Wengg!!"I"m finally bac-.. huh?"
Aaaaaaaaaahhh!
As soon as Duan Li entered the Eternal Maze, he wasn"t teleported on land with a stable footing below him, but instead on the air, high above the atmosphere!
If it was just that, he wouldn"t mind it at all, because cultivators of his realm could already fly. But what horrified him at this moment was that, he couldn"t fly at all!
Thus, he was falling down at a rapid speed!
Peww~
Poof! Poof!
Layers upon layers of clouds was penetrated by his falling body, his face became pale as he continued to plunge down.
"At this rate, if I happen to ram straight onto something with the current speed I"m free-falling with, I will undoubtedly turn into a b.l.o.o.d.y meat-paste and die!"
Poof!
Eh?
As soon as he penetrated through that last cloud, the scene below him had shocked him greatly!
Currently still free-falling through the sky, he could see that there were two vast volcanic island on the opposite side of each other, one bigger than the other, surrounded by a vast ocean around them with many small islands and reefs in between the two.
For a moment or so, Duan Li was completely mesmerized by this beautiful scene and couldn"t help but to forgot his current predicament.
After all, the place where the Jiu Empire was located was inland, and while there were huge rivers the size of an ocean slithering around their Empire, Duan Li had never been able to experience such a sight as these before!
Pah!
It was only after a seagull that flew in straight for his face and slapped him with its wings that he snapped back to reality.
"d.a.m.ned bird!"
When he squinted his eyes to look far below him, he was even more horrified!
It was a small rocky island!
If he were to directly collide with that island, then...!!
"Think! Think!" Duan Li brainstormed his mind with gritted teeth as he closed his eyes tightly.
Judging from the distance, he would reach the ground in another 10 to 15 breaths of time, so he had to think of a way to escape from such a shameful death before then!
Ah! I know!
Duan Li stabilized his body from falling horizontally to vertically.
At first glance, this change in body position seemed like Duan Li wanted to court death even earlier, as this position had drastically reduced the air resistance acting on his body this way, causing his plunging speed to increase dramatically!
But when one observed closely, it was apparent that Duan Li was getting himself into a stance!
Clenching his fists tightly, he then punched out!
Nine Fists Shattering Meteor!
BAM!
Due to the recoil force of the punch, Duan Li"s relative position had changed slightly, and this discovery solidified his previous theory on how to save himself, thus he punched out rapidly.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Finally, after only about 3 more breaths left before he would collide with the island, he managed to change his landing from the rocky island to the water body around it!
Splash!
Puaa!!
"T-That.. was close!" Duan Li said after he swam back up to the surface, before continuing to swim all the way back to the rocky island.
Pant! Pant!
"It seems like.. not only was my ability to fly was being nulled.. even my stamina was drastically reduced!" Duan Li breathed out heavily as he laid down on the rocks.
This kind of wretched stamina was like back to being a mortal that had not cultivated at all!
After a moment"s rest, he stood up and tried to look around. But because he could not fly, he had to climb the rocks a little bit to get a good vantage point.
Standing at the peak, Duan Li could see that the two volcanic islands and some of the smaller islands around it were covered in wild and lush vegetations, a lot of it were green in color, some red and oranges, while the starking ones were purple in color!
"By the looks of it, this place seems to be quite tropical.. and while there are no limits to the spiritual Qi here, it is extremely thin!"
Hmm.. I"ve used up quite a bit of my spiritual Qi before to propel myself away from harm just now, so I should try to recover some of it while I can, for who knows what else would I be surprised with later on?
Duan Li then sat down cross-legged on the rocks and was about to meditate, before he could feel some sounds from his dantian.
"This is..!!"
Narrowing his eyes in alarm, Duan Li swiftly realized what it was!
Closing both eyes, he drove his consciousness inside his lower dantian, and when he arrived, he saw that those two egg-like shape cac.o.o.ns was starting to tremble!
Crack! Crack!
Wengg!!
"Hahaha! We did it!" said an excited voice as it emerged from the cac.o.o.n.
It was Dilong, the Earth dragon. Her previous puny appearance, akin to a malnutritioned earthworm has now metamorphed into an even bigger earthworm with improved and less hideous outlook.
Furthermore, her smooth pink skin from before was now replaced by thick pink scales. At first glance, she looked more like an armadillo than a dragon.
"Great! I feel more confident in this body! Its much more convenient!" Zhulong said as he smashed the cac.o.o.n with its legs, revealing an impressive appearance.
Previously, he looked nothing more than like a close relative of Cucko with his chicken-like figure. But now, those fluffy feathers looked more like steel, and his body shape has more aerodynamic angles to it, with two small horns jutted out from its temples!
"Ohh.. so this is the Newborn stage of an Elemental spirit eh? Not too bad.." Duan Li said as he nodded in awe.
The Newborn stage, this was the first step for them to be able to exist within the physical realm through projection of a spectral body using their consciousness outside of the host. While their abilities to help the host would still be limited, they could already manipulate the surroundings to a certain degree according to their elemental attributes.
"That"s right! Now that we are already in this form, we can help master in the physical world too!" Dilong replied as she wriggle around in her new body.
"Oh! but we can"t do any physical battle yet, that would only be possible once we reached the Rookie stage!" Zhulong added.
Duan Li nodded, "I see, well currently, I"m in quite a pinch, so I was wondering if you two could help me out, but don"t worry, this doesn"t involve fighting or anything complicated like that."
"Anything for you master!" the two simultaneously replied. They then explained to Duan Li on how he could just literally "willed" for them to project themselves into the physical world.
Thus, Duan Li gave it a try according to their instructions.
"Come out, Dilong and Zhulong!"
Wengg!!
Two small figures started to materialize on Duan Li"s left and right respectively, and like a bubble burst, Dilong and Zhulong"s spectral body, which was translucent, appeared.
"Ohh! The physical world! Hahaha! It"s been such a long time!" Dilong excitedly shouted as she flew around in circles.
Meanwhile, Zhulong was much more focused and a.n.a.lytical of his new surroundings, and something caught his attention, "Wait a minute.. this is the physical world.. but I am detecting signs of it being a looped s.p.a.ce!"
Dragons, creature of the apex, were highly attuned beings to spatial fluctuations, and added with the fact that these two dragons were Elemental Origin Spirit creature at the same time, which harnesses the might of nature, they could detect that the physical world they were in right now were in another s.p.a.ce!
"Looped s.p.a.ce? What is that?" Duan Li asked Zhulong.
Zhulong then began to explain that a Looped s.p.a.ce was actually quite similar to the alternate dimension s.p.a.ce within a spatial ring. However, the main differences between them was that, it could actually store living creatures within it and has the element of Time!
"I see.. well, this is indeed not in the same physical world as the one I lived in.. this place here is called the Eternal Maze!" Duan Li told him.
He then continued, "But if it is really as what you"ve just said, then isn"t that the same with my spatial ring here?" Duan Li said as he pointed to that black spatial ring on his ring finger.
Zhulong nodded, "Yes master, it was actually my first time encountering a unique spatial ring such as yours.." he answered.
Hmm..
Duan Li pondered for a moment before deciding to put the matter at the back of his head.
"Dilong, Zhulong, as you both can see here, the amount of spiritual Qi in this place is quite abundant, but its extremely thin! This means that my rate of absorption would be extremely slow.. coupled with the fact that I have 3 dantians active, it would take forever to acc.u.mulate enough for my recovery.. do you guys have any solutions?" he asked.
Dilong and Zhulong both looked at each other when they heard this and then turned back to Duan Li, "So this is the pinch master was having? That"s quite simple for us to resolve! And luckily, this place is heavily affected by the fire and earth attribute due to its environment, so it would be even easier for us!"
Oh?
Previously, Duan Li did not have too much expectations placed on them as they just evolved from their cac.o.o.n, but who knew that they would be immediately reliable right now just when he was in a pinch?
Both closed their eyes, and began to meditate as they absorbed the surrounding spiritual Qi directly from the element source themselves instead of from the air.
Dilong was an Earth dragon, so her area of expertise was manipulating everything that concerns the Earth element, and this was especially the case for plants!
Which means that, the denser the amount of vegetation around her was, the higher her efficiency would be in terms of its manipulation!
Similarly, Zhulong was a Fire dragon, and the two volcanic islands were both an excellent source of fire element for him to manipulate!
Since the actual body of these two were inside Duan Li"s lower dantian and their spectral body right now was just a projection, the moment they cultivate directly from the element source themselves such as from the plants and volcanic magma, the spiritual Qi absorbed was dumped straight into Duan Li"s lower dantian!
"Oho! I"m feeling it! Continue on what you guys are doing right now!" Duan Li said as he closed his eyes, activating the All-Seeing eyes ability. He then rerouted the spiritual Qi from his lower dantian to redistribute them towards his two other dantians, so that all three would receive the same amount of spiritual Qi.
"Hahaha! This is great! It"s even a little bit faster than when cultivating back at home!"
Alright, since the amount of spiritual Qi is no longer a concern here, I"ll just save that spiritual Qi I stored inside my spatial ring for emergency purposes then!
and..
It"s time to make a breakthrough!
Hong long!
Removing the limitations he placed inside his meridians and pathways all these while, Duan Li"s cultivation state began to swiftly soar in an unprecedented speed!
...
Deep inside the magma chamber of the larger Volcanic island, the silhouette of an old man could be seen sitting cross-legged within the magma itself.
Usually, wherever a magma touches, it would burn everything down to ashes! But this old man that was within it was like having a leisure hot bath instead, entirely unaffected by the extreme heat of the magma around him.
At this moment, the brows of this old man twitched as if he had detected something and opened his eyes.
Frowning, he said, "Who dares to lower the temperature? Hmph! Brazen!!"
...