Chapter 131: Chapter 39: The Land of Spiritual Barrenness

Corpse Nurturing Land!

A nearly complete Blood Fiend!

The Supreme Elder at the Late Stage of Golden Core is severely injured!

With these three pieces of critical information, Li Jizhou already had thoughts of leaving.

“Using the lives of nearly ten thousand people from the Thunder Flame Sect as the source, with a Tier Four Spirit Vein as the basis… and using the underground treasury of the Thunder Flame Sect as bait, tricking tens of thousands of cultivators into willingly sacrificing their lives as nourishment, what a grand scheme!”

“Whose corpse is being nurtured?”

“And who dares to act so against the Celestial Dao?”

“Looks like back then, Daoist Venerable Mo Li’s goal was to seal off this Corpse Nurturing Land, but with his Divinity Transformation power, why didn’t he simply eradicate it? Maybe the forces behind the corpses are even feared by a Divinity Transformation Venerable, or perhaps some kind of balance was reached, allowing action only once?”

On the rapidly flying ship, Li Jizhou’s thoughts churned.

However, all of this is meaningless now; as the Corpse Dao takes form, the Blood Fiend shadows the skies.

The entire Qi Kingdom’s Spirit Vein Lands will become nourishment for the Blood Fiend’s ascension to Corpse King.

Everyone in the Spirit Vein Land could be randomly drained of their life’s essence by the Blood Fiend.

Either hide in the Spirit Barrens, far from the Spirit Vein, where there might be hope for survival.

But, with the Corpse King’s soul gathering, and the Blood Fiend taking shape, it might take as little as three to five years, or as long as decades or centuries.

Cultivators staying long-term in the Spirit Barrens, without Spirit Stones or Qi Replenishing Pills for supplement, will exhaust their magical power, dry up their Dantian, risking loss of realm or even foundational damage and future potential.

Perhaps only the Tier Four array at the core of the Golden Sun Sect could resist the Blood Fiend’s erosion.

Yet, within Qi Kingdom, the chances are that Divine Intent Sect and Cold Wind Valley don’t even have such protection, as it compares to the Nascent Soul True Monarch level.

Therefore, considering the Blood Fiend disaster within Qi Kingdom, the safest choice for the masses is temporarily fleeing the Qi Kingdom.

North lies the large Cultivation Country, Yan Kingdom, rich in resources, with no monopoly by super forces, originally an ideal choice, except the numerous Tier Three Great Demons within the Purple Vine Mountain Range might require a second thought from the average Fake Pill Master.

East, south, and west are vast stretches of Spirit Barrens before reaching other cultivation countries, with the east facing a vast ocean and sparsely populated cultivation countries, the west having branches of the Purple Vine Mountains and beast threats, making the south the natural choice for most.

As Li Jizhou’s flying ship neared the southern edge of Qi Kingdom’s Spirit Barrens, he saw from afar that many people were already gathered there.

It should be the lucky ones who escaped from Inverted Mountain immediately.

He promptly concealed the conspicuous flying ship, disguised himself as a fierce-looking, irritable man, and launched a Middle-Grade Magical Artifact flying sword, approaching at a normal speed.

Looking back at the expanding Blood Fiend cloud, he estimated it would engulf the entire Qi Kingdom’s Spirit Vein Land in less than a month.

He was already at the edge of Qi Kingdom’s cultivation realm, thousands of miles from the nearest Spirit Vein Land, where Spiritual Qi was already very thin,

and further south, there was almost no Spiritual Qi.

“Does any fellow Daoist have an extra flying ship? I am willing to pay a high price to purchase one.”

“The Spirit Barrens stretch for a hundred thousand miles. How can we fly across it? I am willing to offer all my resources to ride a flying ship and can take turns steering with Magical Power!”

“I found some Tier Two materials in Inverted Mountain. Will trade for a Qi Replenishing Pill…”

As he approached, the voices were anxious.

These were witnesses to the Blood Fiend’s fierce power in Inverted Mountain, willing to pay any price to cross the Spirit Barrens.

Among them were several Fake Pill Masters.

There were Loose Cultivators, as well as many sect and family cultivators.

Li Jizhou silently passed through the crowd, his fierce face and Foundation Establishment stage magical power aura preventing anyone from approaching.

Disaster was about to strike; perhaps some sect and family cultivators hadn’t fully realized the peaceful times were over.

But, under the pressure of life and death, it wouldn’t be long before everyone realized that primordial rules would become the only law.

At this time, hiding one’s abilities could make one a lamb in the eyes of others, attracting unnecessary greed and attention.

As he walked, only a group of disciples from the Golden Sun Sect caught his attention.

This group mostly consisted of cultivators in the Qi Cultivation Stage, perhaps already aware that the core sect array couldn’t protect many people and knowing they weren’t in the protected group.

Or they might have been advised by sect elders to venture to a nearby cultivation country to escape calamity.

Among the leaders was someone familiar.

“Senior Sister Lin, we don’t have flying ships, and we’re short on pills and Spirit Stones. If we force our way through this Spirit Barrens, the Spiritual Qi will be exhausted before we’ve covered a tenth of the journey, which will surely result in realm regression and damage to our foundation.”

“Senior Brother Jiang, please don’t abandon us. Once the Blood Fiend calamity is over, we all still need to return to the sect.”

…

Surrounded by disciples, Lin Caiwei looked somber and sorrowful.

Five years ago, she finally gathered materials for the Foundation Establishment Pill and invited a sect Pill Master to refine one, successfully completing Foundation Establishment.

At the moment of Foundation Establishment, she even thought of reaching out to Li Jizhou, hoping to interact as equals.

At least, she believed her post-Foundation Establishment realm was not inferior to Li Jizhou’s medicine-assisted Foundation Establishment. She might even have stronger magical power and, most importantly, potential.

But the sect summon came, and she hadn’t stabilized her realm before coming to Inverted Mountain.

Five years passed like this.

However, within these five years in Inverted Mountain, she gained significant opportunities.

For this, her parents arrived two years prior, hoping for luck.

It seemed like a return to the days of her youth when the family lived in Inverted Mountain.

Everything was moving in a positive direction; continuing like this might even yield some chance for Core Formation.

Then, suddenly, the Blood Fiend erupted.

Not only did the sect’s top flee in chaos, but non-core disciples like them were abandoned to find their own way.

More tragically, her father, Lin Chaobei, died in Inverted Mountain during the Blood Fiend eruption while protecting her and her mother.

Now, she planned to escape Qi Kingdom with her mother, Zhang Caifeng, but faced the danger of the Spirit Barrens.

With her Foundation Establishment stage magical power reserves and some Spirit Stones and pills in her storage bag, crossing the Spirit Barrens wasn’t much of an issue. At most, she’d conserve magical power and slow her flight.

But her mother Zhang Caifeng certainly couldn’t manage.

If she took her mother along, they’d exhaust magical power before halfway, and even if they barely made it, she’d risk realm regression and damage to her foundation.

Surrounded by Qi Cultivation stage junior brothers and sisters, she was at her wits’ end.

Suddenly, she sensed a Divine Sense sweep by and looked up.

She saw a fierce-looking man walking past but made no special move, prompting her to quickly avert her gaze.

That man looked fierce and exuded powerful magical strength, clearly not a decent character.

Li Jizhou merely passed by with a sweep of his Divine Sense, without pausing.

After passing through the crowd, he summoned his flying sword, heading south toward the Spirit Barrens without hesitation.

Behind him, many Foundation Establishment stage cultivators surrounded by sect brothers or family members looked on with envy.

Li Jizhou flew alone, attracting their envious gaze.

On his flight, Li Jizhou often encountered others fleeing south, many with families in tow.

He also witnessed instances of robbery.

However, the perpetrators were mostly small Qi Cultivation stage scavengers, lacking confidence in crossing the Spirit Barrens, fleeing at his sight.

However, Li Jizhou dared not let down his guard.

There were families with cultivators protecting them.

There were Foundation Establishment stage and even Fake Pill Masters among them, likely resorting to some robbery for Spirit Stones and pills for their kin.

For Li Jizhou, crossing the Spirit Barrens was effortless, with ample magical power reserves and countless Qi Replenishing Pills and Spirit Stones in his storage bag.

The Qi Replenishing Pills were painstakingly refined by Bai Yi, amassed over the past year without being sold, and now in abundant supply.

In addition, he had over ten thousand Spirit Stones.

The Spiritual Qi contained in Spirit Stones equals, if not surpassing, that in Qi Replenishing Pills.

Normal cultivators seldom use Spirit Stones directly due to the rapid dissipation of Spiritual Qi if not quickly absorbed.

Even Celestial Spirit Root cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage can’t absorb Spirit Stone Spiritual Qi swiftly, wasting at least half.

Only in the Core Formation Realm, with Celestial Spirit Root or higher, can Spirit Stone Spiritual Qi be absorbed relatively quickly and completely.

It’s said that in the Central Domain, some major family disciples, post-Core Formation, use massive Spirit Stone refining for cultivation, extravagantly.

On the third day, Li Jizhou had flown a thousand miles and was about to summon his flying ship when he felt a stir.

He sensed dozens of life force fluctuations ahead in the forest.

Three life forces capped over two hundred, one over three hundred, the rest just over a hundred, small Qi Cultivation stage cultivators.

“Planning to rob me?”

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