Chapter 33: Eternal Blackness
The Hai Shan Skill, was originally a very unusual gong method, and its degree of separation of heterogeneous qualities was also very average.
As such, there are many techniques in the Southern Phoenix Continent, mostly practiced by small clans and forces.
Even if it is cultivated to the great circle, in the combat power is not very high, its content is often in the description of the exaggerated words.
For example, the phrase that the elf can move mountains and the kui can move the sea is a typical example of exaggeration.
However, in Xu Qing's case, this Sea and Mountain Skill had exploded with an unparalleled might, and it was feared that even the creator of this feat had never reached it.
His elf shadow at the fifth layer was comparable to the sixth and seventh layers of other people who practiced the Hai Shan Skill, and now the sixth layer had even directly formed a kui shadow.
Although it was only a fledgling Kui, its power had far surpassed that of a mandrill.
It could be imagined that when Xu Qing's Sea Mountain Skill, reached the seventh layer, it was feared that this Kui Shadow would completely metamorphose.
By that time, the Hai Shan Skill would have already reached its end for all cultivators.
But here he was, and yet there was still a way to go.
"In the description of the Hai Shan Technique, the only way to form the Kui Shadow is to reach the tenth layer, and the Kui Shadow will metamorphose into an adult body after the Great Perfection."
Xu Qing sat within the pill room, a strange aura appearing in his eyes.
"And according to my development, the seventh layer should be able to metamorphose into an adult body, so what about the eighth layer? What about the ninth layer as well as the tenth layer and even the Great Perfection?"
Xu Qing's anticipation was strong in his heart as he looked down at his body.
This time there was no need to try for speed and power, he could already clearly feel that within his own body today, there was an aura brewing that far surpassed that of the previous five layers.
The strength of this power surprised even himself.
And the speed was likewise this, Xu Qing had a feeling that if he sped with all his might at the moment, the wind would turn out to be the only obstacle.
He didn't know what degree his present-day self was considered to be within the camp.
However, he knew very well that if there were two of them together at the moment, he would be able to kill an art-type Qi Condensation seventh leveler such as the black-clothed old man from the other day.
After a long while, Xu Qing took a deep breath and looked down at the ground around himself.
It was dark outside at the moment, and the room was pitch black, but he could still vaguely feel the presence of shadows.
His own breakthrough seemed to have affected the shadow as well, causing it to absorb more heterogeneous qualities, and the connection between it and him became even tighter and more subtle.
In silence, Xu Qing gazed at the ground as time slowly passed, the sky outside gradually brightened, and as the sunlight poured in, within this simple pharmacy, Xu Qing's side, the shadow emerged from a blur and became more and more clear.
At the instant of its emergence, Xu Qing's eyes fiercely condensed.
He had waited for this moment, and as his mind traveled out, he clearly saw his shadow distort slightly.
Gradually the shadow's right hand, slowly raised.
Xu Qing breathed a little heavier, staring at the shadow, controlling its hand to move across the ground, spreading to the darkness when the shadow blended into the darkness, invisible. However, Xu Qing's expression was calm, he could feel that the shadow was still there.
Until he controlled the shadow's hand to reach the small compartment, slowly crawling away and grabbing a herb.
Right at the moment the shadow grabbed the herb, the herb instantly thickened with a foreign quality and directly turned greenish-black.
And Xu Qing's control reached its limit at this moment, and with a roar from his head, the part of the shadow that spread out was withdrawn in an instant, transforming into its original form.
A long time later, Xu Qing lifted his head, his eyes a little bloodshot and with a splitting headache, he immediately closed his eyes to mediate.
It wasn't until an hour later that Xu Qing opened his eyes, the swelling pain in his head recovering.
"Still can't flexibly control it."
Xu Qing looked deeply at the shadow and withdrew his mind.
He wasn't in a hurry, according to this development, sooner or later, he would be able to have complete control over it one day.
At that time, the shadow ...... would become his most secretive killer weapon.
Resting slightly at this moment, Xu Qing raised his hand and grabbed it, and instantly the alienated herb flew in, and after it landed in his hand, Xu Qing lowered his head and carefully observed it.
"It's exactly the same as the herb that was infested within the medicine store when the gods opened up."
"So, the Shadow's ability is to invade heterogeneity into touching objects?" Xu Qing muttered, once again going to try to manipulate the shadow.
Time passed in this manner, and two hours later, Xu Qing
had a rough understanding of the shadow's ability.
The other party wasn't always able to disperse its heterogeneous quality to invade the covering, and the only time the touching object would be alienated was under its own control.
This characteristic, when taken by surprise, was incredibly lethal, but Xu Qing always had defenses in his heart against the shadow.
At this moment, he looked at the place where the purple crystal was buried in his chest, Xu Qing could feel that this purple crystal, could form a confinement suppression for the shadow.
For a long time, Xu Qing withdrew his gaze, putting down the herbs in his hands, and looking at the small compartments around him, the herbs inside were now ten to one, and all of this was now piled up in that stone basin.
Sweeping his eyes over the stone basin, Xu Qing sighed.
There was some reluctance to throw it away, and after thinking about it, he felt that this black medicinal liquid, when used well, was also a weapon.
So after thinking about it, he kneaded the medicinal liquid inside the stone basin into dans one by one, and coated the exterior with a layer of Seven Leaf Grass's juice to become a diaphragm.
In the end, more than dozens of pills with a pitch-black interior and a greenish-colored exterior were produced.
"Let's call it the Black Dan." Xu Qing put them away and walked out of the pharmacy, he was going to go out and collect some more herbs to come back, and at the same time, he was going to find a way to catch a Black Scaled Wolf.
Using the Black Scaled Wolf as a test beast for medicinal herbs during this period of time, Xu Qing used it smoothly, and after leaving the canyon at this moment, he headed straight for the temple complex, arriving quickly but not stopping, and sped towards the depths of the forbidden zone.
There were more herbs in the depths than outside.
And as for the depths, Xu Qing had also explored them not once or twice, and although the range was not very large, the harvest was not small every time.
At the same time, not long after Xu Qing stepped into the depths of the forbidden zone, there was a group of people slowly exploring the area at the edge of the forbidden zone behind him.
This group of people numbered in the hundreds, there were both men and women in them, and there were even a large number of guards surrounding them, and there were even five or six middle-aged people with a very strong aura on their bodies, wary of the surroundings.
Being guarded by them were precisely those teenage boys and girls who had been stationed outside the camp, their arrival was as if they were having fun, the tension on their complexion was not visible in the slightest, and the sound of jokes and laughter kept coming out.
Their guide, on the other hand, was the old stone, only at the moment his face was full of helplessness, from time to time he swept over those teenage boys and girls, looking at their leisurely appearance, sighing in the bottom of his heart.
"This is a forbidden area ah ......" The old stone wants to say, he knows, what he said no one will listen, these people who have been living in the city, think they know the danger of the forbidden area, but in reality they are far less than the scavengers who understand the horror of the forbidden area better.
The former knew it from books and conversations, while the latter had experienced it firsthand.
"I hope the journey goes smoothly and nothing changes, after I finish this quest, I'll go retire and not come to the forbidden zone." The old stone murmured in his heart, moving forward with apprehension and vigilance.
No one noticed that in this group of teenage boys and girls, there was a beautiful young girl wearing a long green dress with long black hair, while joking with the blue-shirted teenager beside her who was currying favor with her, her right hand unnoticeably sprinkled out some medicinal powders.
As the wind blew, these medicinal powders were colorless and tasteless, dispersing away as if they were some kind of trigger, gradually causing some changes to appear in the depths of the forbidden zone.
This change, Xu Qing quickly sensed.
At the moment, as he moved carefully in the depths of the forbidden zone, he clearly felt that in today's forbidden zone, there were a lot less foreign beasts.
He even saw a lizard whose breath was comparable to the sixth or seventh level of Qi Condensation, and which was usually extremely aggressive, lying down in the silt to hide, even if Xu Qing was close to it, it didn't launch an attack, seemingly scornful of the outside world.
This made Xu Qing extremely wary, looking around at the forbidden jungle.
A sense of unease rose in the bottom of his heart, so after picking some herbs, Xu Qing prepared to withdraw.
But the moment he was about to evacuate, an icy cold aura erupted from the deeper depths of the jungle in the distance, which spread in an instant, causing the surrounding trees to freeze.
Xu Qing's eyes narrowed, and after suddenly avoiding it and looking up, he immediately saw a head of translucent jellyfish, which had clearly flown out from the depths of the forbidden zone.
Among these jellyfish, there were six huge ones, followed by hundreds of small jellyfish, and they whistled in midair in the direction of the temple complex.
It was as if there was something in that direction that was strongly attracting them.
The moment he saw these jellyfish, Xu Qing's presence also attracted the attention of the jellyfish swarm in the sky.
One of the large jellyfish lurched in midair, and when it turned around to face Xu Qing, most of the densely-packed eyes on all of its tentacles suddenly opened.
Crisis erupted from within Xu Qing in this instant, and he felt the flesh and blood of his entire body vibrate in this instant, and behind him, the Kuai Shadow appeared suddenly at this moment, sending out a silent hiss towards the jellyfish in the sky.
Xu Qing's eyes narrowed, at this moment, he was not at the time when he was at the third level of Qi Condensation, facing the pressure of this jellyfish, there was no power of resistance.
Right now, between the qi and blood swelling in his body, with the roar of the kui shadow behind him, the jellyfish that was looking towards him seemed to hesitate a little.
Perhaps the attraction was greater since the direction of the temple complex, or perhaps it felt that Xu Qing was in danger here, so after hesitating for a moment, it turned around and floated away.
Until the jellyfish was far away, Xu Qing also breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking around the forbidden area, he felt more and more that this place today was too bizarre, so his body swayed and quickly left.
"Where are they going, the temple complex? Or is it a direction farther outside the temple cluster? I hope it's not a divine temple cluster and is just passing through, otherwise I'll have to take a detour ......"
On the way, Xu Qing's eyes revealed thoughts, but his speed did not decrease, turning into a long trail as he traveled within this jungle.
Time passed little by little, and after an hour, with the sound of a distant roar, Xu Qing's body leapt up to land on the canopy of a tree, looking away from the temple complex in the distance.
This place was still half an hour away from the temple complex, so the rough outline of the temple complex could be seen from afar.
And the moment he looked, Xu Qing's face sank, the scene he had feared, appeared.
That swarm of jellyfish, right now in mid-air above the temple complex, it vaguely seemed like someone was fighting with them, the roaring sound was faintly visible.
The distance was too far for Xu Qing to see the appearance of the people at war, so after pondering, he carefully approached.
Meanwhile, within this temple complex, Old Stone's body trembled, his lips shivering as he looked around in despair.
He was surrounded by a large number of corpses, all of which were the attendants and guards brought by those teenage boys and girls.
As for those teenage boys and girls, they were no longer as relaxed as they were before, all of them were pale and injured, in a state of distress with panic.
The remaining guards and attendants were protecting them, moving outward while fighting a bloody battle.
The ones who launched a frantic attack on them were those hundreds of small jellyfish, and in the sky, fighting those five or six large jellyfish, were those five middle-aged cultivators with powerful breaths brought by those teenage boys and girls.
"How can it be so, how can it be so ...... clearly before still good ......"
The old stone trembled as those teenage boys and girls moved in fear along with him, but he was too old to walk more than a few steps, a small jellyfish passed through the guards and lunged towards him.
It was too late to dodge, and in the next instant ...... this jellyfish floated directly over the old stone, took away his heart and swallowed it into his mouth, and went straight to those teenage boys and girls.
The old stone s body collapsed, convulsing uncontrollably.
Blood flowed down his chest, filling the old stone's surroundings, and blood couldn't stop overflowing from his mouth, such as quicksand covering him all the time, his heart, murmuring out the last words of his life.
"The qualification to enter the city ...... can't be bought ...... anymore."
The old stone opened his eyes, his breath dissipated, and he did not move, and everything in front of him became eternal blackness.
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Have a good weekend everyone~ two more chapters of 7,000 words~