Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“Elder Ye, if you go southeast from here, you will reach the location of our spirit stones vein. The sea around there is completely safe; there are no dangerous sea beasts. In addition, we have a sea map which has been passed down from the group’s sovereigns. The geographical distribution of the sea beasts is depicted on it, but because we’ve been limited by our cultivation levels, there are many areas we’ve never been to, so it isn’t necessarily trustworthy.”
Mo Tiange took the sea map Wei Haolan gave her then said earnestly, “Thank you. With this map, my journey will be a lot safer.”
Wei Haolan waved her hand, smiling. “Elder Ye is Bixuan Court’s guest elder and you’ve shown us kindness. This kind of trivial matter is something we ought to do.”
Mo Tiange also understood Bixuan Court’s current situation. They had spirit stones and disciples; they just lacked methods to obtain scarce natural resources and required pointers from high level cultivators, so she, as their guest elder, was very important to Bixuan Court. Wei Haolan didn’t fulfill her every request just because they endured many hardships together many years ago or out of consideration for the fact that their founder was her ancestor—Wei Haolan would definitely try her best to fulfill Mo Tiange’s requests also because Mo Tiange would help out Bixuan Court.
After all, her status in Bixuan Court wasn’t ordinary. Using a channel like her, getting medicinal pills or even some Core Formation cultivation techniques would be much easier. Moreover, her cultivation level was high and her future seemed bright, so if one day she indeed formed her Nascent Soul, Bixuan Court would definitely benefit immensely as long as Mo Tiange showed them some care once in a while.
Nevertheless, Mo Tiange didn’t really care about Wei Haolan’s plan. In any case, in this cultivation world, who could be genuinely kind to others without any selfish motives? As long as Wei Haolan didn’t have any bad intentions, that was enough. Besides, considering the relationship between her and Bixuan Court, Bixuan Court was far more reliable than strangers for her.
As she put away the sea map, Mo Tiange suddenly recalled something then said, “Sect Head Wei, I have something I wanted to ask you to help with.”
“Oh? Elder Ye doesn’t need to hesitate to tell me.”
Mo Tiange said, “There’s a fishing village in the vicinity of Linhai Town. In that village, there’s a fisherman family by the name of Shui San. When I came to Linhai sixty years ago, I had some fated encounters with their family. They had a daughter, whom was shown to have five spiritual roots after—she should now be about sixty eight years old. Linhai was in chaos back then and I don’t know how their family’s doing, so I hope you can help me ask around.”
Upon hearing that it was such a trivial matter, Wei Haolan immediately agreed. “Rest assured, Elder Ye. It’s only a trifle.”
“Then I’m thanking you in advance.”
Now that she had entrusted the matter to Wei Haolan, Mo Tiange looked up and gazed towards the Eastern Sea.
The sea extended till the horizon and the sea breeze was blowing gently. The ripples on the sea were sparkling.
In this fine sunny weather, the sea was so tranquil and beautiful, but when it was angry, it’d be turbulent and have surging waves as if it wanted to drown everything. Faced with its fury, humans—even if they were cultivators—would hardly have any chance of resisting. Only those whose cultivation level had reached the Nascent Soul realm and thus had the ability to move the mountain and drain the sea could fearlessly confront the fury of the sea.
Mo Tiange guessed that since Mo Yaoqing set up her final resting Immortal’s Cave in the middle of the sea, far offshore, there must still be other dangers present. Although Mo Yaoqing left behind a map, there were bound to be high ranking sea beasts when she went deep into the sea. Perhaps there was a complicated restriction precisely because Mo Yaoqing also took this matter into consideration.
However, she wasn’t afraid. On one hand, her natal magic weapon, the Heaven and Earth Fan, was already completed. The attack power of this treasure wasn’t too high, but its defensive and trapping power was top-notch. Combined with her Cloud-Treading Boots, White Silk Handkerchief, and the Virtual Sky World, she had lots of life-saving methods—ordinary cultivators simply couldn’t compare to her. As long as her luck wasn’t terribly bad, she wouldn’t be in any mortal danger.
“Sect Head Wei, I’ll take my leave first.”
Wei Haolan cupped her hands. “Elder Ye, come back soon.” During this latest encounter, Wei Haolan treated her much more politely. Although the two of them were still as close as before, the way Wei Haolan treated her was inevitably suffused with a bit of respect.
Mo Tiange smiled. Clouds suddenly appeared under her feet, and she soon rose to the sky, transforming into a beam of flight light that zoomed deep into the sea.
After she advanced to the Core Formation realm, the Cloud-Treading Boots, which were a top-ranking magic weapon, finally exhibited the real power of a magic weapon. When she was in the Foundation Building realm, she could also fly in the air if she put on the Cloud-Treading Boots, but it didn’t have this kind of speed. After she formed her Gold Core, the moment she put on the Cloud-Treading Boots, a cloud would appear under her feet and that cloud would take her flying, thus saving her a lot of spiritual power.
The movements of Core Formation cultivators were extremely fast. In just half a day, she had already passed the location of the spirit stones vein Wei Haolan mentioned, but as she flew away from that point, she had any idea what she’d run into.
Mo Tiange contemplated things briefly. She should fly a bit higher, lest she disturbe the ferocious sea beasts, but she shouldn’t fly too high either because she still had to look at the sea surface in order to find the marks Mo Yaoqing left behind.
More than 5,000 years had gone by. Mo Tiange didn’t know whether the marks Mo Yaoqing left behind would still have any effect. However, with Mo Yaoqing’s abilities and wisdom, she ought to have thought about this problem. Once this thought emerged in her mind, Mo Tiange threw all of her misgivings to the back of her mind and flew with all her strength.
This time, she continued to fly for five days straight. At the onset of these five days, Mo Tiange only saw little first or second rank sea beasts, but now, she often saw fourth and fifth rank sea beasts roaming about.
She was careful throughout the whole journey. Whenever she aroused the attention of those sea beasts, she would fly higher to hide from them.
On the sixth day, Mo Tiange finally found an island suffused with spiritual aura in the sea. This island was extremely small, probably only about five hundred meters wide, but maybe it was because the tide was high so this small island was swallowed by the tide. The spirit vein there also wasn’t very good—the spiritual aura was faint. In fact, there was only one tiny spirit vein there. Nevertheless, Mo Tiange was extremely delighted because this small island was recorded on Mo Yaoqing’s Jade Slip—it was just that in Mo Yaoqing’s record, it was a bit bigger. On second thought, after 5,000 years, it was to be expected that there would be some changes on the island. In the middle of the sea, this kind of small island could vanish overnight.
Mo Tiange flew all around the island but found no traces of high ranking sea beasts in the vicinity, so she cautiously descended towards the island.
It was unclear how long it’d been since a human had stepped on to this island. Vine-like vegetation grew all over densely, practically covering the entire island except for the beach.
Upon seeing this situation, Mo Tiange carefully took out Xiaohuo from the spiritual beast pouch and put it outside.
According to Mo Yaoqing’s Jade Slip, these vines were very odd. They actually seemed like they were alive. As long as there were living beings present, those living beings would be bound and devoured by the vines. In this world, it was always “beasts feeding on plants”; so this reverse scenario of “plants feeding on beasts” simply violated common sense. Abnormalities were monstrous, so these vines could also be considered demonic plants. It was also because of them that there were rarely any sea beasts in the vicinity of this island. If those low ranking sea beasts accidentally came here, they would be eaten by these vines.
However, these vines weren’t without enemies. Demonic beasts of the fifth rank or above had comparable strength to the vines. In addition, some sea beasts also liked to eat these vines. Because these vines often ate demonic beasts, the spiritual aura they carried was much higher than ordinary spiritual plants, so devouring the vines was also helpful for one’s cultivation.
The reason why Mo Yaoqing recorded these islands on the Jade Slip was because there was still a very long road in front. The sea wasn’t like dry land where one could stop and take a rest whenever they felt tired of flying. In the sea, not being able to see dry land for several days or even several dozen days was very normal, so if someone went looking for her Immortal’s Cave, they would have to get some rest on these islands.
Although the spiritual aura consumed by flying was very little and could be regained with Spirit Pills, if one couldn’t even rest for a moment, the mental wariness would be unbearable. In case one’s spirit wasn’t good, their reaction time to danger would be slow and their strength would decrease greatly. Because of that, Mo Yaoqing recorded the locations of many islands in her Jade Slip which could serve as temporary resting places.
Mo Tiange had the Virtual Sky World, so this matter actually wasn’t a problem for her. She looked for these islands firstly because she wanted to use them as a comparison, and secondly, because the properties of these vines that Mo Yaoqing mentioned piqued her interest, so she wanted to get some. After all, this was the Eastern Sea, which rarely saw any human visitors. Bixuan Court cultivators’ current levels were still low, so they couldn’t get here. Moreover, these vines were also rare; they might be of use in the future.
Maybe it was because it hadn’t come out of the spiritual beast pouch for a long time, but when it came out, Xiaohuo pounced towards the inner part of the island very happily.
Mo Tiange immediately stopped it. “Xiaohuo, come back!”
Xiaohuo stopped and turned to look back at her. It blinked its black, beady eyes, then turned to look at the green vines again, looking like it really wanted to go.
When she saw this, an idea emerged in Mo Tiange’s mind. Could it be that not only sea beasts but even spiritual beasts that lived on land, like Xiaohuo, also instinctively wanted to eat these?
The fate of spiritual beasts who ate these vines wasn’t described by Mo Yaoqing. In the Jade Slip, she only mentioned the properties of these vines roughly and that one should pay some attention to them if they wanted to rest here. However, since sea beasts liked to eat these, it should be the same for spiritual beasts, right?
With this thought in mind, Mo Tiange said to Xiaohuo: “Xiaohuo, use your magic art to attack them.”
Xiaohuo’s and her minds were interlinked. Upon obtaining an order from her, it immediately jumped and squirted out Sun Real Fire.
Every spiritual plant was afraid of things with fire or metal attributes. Even though these vines were demonic plants, they were no exception. Once Xiaohuo’s Sun Real Fire was out, the vines that originally still looked like ordinary plants suddenly lifted themselves up to dodge the Sun Real Fire.
Xiaohuo’s eyes widened in surprise. It jumped and spouted another beam of Sun Real Fire, spraying it directly at the roots of the vines.
This time, although the vines frantically tried to dodge, they couldn’t escape. The roots were immediately charred black, and both the branches and the leaves soon became soft.
“Wuwu!” Xiaohuo squeaked in excitement then leaped forward to bite those vines and started to chew on them.
Seeing as Xiaohuo could deal with them easily, Mo Tiange no longer paid much attention to them. After all, Xiaohuo was already in the fifth rank and it was also a mutated spiritual beast—how could ordinary demonic beasts harm it? Besides, since it liked to eat these, she just needed to allow Xiaohuo to eat.
With that thought in her mind, she brandished her flying sword herself. Relying on her slightly higher cultivation level, she uprooted some vines, used her spiritual power to suppress them, then sealed them inside a jade case.
She originally intended to wait until Xiaohuo ate enough before entering the Virtual Sky World to rest, but who knew that this guy would act like an addict and refuse to leave? Mo Tiange pondered it; there were no high ranking sea beasts in the vicinity, so she might as well let it be and she could look for a place to lay a formation so she could get some rest inside and continue to study Mo Yaoqing’s map while she was at it.
Mo Tiange took out the Jade Slip and the sea map Wei Haolan gave her then began cautiously compared the two of them.
In terms of meticulousness, Mo Yaoqing’s was more meticulous. She’d recorded the route she took that year carefully, including areas with islands she checked, what demonic beasts were there—everything was explained very clearly. Nevertheless, the sea map Wei Haolan gave her might be a bit more precise. After all, Mo Yaoqing lived 5,000 years ago. In 5,000 years, the sea could’ve changed into mulberry fields. Some things must’ve changed; one island might’ve disappeared or maybe a new ones had emerged and the demonic beasts might’ve migrated.
According to Mo Yaoqing’s record, if she flew southeast from this island, there would be a large island. According to Wei Haolan’s sea map, however, there was no such large island there. A wrinkle appeared on Mo Tiange’s brows. In the end, which one was correct?
