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“Hm??”
Su Xuesha cast Qi Lin a puzzled expression.
Qi Lin informed her of his thinking. The ranyi definitely dwelled in the rivers and lakes, but Changliu’s Earth Sacrifice level was so vast, it left them with very little time.
“Are you sure that ingesting ranyi can let us find the entrance?” Su Xuesha frowned. She had never heard of such a method. Furthermore, the Immemorial Royal Family’s geomancy arts had long been lost. To hear such things from Qi Lin’s mouth was momentarily a bit astonishing.
“It should work.”
The Immemorial Royal Family venerated fengshui so deeply, and Changliu’s fengshui was also True Dragon hibernation, implicitly conforming to every detail from the inside out. Since this was the case, exploiting fengshui as a mechanism was not strange.
“Then how do we do this?” Su Xuesha was still skeptical.
“We go into the sea to find the ranyi.” Qi Lin said.
“En.”
Ranyi lived in rivers, and with so many lakes and streams in the Earth Sacrifice level, following the journal’s records would suffice.
Qi Lin put Qi Qi down safely and made the white ape guard her while he went with Su Xuesha into the sea to search in the meantime.
The ranyi’s appearance was very odd – a fish body, green fish scales, a snake’s head, and six legs.
The two dove beneath the water and searched through the sea. The seawater contained every sort of eccentric fish, shrimp, and kelp. Among them was no shortage of valuable spirit medicines, even precious ores. Even in the water, Qi Lin could see many skeletons.
Searching over a wide area, Qi Lin noticed an area with topography similar to the map’s records of ranyi, and he swam over there. Traversing several kilometers, he then suddenly noticed a person’s figure drifting on the ocean floor. Qi Lin wanted to greet them, but it was only when he drew close that he discovered that was an intact corpse, its face showing an expression of pale fright. That person wore a black Daoist robe, their flesh almost completely consumed by sea life.
These black robes were none other than the uniforms of the Ten Shamans City’s guards.
Qi Lin looked down to find more and more figures drifting over like fishes floating before him, forming an awe-inspiring scene. He lit a glowstone underwater and brightened the pitch-black surroundings. Suddenly, the scene in front of Qi Lin gave him the chills. There were hundreds upon hundreds of corpses, and these corpses had already been dissolved by the seawater, leaving only white bones. From the robes, they were all guards of Ten Shamans City.
But some were relatively intact, still emitting the glow of magical energy. Evidently, some magic treasure was protecting the bodies.
It seemed that the past expedition by the Ten Shamans through Changliu had expended enormous manpower, perhaps excavating every nook and cranny of Changliu. It was unclear if these hundreds of bodies had been discarded into the water after death or if they had encountered something dangerous while investigating the water.
Based on the records, too many Immemorial Demon Beasts dwelled in the sea.
As Qi Lin investigated the underwater bodies, Su Xuesha suddenly tapped his shoulder and pointed.
Qi Lin looked ahead to find several six-legged fish swimming about.
These were none other than the ranyi they had been searching for.
Qi Lin nodded at Su Xuesha and circulated his magical energy, extending a hand to capture them.
A ray of magical energy shot towards the ranyi, but these were no ordinary fish. Their six legs rapidly moved, and they instantly broke through the barrier and swam towards the deep sea. Qi Lin and Su Xuesha immediately gave chase. The deep sea had some water pressure, where greater force was exerted on the cultivator the deeper they went. Usage of escape techniques was far from being as easy as on the surface, and it instantly became very difficult to pursue the ranyi.
The sea around them was absolutely quiet, with no torrential rushes from before. Gone as well were the large fishes and prawns that had been swimming about. The only thing left was a silence carved deep into their bones.
The green kelp drifted like a green forest while multi-colored coral appeared before them. The sight of tens of thousands of square hectares of coral forest was incomparably majestic. An enormous palace was faintly visible, its body emitting a gentle, milky white glow.
Those ranyi swam towards the coral reef and were instantly enveloped by the reef’s white light, vanishing without a trace.
Qi Lin and Su Xuesha swam through the water like fish towards the reef..
But these nearby coral reefs seemed to be on the horizon. After a while, according to Qi Lin’s reckoning, they should have arrived, but those reefs seemed to be out of reach.
“Hm?” Qi Lin wondered if he was caught in an illusion.
Continuing on, he was astonished to find that he was still a certain distance away from that coral palace. Hours of this were sufficient to exhaust a person, but no progress was made at all.
Qi Lin glanced at Su Xuesha. The woman was a bit worn down. Facing the Corpse Tree from before and now advancing through the deep sea now was very exhausting.
Qi Lin saw she was weakening and wanted her to surface first. However, the pair shared a telepathic link, and he knew at this close distance that he would not be able to persuade her.
Another hour passed.
The seawater was still as eternally quiet as before while that coral palace was still far, so close yet so far.
Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
Qi Lin stopped and calculated in his mind. Based on his speed, he had already dove five to six kilometers but the surroundings had not changed one bit. He did not even feel any water pressure.
This previously pleasant quiet was now simply suffocating.
Su Xuesha also sensed something was amiss. The girl stood on a jutting seafloor mountain and quietly stared at that coral palace pensively. The girl’s finger tapped the top of the mountain and made a mark.
Then, the two changed their straight heading to a roundabout path towards the coral reef.
After several more hours.
The coral palace was still far in front of them, beckoning to them.
Qi Lin noticed the surrounding scenery was somewhat familiar. Su Xuesha tugged on Qi Lin’s hand and pointed to the underwater mountain. Qi Lin looked and was astonished to find the mark that Su Xuesha previously made, meaning they had been circling around for hours. They then turned back.
Ghosts building a wall1 even underwater?
Qi Lin was a bit startled.
When he had entered some bizarre tombs, Qi Lin had encountered some unusual phenomena before, including ghosts blowing wind, ghosts snuffing lanterns, and ghosts building walls, but most had a scientific explanation. For example, tomb deconstruction produced weak airflow, or perhaps the terrain produced a kind of illusion that would then fool a person’s brain.
However, it was very obvious that Primordial World could not possibly have a scientific explanation.
Since this place had a mechanism to trap people, with the ranyi in the middle, this indicated his conjecture was very possibly correct. The ranyi were a very pivotal existence to move from the Earth Sacrifice level to the Heaven Sacrifice level.
Thinking of this, Qi Lin was contrarily somewhat excited.
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- 鬼打牆 a superstition that ghosts can trap people in endless loops without their notice by rapidly constructing walls to restrict their movements. The way to get out is to take a second look in a direction after covering your eyes. ↩