Chapter 0887: Divine Chalcedony
Ning Cheng gleefully looked at the First Bridge of Coping. As it became clearer and more apparent, he started to imagine the same thing happening to the second, third and other bridges. Once the five bridges solidified, he could escape from that poison centipede without much effort, even if he met it again.
Unfortunately, fantasy would remain as fantasy. Just at the critical moment when the First Bridge of Coping was about to become a reality, the endless yin demons disappeared without a trace. As a result, the materialisation of the First Bridge of Coping also stopped.
The surrounding illusions also disappeared, and the Yin Qi in the surrounding also dissipated. The stone forest was still the stone forest, and Qi Shisanxing remained in a comatose state within the cave, without any changes.
Ning Cheng frowned slightly. Without the yin demons, he might not be able to condense the First Bridge of Coping fully.
Feeling somewhat reluctant, Ning Cheng didn’t put away the First Bridge of Coping. Instead, he stimulated the long spear in his hand and shot it towards the same stone peak.
The same violent celestial essence erupted along with the same berserk power. The only difference was that this time the long spear managed to strike the stone peak without accident. Unfortunately, it didn’t even produce any illusions, nor did it erupt with Yin Qi to block the incoming strike.
“Boom….” With a loud bang, the hundred-foot tall stone peak shattered to pieces under Ning Cheng’s spear.
Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness carefully swept over the stone peak’s shattered remnants but found nothing apart from gravel. Not to mention Divine Chalcedony, he didn’t find even a trace of spirit qi in any of those fragments.
Putting away the Seven Bridges Realm Book, Ning Cheng then walked over to another stone peak about a thousand meters in height. He then struck it with his spear.
Sure enough, yin qi suddenly erupted from it, and Ning Cheng’s long spear came to a sudden stop. This time, however, Ning Cheng had prepared for it. Before it could affect his Sea of Consciousness, he immediately connected with the first bridge.
The endless yin qi that erupted from the stone peak couldn’t form any powerful yin demons. However, the moment any yin demons emerged out of the yin qi, they all got absorbed into the First Bridge of Coping.
This time, it wasn’t those yin demons who flew towards the Bridge of Coping; rather, the Bridge of Coping took the initiative to absorb those yin demons and the yin qi surrounding them.
After absorbing the near-infinite quant.i.ties of yin qi, the deck of the first bridge finally solidified. As the pale white bridge solidified, a thought of absolute control emerged in Ning Cheng’s mind. Ning Cheng took a deep breath and was about to step onto the Bridge of Coping to see how much of this spirit technique he could control.
But before he could step on it, the rolling yin qi once again disappeared.
What’s going on? This time, the absorption time of the first bridge was even shorter than the last time. It hadn’t been long since it started, yet the yin qi and the yin demons had all disappeared.
Although Ning Cheng couldn’t understand what was going on, he still shattered the thousand-foot high stone peak with another shot. However, he once again found no Divine Chalcedony in the stone peak.
Did every stone peak have only this much yin qi? Ning Cheng didn’t stop and shot at another stone peak about a hundred feet high. This time, Ning Cheng felt even more disappointed. After the stone peak shattered, Ning Cheng couldn’t sense a single strand of yin qi coming out from it.
After half an hour, Ning Cheng finally understood what was going on. Only when attacked the higher stone peaks would yin qi come out. But if he smashed apart another thousand-foot tall stone peak, the yin qi quant.i.ty decreased. It went on till no more yin qi came out from the other thousand-foot towering stone peaks.
The only stone peaks left were those higher than a thousand feet.
But then Ning Cheng picked a three-thousand foot high stone peak and shot at it. However, he did not feel any yin qi coming out. From this, he understood that there was no point in continuing to break these peaks. At the same time, Ning Cheng also understood that this place most likely was a Yin Qi Illusion Array set up by a super-powerful Array Dao Master. Since no yin qi came out, it meant that it was an in-built mechanism set by the master to prevent other people like him from taking advantage of it.
Ning Cheng shook his head. He was just about to put away his long spear and go wake up Qi Shisanxing. Without the illusion array, it wouldn’t be too difficult for him and Qi Shisanxing to leave the Lost Stone Forest.
But just when he was about to turn around, a unique fragrance attracted Ning Cheng’s attention. His spiritual consciousness immediately swept through the debris from the three-thousand foot stone peak and quickly zeroes in on the location from where the fragrance originated. The scent came from a black stone, the size of a chicken’s egg.
Ning Cheng took a step forward and picked up the black stone. It felt soft to the touch, as if he was touching a soft-sh.e.l.led egg.
However, a remarkably comfortable feeling penetrated his Sea of Consciousness. It made his spirit sense a little cooler, in a refreshing kind of way.
It must be Divine Chalcedony. Ning Cheng looked at the soft stone in his hand with surprise. He hadn’t seen a single piece of Divine Chalcedony even after smashing apart dozens of peaks. But just when he started to think that these stone peaks didn’t contain Divine Chalcedony, he unexpectedly found one.
Ning Cheng took out a jade box and carefully placed it inside. The next moment, he began to blast apart the stone peaks like a destruction-loving lunatic.
For two consecutive days, Ning Cheng smashed apart over a few thousand stone peaks. However, apart from the three-thousand foot stone peak from where he obtained the first Divine Chalcedony, he didn’t find any in the other stone peaks. One had to know that he specifically sought out many three-thousand foot peaks yet found no Divine Chalcedony in them.
Ning Cheng shook his head. From the looks of it, he wasn’t going to find more Divine Chalcedony easily.
It would be better to wake up Qi Shisanxing and then work together to find a way to leave this place.
“Brother Ning, how are you still sane?” Ning Cheng had just turned his head when he saw Qi Shisanxing walk over and look at Ning Cheng with amazement.
Then, without waiting for Ning Cheng to speak, he looked at the destruction around Ning Cheng and spoke up in shock. “How did you manage to smash apart so many stone peaks? How come you’re still sane?”
Ning Cheng didn’t bother to answer him. He simply raised his hand and shot out his spear at one of the still-intact stone peaks. “Look, no matter how many stone peak I shatter, it does not have any effect….”
He didn’t want to talk about the Seven Bridges Spirit Technique. Although he felt that Qi Shisanxing was a good person, he only met him after all. Once information about the Seven Bridges Spirit Technique leaked out, who knows how many people would covet it?
Ning Cheng’s words stopped abruptly. He saw a small black object in the middle of the debris of the stone peak he just shattered. Noticing the faint fragrance diffusing into the air, Ning Cheng recognised it immediately. It was none other than the same thing he put away previously, Divine Chalcedony.
Ignoring Qi Shisanxing, Ning Cheng took a step forward and grabbed the Divine Chalcedony once again. This Divine Chalcedony piece was smaller than the previous one, but it was still pitch-black like the other and soft.
“Brother Ning, that, is that…..” Qi Shisanxing also quickly walked to Ning Cheng’s side and pointed to the soft black rock in Ning Cheng’s hand. It took him a long time to complete the sentence, “It that Divine Chalcedony?”
Ning Cheng smiled and put the Divine Chalcedony into Qi Shisanxing’s hand and said, “Congratulations, you got the right answer. It indeed is Divine Chalcedony. The stone peaks here contain Divine Chalcedony, but not all stone peaks have them, only a few. After smashing apart over thousands of stone peaks, I only found two…..”
Once again, Ning Cheng’s words stopped abruptly. While he spoke, his spiritual consciousness had already swept through the nearby stone peaks. He then looked back at the thousands of smashed stone peaks and felt something wrong. He was already a Spirit-tier Array Master, which meant that he was relatively good with array formations.
As his spiritual consciousness swept through the smashed stone peaks’ locations, he found that the sites from where he obtained the Divine Chalcedony were somewhat strange. It seemed similar to an array base used for illusion arrays; however, there still were some differences.
“Brother Ning, are you okay?” Seeing Ning Cheng in a daze, Qi Shisanxing quickly asked.
Ning Cheng waved his hand and said to Qi Shisanxing, “I want to look for the Lost Stone Forest’s array bases. You continue to break the stone peaks. Once you find a Divine Chalcedony, mark the spot and tell me.”
Qi Shisanxing opened his mouth and wanted to persuade Ning Cheng from doing such useless work. He was an Array Formation Master himself, yet he never found a single array base for tens of thousands of years. Yet, Ning Cheng now said that he wanted to look for the array bases here. Fortunately, words had just reached Qi Shisanxing’s lips when he swallowed it back down.
Previously, didn’t he also not try to persuade Ning Cheng from attacking the stone peaks? Yet, Ning Cheng attacked the stone peaks and found Divine Chalcedony from one of the broken stone peaks. Maybe his way of going about doing things was the wrong one.
“Okay, I will look for Divine Chalcedony, and I will inform you as soon as I find one.” Qi Shisanxing reluctantly returned the Divine Chalcedony in his hand to Ning Cheng and then brought out his weapon. He seemed to have gained some confidence in finding Divine Chalcedony.
Ning Cheng put it away and no longer paid any attention to Qi Shisanxing’s actions. Instead, he sat down and attempted to comprehend the supposed array bases he found in the surrounding stone forest.
When Ning Cheng had started breaking down the stone peaks before, Qi Shisanxing had already put himself in a false-death state. Now when Qi Shisanxing attacked the stone peaks, Ning Cheng retreated to comprehend the supposed array bases.
Qi Shisanxing’s luck was much worse than Ning Cheng. He had already forgotten how many stone peaks he had crushed till now. It wasn’t until the tenth day that he found a piece of Divine Chalcedony. Even so, his excited voice still felt exaggerated.
Fortunately, after this, Qi Shisanxing’s luck improved. On the sixteenth day, he found another piece of Divine Chalcedony.
One month later, his collection of Divine Chalcedonies increased to five. Seeing Ning Cheng sitting still with his eyes closed, trying to calculate something, Qi Shisanxing decided to leave a few pieces for Ning Cheng.
But Ning Cheng suddenly stood up at this point. He obtained two Divine Chalcedonies previously, while Qi Shisanxing found five. From the position of these seven pieces, Ning Cheng managed to gain a vague impression.
Perhaps his current ability wasn’t enough to arrange such a huge illusion array. But he could at least find the location of the actual array base using the Divine Chalcedony positions after more than a month of calculating.
“Brother Qi, don’t do any more useless work. That stone peak doesn’t contain any Divine Chalcedony.” Just when Qi Shisanxing was about to smash a hundred-feet tall stone peak, Ning Cheng immediately stopped him.
Qi Shisanxing looked at Ning Cheng in doubt, “I haven’t broken this stone peak yet; how do you that it doesn’t have one?”
He didn’t believe that Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness could penetrate these stone peaks. These stone peaks’ power to shield against spiritual consciousness intrusions went far beyond their cultivation.
Ning Cheng smiled, “I found the pattern.”
After that, Ning Cheng brought out a long spear. He pointed it to a place tens of meters away from Qi Shisanxing and threw it at a stone peak about a dozen meters tall.
As the stone peak collapsed, a dark coloured piece of Divine Chalcedony appeared in front of the two of them.
Qi Shisanxing stared at the dark piece of Divine Chalcedony with a blank look on his face. He then looked at Ning Cheng and only spoke up after a long time, “Brother Ning, once you get rich, please remember me.”
Ning Cheng did indeed strike rich. After finding the pattern of Divine Chalcedony’s location, he and Qi Shisanxing dug up more than a hundred pieces of Divine Chalcedony in a dozen days. Even if they made a mistake once or twice, it didn’t matter.
“Huh, there’s another skeleton here…..” Ning Cheng stopped. He saw a skeleton not too far from him, which even had a layer of skin covering it. Since discovering the Divine Chalcedony pattern, he hadn’t seen a single skeleton, let alone such a complete one.
Qi Shisanxing also walked over. He carefully scrutinised the skeleton on the ground and suddenly sighed. “I know this person.”