Demon Sword Sect’s Undercover
Chapter 103 - 103 102 Wilderness Pursuit 8

103: Chapter 102: Wilderness Pursuit 8 103: Chapter 102: Wilderness Pursuit 8 “We are looking for ambergris, regarding this, is there any news from the demon clans here?”

Hou Niao replied decisively, “Yinling doesn’t have this thing; it must be a demon passing through.

I’ve also heard about what happened under Fang Family’s Castle, though I’m not clear about the details.

The only certain thing is that the mainstream demon clans of Yinling did not participate in this incident.”

Hou Niao hurried off, going to procure some Soul Beads.

This guy still didn’t reveal the truth in the end, which was a bit unexpected to Hou Niao; but no matter, it would come soon; it only needed one chance.

There must be a place with a large number of such Soul Beads or Wandering Souls gathered, a very secret place, belonging to Hou Niao’s secret; using roast chicken to exchange for such a secret was somewhat bullying the demons, he was using psychological tactics.

One must not be impatient, waiting for the right opportunity.

It was always best to let Hou Niao agree willingly; he was a reasonable person, never seizing things through cunning.

The three of them returned to the camp one after another, with Hou Niao arriving the latest.

Of course, considering it was his first time witnessing the demon market, it seemed somewhat understandable?

As for Zhiwen and Dou Gong, they had seen it often already and couldn’t muster any interest; these many years had passed, and the monsters’ market hadn’t made any progress.

It wasn’t just because of the goods; it was also the business philosophy, without real human involvement, this place would always just be a second-rate, self-entertaining Ghost Market.

Today it was Hou Niao’s turn to keep night watch.

He chose a slightly higher position; at least within a span of dozens of feet, he could sense every movement of the breeze and the grass, which was directly related to his depth of sense and Spiritual Power—this was his shortcoming.

Pulling out a Soul Bead, he wanted to try and see what the craving of the Purple Mansion Vortex for this thing really meant.

There was one issue, how should he handle this thing?

Clearly he couldn’t swallow it; this thing wasn’t food.

Positioning it between his chest and abdomen, right at the location of the Purple Mansion, even though he had now initiated his cultivation to force out the Purple Mansion Vortex, it seemed as distant as mountains and seas separated by a layer of belly skin.

This wasn’t a physical distance, but a distance between reality and mystery; even though the vortex craved the Soul Bead, it was just an unquenchable thirst.

Hou Niao knew it was still his Realm that was too low.

If he had now cultivated the Upper Dantian and possessed Spiritual Power, then naturally none of this would be a problem, but now, it wasn’t happening—he was still far from reaching Tongxuan.

After trying several methods, racking his brains, he still came up empty-handed… After contemplating for a long while, there was only one method left.

Holding the Soul Bead in his hand, he circled the cultivation and felt a lightening of his Divine Soul as he entered the Soul Realm Space; as soon as he entered, he instantly felt something, and his own Soul Body, with a gesture, somehow brought the Soul Bead before his eyes and he thought joyfully, Could it be that in this place, the Soul Body devours the Soul Bead?

But what happened next caught him off guard; before he could initiate devouring, the Soul Bead surged forward and smashed into the corridor wall, vanishing!

He could clearly feel the energy of the Soul Bead replenishing the structure of the corridor, making it sturdier… But what did that have to do with him?

A slight mishap, having just wasted a Soul Bead for no gain, he decided to try again.

His feelings were a bit conflicted now, both hoping these Soul Beads would be put to use and not wanting his cultivation growth to rely too much on external forces.

He hadn’t even used the power of Elixirs; how could he allow his Spiritual Power to be mixed with someone else’s energy?

If the Soul Bead was not just a kind of energy but also contained something bizarre beyond his control, what then?

But he always had to try something, couldn’t just let this mysteriously baffling corridor wall benefit, right?

Exiting the Soul Realm, he took out another Soul Bead and re-entered; this time, being prepared, as soon as the Soul Bead entered, it immediately rushed up,

But, as if completely uncontrolled by him, the Soul Bead passed through his Soul Body and once again entered the corridor wall!

He understood, he couldn’t absorb the power of the Soul Beads, at least not right now.

The moment he brought the Soul Beads into play, they could only be used to reinforce the structure of the Soul Realm!

So, was reinforcing the structure of the Soul Realm beneficial to him, or did it not matter at all?

He was a person of meticulous thought and was not distressed by this minor loss.

Instead, he sought to uncover the truth behind it.

There had to be a connection.

How could his Purple Mansion have nothing to do with him?

It was just that he hadn’t discovered it yet.

With such careful consideration, noting the differences from before, a smile appeared on his face by the end of the evening lesson.

There were indeed benefits.

He had discovered three points so far,

Firstly, as the structure of the Purple Mansion Vortex became more stable, he could summon the vortex anytime and anywhere, even though he didn’t know what use summoning the vortex had.

Secondly, he could foresee that as the vortex became more stable, it might be possible in the future to directly absorb the Soul Beads from outside through the vortex without having to send his Divine Soul in, breaking through the membrane’s barrier and building a bridge between reality and the Soul Realm.

Lastly, when the energy of the Soul Beads could replenish the structure of the Purple Mansion Vortex, the efficiency of his absorption of the Heaven and Earth Spirit Mechanism would increase!

Ever since he had the vortex, there had always been some mysterious consumption occurring in the vortex whenever he harvested the Heaven and Earth Spirit Mechanism, but now he understood that the consumed spiritual power was actually compensating for the structure of the Soul Realm.

If the repairs to the structure of the Soul Realm could be compensated through the Soul Beads, it would mean that his efficiency in absorbing the Heaven and Earth Spirit Mechanism would improve, fully utilizing the complementary characteristics of the Double Dantian.

The more Soul Beads he filled, the less spiritual power would be consumed, and the faster he could replenish the Dantian.

Cultivation would naturally get onto the fast track.

This was his latest understanding of the Soul Beads.

Of course, currently, the mere two Soul Beads were like a drop in the bucket.

He needed a substantial amount of them, and he had to find this channel.

Now, his only hope lay with the cunning weasel, Xiao Xian.

If it weren’t for the mission he was on and the fact that he was still in the team, he would be tempted to track this cunning creature; but tracking such a native whose Realm was still above his in Yinling was extraordinarily challenging.

Psychological warfare was a safer bet.

The next day, after the morning lesson, they set off, but everyone’s mood was somewhat low due to the weather.

The clouds hung heavy like lead, oppressive and foreboding.

It was going to rain.

The rainfall in Shan Country was far less abundant than in Anhe because of the mountains to the north, especially in the Tianfeng Plain, and particularly in the Yinling area; so for the common folk, rain was a blessing, but for their team, the rain would dilute the already faint traces, making it hard for even the tracker dogs to find the accurate scent source after the rain.

But this was beyond their control.

That day, they nearly exhausted the tracker dogs to death!

They set a record by running thirty miles, and then, there was no more.

The downpour was heavy, an unusually substantial rainfall for Yinling, with no cover in the wild and no shelter from the rain, not even under trees for fear of being struck by lightning.

Of course, for cultivators, simply raising a shield of Spiritual Power would keep such natural phenomena at bay.

Even Hou Niao, the least experienced, knew that the continued search would likely fall into difficulty; no traces could remain under such heavy rain.

Was Heaven playing a joke on them?