Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit

Chapter 92 – On Cang Mountain

While Lu Ping was carefully making his way towards the Pavilion of Smithery, he suddenly heard the sound of air whistling behind him. He looked back and saw a cultivator flying in the sky. The cultivator eyed Lu Ping as if looking at a fool and overtook him in the blink of an eye. He too was heading towards the summit of Cang Mountain.

Lu Ping shook his head helplessly. Looking at the cultivator’s clothes, he should be from a new sect that had only risen in the last few hundred years. No wonder he didn’t know that flying was forbidden in Fei Ling Island.

Back when Fei Ling Island was first opened, more than a quarter of the 200 cultivators ended up killed by the forbidden array formation after flying in the air.

Sure enough, after the cultivator flew a mile ahead of him, Lu Ping suddenly heard a loud cry. He looked up and saw the cultivator falling to the ground in several pieces.

Lu Ping continued to move forward at a moderate pace, carefully scanning his surroundings with his double-layered divine sense.

Some time later, he finally reached the place where the cultivator fell, and he found that the area was fluctuating greatly. Clearly, a part of the remnant forbidden array formation was connected to the airspace above.

Lu Ping couldn’t help mourning for the unlucky cultivator, who didn’t even notice such an obvious danger. Perhaps the cultivator couldn’t even use his divine sense on time to learn what took his life.

Lu Ping carefully looked around to make sure the area was free of any other dangers before he collected the unlucky cultivator’s interspatial pouch.

In the interspatial pouch were 3,000 spirit stones, a bottle of cultivation medicinal pellets, and two mid-grade mystic instruments. He also found some freshly harvested 100-year spirit herbs, and two wooden boxes that each contained a single 500-year spirit herb.

Lu Ping felt that the unlucky cultivator had been fortunate enough before he died. He was actually able to find two Blood Condensation spirit herbs in the periphery of the island. However, his negligence and carelessness ultimately led to his demise. He clearly didn’t know much about Fei Ling Island.

Lu Ping continued to move towards his destination. On his way, he suddenly smiled and took out his spirit pet pouch. From the pouch, a small, dog-sized mouse rolled in front of Lu Ping’s feet. The spirit beast was round and fat like a meatball.

Dabao’s eyes were still filled with confusion as it looked around puzzlingly. It clearly hadn’t figured out its situation yet.

Lu Ping probed with his divine sense—Dabao had really reached the Fourth Layer Blood Refining Realm. This would obviously be very helpful to Lu Ping’s exploration on the island. He fed Dabao one of the Blood Purification Pellets he’d concocted and instructed it to look around, but not too far away from him.

The common Spirit Seeking Mouse was only sensitive to the traces of spiritual energy on the earth surface. But since Dabao had already reached the Fourth Layer, Lu Ping couldn’t help wondering if its talent had also improved.

Sure enough, Dabao followed Lu Ping’s order and searched around him as they traveled. A few moments later, it dug a half-foot hole in the ground not far behind Lu Ping, and came up with several mid-grade spirit stones in its mouth.

Lu Ping was overjoyed. Dabao’s scouting talent could now sense items buried shallowly under the ground.

By the time they reached Cang Mountain, Dabao found three mid-grade spirit stones and several low-grade spirit stones. It also dug up many broken mystic instruments, and most of all, a 500-year spirit herb behind a small hill.

According to Enlightened Master Jiang Xuan-Lin’s records, Cang Mountain had three small spirit herb gardens. Each garden had an abundance of spirit herbs that could be used to make Blood Condensation medicinal pellets. Five hundred years had passed since the last exploration—the spirit herbs must have already matured by now.

Lu Ping first headed to one of the spirit herb gardens which was mainly protected by a small array formation. Before he could reach the entrance, a flash of lightning struck a large crater in the ground n front of Lu Ping.

Lu Ping looked over and saw a cultivator from Fei Yu Sect already in the spirit herb garden. The cultivator held a round mirror which still had arcs of lightning on it. He eyed Lu Ping and said, “This place is already occupied, so please leave.”

Lu Ping paused for a moment—he didn’t want to raise any conflicts at a time like this. The more important thing to do was to harvest as many spirit herbs as he could. Hence, he simply walked away and headed in the direction of another spirit herb garden.

The Fei Yu Sect cultivator’s face changed when he saw the direction Lu Ping was heading to. It seemed like he was also familiar with Fei Ling Sect’s situation.

But when his divine sense found that Lu Ping was only at the Second Layer, he smiled grimly and continued to harvest the spirit herbs.

This time, Lu Ping was lucky. The second spirit herb garden had yet to be occupied by other cultivators. He cast out the Flying Swallow Sword and attacked the garden’s array formation. In just a few moments, an opening was made that allowed Lu Ping to enter and exit.

This spirit herb garden was less than half an acre in size. It had a large number of 100-year spirit herbs, and roughly a hundred 500-year spirit herbs. All of them had matured and were ready to be harvested.

Joy filled Lu Ping’s heart. Opening a jade box he brought with him, he carefully harvested these spirit herbs, and placed them inside. Soon, he harvested all of the spirit herbs in the garden.

Then, as per custom, he planted the seeds of the matured spirit herbs in the garden again. This way, the next batch of cultivators would be able to continue harvesting the spirit herbs when the island opened again 500 years later.

Lu Ping had to get to the last spirit herb garden as soon as possible, otherwise, someone else might beat him to it and sweep up all the spirit herbs. He hurriedly cleaned up the area and exited through the opening that was about to be restored.

Suddenly, he felt a subtle and indiscernible gush of wind heading towards him. If he hadn’t shrunk and stacked his divine sense into two layers and continuously scanned his surroundings, he likely wouldn’t have noticed it.

A crystal mirror immediately flew out from his body and grew three feet in size beside him.

Ding—

A crisp sound could be heard as the crystal mirror blocked the incoming object.

A three-inch needle mystic instrument flew backwards and returned to the hands of a cultivator about 20 feet to Lu Ping’s left.

Lu Ping turned his head and realized it was the Fei Yu Sect cultivator he had met in the first spirit herb garden.

The cultivator had an Invisibility Charm on him, which explained why Lu Ping didn’t notice him. But because he casted the needle mystic instrument, the rippling of arcane energy revealed his location.

The Fei Yu Sect cultivator obviously didn’t expect Lu Ping to block his sneak attack unharmed. Momentarily stunned, he then cursed quietly and said, “What a lucky brat, you actually blocked my needle. But your good luck ends here!”

With that, he cast up his small, round lightning mirror and a lightning bolt shot towards Lu Ping. It struck Lu Ping’s crystal mirror and Lu Ping felt a burst of numbness in his arcane energy.

Although the numbness was soft, it was still effective, which raised Lu Ping’s alertness.

Not only was the cultivator a cultivation layer stronger than Lu Ping, but he was also from Fei Yu Sect, one of the bigger sects in the North Ocean. The cultivator’s prowess was naturally exceptional if he could stand out among his peers and chosen to come to Fei Ling Island.

Lu Ping cast out his Flying Swallow Sword and asked, “So, is your intention to kill me and plunder my spoils?”

The cultivator laughed grimly. “That’s right, and I’ll have one less competitor for my friends from Xuan Ling Sect.”

Lu Ping laughed. “Truly blunt!”

He then attacked the cultivator with his Flying Swallow Sword—[Disarrayed Rocks Puncturing Sword Art]!

The Fei Yu cultivator didn’t expect Lu Ping’s attacks to be so fierce and powerful. This was not the usual kind of prowess and arcane energy someone at the Second Layer Blood Condensation Realm would have.

At the same time, the cultivator quickly realized. This Zhen Ling cultivator surely had something up his sleeves to be chosen despite his cultivation level. He’d been wrong to assume that Lu Ping was chosen because of his connections in the sect.

Realizing this, the Fei Yu cultivator hurriedly cast up a mid-grade mystic instrument to defend himself. At the same time, he shot out the needle mystic instrument and let it lurk silently around Lu Ping, waiting for an opportunity to deliver a deadly blow.

Unfortunately for him, it was too late for him to realize his situation.

Lu Ping raised his right hand, and the Yan Ling Swords were cast out. At times like this, his extraordinarily strong divine sense that was twice as strong as his peers came into play.

He was able to simultaneously cast the [Stormy Waves Crashing Shore Sword Art] with the Yan Ling Swords, and the [Disarrayed Rocks Puncturing Sword Art] with the Flying Swallow Sword!

The two sword arts worked together and instantly tore apart the Fei Yu cultivator’s defensive mystic instrument.

In the midst of his shouts of terror, the cultivator tossed out several charms from his hands. The charms turned into defensive spells like wooden shields and stone walls, and offensive spells like fireballs and ice arrows.

But none of the charms worked. The offensive spells were crushed right away by Lu Ping’s sword attacks and the defensive spells didn’t even last a second.

The Flying Swallow Sword flashed forward, and pierced through the cultivator’s heart.

With an explosive sound, the cultivator’s body burned into ashes. The cultivator’s heart-space had been destroyed.

Lu Ping sighed helplessly.

In times of crisis, cultivators would usually activate the power contained in their Condensed Blood Beads. Some would even make them self-destruct for the final strand of power to fight back, or self-destruct their heart-space to commit suicide.

Therefore, cultivators rarely left behind any Condensed Blood Beads when they die.

Lu Ping was only able to harvest the Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes and Qiao Xipeng’s Condensed Blood Beads because neither thought they would die in the hands of a mere Blood Refining cultivator. Naturally, they wouldn’t choose self-destruction, which gave Lu Ping the chance to harvest their Condensed Blood Beads.

After killing the Fei Yu cultivator, Lu Ping collected his mystic instruments and interspatial pouch.

Then, he turned his head and looked at a place not far away from the battlefield, he said, “You’ve been watching for so long, are you trying to be the wolf when the shepherds quarrel?”

Behind a boulder to the west of the spirit herb garden, a cultivator dressed in Hai Yan Sect’s uniform walked out with an awkward smile. “I was just passing by and unintentionally heard the sounds of battle. I was about to try mediating the conflict but before I could, you already killed him. Shame on me!”

Lu Ping naturally didn’t buy his explanation and said without any expression, “Oh, is that so? Well in that case, are you going to stand up for him?”

The Hai Yan cultivator took a step back and said vigilantly, “Brother, you’re quite good at joking. Since there’s no more business for me here, I’ll take my leave now.”

He then hurriedly left the way he came without waiting for Lu Ping’s reaction. Lu Ping was too late to stop him and so, he just let him go.

He then headed for the third spirit herb garden. On the way, Lu Ping looked through the Fei Yu cultivator’s interspatial pouch.

There were thirty boxes that contained more than eighty 500-year spirit herbs, more than twenty mid-grade spirit stones, and two bottles of Blood Condensation Realm cultivation pellets. There was also the lightning bolt round mirror and the needle mystic instrument that was used to ambush Lu Ping.

Lu Ping had once owned a needle mystic instrument. But it was destroyed after he sacrificed it to kill a Xuan Ling Second Layer Blood Condensation disciple during the battle on Xuan Qi Island.

But this mid-grade needle mystic instrument was clearly much stronger than the one he had before.

When he arrived at the third spirit herb garden, it was already empty. So, it seemed like the Hai Yan Sect cultivator had already been here. This annoyed Lu Ping a little. It was obvious that many cultivators were familiar with Fei Ling Island. It was necessary that he picked up the pace.