"Brother Jin, why have you followed me all the way to this place? Have I done something to offend you?" The man who had spoken was none other than the one who had fought Han Li for that plot of Spirit Land, and the one who was facing off against him was the fatso with the Jin surname whom he"d been interacting with outside the Heavenly Jade Pavilion.
The two appeared to be on relatively good terms, but they seemed to be on the brink of breaking out into battle.
"Of course not, Brother Weng. I just so happened to be pa.s.sing by this place as well, and I saw you stopping here, so I thought I"d come over to greet you," the fatso replied with an innocent expression.
"You just so happened to be pa.s.sing by and you thought you"d greet me? Do you think I"m r.e.t.a.r.ded? Who would come to a secluded place like this for no reason? And if you wanted to greet me, was it necessary to follow me for almost 10,000 kilometers while using a concealment technique to hide your presence?" the man interrogated.
"Haha, I also found it to be strange that you would come to a place like this. Why have to come here instead of staying in your own cave abode to cultivate? If I recall correctly, this was the plot of Spirit Land that you were fighting for, but lost in the end." The fatso"s eyes narrowed with a sly look.
"Hmph, do I have to explain myself to you now, Brother Jin?" The man"s expression darkened significantly.
"There"s no need to be angry, Brother Weng. I"m just here to remind you of the fact that this plot of Spirit Land has an owner now. I was afraid that you"d do something reckless and stir up some trouble that you can"t rectify. What are you trying to look for in this place? Why don"t you tell me, and I"ll give you a hand?" The fatso was intent on getting to the bottom of this.
The man harrumphed coldly and didn"t say anything further, but a vicious light s.h.i.+mmered in his eyes.
All of a sudden, green light flashed behind the fatso, and a thin green thread appeared out of thin air. The thread then instantly transformed into a ma.s.sive green net that descended toward him.
The entire process was completely soundless, and the fatso didn"t seem to have noticed that something was amiss as he continued to appraise the man with a fake smile on his face.
The man"s expression remained completely unchanged, but he was ecstatic internally. He surrept.i.tiously summoned a translucent blue flying dagger into his hand, which was obscured by his sleeve, preparing to kill the fatso with this dagger as soon as he was caught by the net.
However, when the next was only several tens of feet away from the fatso"s head, an astonis.h.i.+ng turn of events suddenly unfolded.
A dull thump erupted as brilliant spiritual light radiated from the fatso"s hair. A vast expanse of golden light emerged before manifesting into a ma.s.sive golden hand that caught the green net.
Golden and green light intertwined with one another, creating a series of bizarre crackles and pops.
"It"s you, Old Devil Jin?"
"As expected, you really did come as well, Old Devil Ming."
Two voices sounded almost in unison from within the green and golden light. It was just that one voice was rather surprised, while the other was confident and a.s.sured.
Immediately thereafter, both the ma.s.sive golden hand and the green net shot back at once. The spiritual light receded to reveal a tiny green wyrm as well as a miniature humanoid figure that was only around half a foot tall.
The small wyrm was none other than the avatar belonging to the master of the man with the Weng surname. In contrast, the miniature humanoid figure wore a set of golden Daoist robes with a miniature wooden sword strapped to its back. Its face had also been completely obscured by murky light, making it impossible to make out its actual appearance. However, one could sense that it seemed to be a rather elderly being.
"You’re using a soul splitting technique! You"ve even deployed this spiritual avatar that you"re using to avoid your next heavenly tribulation? Aren"t you afraid that something will go wrong and you won"t be able to transcend your next tribulation?" the green wyrm asked in a cold voice as it scrutinized the miniature humanoid figure.
"Hehe, you won"t need to worry about that, Fellow Daoist Ming. Master Thousand Treasure was an extremely renowned powerful being during his time, and the treasures he carried with him were vastly renowned among both races. As long as I can obtain two or three of them, I won"t have to worry about my next tribulation transcendence at all. Didn"t you send an avatar here as well?" the miniature humanoid figure chuckled.
"You know about Master Thousand Treasure as well?" the green wyrm exclaimed.
Meanwhile, the fatso and the man with the Weng surname were standing off to the side with respectful expressions on their faces, not daring to interject on this conversation.
"You know need to know how I came by this information. However, you can rest a.s.sured knowing that you and I are the only ones aware of this; there definitely isn"t a third person with this knowledge. How about we join force and work together to secure the treasures?" the miniature humanoid figure suggested.
"Secure the treasures together? If you had some concrete leads, why would you need to work together with us? Indeed, I am not sure of the exact details, but it"s enough as long as you have such information, right, Brother Ming?" the miniature humanoid figure replied.
"You"re threatening me!" The green wyrm"s voice immediately cooled.
"I would dare to do no such thing. I"m simply proposing a collaboration, which means I intend to a.s.sist you in searching for the treasures. Once we find them, we"ll split them evenly among us, and it"ll forge a closer bond between us. Isn"t that a win-win situation?" The humanoid figure hurriedly shook its head and waved its hands.
"You... Huh? There"s someone coming!" The green wyrm wanted to offer a furious retort, but its expression suddenly changed as it abruptly turned toward a certain direction.
The miniature humanoid figure also glanced toward that direction, and its expression darkened as well.
"Looks like the owner of the plot of land is back. You have to make a decision about our collaboration, Fellow Daoist. Otherwise, if things get out of hand and the old monsters of Deep Heaven City are alerted, our efforts could completely go to waste. According to the rules of Deep Heaven City, all treasures discovered on a plot of Spirit Land belong to the owner of that land," the miniature humanoid figure urged in a serious voice.
The green wyrm"s expression changed several times before it sighed in a resigned manner, and replied, "Alright, I"ll agree to the collaboration for now, but the treasures definitely can"t be split evenly between us. As for the specific conditions, we"ll discuss that elsewhere. We can"t stay in this place any longer, though. I heard from my disciple that even though the owner of this plot of land is only a Deity Transformation cultivator, he possesses quite a powerful spiritual sense. Let"s take care not to be discovered by him."
"Haha, that’s all I needed to hear! Let"s go."
The miniature humanoid figured nodded in a content manner before grabbing the air, upon which a small purple umbrella appeared within its grasp.
The umbrella was gently swished through the air, following which it transformed into a swath of purple light. The purple light enshrouded both itself and the fatso, upon which both of them disappeared on the spot.
"That"s the Purple Maple Umbrella! I didn"t think that he would"ve brought such a powerful spirit treasure here; looks like he really is well prepared! Let"s get out of this place as well." The green wyrm faltered initially upon seeing the umbrella before opening its mouth in a rather gloomy manner to produce a small five-colored flag.
The flag rotated on the spot before manifesting a five-colored cloud that swept toward the two of them, then burrowed into the ground and disappeared.
Peace and quiet resumed as if nothing had ever happened here.
Some time later, a streak of azure light shot forth from the distance, within which was a young man with a set of ordinary features.
This man was none other than Han Li.
When the streak of azure light flew into the air above a trough in the ground below. The streak of light circled around the surrounding area for a few laps before receding to reveal Han Li hovering in mid-air. He glanced around at his surroundings as a hint of bewilderment appeared on his face.
He had just detected what seemed to be a hint of spiritual Qi fluctuations here. Even though it was extremely feeble and disappeared in a flash, there was definitely no mistaking it.
The miniature humanoid figure and the green wyrm that were facing off earlier were both Spatial Tempering cultivators, but they were both avatars, after all. After cultivating the Great Development Technique, Han Li"s spiritual sense was far more powerful than that of a Deity Transformation cultivator, and was only slightly inferior to that of an early-Spatial Tempering powerful being.
As such, even though they had acted very quickly, Han Li still detected that something was amiss. As such, he sped here at several times his original pace, but he was still too late.
Han Li unleashed his spiritual sense to quickly inspect the area in a radius of several hundred kilometers around him, all to no avail.
His expression instantly darkened as a result.
After pausing in mid-air and contemplating to himself for a long while, Han Li suddenly gave a cold chuckle as he sped directly toward his cave abode as a streak of azure light.
At this point, the green wyrm and the golden humanoid figure were already thousands of kilometers away, so they naturally weren"t aware of the fact that their presence had already been detected. They were currently situated on a secluded mountain, discussing the details of their collaboration.
As soon as Han Li returned to his cave abode, he immediately activated the restrictions nearby before making his way into one of the tool refinement rooms.
He spent three days and three nights in there, and when he re-emerged from the room, he was carrying a strange octagonal formation plate that was s.h.i.+mmering with silver light, and countless pea-sized jade beads of all types of different colors had been added to his storage bracelet.
These jade beads were all very smooth and one or several silver runes had been carved into them, all of which were inscribed in the beveled silver text.
This was a special type of treasures invented by Han Li known as the Myriad Dragon Bead. He had developed such a treasure after using a type of talisman described on that half-page of the Golden Jade Tome as reference.
These treasures weren"t difficult to refine and they didn"t possess any offensive or defensive abilities. However, they were extremely useful sensory devices, and each bead could conduct surveillance on an area with a radius of several tens of kilometers. If any spiritual Qi fluctuations were to appear within the surveillance area, Han Li would be able to ascertain its rough location using his formation plate, even from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
Of course, such surveillance measures couldn"t be set up simply by burying these beads casually into the ground.
Not only did they have to be placed in a special spell formation, the location that the Myriad Dragon Beads were buried at had to have the formation plate as its center. That way, they would be able to resonate with one another, but a ma.s.sive formation was required to facilitate this.
As for how large the formation had to be, that was naturally dependent on how many Myriad Dragon Beads Han Li was going to bury.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, if one were to try and conduct surveillance over the entire plot of Spirit Land, just the spirit stone expenditure required would be downright astronomical.
Even with Han Li"s enormous wealth, if a surveillance formation of this nature were to constantly be in action, it would only take several years before Han Li"s entire supply of spirit stones was exhausted.