69novels Chapter 177 Quietly Intercepting the Deal
Chapter 177 Quietly Intercepting the Deal
Chapter 177 Quietly Intercepting the Deal
In the darkness of night, two petite figures darted across the cliff.
In some inconspicuous valley depression,
The young girl at the head of the group cast a spell with her delicate hands. The tiny fluctuations of her magical power condensed into tiny sparks of electricity that pierced into the cracks in the rock. The stone wall cracked in response, and dust mixed with lightning fragments fell down.
Behind her, the female cultivator rapidly spun her fingers, and aquamarine patterns meandered along the rock veins, suddenly settling on a dark hole:
"Senior sister, this must be the place Father was referring to!"
Lin Xiaoyu said softly.
The two women used a special technique to gently open the cave, and then floated inside by performing a dust-avoiding incantation.
A chilling mist, carrying the spiritual energy of the green wood, rushed towards us, and the stalagmites hung down like an inverted forest of swords.
After entering the cave for several miles, the light gradually brightened before our eyes.
The two activated a shielding array, and after entering the array using a special array plate,
Finally, we saw the treasure hidden at the bottom of the cave.
This is also the most valuable accumulation of Miaoyinfang over the past few decades:
Dozens of mid-grade Tier 3 Xuanyin Bamboo!
This level of Mystic Sound Bamboo is a core material for crafting sonic magical artifacts, and can also be used to refine other magical artifacts.
Or they could use the bark of spirit bamboo to make high-level talismans, etc.
Each bamboo stalk is worth several thousand spirit stones, and these thirty-odd spirit bamboos are worth nearly two hundred thousand spirit stones in total!
Wow, so this is the good stuff.
Chen Yi suddenly realized.
He was hiding not far behind the two women.
But at this moment, he still didn't rush to make a move.
"Junior sister, I will take these spirit bamboos with me tonight. Master is waiting for me in the Thousand Mountain Sound Cave."
The female cultivator who came in later should be Lin Fan's personal disciple, the one who was "married off" by Lin Fan in the early years.
"I'll go with you. I'm afraid if Senior Sister Qin comes back."
Lin Xiaoyu said softly that now that she had obtained the items, she didn't want to stay in the Miaoyin Sect any longer.
"No, Master wants you to stay in the sect and wait to support him in the future. After Master advances to the mid-stage of Core Formation, he may return to reclaim this third-tier spiritual vein. At that time, both of us will have a chance to form our Core!"
The senior sister gave her final instructions, then took out a storage bag and put the thirty-odd Xuan Yin bamboos into it.
Finally, she put on the Moon Spirit Veil again, achieving an effect of almost completely concealing her figure, and re-emerged from the cave.
With Lin Xiaoyu's help,
Arriving at an inconspicuous corner of the array at the foot of the mountain,
Lin Xiaoyu held a small array tablet and placed it in the corner of the array. A soft light shone from the tablet, resonating with the spiritual energy fluctuations of the entire Thousand Sound Mountain.
Next, the light from the array tablets merged with the grand array at the mountain gate, opening a small humanoid passage.
Then, the senior sister put on the Moon Spirit Veil and slipped out through the small humanoid passage.
Throughout the entire process, only her own magical power caused a slight fluctuation, with minimal impact.
Ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators would not be able to detect it at all.
Even ordinary Core Formation cultivators might overlook this if they are not paying attention.
Throughout the entire process, Chen Yi seemed to be deep in thought.
"So it turns out that the array key was made based on the spiritual energy of the entire Thousand Sound Mountain Range."
No wonder, even after Chengcheng replaced the entire sect's formation, there were still such loopholes.
No matter how the sect's formation changes, as long as it relies on the entire Thousand Sound Mountain Range, especially the third-tier spiritual veins of the main peak, as its foundation of spiritual energy,
There will always be some loopholes.
Fortunately, after Qin Chengcheng's modifications, only those at the Foundation Establishment stage could infiltrate.
Given the opponent's array key techniques, it is impossible for a cultivator of at least the False Core stage to pass through silently with such immense magical power.
Having grasped the situation, Chen Yi had no intention of fixing the loophole.
What we don't know is the vulnerability.
Once you know that, it can become a trap.
Seeing her senior sister slip out of the main peak's grand formation, and under the cover of the Moon Spirit Veil, Lin Xiaoyu vanished into the Thousand Sound Mountains in a few leaps.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
She turned back and carefully cleaned up the traces along the way, especially resealing the inconspicuous cave entrance at the foot of the mountain.
Only then did he prepare to return to his cave to cultivate.
"Everything went smoothly. Luckily, that chef's cultivation level wasn't high enough and he wasn't very bright, otherwise my senior sister and I might have had to kill him to cover it up."
After returning to her cave, Lin Xiaoyu finally felt relieved.
After a night of cultivation, a hidden message suddenly emanated from the jade pendant in her storage bag:
[Xiaoyu, where's your senior sister? Why hasn't she come out all night? If she doesn't come out soon, it'll be troublesome if she's discovered during the day!]
This is an urgent communication from her father, Lin Fan.
Seeing this, Lin Xiaoyu's expression turned anxious, and she replied:
"Father, Senior Sister Zihan left at the end of midnight last night. I saw her safely exit the mountain gate formation, stealthily leave, and disappear into Thousand Sound Mountain."
She said she went to find you, to the Thousand Sound Cave, three thousand miles away. Has she arrived yet?
[It's been several hours all night, how could she not have arrived? I've searched the surrounding area for thousands of miles, but there's been no movement at all. Even the mother-and-child positioning jade pendant can't detect her location!]
[Huh? Senior Sister is gone? Is her spirit tablet still lit up?]
[It's still lit.]
Could it be that Senior Sister took that batch of Mystic Bamboo and left without permission?
[That must be it! That rebellious daughter! How dare she do that? I'm so angry!]
Thousands of miles away, inside the Thousand Sound Cave, Lin Fan was furious.
"Don't let me catch this traitor, or I'll skin her alive!"
That was his savings accumulated over decades as the sect leader of Miaoyin Pavilion. He was counting on these things to exchange for resources so he could break through to the mid-stage of Core Formation.
How dare she embezzle it!
Lin Fan didn't understand, and neither did Lin Xiaoyu.
The father and daughter naturally had no idea what was going on.
Just last night,
The senior sister quietly slipped out of Miaoyin Mountain, and while in stealth mode, she flew rapidly over a hundred miles away.
She prepared to stop and catch her breath, recover her magical power, then remove the disguise of the Moon Spirit Veil, switch to her flying sword, and fly at full speed.
After all, it's already a hundred miles from the entrance to Miaoyin Mountain. Even for an ordinary Core Formation cultivator, the range of their divine sense is only about ten miles.
This distance is absolutely safe.
She was wearing the Moon Spirit Veil, which slowed her flight and consumed a lot of her magic power.
Just as she was about to take off the Moon Spirit Veil, she seemed to hear a soft voice in her ear.
"Hmm, the distance is about right, no one should suspect anything now."
Then, in the next instant, a dark figure appeared in front of her at a speed she couldn't comprehend.
She fainted after being gently tapped by the other person.
Before she fainted, she only remembered the other person's mark; the hand seemed very young, with clearly defined knuckles.
The one who took action was naturally Chen Yi.
After knocking the senior female student unconscious, Chen Yi searched her body.
First, place the positioning jade token on her body into a jade box with a shielding array to prevent outsiders from contacting her.
Then remove all location markings from the other party.
Then, while numbing her sense of pain, he destroyed her dantian, thus crippling her cultivation.
Finally, Chen Yi used his third-tier divine sense power to quietly enter the other party's soul.
With just a brief inspection, a faint fluctuation of markings was detected—a marking connecting the soul tablet to the other party.
If she dies, her spirit tablet in the distance will go out.
Deep within this mark lies an extremely evil divine power, controlling the very essence of her soul.
Chen Yi did not use the soul-searching technique. Given the pre-existing influence of the evil spirit, Chen Yi was unable to bypass its ability to search her soul.
Of course, Chen Yi had the ability to destroy that evil divine soul with the special power of the Thunder Soul Whip.
But there's no need for that; doing so would alert the enemy.
Chen Yi didn't even kill the woman before preparing to bring the situation under control.
Since the other party has a target, and there are two Core Formation cultivators behind them, and possibly even a mid-Core Formation evil cultivator, then...
Chen Yi did not intend to let this senior sister "die" near Miaoyin Mountain.
Now that Chen Yi has her under control, he has created the illusion that she has absconded with the treasure.
In the future, at a suitable time and in a suitable place,
The safest course of action would be to find a suitable person to take the blame for her murder.
In the darkness, Chen Yi carried an unconscious female cultivator straight to the mountaintop.
At the core of the grand formation, with a light leap, he unknowingly returned to his cave.
This is the advantage of him being the rightful controller of the sect's grand formation; he can enter and exit silently, undetected by others.
At this moment, Lin Xiaoyu had just finished cleaning up the "traces" and sneaked back into the cave to calm her heartbeat.
Chen Yi had already left his senior sister in the underground secret room of his private cave.
Only then did Chen Yi have time to check the senior sister's storage bag.
The Moon Spirit Veil is an unusual quasi-magical artifact. When worn under the moonlight, it can conceal one's magical energy fluctuations.
Moreover, it has the effect of shielding divine sense.
Chen Yi tried it, and when he tested it with the strength of the early stage of the third level of divine sense, he could only find a few clues within a mile of the Moon Spirit Veil.
"It's a good thing, but unfortunately I don't need it."
Chen Yi shook his head slightly, but it wasn't entirely useless; this item could be used by the treasure-hunting rat.
Over the years, Chen Yi sent it to search for treasures throughout the Thousand Sound Mountains. It gained a lot, but there were also several places guarded by powerful demonic beasts at the bottom of the mountains, and it failed to acquire any.
With this item, the treasure-hunting mouse will have a higher chance of succeeding.
Besides these, there were some cultivation pills, spirit stones, and other items, worth only one or two thousand spirit stones.
Chen Yi didn't care about these things now, so he casually tossed the pills to the treasure-hunting rat.
As for the Crimson Flame Sparrow, after arriving at the Myriad Sounds Sect, Chen Yi let it fly solo on its own.
The Crimson Flame Sparrow's bloodline is even weaker; without a great stroke of luck, it has no hope of reaching the third tier.
Chen Yi didn't have many resources to allocate to it, so he wasted the opportunity to achieve the third tier by letting a monster with a low success rate waste its chance.
The most important item in this woman's storage bag was the thirty-odd mid-grade third-tier Xuanyin Bamboo stalks.
The profound spiritual light of the wood element and the powerful sonic rhythms filled Chen Yi with joy.
After Chen Yi's magical power reached the ninth level of the Foundation Establishment stage, it was already close to perfection.
However, the spiritual power of Taiyi's growth is a "level" that is forcibly increased through dual cultivation, and the spiritual essence within it is not as sufficient as that cultivated through one's own perception of heaven and earth.
At this point, it's fortunate that some things are still missing.
It's filled with wood-elemental spiritual energy, which the system can extract to help him complete the missing wood-elemental spiritual energy in his Taiyi Longevity Mantra.
With this method of core formation, Chen Yi was already more than halfway to successfully form the Purple Extreme Golden Core.
Moreover, even though the Xuan Yin Bamboo has lost its spiritual essence, it can still barely reach the third-tier quality, and if sold, it can be exchanged for tens of thousands of spirit stones.
Finally, the dual cultivation technique found in the woman's storage bag alerted Chen Yi.
【Thousand Cauldrons Transformation Technique】
The above only records how the furnace-cauldron party transforms its own innate talents into pure Yin power, which is then used to replenish the master party through dual cultivation.
Chen Yi wasn't particularly interested in this cultivation technique.
But what alarmed him was the people who practiced this technique.
"An evil cultivator? Or a demonic cultivator?"
Lin Fan, the mysterious mid-stage Core Formation cultivator he sought refuge with, is he a demonic cultivator?
Chen Yi frowned. He wasn't worried about a particular enemy; such enemies could be eliminated once he became powerful enough.
What he feared was that a certain group would become his enemies.
That would be troublesome.
"Fortunately, we didn't act rashly this time."
If the two women were killed directly at Miaoyin Mountain, before Qin Chengcheng returned,
There's a high probability that Lin Fan and that evil cultivator will launch a sneak attack on Miaoyin Mountain.
That would be very troublesome.
The best outcome would be for Chen Yi to expose Xu Jiu's identity and break through the encirclement.
And no matter what he does next, it will be difficult for him to escape from this vortex.
Moreover, the current state of cultivation in Qi is such that most high-level cultivators are more than capable of protecting themselves, and very few are willing to take the initiative to intercept and kill high-level demonic beasts or demonic cultivators.
Everyone is trying to survive, and those who step forward at this time, without real strength, will only become the first birds to stick their necks out and die in the meat grinder of the prevailing trend.
Three days later
Lin Fan searched the entire Thousand Sound Mountain Range from the outer perimeter, but found nothing.
There wasn't even a trace of a Foundation Establishment cultivator escaping.
"You unfilial disciple, when did your stealth abilities become so strong?!"
Lin Fan gritted his teeth, finally concluding that the Moon Spirit Silk he had given him played a crucial role.
If this disciple of his is active only at night and hides only under the moonlight...
It's quite possible that she could escape thousands of miles away in just a few days.
"Could it be that cook from Miaoyin Mountain who did it?"
Lin Fan sent a message to Lin Xiaoyu, asking her to confirm it one last time.
A few days later, at another sect council meeting,
Lin Xiaoyu asked Chen Yi,
"Steward Chen, now that the mountain gate's formation is so tightly closed, a large area of spirit bamboo at the foot of the mountain is exposed."
Recently, there have been frequent incidents of petty cultivators and wild monsters approaching and stealing spiritual bamboo.
Judging from the view of the demonic beast army to the north, they are still far from here. Why don't we expand the formation to encompass the Spirit Bamboo Region?
Ultimately, those are also assets of our Wonderful Sound Sect!
Other lay disciples shared the same sentiment and nodded in agreement.
Chen Yi shook his head:
"This attack, though seemingly a beast tide, was actually driven by demonic cultivators."
The beast tide alone has already exhausted the major sects and forces in the Qi Kingdom to cope with.
We do not yet know where the demonic cultivators hiding behind the scenes are or what they are doing.
At this point, it would be best to completely tighten the defensive lines.
I even considered abandoning the entire spiritual vein area below the foot of the mountain if the sect were to encounter danger.
Everyone shrunk to the level of second-tier spiritual veins or above.
This narrowing of the formation's area makes it easier to ensure everyone's safety.
Should we abandon everything below the halfway point?
Upon hearing this, Lin Xiaoyu's heart stirred. If she had known you were giving up entirely, why would she have let her senior sister sneak into the foot of the mountain to steal things?
When the time comes, just let my father go and get it.
"Manager Chen, what should we do about those rogue cultivators and practitioners who are stealing spirit bamboo near that sect?"
Lin Xiaoyu pressed for more information.
"Let's ignore it for now. A few spirit bamboos are just external possessions."
Our lives are the priority.
"Once the great calamity of the demonic cultivators and the beast tide has passed, we will reclaim our territory and plant the spirit bamboo again."
Chen Yi appeared uninterested in the Miaoyin Sect's wealth.
"To be honest, I'm practically an outsider to the Wonderful Sound Sect, temporarily guarding the sect for Sect Master Qin."
Those of you who stayed at home are all not skilled in combat or cultivation.
The vast majority of resources of this sect are of little concern to any of us present here.
There's no need to risk your life for such material possessions.
Although Chen Yi's last words were not very appropriate, they resonated with many of the cultivators who remained behind.
Chen Yi is an outsider, and they are expendable pawns. Those who truly wanted to fight desperately for the path of cultivation had all followed Sect Master Qin to the northern lands to participate in the war.
"Sigh—, these are ultimately my clan's properties, how can we just abandon them?"
Lin Xiaoyu was heartbroken.
After she left
One of the Foundation Establishment deacons who remained said to Chen Yi, "Manager Chen, Senior Sister Lin truly lives up to her reputation as a senior member of the sect; she cherishes this spiritual land so much."
Shouldn't we learn from Senior Sister Lin and protect those spirit bamboos outside?
"You may do as you please. I'm staying in the mountains to oversee the grand formation; I'm not going anywhere."
Chen Yi gave his conclusion.
Chen Yi showed no unusual expression regarding the sect disciples' views on Lin Xiaoyu.
Later that evening, Lin Xiaoyu returned to her cave and sent a message to Lin Fan:
"Father, it certainly wasn't Chen Yi who did it. That turtle of a turtle only cares about saving his own life; he doesn't even dare to leave his third-tier spirit vein cave."
Furthermore, he publicly stated that he was an outsider to the Miaoyin Sect, merely helping to guard the premises, and would never risk his life.
[Fine, Zihan must have escaped. You should keep a low profile in the sect and lie low until I give you the signal to counterattack.]
Zihan has no use for the spirit bamboo; she needs to convert it into resources for cultivation, so she'll definitely sell it. I'll keep an eye on it!
After testing him, Lin Fan was completely certain that his personal disciple Zhou Zihan had absconded and had nothing to do with the cook guarding the mountain of the Miaoyin Sect.
(End of this chapter)