The Good Luck Inn was one of the rare double-story buildings in town.
Lin Huang and the rest stayed in the biggest dormitory in the inn.
"Now, we"re basically sure that there are many humans living in this foggy area as well as a ma.s.sive amount of monsters around. People are living in two types of places. One is the town that we"re currently in where security is low while the other one is the cities, which is the safest place. They"re similar to the human footholds in our world, just that the cla.s.sification isn"t as detailed.
"There are many towns while the guards depend mainly on the officers from the local authority. The officers are called "warriors" and their aura is basically below holy fire-level. People who are more powerful than warriors are called immortals. To the commoners, only immortals can fly. I"m guessing that the "immortals" they"ve labeled are cultivators above holy fire-level, but they have a different cultivation system than we do.
"There are only 12 cities with high walls surrounding them and immortals guarding them. They have to pay a high accommodation fee in order to live in the city in return for the protection. Hence, most of the people who can"t afford it only live in the towns. Although the towns are invaded by demons, it"s still much safer than living in the wild.
"The demons that they talk about are monsters of our world. These monsters are scattered all over with many varieties. Most of them consume humans and other animals. A minority of them don"t consume humans, but they"re not exactly friendly to humans since they hunt and kill them for fun.
"These demons live in groups while many of them are of different kinds whereby the most powerful one will be the leader. Some of the demon leaders can even speak the human language. These demons usually live near towns where humans are easy prey. Apart from that, places with more monsters have a head honcho which they call a demon king. The demon king is in charge of a territory.
"According to what the local authority said, demon kings have powerful abilities while some of them can even kill immortals. From my speculation, those so-called "demon kings" have a much more powerful ability than the leaders. They should have immortal-level combat strength, but we"ve no idea for now if there are any monsters that are more powerful than demon king."
Tan Lang summarized the information that he had gathered one by one. He had gotten most of them from the local authority earlier.
After leaving Xiao Yu"s house earlier, Lin Huang and the rest headed straight to the local authority. The officer saw all ten of them flying, so he told them everything that he knew and answered every question quickly. The information they obtained from him was much more detailed and clearer than what the woman had told them earlier.
"I guess only "immortals" can give us more detailed information. I think we should head straight to the city to know more about the situation from the "immortals"," Li Jia suggested.
"The cities have curfews at midnight when people are prohibited from entering and exiting. The officer said that demons that fly won"t be able to fly into the cities as there"s a prohibitive barrier in the sky above the city wall. We can only head over there when the city door opens tomorrow morning. Let"s rest well tonight." Tan Lang came up with a plan.
"I think we should clear the demons nearby before we leave," Lin Huang who was standing aside said all of a sudden.
The rest looked a little uneasy upon hearing what he said.
Lin Huang could roughly figure out what they were thinking about. After all, the people in this world were different from theirs. It was unnecessary for them to protect the people, so they were unwilling to put in any effort to help.
"I"ll take a walk. You guys rest well."
"I"ll go with you." Seeing that n.o.body responded, Shen Tao patted his thighs and stood up.
"It"s alright. I"ll go on my own. I"ll come back in a couple of minutes," Lin Huang rejected Shen Tao"s kind intention.
He could feel that Shen Tao was actually unwilling to do it, but he initiated accompanying him just so Lin Huang did not seem so awkward alone.
Lin Huang hovered into the sky after getting out of the inn and headed towards the Black Dragon Mountain.
Li Jia shook his head and said while smiling and watching Lin Huang vanish into the sky, "Young people just can"t sit still."
"You look even younger than him," Shen Tao teased.
"I"m already 28, which means I"m already an uncle," Li Jia wanted to look mature, but his baby-face was not convincing at all.
"Your constipated face makes you look nothing older than 18!" What Shen Tao said made everyone burst out laughing.
Black Dragon Mountain was less than 300 miles from the town, so it only took Lin Huang a short while to arrive above the mountain range.
The mountain range stretched up to a hundred miles across and it was filled with dense, lush greenery and hulking trees.
"b.l.o.o.d.y, release your Leech Pods and see what"s the deal about this world. Also, look where those demons are hiding." Lin Huang had hidden b.l.o.o.d.y when he was with Tan Lang and the rest, so he did not get it to release its Leech Pods to look around to prevent b.l.o.o.d.y from exposing itself.
Although the Leech Pods could hardly be discovered under usual circ.u.mstances, it was possible for one to see them if the distance was very close. After all, Tan Lang"s ability was considered the best of the best among immortal-level powerhouses while Li Jia had extraordinary spiritual energy since he was a Bug Master.
Although they were all from the Heaven Alliance, Lin Huang did not want them to find out about b.l.o.o.d.y"s skills. Hence, he used an excuse to get away from the people before getting b.l.o.o.d.y to release the Leech Pods. Killing the demons surrounding them was just something he would do conveniently.
b.l.o.o.d.y found a demon after releasing its Leech Pods for a moment.
"Found it!" b.l.o.o.d.y projected the demon right away.
Lin Huang raised his brow slightly as he watched the projection. "I thought it would either be a dragonkin or a sky dragon. Hmm, it"s just a boa…"
Lin Huang remembered the woman from Xiao Yu"s house claiming that the demon on the Black Dragon Mountain was a black, one-eyed dragon. However, what b.l.o.o.d.y projected was a humongous black, one-eyed boa.
The boa was hundreds of meters long and had a green eye with black scales all over its body. Half of its body was hidden in the swamp, which was pretty terrifying to look at.
"Its combat strength"s just purple flame-level on the holy fire-level. It should be double mutated judging from the intensity of its aura," b.l.o.o.d.y voiced its observation.
"Cast parasites on it then. See if there"s any useful information in its head."
Such a holy fire-level monster was too easy for b.l.o.o.d.y to cast parasites on since b.l.o.o.d.y was on immortal-level rank-9.
The Leech Pods went into the demon"s body like a piece of cake without it even realizing at all. Its consciousness was taken away and replaced in the blink of an eye.
It only took less than three seconds to retrieve its memory. Just like that, b.l.o.o.d.y received everything in its head.
"This demon"s called the Dark Water Boa. It has a demon king behind it called the Bewitching Spider Lady. It"s a monster that can turn into a human lady. The Dark Water Boa received her orders to watch the Black Dragon Mountain. It has to hand 100 humans to her to consume on time every month. The Bewitching Spider Lady has 16 leaders guarding each spot under her. The other leaders have a similar ability as the Dark Water Boa."
"It seems like this Bewitching Spider Lady should have a combat strength of immortal-level. It"s very possible that it"s triple mutated since it can turn human." Lin Huang nodded lightly after hearing the report and asked immediately, "Is there anything about the demons above the demon king?"
"No. According to the memory of this Dark Water Boa, the Bewitching Spider Lady has the most powerful ability it has ever seen. It has some images of the Bewitching Spider Lady fighting human powerhouses from this world in its head. Looking at the images, the Bewitching Spider Lady"s ability should be mid-immortal-level while the human powerhouse who fought her should have a similar ability as hers."
"So, there are immortal-level powerhouses among those "immortals"..." For now, Lin Huang could only be sure that there were immortal-level powerhouses in this part of the world, but he could not confirm if immortal-level rank-9 was the highest combat strength in this area. He was not even sure if imperial-level powerhouses existed in this world.
"This monster doesn"t know much about human cultivators. It"s killed a few "immortals" but they had inferior abilities," b.l.o.o.d.y proceeded.
"How about the remnants of those "immortals"? Did it keep them?" Lin Huang asked not because he figured there might be something valuable from those immortals. Rather, he wanted to learn more about the human cultivators from those remnants.
"It kept them. They"re all hiding in his stomach," b.l.o.o.d.y confirmed, "I"ll bring it over."
A while later, the black boa whizzed in front of Lin Huang and spat everything out of its stomach.
Apart from a few weapons and armors, Lin Huang saw a few rings.
He extended telekinetic threads to retrieve the four rings into his palm and began to take a good look at them.
"These should be storage rings to store items, but their craftsmans.h.i.+p is completely different from an Emperor"s Heart Ring." Lin Huang attempted to insert his Life Power, but the rings showed no response. He then used Divine Telekinesis which activated the rings in an instant. He began looking into the s.p.a.ce of the rings right away.
"I see. They can be activated with spiritual energy." Lin Huang was elated by the unexpected discovery.
As opposed to the Emperor"s Heart Ring, these storage rings would not be locked after the owners died. Instead, the rings would go back to ownerless mode. They would be activated again as soon as spiritual energy was inserted while the items inside could be explored and taken out as one wished.
Soon, a gray crystal that was the size of a thumb appeared in Lin Huang"s hand. This was what occupied most of the four storage rings.
"It has a ma.s.sive amount of active energy, but it"s completely different from Life Power." Lin Huang studied it for a while with Divine Telekinesis. "All the crystals are of the same standard. If I"m not mistaken, this should be a currency similar to the Life Crystal which could be the exclusive currency used among the immortals. Looking at its active energy, the immortals" cultivation system here should be completely different from ours."
After peering into the storage rings for a while, apart from the gray crystals, Lin Huang found many tiny bottles too. There were tiny pills with different colors in those bottles. There were many metallic and non-metallic materials as well as some herbs.
Eventually, a couple of crystal clear jade slips caught Lin Huang"s attention.
"Are these accessories?" Lin Huang was a little perplexed as he picked up a jade slip. "But there"s no hole, so how does one wear it?"
Lin Huang could not help but release his Divine Telekinesis to see if he missed out any details. However, an extensive amount of information rushed into Lin Huang"s head as soon as his Divine Telekinesis touched the jade slip.
"Ice Heart Tactic?" After taking some time to read all of the information, Lin Huang came to a realization. "These jade slips contain methods and tactics!"