"Playing tricks and acting mysterious, how did I not detect anything unusual!?"
Song Jingshi expressed skepticism towards Lin Chen’s words, or rather, he didn’t believe them at all and immediately voiced his own opinion.
Lin Chen glanced indifferently at the other party and paid no attention, treating him as if he were merely a dog barking.
However, Zhao Ming and the others believed Lin Chen’s words very much and immediately arranged a formation, marching forward along the narrow path ahead, with Lin Chen and the four from the Jade Cauldron Sect following behind.
Seeing that Zhao Ming and Lin Chen completely ignored him, Song Jingshi instantly became furiously embarrassed, but though he wanted to burst out in anger, it was like punching cotton—no one took notice of him, leaving him with no one to vent his rage on unless he directly attacked and taught Lin Chen and the others a lesson.
Although his strength was slightly superior to Zhao Ming’s, his group’s numbers were at a disadvantage; they only had six people, while Zhao Ming and his group had seventeen. If a fight really broke out, they feared they wouldn’t gain any advantage.
Moreover, he and Zhao Ming were from the same sect, and it wasn’t the time yet to tear their friendship apart completely.
Therefore, he could only temporarily swallow his resentment and, leading the other five people, followed the pace of Lin Chen and his group. He wanted to see what was ahead for himself and whether Lin Chen was playing tricks and acting mysterious.
"These stones, could they possibly be spirit stones..."
After passing through the path enveloped in thick fog and traveling about a li, what came into view was a mountain range. Below the mountain range, countless fist-sized stones were piled up, radiating Spiritual Light and their aura was even more enticing.
After a brief inspection, Zhao Ming and his group discovered that these stones were all spirit stones, and what’s more, they were all middle-grade spirit stones. Judging from their quantity, there were more than a hundred thousand pieces.
"We’ve struck it rich, they’re all spirit stones, now we’re really going to be rich."
Upon arriving here, Song Jingshi’s eyes lit up, unable to hide the greed in his heart; he wished he could kill all the others and then take those spirit stones for himself.
However, Song Jingshi knew that Lin Chen and the others had also discovered these spirit stones. Feared that if they were divided, they wouldn’t even get the lion’s share, he thought that the best solution would be to eliminate Lin Chen and his group, but that was easier said than done.
"Amazing, they really are spirit stones."
The female disciple from the Jade Cauldron Sect, who was quite attractive, had her eyes shining brightly with anticipation as she moved towards the spirit stones, but Lin Chen intercepted her.
"Hold on, something isn’t right up ahead. How could these spirit stones simply be piled up here without forming any sort of spirit grass vegetation or the like?"
Lin Chen said, examining the situation ahead and speaking dispassionately.
Hearing this, the female disciple and Zhao Ming’s group halted, believing Lin Chen’s words.
Typically, such a quantity of spirit stones indeed wouldn’t be accumulated in a barren land unless it was a mine.
Even if it were a mine, since spirit stones are the crystallization of spiritual energy, the local spiritual energy would be richer than in other places and logically lead to the growth of spiritual medicine vegetation—that would comply with the laws of nature.
But at the moment, forget about spiritual medicine, there wasn’t even any spirit grass vegetation growing; it was as if someone deliberately discarded them there to attract attention.
Seeing Zhao Ming and his group stop, Song Jingshi inwardly cursed them as a bunch of cowards and proceeded forward.
"Hmph, a bunch of cowards. What ’something’s fishy’? I think you all are just overthinking it. Since you don’t want these spirit stones, then I certainly won’t be polite," Song Jingshi said, leading the five people behind him towards the pile of spirit stones. He was already imagining the scene of putting all the spirit stones into the spatial bag.
For these disciples, magic artifacts like spatial rings or belts were, of course, unaffordable—they were simply too expensive and beyond their means. However, a spatial bag was different; an elementary-level spatial bag could have ten square meters of storage space. Still, it wasn’t as convenient to use as spatial rings or similar artifacts. Even warriors with strong cultivation could only use their Divine Sense to place objects that they physically touched into it.
Moreover, spatial bags were very easy to damage. If they were affected by intense fluctuations during battle, the treasures inside could be lost. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟.net
Therefore, the inferior storage artifact like the elementary spatial bag was only used by warriors below and at the Melding Earth Realm.
Warriors of the Heaven-reaching Realm would usually have a spatial ring on hand; otherwise, during a battle, if their opponent was stronger, it could lead to the storage artifact getting damaged.
Watching Song Jingshi slowly walk towards the spirit stones, Lin Chen didn’t say much. He just wanted to use these people to probe the situation ahead.
As they approached the spirit stones, a huge dark shadow suddenly leaped up from the ground and swooped down towards Song Jingshi and his group.
The dark shadow was nearly seven to eight meters wide and about a hundred meters long. Seeing this, Song Jingshi and the six people’s first reaction was to retreat.
However, the shadow moved incredibly fast, and aside from Song Jingshi and another warrior at the First Layer of the Melding Earth Realm who managed to escape the attack, the other four were killed on the spot without exception.
"How terrifying, what kind of monster is this!"
Seeing his sect mates crushed to death, Zhao Ming wasn’t too saddened; after all, Lin Chen had already warned them earlier. Their death was completely due to their own wrongdoing.
Lin Chen and those with him fixated their gaze to see that the dark shadow was actually a giant serpent, nearly a hundred meters in length, with strength that seemed close to the peak of the Melding Earth Realm.
"How odd, you all haven’t been fooled. You’re the first in all these years to still have survivors after my attack. You didn’t approach—is it possible that you detected my presence?"
The giant serpent spoke human language, looking towards Lin Chen and the others.
"Attack together, or none of us will survive."
Song Jingshi was extremely panicked inside. Just now, he had used a secret technique, boosting his cultivation with Essence Blood to narrowly escape the giant serpent’s tail attack; otherwise, he would have ended up like the other four sect members.
Now, with his heart pounding with fear, one reason was the strength of the serpent before him, and the other was the realization that Lin Chen’s earlier interference might indeed have been genuine—perhaps that good-for-nothing had truly sensed the serpent?
At this point, Song Jingshi called for everyone to join forces to kill the giant serpent, and Zhao Ming and the others did not object, as they understood very clearly that without working together, they would not be able to leave this place alive.