Chapter 115: Chapter 114: Corpse Nurturing Land

Finally, in a corner of the Storage Bag, lay a worn, dark-colored Beast Hide Map. Lu Zhao’s fingertips brushed across the rough surface as he carefully took it out. He slowly unrolled the Scroll, and an odor mixed with the faint scent of beast blood filled the air.

The map was drawn with exceptionally fine strokes, outlining a mountain range of overlapping, perilous peaks. From the map alone, one could tell its ancient trees were gnarled like Ghost Claws and steeped in deep Yin Qi. The most conspicuous spot, its center, was specially marked with a long, narrow canyon outlined in Cinnabar.

Lu Zhao thought for a moment and took out the official map he had brought from the Bixia Sect, which marked the Chen Country and its surrounding regions, to compare the two. His finger traced over familiar plains and rivers, finally stopping on an unremarkable gray area three hundred li southeast of the Yuan Family Marketplace.

"Yinmu Mountain?" Lu Zhao muttered the name, his brow gradually furrowing. On the Bixia Sect’s official atlas, the notation for this place was so crude it was almost perfunctory: "Scarce Spiritual Qi, rife with miasma, no Spirit Vein." The small text below it further classified it as a worthless, desolate wasteland.

’But for Qian Yuan to have stored this map separately and with such care, there must be something unusual about this place!’

’Anyway, there’s still over a month until the mission deadline. A round trip to investigate this place won’t take much time.’ The thought flashed through his mind, and Lu Zhao made his decision.

Three days later, a mountain range shrouded in a faint gray mist appeared before Lu Zhao.

The mountain slopes were steep and littered with jagged rocks. The trees were mostly shade-tolerant pines and hemlocks, their needles and leaves a sickly, dark green. The light in the forest was dim, and the air was filled with a strange odor—a mixture of damp, rotting leaves and a faint hint of sulfur. It was eerily silent; even the calls of birds and beasts were rarely heard.

Lu Zhao concealed his aura and began to carefully explore the area marked as "Yinmu Mountain." He spent a full seven days, covering nearly the entire outer region marked on the map. His Divine Sense swept over the area again and again, but he didn’t find the specially marked canyon, nor did he detect any obvious fluctuations of Spiritual Qi or traces of an Array.

’Could Qian Yuan’s map be wrong? Or is it marking a different place?’ Lu Zhao wondered. He once again took out Qian Yuan’s Beast Hide Map to study it closely. The shape of the canyon on the map, the contours of the surrounding mountains... He recalled the terrain he had traversed, his gaze finally locking onto a small, unremarkable hill with sparse vegetation directly in front of him.

’According to the map... this should be the canyon entrance...’ His gut instinct drove Lu Zhao to bend down and pick up a bluish-black rock from the ground. He channeled a bit of his Finger Technique Power, and the rock, instantly wrapped in a sharp gust of wind, was viciously thrown at the small hill!

The stone didn’t shatter against the rock face as expected. Instead, the moment it touched the hill’s surface, it vanished without a sound, as if it had been thrown into water!

"An Illusion Array!" Lu Zhao’s pupils contracted as understanding dawned on him. He immediately released an Ice Wind Wolf Puppet and controlled it to charge toward the small hill.

Through the Puppet’s perspective, Lu Zhao "saw" a completely different scene: In the place of the small hill was a massive, deep canyon entrance! The cliff walls on both sides were as steep as if cut by a knife, towering over a hundred zhang high. The light inside the canyon was extremely dim, and a thick, grayish-black fog roiled and surged like a tangible substance, obscuring his vision.

An aura far colder and more putrid than the one outside rushed toward him, transmitted through the Puppet’s Perception. What shocked Lu Zhao even more was that from the depths of the canyon, he could faintly sense a fluctuation of Spiritual Qi that was extremely pure, yet carried a dense Yin Cold Attribute!

"This place... actually has a Spirit Vein?! And it’s a Yin Attribute Spirit Vein!" Lu Zhao was both shocked and delighted. He controlled the Puppet to test the edges of the Illusion Array repeatedly. After confirming the array only served to block Spiritual Qi from leaking out and to deceive the senses, and had no offensive capabilities, he no longer hesitated. With a flicker of his body, he passed through the formless barrier of the Illusion Array and stepped into the real canyon.

The moment he entered, a thick, suffocating aura of yin-cold death instantly enveloped him. The scene at the bottom of the canyon was even more horrifying: as far as Lu Zhao could see, the ground was covered in Skeletons! Gleaming white, weathered yellow, and cracked bones of all kinds were piled in layers, mixed with corpses crawling with white maggots!

In his line of sight, Lu Zhao saw the mangled bodies of humans as well as the remains of Demon Beasts of various sizes. Some of these Skeletons were so old they looked like fossils, clearly having been deposited here over a long period. But many more recent remains had not yet fully decomposed. They were a mess of blurred flesh and blood, obviously discarded here at different times.

Besides the Skeletons, the canyon floor was a bizarre, dark red color, stained by vast amounts of dried and coagulated blood. It even felt somewhat sticky when Lu Zhao stepped on it. The entire canyon floor was like a massive, open-air mass grave.

Lu Zhao suppressed the churning discomfort he felt and focused his attention, carefully examining his surroundings. Combining the lay of the land with the pervasive aura, a clear conclusion quickly formed in his mind.

’This is a naturally formed Corpse Nurturing Land, and a high-quality one at that—a gathering place for Yin Evil! After Qian Yuan stumbled upon this place, he used an Array to hide it. Then he continuously dumped the bodies of the living beings he killed and robbed here, using their flesh, bones, resentment, and death qi to nourish and strengthen this Corpse Nurturing Land!’

Looking at the hellish scene before him, Lu Zhao was filled with emotion. ’To search high and low for something, only to find it when you least expect it! Just a few days ago, I was worrying about not having a suitable Corpse Nurturing Land and Corpse Refining Materials... I can’t believe Qian Yuan... has prepared it all for me!’

Add to that the Blood Shadow Corpse Refining Skill Jade Scroll, the dangerous blood-red Thunder Bead, the Tier Two Talisman, the Cyan Soul Fruit, and the several hundred Spirit Stones and various Magical Artifact Materials... this "gift" from Qian Yuan could be called the greatest fortuitous encounter Lu Zhao had experienced since entering the Cultivation Realm, second only to awakening the Puppet Bead!

’If he hadn’t run into me, with his luck and accumulated resources, he might have successfully reached Foundation Establishment in time, or even gone further... But alas, the struggle for the Great Dao is a matter of life and death.’ Lu Zhao shook his head, casting aside the pointless sentiment.

Recalling his gains from this mission, Lu Zhao made a rough estimate. The Spirit Stones and the sellable Magical Artifacts, Pills, and miscellaneous items alone were worth nearly two thousand Lower Grade Spirit Stones! And that wasn’t even counting the treasures that couldn’t be measured in Spirit Stones: the Cyan Soul Fruit, the blood-red Thunder Bead, the Corpse Nurturing Land, the Corpse Refining Materials, the Blood Shadow Corpse Refining Skill Secret Technique, and the crucial clue to breaking through the bottleneck of the Thousand Overlapping Waves Skill!

’No wonder everyone loves a fortuitous encounter,’ Lu Zhao thought to himself. His gains from this one mission far surpassed the accumulated results of his last ten-plus years of bitter cultivation. This made him understand the cruel laws of the Cultivation Realm even more profoundly, and it filled him with an even stronger yearning for the path that lay ahead.

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