The Lord of Void and Real
Chapter 732

Chapter 732: Chapter 728: Small Town at the Foot of the Mountain Chapter 732: Chapter 728: Small Town at the Foot of the Mountain “Regardless, I have already taken on the task of investigating Drill Mountain. I should find the Jade Fox Clan first. But beforehand, I need to master this White Crane Transformation Technique.” After thinking for a while, Shen Luo muttered to himself.

Having said that, he took out the jade slip again and invested his divine sense in it, scrutinizing it carefully.

After finding no particularly difficult aspects, he held his breath and concentrated, chanting spells and activating the divine sense power and mana according to the method recorded in the jade slip.

The Transformation Art is different from illusion techniques. It's not a false trick to fool people, but a genuine change in one's shape, soul, breath, and divine soul. Hence, it requires perfect coordination of the divine soul power, mana, breath, and physical strength.

This is supposed to be a very difficult task. However, Shen Luo, already in the body of a True Immortal with enough mana and strong divine soul power, combined with his cultivation of the Huangting Technique, found the process unusually smooth.

Within half an hour, Shen Luo stood up from his place, extended his arms like a bird flapping its wings, chanted the transformation spell softly, and then took a deep breath.

Suddenly, his body felt lighter. White feathers grew from his arms. His body quickly shrank and transformed. He turned into a magnificent, graceful red-crowned crane with bright plumage.

He lifted his foot to take a step forward but felt his foot unsteady. His hands involuntarily swung back and forth, and he seemed to dash forward in a small run.

Being a human, Shen Luo had never paid attention to how birds take flight. Even his previous flights were facilitated by mystic arts. Suddenly transformed into a crane, he was momentarily unsure of how to take off.

After a few runs and wing flaps, he finally managed to flap his wings and soar into the sky.

Shen Luo flew high among the clouds and looked down upon the Earth. He could see his own image reflected on the surface of the stream.

At the beginning, because he was not used to it, his wings flapped too frequently, and his legs were not stretched backward, making his posture look a bit odd. But after flying for a half moment, with his continual adjustments, he came to resemble a real crane.

Locating the direction of Jilei Mountain, he did not transform back to human form but flew towards it with wings outspread.

Midway, when flying over a mountain forest, Shen Luo suddenly heard a gust behind him. Seeing a large shadow covering his own in his line of sight on the ground, he immediately understood what was happening.

He hurriedly twisted his body sideways as two shiny black hooks scraping past his chest. A gray-black figure then brushed past him, flying up with a small dip, looping in the high sky, and swooping at him again.

“A peregrine falcon…”

Shen Luo's pupils slightly contracted. He glanced down, sped up, and like a piercing spear, he darted into the thick forest below.

The peregrine falcon dove and chased after him, also falling into the thick forest.

Just as it entered the forest, a water arrow suddenly shot out from below, grazing the falcon's wing and soaring high into the sky, instantly knocking off many feathers from its wing.

The startled falcon immediately flew out of the forest, high into the sky and away.

A moment later, Shen Luo's figure emerged from the dense forest and flew towards Jilei Mountain, a grin on his face. Although he had just been caught off guard by the peregrine falcon, it had proven the uniqueness of the White Crane Transformation Technique.

After flying hundreds of kilometers, Shen Luo finally reached the vicinity of Jilei Mountain by dusk.

About tens of kilometers away, Shen Luo saw a vast mountain range of blackish-green hills. Instead of rashly entering the mountains, he flew downward towards a faintly visible light denoting human habitation on the exterior of the mountains.

Only after landing did Shen Luo realize that the place was actually a dilapidated small town at the foot of the mountain.

As the Jilei Mountain is rich in Black Basalt Stone, perhaps due to the policy of relying on the mountain for livelihood, the ruined houses in the town were mostly built with black stone blocks. Outside the entrance of the town, there stood a stone archway with three large words “Mining Town” that have already been faded.

Shen Luo suppressed his breath, picked up a wooden stick covered with green moss from the roadside, wiped the dew and dirt on it onto his clothes, and then, leaning on the stick, limped towards the inside of the town.

From the scale of the town and the state of the houses, it seemed that Mining Town must have been prosperous once. To this day, many doors are still piled with stone materials as high as a person, covered with a thick layer of mud and moss, obviously, they hadn't been moved for a long time.

Many houses on both sides had also fallen into disrepair and collapsed, presenting a scene of ruin and desolation everywhere.

Shen Luo walked for quite a while before finally seeing the lights he saw from high altitude, which were surprisingly in the central part of the town, in a courtyard that occupied the largest area and was also the most majestic.

It is only majestic when compared to the surrounding houses, in fact, it is nothing more than a three-section courtyard. The front and the back courtyards remained intact, only the middle part had all collapsed.

The yellow light was beaming out from the last section of the courtyard.

When Shen Luo reached the front courtyard, he took hold of the copper ring on the door and knocked a few times, but there was no response from inside one.

“Is anyone there?”

Shen Luo called out a voice, which sounded like he has been traveling for a long time and no longer had the strength, so the voice came out low and timid.

There was no reply from the courtyard.

Shen Luo knocked harder on the copper ring on the door. Unexpectedly, the door creaked open on its own.

With a slight frown, he peeked through the door, called out again “Is anyone there?”, and then pushed the door open and walked into the courtyard.

Barely stepping into the courtyard, a sound of hurried footsteps rang out. A middle-aged man with a yellow and gaunt face and deep-set eye sockets came rushing out from the ruins of the middle courtyard.

Upon seeing that the intruder was a grubby young man, a flash of disgust crossed the middle-aged man's face, and he scolded,

“Where did you come from, you damned ghost? What are you doing barging in?”

“My family has met with a disaster. I have been fleeing here without having a bite of food for several days. I am really too hungry. Seeing that there is still light in the courtyard, I wanted to come in and see if I could ask for some food.” Shen Luo sighed and said weakly.

“You want to ask for food at this hour? Are you out of your mind? Get out…” The middle-aged man's deep-set eyes showed a gloomy color as he shouted angrily.

“Uncle, you…”

Seeing that Shen Luo still wanted to argue, the man became even more furious and picked up a piece of broken tile from the ground, intending to throw it at Shen Luo.

“Stop…” This time, a clear voice stopped him.

Shen Luo tilted his body to one side, looked past the middle-aged man to the back, and saw a young man dressed in black, as pale as a sheet, walking towards him.