Chapter 136 Cloud Continent Border
"Cast a lot to decide your fate!"
The spirit lot fell steadily to the ground.
An average lot.
Zhou Yi used the Transforming Shape Formula, turning into a withered old man with white hair and wrinkled skin, his figure emaciated, his eyes cloudy as if he would pass away at any moment.
About an hour later.
Elder Zhong broke through the inner layer of the Formation, and six cultivators led by He Zheng entered one after another.
He Zheng exclaimed in surprise, "The Spiritual Energy is so rich?"
Elder Zhong, quite knowledgeable, said, "This is the effect of the Spirit Gathering Array, which gathers more than seventy percent of the Spiritual Energy within the spirit land right here."
"Hmph!"
He Zheng snorted coldly, "What did Tang the Immortal say back then, offering half the spirit land to the He family? Yet he himself monopolized seventy percent of the Spiritual Energy..."
Before the words were finished, an old and melodious voice came through.
"When did I ever say such a thing?"
He Zheng\'s expression changed dramatically as he looked up ahead to see an old man dressed in azure-blue Daoist robes sitting there.
"Immortal Tang..."
Elder Zhong and the others realized what was happening and, frightened, started to back away hastily, but then a tiger\'s roar came from behind them.
Roar!
Deafening, a black tiger stepped out of the shadows, its eyes cold and fierce, licking its lips as it eyed the He family cultivators.
"Great demon... Immortal Tang, spare my life."
He Zheng trembled and fell to his knees, kowtowing vigorously and saying, "It has been decades since I last saw Immortal Tang. I feared something had happened to you and came to check on my own accord."
Zhou Yi, not wanting to get angry over such trivial matters, waved his hand and numerous bolts of lightning struck down, turning the He family cultivators to ash.
Only He Zheng was left; Zhou Yi waved him over and forcibly perused his memories with the Soul Searching Technique.
"Thirty years ago, two Golden Cores fought near Daze Marketplace, one righteous and one wicked, ending in a draw..."
"Thereafter, battles between Golden Cores happened frequently, often resulting in the extermination of all living things within a hundred miles..."
"Rumor has it, the Ghost King Sect was ambushed by the Spirit Sword Sect of Green State, trapped between the Dan Ding Sect, surrounded by enemies on all sides..."
He Zheng\'s memories were fragmented due to his fear of frequently going out to probe for news, and thus he was not especially clear on the situation in Cloud Continent. These three pieces of information were obtained by the He family through multiple inquiries, so their reliability should be reasonably good.
"I can\'t stay in Cloud Continent any longer!"
Zhou Yi looked at the trembling Elder Zhong and asked, "Where did you learn your art of Formation?"
Elder Zhong hurriedly took out a jade slip, praying, "Junior Zhong Xing, the Formation knowledge passed down through more than a dozen generations in my family, all the essence is in here. I beg the Immortal to spare my life, for I was deceived by vile people!"
Zhou Yi\'s Divine Sense scanned the jade slip, and it contained dense insights into Formations, with each segment followed by a name. It traced back to a cultivator called Zhong Cheng, including a brief connection with Zhong Xing, and at the end was Zhong Xing himself.
"Not bad, not bad!"
"If predecessor likes it, then..."
Zhong Xing\'s face showed delight at hearing this, thinking he might survive, but then a bolt of lightning struck him down.
Zhou Yi put away the jade slip and took out a huge map from his storage bag. It was a roughly drawn map of the world based on records from various sources.
The continent was rectangular, surrounded by seas on all sides, and marked with places like Qiong, Qing, You, among other states. Cloud Continent was located towards the extreme southeast of the map.
"The Great Ten Thousand Mountain Range is also considered one state, which adds up to Nine Continents, with half of the human clan\'s Sects already involved in the war, two from each side of righteous and wicked."
"The battle between righteousness and wickedness is inevitable!"
Zhou Yi pondered for a moment before instructing Chancellor Turtle to clean up everything.
"With the black skeletons serving as a lesson from the past, it\'s much safer to leave as soon as we get wind of trouble rather than escaping after the battle has erupted!"
…
In the far south of Cloud Continent.
Yue Country.
Hundred Springs City.
Zhou Yi emerged from underground, and before him lay the most remote city on the edge of Cloud Continent, with only sparse villages further ahead.
"An auspicious divination, could there be good fortune within the city?"
Traveling south from Qing Kingdom in the northwest of Cloud Continent and crossing several countries, he had not tread on the surface, relying solely on the Five Elements Escape Technique to travel a hundred yards underground.
The divination of the day had, unusually, produced an auspicious sign.
"Whether it\'s an auspicious sign or not doesn\'t matter. I\'m about to leave the human territories. I won\'t return until after the struggle between good and evil at the sword-fighting event is over, and who knows how many years that will be... Let\'s celebrate for a bit before continuing on my way!"
Zhou Yi transformed into a middle-aged martial artist with a dusty and weary look, and headed towards Hundred Springs City.
Once he entered the city,
it was a small but bustling place, being a remote area under the rule of the Imperial Court.
Zhou Yi asked around and quickly found his destination, the most famous establishment in the city: Hundred Beauty Pavilion, a name that sounded common, suggesting its interior would be even more so.
Halfway there, he saw dozens of people blocking the street and forming a circle, with exclamations being heard from time to time.
Zhou Yi walked towards the center, and the crowd naturally parted to make way. He saw an old Taoist in a grey robe watering a sapling. With each watering, the sapling grew a foot, and in a moment, it became a pear tree that bloomed and bore fruit at a visible rate.
"Fellow villagers, would you like to taste these fragrant pears?"
The old Taoist picked a basket of pears from the tree and distributed them with a smile for the people to taste.
Zhou Yi twitched his nose, smelling a greasy, fishy scent. As he circulated his mana and looked at the basket, he saw no fragrant pears, but inch-long parasitic insects instead.
"Dare to harm people with sorcery in broad daylight!"
With that thought, a thunderous noise reverberated from the skies.
Boom!
A thunderbolt struck from the clear skies, reducing the old Taoist and the pear tree to charred remains, and the pears in the basket revealed their true form, turning into charred, strange insects.
Ugh, ugh, ugh!
The villagers who were eating the pears witnessed this and started retching incessantly.
Zhou Yi pulled the storage bag off the old Taoist\'s body. It was filled with assorted bottles and jars, but contained only one scroll with a blue cover.
"\'Insect Scripture,\' ancient peculiar insects, Insect Control Technique..."
After scanning the contents of the scroll with his divine sense, Zhou Yi learned that the insects the old Taoist had been cultivating were known as Heart Devourers. Despite their formidable-sounding name, they were entry-level parasitic insects.
After consuming the fragrant pears, the Heart Devourers would enter the body and devour the heart to mature, developing sharp teeth and a hard shell. The old Taoist would then collect the mature insects back into the bug pouch and release them to bite people during magical fights.
The old Taoist cultivated the parasites, and to avoid being backfired upon, he would first lay down a Blood Covenant-like method.
With the old Taoist\'s death, the parasites suddenly lost their vitality, saving Zhou Yi the trouble of dispelling the parasites one by one.
Zhou Yi tucked away the Insect Scripture. Inside, it not only recorded raising and commanding insects but also methods to counteract them, which could prove useful in the future.
"Could this be the benefit of the auspicious sign? Something akin to fate?"
The way of divination involved the secrets of heaven and fate, mysterious and unpredictable.
To validate his thoughts, Zhou Yi decided not to visit the young lady for the time being and instead let his divine sense cover a hundred paces as he strolled leisurely through the city.
East City.
In the Abandoned Temple, a group of beggars proficient in sorcery was in the midst of transforming a person into a sheep.
South City.
Rich families gathered, and above the Zhang family residence, a dark shadow loomed as malevolent spirits sucked away yang energy. A ghost-refining evil monk disguised as a high monk demanded a thousand taels of silver, threatening the extinction of the family otherwise.
West Marketplace.
The butcher Zheng Butcher was long since replaced, and an evil cultivator wearing another\'s skin used a curse on the meat he sold.
Boom, boom!
Thunderbolts fell periodically from the clear skies over Hundred Springs City, turning the evildoers into ashes.
"This small border city is so full of dark and evil energy!"
Zhou Yi no longer felt any urge to celebrate. He transformed into a beam of light and soared into the sky, casting one last glance back at the shrinking city.
"The Spirit Sword Sect is embroiled in a great clan war and can no longer care for the mundane world. All kinds of heretical paths have emerged to harm people. If the ancestral veins were to truly collapse and the world were to become devoid of spiritual energy, perhaps mortals would live a bit better?"
"When I achieve the Dao... never mind, such grand oaths should not be made recklessly, nor can I be like the Buddha who makes promises without fulfilling them!"