novelraw Chapter 587 - 586: The Blue Bird’s Imagination
Chapter 587 - 586: The Blue Bird’s Imagination
The second big boss of the Misty Miasma Ridge dungeon comes with a self-healing skill, which is quite the headache.
What’s tricky is that after these split monsters fully restore the boss’s health, they don’t vanish but instead rush at Jiang Yuan en masse, looking as if they’re prepared for a fight to the death.
Fortunately, after combining skills, the attack power has obviously increased, so he’s not afraid.
Devouring Mountains and Rivers!
Critical Strike -51000!
With one group attack skill thrown over, more than half of the split ginseng spirits were instantly wiped out, and the remaining ones were left in a critical state.
It’s a pity they’re all spirits that have been strangely polluted, essentially already dead with no lifespan to seize. Otherwise, this move would at least get one or two years’ worth of purified lifespan.
"Are you just going to stand there and do nothing?" Jiang Yuan asked while he instantly teleported to a spot not far from Qingniao to dodge the attack, taking the opportunity to quip when he saw the ginseng spirit’s health bar filling up again as it thrust its tendrils into the soil.
"I don’t dare move, I really don’t." The other hurriedly waved small hands, moving far away, "I’m just a little girl at the Fusion Realm, how could I deal with such a fierce creature? Brother, you’re so hardworking. I’ll go hide over there first."
Qingniao knew well her own strength. Being reborn, she essentially had to start cultivation from scratch, and when it’s time to be cautious, one must be.
Not to mention the filthy black aura emitted by that creature, which she currently couldn’t resist;
Just sensing its realm from afar should be around the Demon Pill Realm, which translates to the peak of the Golden Core Realm or the early Nascent Soul Realm for human cultivators, nearly three realms above herself. Even with Ice Flame Body Protection, she’d have to quickly flee when encountering it.
The Poisonous Miasma in the not yet purified Misty Miasma Ridge dungeon had very strong corrosive properties and could even pollute paper effigies. Jiang Yuan didn’t dare risk summoning the Clear Wind Bright Moon Sword for help. After dodging a series of ground spike explosions, he focused his mind to open the dungeon interface, moving Qingniao out of the dungeon and sending her back to the small courtyard.
He also locked the dungeon, preventing her from transmitting back through the Sealing Rune.
Qingniao, hiding at the side wanting to look at her brother’s combat strategies: ???
A second ago, she was on a slope filled with Poisonous Miasma, but in the blink of an eye, she found herself in a Spiritual Energy-rich small courtyard?
"Strange, there’s really no trace of Spiritual Power fluctuation." She frowned and crossed her short arms in front of her chest, pondering for a while to come to a conclusion — it must not be human, but a transformation of Celestial Fire!
Not only that, but it’s very likely Celestial Fire that fell from the Celestial Realm to the mundane world, using a more advanced Immortal Power, making her completely unable to sense Spiritual Power fluctuations!
"That’s right, it must be like this!" The more Qingniao thought about it, the more it made sense, and her eyes lit up with enthusiasm as she tried again to use the Sealing Rune to go back and observe.
However, an invisible barrier stopped her, and refusing to give up, she tried again, but the Sealing Rune flickered beneath her feet and was blocked again.
"Hmph! Brother must be worried I’d discover his secret!" Qingniao pouted angrily, stomped her foot, and turned back into her mushroom house, thinking to herself that even though he tried to sneak around, she had already guessed his secret!
Jiang Yuan indeed didn’t want his secret discovered by sending her away. He set it up so no one could disturb him and immediately clicked to display the exoskeleton equipment.
A giant Demon God, exuding a violent aura, suddenly appeared. It moved its mutated skull around and charged forward with its sturdy Iron Claw, clamping down with its over three-meter-long Crab Claw right on the ginseng spirit’s head!
While carrying out physical attacks, Jiang Yuan didn’t hold back on magic attacks either.
Anyway, in the bottom right corner, the ring of skill thumbnails lit up, clicking whichever one finished cooling down didn’t delay his actions.
The satisfying hits were addictive, especially the sharp claws on the outside of the Crab Claw that could cut off the tentacle-like ginseng tendrils trying to grab everywhere. It would take quite some effort for it to launch another underground spike attack.
Since piecing together exoskeleton equipment given by the Corpse Control Technique here and there, Jiang Yuan found it increasingly handy—what kind of attack could be done with a weapon? This thing could deal 5000+ damage with just a normal hit!
With a relentless barrage of punches combined with magic attacks, the blood bar of the polluted ginseng spirit dropped rapidly.
"Roar!"
The previously tall and sturdy ginseng spirit now appeared weak and helpless, being pummeled by an enormous ten-meter creature. Tendrils littered the ground, still twitching and grasping, triggering the split doppelganger ultimate again. The ginseng spirit roared in anger, ready to counterattack.
Seeing this, Jiang Yuan chose to burn twenty years of lifespan, activating the skill inherent to the Mutated Ghost Head—Ghost Roar!
"Aren’t you going to say your lines!"
The visible sonic wave attack shook the ginseng spirit, void of reason and lines, causing it to shudder, and with more tentacles shaved off, the wounds oozing pus only worsened. As its health bar hit zero, black water gushed out from numerous injuries.
After a good ten seconds, the ginseng spirit limply collapsed on the hillside, its wrinkled skin turning into black smoke that disappeared, leaving a pile of golden glittering loot on the ground.
[Polluted Millennium Ginseng: Can greatly replenish vitality once purified; mortals must consume in moderation.]
[Polluted Advanced Spirit Field Fertilizer: Can be used to upgrade Spirit Fields once purified; for use on Level Five and higher Spirit Fields.]
...
"As the old saying goes: pull out the radish, bring out the mud. I never thought pulling out a ginseng spirit could also bring out fertilizer!" Jiang Yuan took off his exoskeleton equipment and bent down to pick things up fervently.
[Dungeon Quest 2: The quest to find the lost seal in the current area has been completed. Reward: Random Intermediate Weapon Blueprint +1 has been issued]
[Dungeon Quest 3: Find the lost seal in the next area. Reward: Skill Upgrade Card +1]
[Would you like to bind the Earth Seal to purify the current area?]
When he picked up a gleaming square seal, the long-awaited quest finally popped up, showing phased success!
Unable to wait any longer, Jiang Yuan clicked to bind and purify the second area of the Maze Ridge dungeon.
"Buzz!"
The Earth Seal floated into mid-air, emitting gentle yet magnificent holy light.
[Detected incomplete pollutant removal, please complete cleaning before conducting thorough purification]
Interrupted midway through the spell, he looked at the hillside where there were still many pollution plants needing to be gathered, and not far away, there was a small valley yet to have trees chopped down, stones smashed, and mud pits dug out. With a sigh, he said, "I still have to call Qingniao over; otherwise, cleaning such a large area by myself would be too slow."
"Hmph! When I’m not needed, you just toss me aside, but when you need me, you call me back, smelly brother!" In the mushroom house, playing with Immortal Jade and awaiting news at any moment, Qingniao was already more than curious upon hearing her brother personally come to request, but she still maintained her air without moving.
Jiang Yuan was never one for sweet-talking little girls; seeing her genuinely upset, he thought for a moment that after all, she had just split off a small flame for him, said nothing, was thrown out only to be called back for physical labor, which indeed was inappropriate.
"Then I’ll just clean up by myself, you can stay home and rest well." After saying this, he turned around to leave, which immediately made Qingniao anxious, "Smelly brother! Can’t you coax me a bit? Even an explanation that you’re worried about me being in danger there would do!"
Fearing she might miss the chance to observe secretly, she quickly got up, chased after him, and grabbed his sleeve, asking, "You were worried about my safety when you tossed me aside, weren’t you?"
With the stage set perfectly, Jiang Yuan promptly nodded and said, "Yeah, didn’t you say you dared not move? I figured that the big guy would summon numerous clones, what if I couldn’t stop them, wouldn’t you be in too much danger?"
"Not bad." Qingniao shouldered the giant axe, "Let’s go, I’ll go with you to clean it up!"
The collection work on the hillside was completed quickly, and there were no more small monsters in the valley. What was left were the basics of farming games, operations taught in the system’s beginner tutorial—chop trees, clear stones, harvest weeds, remove mud pits, dig wormholes.
Jiang Yuan took an axe out from the storage bag, aimed at a big tree, and chopped five or six times. The polluted tree emitting a faint black aura crashed down, turned into a flurry of light, and disappeared.
Qingniao, witnessing this up close, didn’t dare blink.
Sure enough, he was not using Spiritual Power, but definitely the more advanced Immortal Power!
She had been chopping trees in Maze Ridge for some time, not only having to operate her cultivation technique to resist the dense foul miasma the polluted trees emitted but also had to contend with the polluted trunk. Even with her innate purification abilities assisting, it would take dozens of chops to fell such a tree; with difficult ones, she’d even have to take a break midway.
What her brother used seemed to be an ordinary axe without a hint of Spiritual Power, yet he could easily chop down a large tree with just a few strikes. The key thing is, before subduing the Ice Flame, he had no purification methods, which can’t merely be assessed by realm level.
Eliminating all impossibilities, the conclusion is obvious—brother was using the advanced Immortal Power which is less prone to the strange pollution of Spiritual Power. Only this can explain why he is not worried about being polluted while being in the poisonous miasma!
"So, when I was trapped inside that bell, nearly suffocating to death, he was able to arrive in time." Recalling the encounter, Qingniao found that all her doubts were resolved.
For instance, how could he receive a distress bell?
Reincarnation is one of the most critical matters; though the details are hazy, she would have made ample preparations in her past life, and if any issues arose, there would be more than one backup plan. The secluded location for her retreat would have been extremely secretive.
Even if a decline into the Dharma-ending period troubled her plans, the retreat location would not be one that anyone could just waltz into.
Upon awakening and finding herself trapped, other than manipulating the Carefree Lotus to violently shake and create bell sounds, she had no means of sending out a distress signal—how did her brother so conveniently hear the bell and know someone was in need?
How could he enter the retreat space so effortlessly?
On the second occasion when she barely freed herself from the Carefree Lotus and was reborn, she was trapped in a stone cave nearly starved to death again, and her brother just happened to appear again!
This had been an unsolvable mystery before, not something she could directly ask about, but now...
Squinting her eyes proudly and puffing out her chest, Qingniao thought to herself, thanks to my cleverness, I’ve finally guessed the answer—brother must be a celestial being fallen to the mortal realm, owning an Immortal Jade mine, using Immortal Power as he pleases, possibly a Celestial Fire incarnate; detecting anomalies in the void is naturally not surprising!
"Hahaha, I thought my reincarnation with adversity was the Heavenly Dao’s tribulation. I never expected a turn of fortune; this was actually the Heavenly Dao rewarding diligence, letting me enjoy some good fortune. Luckily, with my smart instincts, I’ve also latched onto a golden opportunity!" The more she mentally filled in the gaps, the happier she felt, even working with more vigor.
The two, one big and one small, buried themselves in earnest work, finally completing the thorough clearance of the second area of the Maze Ridge dungeon just before dawn!