energy. A phantom slowly flew out from within, revealing the image of a sinister old man.

"My dear grandson, what trouble woke me up?"

,,,,,,

Beneath the deep sea, undercurrents surge and light is dim.

The black tortoise carried Luo Ming, quietly traversing this silence for a full month.

In order to completely shake off any possible tracking, Luo Ming not only had the Xuan Turtle fully utilize its stealth talent to erase its tracks, but also changed direction several times, specifically choosing sea areas with sparse spiritual energy and few sea beasts.

On this day, the seabed ahead suddenly rose, and the outline of a huge shadow shrouded in thick gray mist gradually became clear in the perception of divine sense.

It was an island, quite large, but with extremely thin spiritual energy. More importantly, Luo Ming carefully explored it several times but found no trace of any cultivators. Only some ordinary birds and beasts and low-level insects lived there.

"This is it." Luo Ming felt a little more at ease. Such a remote island with scarce spiritual energy was the perfect place to temporarily hide, deal with the hidden dangers in his body, and prepare for the Wind Fox Beast's advancement.

He found a secluded valley with its back against a cliff and its face towards a deep ravine, and began to get busy. First, he set up several sets of concealment and early warning formations around the valley and at the entrance, which he had obtained from the enemy's storage bags or collected in his early years. They were nested in layers, and although they were not top-notch, they were enough to prevent low-level cultivators or demonic beasts from accidentally entering and to provide enough reaction time.

Afterwards, he cleared a space in the middle of the valley and began to set up a more complex spirit-gathering and protective formation, which was a preparation for the Wind Fox Beast to break through to level five.

After doing all this, Luo Ming felt no relief whatsoever. He sat cross-legged in the newly opened, simple cave dwelling, his face grave. For the past two months, he had been constantly trying to resolve the biggest problem within his dantian—the strange, bloodthirsty blade that had intruded on its own and refused to leave.

Luo Ming focused his mind on his dantian. The longsword, now pitch black and shrouded in a faint, pure demonic aura, still hovered quietly beside his golden core, slowly absorbing the naturally dissipating energy from it, as if it were breathing. It was unusually "well-behaved," showing no signs of agitation or further erosion, but this "calmness" only made Luo Ming more uneasy.

He tried many times to forcefully activate it with his divine sense, attempting to expel it from his dantian. However, the blade seemed to have taken root within his dantian, remaining completely still. He then manipulated the Xuan Yuan Pearl to form a heavy water shackle, carefully wrapping and imprisoning the demonic blade layer by layer, and then attempted to "transport" it out of his body along with the Xuan Yuan Pearl.

His closest attempt was when he had almost moved the Xuan Yuan Pearls enveloping the demonic blade outside his body. But the instant it separated, the black light of the demonic blade trembled slightly, and in the next instant, it vanished like a ghost, reappearing steadily beside the golden core as if it had never left. The Xuan Yuan Pearls, however, remained blankly in place.

This happened time and time again. The demonic blade seemed to have taken a liking to his "alchemy furnace," or rather, to the pure energy contained within his golden core. It didn't plunder indiscriminately, but rather slowly and continuously absorbed the alchemical energy, like a persistent, intractable disease, or a silent, inescapable "tenant."

"Sigh..." Luo Ming sighed helplessly, a deep gloom settling between his brows. This feeling of having something uncontrollable, of unknown origin, and of bizarre power hidden within him was absolutely terrible.

With this heavy heart, Luo Ming began to tally up the spoils of this battle—mainly the items obtained from Cao Yunfeng and the cultivator surnamed Tong's storage bags. Normally, killing two Core Formation cultivators would have yielded substantial gains, enough to make one ecstatic. But this time, Luo Ming mechanically took out each item, categorized them, and assessed their value, his face devoid of any joy.

Cao Yunfeng's storage bag contained an average amount of spirit stones, a few magic treasures of decent quality but nothing particularly remarkable, and pills and talismans—standard equipment for Core Formation cultivators. The only noteworthy item was the black jade pendant that had once blocked the Fire God's Thorn; it was now riddled with cracks, its spiritual light completely gone, clearly destroyed. There was also a jade slip containing information and contact details for some of the outer outposts of Extreme Yin Island, which Luo Ming casually tossed aside.

The storage bag of the cultivator surnamed Tong was much richer. In addition to more spirit stones, materials, and pills, there were several magical treasures that exuded a sinister aura, as well as several jade slips that recorded the basic cultivation methods of the Extreme Yin Island and several sinister secret techniques.

After organizing the two storage bags, Luo Ming had categorized the items piled up in front of him. He put away spirit stones, materials, and regular pills and talismans for later use, and temporarily sealed away a few decent but not urgently needed magical treasures. His attention was now focused more on the jade slips containing information and the special items.

First was the jade slip containing the "Mysterious Yin Scripture," which was obtained from a cultivator surnamed Tong.

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