It wasn’t until now that Guo Qi, Tong Hao, and the others who had been lagging behind, finally arrived.
“Nie Tian!”
“Are you alright?”
“Where’s brother Tao and the others?” asked Guo Qi.
“They went after the people from the Blood sect.” With these words, Nie Tian took out a huge piece of spirit beast meat and threw it to Jiang Miao, saying, “Help me roast this up, please.”
It had been some time since they last ran into any spirit beasts, and thus there wasn’t much meat left strapped to Nie Tian’s back.
Now, he only had several dozen kilograms worth of spirit beast meat left, barely enough for himself.
However, just as he handed the piece of meat to Jiang Miao, an idea suddenly came to him, and he slowly turned to look at the spirit beasts which had been killed by the Cloudsoaring sect disciples, especially the Lurker Lizard!
The Lurker Lizard was a second grade spirit beast. After suffering from severe wounds, it had fled to the desert, but somehow had been located by Jiang Lingzhu and her team, and after a fierce battle, they finally slaughtered it.
The Lurker Lizard’s head had already been chopped off, yet its body was still lying by the lakeside.
Compared to first grade spirit beasts, second grade spirit beasts were stronger by a large extent. Therefore, the energy contained in their meat was also much richer.
Having drained his spiritual sea with his raging punch, Nie Tian urgently needed to recover spiritual power.
The Lurker Lizard’s meat was without doubt the best supplement for him at the moment.
After a moment of hesitation, he looked furtively at Jiang Lingzhu and asked, “I don’t want the Lurker Lizard’s head, but can I have some of its meat...? I’m a little hungry.”
“Hahaha, even if you want its head, I’ll give it to you, not to mention its meat.” Jiang Lingzhu’s bright eyes glittered charming light as she smiled. Then, she turned to Ye Gumo and said, “Eldest Brother Ye, Nie Tian is hungry and wants some cooked Lurker Lizard meat.”
“Of course, I’ll roast it for him myself!” Ye Gumo answered heartily.
With these words, Ye Gumo stretched out his arm and gave Nie Tian a thumbs-up, before he went to cut off meat from the Lurker Lizard and roast it.
By that time, two of Nie Tian’s acquaintances, Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian, arrived by his side.
“Are you okay?” Jiang Lingzhu asked concernedly.
Nie Tian shook his head. “It’s just that I’ve spent a lot of energy, so I’m extremely weak at the moment. All I need is some rest though.”
“Nie Tian, you... what cultivation stage are you in?” Nie Xian asked curiously.
Previously, he saw Nie Tian completely crush Yu Tong’s blood shadows and shatter the s.h.i.+eld that she had formed by drawing upon all of her blood power.
As a result, the injured Yu Tong had no choice other than to retreat once she saw Pan Tao and the others about to arrive.
The power of Nie Tian’s punch had left an extremely deep impression on Nie Xian. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even believe his own eyes.
According to his memory, when he left the Nie clan and was received by Li Fan of the Cloudsoaring sect, Nie Tian had only been in the fourth level of Qi Refining
Back then, Nie Tian hadn’t stood out in any aspect, except that he had a strong and robust body.
Who could have imagined that a year later, Nie Tian would be able to fight off Yu Tong with one punch?
Nie Tian answered, “Well... I just broke through into the seventh level of Qi Refining a few days ago.”
“From the fourth to the seventh level in a year’s time…” Nie Xian murmured, gazing at Nie Tian as though he was looking at a monster.
Jiang Lingzhu also stared at him in shock, while her jaw almost dropped to the ground. “How could you have possibly done that?!!”
She had personally witnessed Nie Tian and Yun Song’s battle in Black Cloud City, and was positive that he was only in the fourth level of Qi Refining at that time.
Although she was experienced and knowledgeable in the Cloudsoaring sect, the fact that Nie Tian had leaped from the fourth level to the seventh level in a year’s time left her flabbergasted.
“I’ve been lucky.” Nie Tian chuckled.
While they were talking, An Ying, Pan Tao, and Zheng Rui returned, looked disheartened.
“Those Blood sect disciples weren’t even a bit slower than those of the Ghost sect,” An Ying said. Arriving by Jiang Lingzhu’s side, she sighed, and said, “I thought we could find you in the desert, and with your help go back and kill the Ghost sect disciples. I didn’t expect that Blood sect disciples had also entered the Green Illusion dimension.”
Upon hearing her words, each and every trial taker from the Cloudsoaring sect revealed expressions of shock.
“What?!”
“You ran into disciples from the Ghost sect?” Jiang Lingzhu exclaimed.
“Well, we can be considered the luckier ones.” Pan Tao said with a bitter smile, “It was the Grayvale sect that suffered tragic loss. Only from what we’ve seen, five of them were killed by the Ghost sect, and they were slaughtered in ways... I can’t even bear to see.”
“They also killed one of ours,” Zheng Rui said in a low voice.
“The Blood sect, the Ghost sect...” Jiang Lingzhu’s brows twisted, and her small face seemed to be clouded by a haze. “I’ve no idea what’s going on with the Mystic Mist sect. I hope they aren’t as unfortunate. From now on, we’d better stick together and find the disciples from the Mystic Mist sect and the Grayvale sect as soon as possible. Only united will we be able to contend with the Blood sect and the Ghost sect.”
“Our plan was to find you guys in the desert, so that we can go back together to the glacier area to kill the Ghost Sect disciples,” An Ying explained.
“Once the Ghost sect and the Blood sect find out that we’ve joined forces, they’ll also cooperate,” said Pan Tao.
Jiang Lingzhu thought for a moment, and continued, “The trial of the Green Illusion dimension has just become ten times more dangerous than I thought it would be. We need to recover our strength as soon as possible, so that we can be ready for any upcoming battles. Let’s get started.”
“Everybody hurry and use your spirit stones to recover!”
With Ye Gumo being the only exception, all the survivors of the Cloudsoaring sect stopped talking and sat down cross-legged.
Every one of them had grim looks on their faces and didn’t dare to relax for one more moment.
They originally thought that after joining hands with the Spiritual Treasure sect, Yu Tong and the other Blood sect disciples would no longer be a threat to them.
However, they could never have expected the Spiritual Treasure sect disciples would enter the desert to ask for their help to deal with the Ghost sect.
The news of the Ghost sect entering the Green Illusion dimension had made them feel that the road ahead was going to be much more difficult. With the corpses of their two teammates lying beside them, the survivors all knew that they had to be alert at all times if they didn’t wish to end up dead too.
An Ying and her group also lost their interest in talking, and became caught up in their thoughts.
About this time, Ye Gumo arrived by Nie Tian’s side with a dozen kilograms worth of meat. He handed the meat over to Nie Tian, thinking it must be more than enough. “Here you go. The Lurker Lizard meat you wanted.”
After Nie Tian took it over, Ye Gumo went back to sit down next to Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian, and also took out a spirit stone to recover.
“That piece of meat is far from enough for him,” Pan Tao mumbled. “We’ve been on the run for a while, and haven’t had the time to eat a proper meal. There is more than enough spirit beast meat here. Since we didn’t partic.i.p.ate in the battle just now and don’t need to recover, let’s enjoy a good meal.”
He strode to the Lurker Lizard.
Ye Gumo didn’t know how big Nie Tian’s appet.i.te was, and thought a piece of meat more than ten kilograms should be more than enough for him.
Having spent so much time with Nie Tian, Pan Tao knew very well that Nie Tian still needed at least five times more spirit beast meat to fill up his stomach. Therefore, he was actually sc.r.a.ping up a good meal for Nie Tian.
“Nie Tian, this is the meat I’ve roasted for you.” Jiang Miao walked towards him with a thick tree branch in her hand, which had a piece of cooked meat on it that was more than ten kilograms.
Nie Tian took it into his hands, and expressed his grat.i.tude.
However, Jiang Miao didn’t leave, but rather watched him eat with an expectant look in her eyes.
Seeing that Nie Tian first ate the meat that she had roasted for him, instead of the lurker Lizard’s meat, she put on a sweet smile and said, “I’ll roast some more for you.” With these words, she hopped away happily.
Immediately after the meat was down his throat, Nie Tian closed his eyes.
It was just a moment before he sensed a warm current swirling in his abdomen. When he used the Qi Refining Incantation, the strands of warm energy were channeled into his spiritual sea at a speed even faster than usual.
It was only an hour later that his drained up spiritual sea was filled by ten percent.
Moreover, no more warm current was generated in his abdomen. It seemed all the energy provided by the piece of meat had been completely absorbed in such a short time.
When he opened his eyes, he saw sticks of spirit beast meat strung onto large branches stuck into the sand by his side.
He looked around, and saw An Ying, Pan Tao, and the others were gathered together, eating and talking.
It seemed they knew that he would need a period of time to process the food after he had eaten, and thus intentionally left him alone. Those large sticks of spirit beast meat were the work of Jiang Miao and Pan Tao.
He deliberated for a moment before picking up the piece of Lurker Lizard meat that Ye Gumo had roasted a while ago, and started munching.
Moments later, more than ten kilograms worth of Lurker Lizard meat went down his throat.
A slightly scorching current gradually appeared in his abdomen, and then energy several times richer than before suddenly dispersed out into his flesh and bones.
His eyes glittered, as he instantly started to practice the Qi Refining Incantation to direct the incomparably vigorous energy.
Strands of energy merged into warm streams before surging along his meridians towards his spiritual sea.
It was only a quarter of hour later that he found his spiritual sea had replenished by forty percent.
By this point, however, more energy was still being generated in his abdomen!
The power contained in the Lurker Lizard meat was clearly yet to to be absorbed!
In good spirits, he concentrated again on gathering and absorbing the energy that had been dispersed into his body, before channeling it into his spiritual sea.
After an unknown period of time, when there were no more warmth in his belly, he discovered that his spiritual sea had been replenished by as much as eighty percent!
“Seven times!” He was shocked at heart.
With the same size, a piece of Lurker Lizard meat had generated seven times more energy than the first grade spirit beast meat!
He only had one piece of Lurker Lizard meat, and almost completely recovered all the spiritual power that he had previously consumed to throw the raging punch!
“Second grade spirit beast!”
Nie Tian stared at the corpse of the Lurker Lizard, that was more than a hundred meters away from him, and his eyes suddenly shone with a light of greed.