Chapter 158: Chapter 156: A Super Top-Grade Natural Treasure

After jumping into the water, Qin Li never even considered heading downstream. According to conventional logic, going with the current was far easier than going against it. For a Celestial Level Martial Artist, it would have been an incredibly simple task, allowing one to cover a great distance in the blink of an eye. Swimming upstream, however, would be quite difficult, even for a martial artist of that caliber!

If the river held danger, it wouldn’t matter whether he went upstream or downstream!

Thus, the moment Qin Li leaped into the river, he had already decided to do the exact opposite: head upstream!

Sure enough, he had just struggled against the turbulent current for less than three hundred meters upstream when he felt the water surge even more violently. It was an enraged strike from Hai Tongtian.

Qin Li was secretly alarmed. ’Killing two Celestial Shattering Realm Martial Artists was a complete fluke!’

He had exploited the common knowledge of the Celestial Essence Continent’s Martial Artists: Primordial Power fluctuations.

As for killing the second one, Qin Li had pinned all his hopes on the poisoned dagger he got from Shadow. He had tested it before: after pricking a chicken’s skin just a tiny bit, the chicken died in an instant. When a dog then ate the chicken, it also died on the spot!

Qin Li had thought that even if the Celestial Shattering Realm Martial Artist could use his cultivation to force out the poison, he wouldn’t recover his combat strength quickly, thus greatly reducing the pressure on himself. He never imagined the poison on Shadow’s dagger would be so potent that even a Celestial Shattering Realm Martial Artist couldn’t withstand it.

Qin Li’s upstream pace wasn’t fast, and he didn’t dare surface anytime soon. The water could mask his aura, but it could also mask his enemies’. ’Who knows if they’re thinking the same thing I am, doing the exact opposite and waiting to deliver a Thunderous Strike the moment I pop my head out?’

So, Qin Li swam for a good mile or two underwater in one go. The pressure of the current was immense. Although his Combat Power was formidable, his cultivation realm was, after all, only equivalent to the peak of the Celestial Level. He couldn’t stay submerged for too long. After navigating a stretch of rapids, he felt his stamina severely depleted, and only then did he quietly begin swimming toward the opposite bank.

’Even if they spot me,’ he thought, ’at least I’ll have a head start to escape.’

He felt himself reach the bank. Looking up through the clear water, he could see dense thickets of bushes, their branches dipping into the river.

Qin Li swam into the thicket in one motion and broke the surface, gasping for breath. There was no movement anywhere. Only then did he let out a long sigh of relief. ’Looks like I’ve fooled those two old geezers for now.’

’Otherwise, if those two teamed up, I’d be no match for them!’

Qin Li surveyed the scene before him. Both sides of the river were flanked by rolling mountain ranges—steep, majestic, and imposing.

Just then, Qin Li suddenly sensed immense danger approaching from the water. He immediately shot into the air from within the thicket.

A pitch-black monster, over a dozen meters long, emerged. It resembled a gigantic catfish, but its body was covered in sharp spines and appeared incredibly dense and heavy.

The monster’s bite missed Qin Li, and its body fell back into the water with a massive SPLASH, sending up a huge wave. A dark shadow then circled in the water for a moment before swimming back toward the middle of the river.

Qin Li broke out in a cold sweat. ’Thank goodness I didn’t run into this thing while I was still in the water,’ he thought. ’It would have been a grueling battle, and I might not even have been a match for it.’

Standing on the bank, Qin Li circulated his power to dry his clothes. He gazed at the gray mountains in the distance, which seemed to hold endless secrets, inspiring a sense of dread.

Gritting his teeth, Qin Li decided to press onward into the mountains. ’At the very least, I need to quickly get the lay of the land in this Mysterious Land where Paradise Celestial Palace is located. Otherwise, if another crisis hits, I’ll be at a huge disadvantage!’

First, Qin Li sat cross-legged to meditate and regulate his breathing for two hours. Once he had recovered eighty percent of his strength, he stood up and started toward the distant mountains.

As dusk fell, the animals in the mountains began to stir. In less than an hour, Qin Li had already sensed several auras so powerful they sent a shiver down his spine.

That’s right—auras powerful enough to make him tremble!

For an aura to feel terrifying even to Qin Li, the Spirit Beast had to be at least at the Transformation realm! When comparing Spirit Beasts to humans, if one were to use the ranking system for Martial Artists, a Spirit Beast of a given rank would be slightly stronger than its human counterpart.

In other words, an ordinary Celestial Shattering Realm Martial Artist would be no match for a Spirit Beast that had reached the Transformation stage!

Fortunately, Qin Li was exceptionally good at concealing his aura, not letting the slightest fluctuation escape. Even if those incredibly powerful Spirit Beasts sensed something passing through their territory, they generally wouldn’t attack unless they felt their domain was threatened.

By the time it was late at night, Qin Li estimated he had walked at least thirty miles. Because he didn’t dare release his aura in these mountain forests, his pace was slow.

At the same time, Qin Li confirmed something: the masters of this Mysterious Land were not necessarily human. Many powerful Spirit Beasts also coexisted with humans, sharing the abundant Spiritual Qi within this land.

It seemed to be a situation where they each kept to themselves.

Qin Li’s eyes narrowed, a glint in them as a thought suddenly took root in his mind. ’Could I find a way to provoke these mountain Spirit Beasts and get them to attack the humans?’

’It seems that Paradise Celestial Palace is the only Sect in this entire Mysterious Land. And this area I’m in now seems to be completely uninhabited!’

’In that case, this area must be a forbidden zone, even for the disciples of Paradise Celestial Palace!’ At this thought, Qin Li couldn’t help but break into a wide grin. ’And framing people just so happens to be my favorite pastime!’

Qin Li recalled a passage from Prince Wu’s journal: "The amount of Spiritual Qi between Heaven and Earth is ultimately finite. All manner of spiritual flora are born from and nourished by Spiritual Qi, and they, in turn, release Spiritual Qi back, replenishing Heaven and Earth and creating a cycle. The more spiritual flora in a place, the more abundant its Spiritual Qi!"

"However, when human Martial Artists cultivate, they absorb the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi but cannot release it to replenish the world. This causes the Spiritual Qi to dwindle over time—truly, an act that goes against the heavens! Human greed is limitless. Many Martial Artists, unsatisfied with the Spiritual Qi they can absorb through cultivation alone, began refining all kinds of powerful herbs and medicines into Elixirs, hoping to achieve faster results."

"Little do they know that all things have their limits, and excess is as bad as deficiency!"

"After a hundred or a thousand years, perhaps the effects are not felt. But after tens of thousands of years, all the herbs and plants containing great energy will be plundered. And after tens of thousands more, there will be no Spiritual Qi left in the world!"

Qin Li didn’t pay much mind to that last part. He wasn’t a Saint and didn’t possess some great, compassionate heart. He lived as he pleased and didn’t give a damn what floods came after he was gone.

But he remembered the earlier sentence crystal clear: the more abundant the Spiritual Qi, the higher the chance of finding Top-Grade spiritual flora and Spiritual Medicine!

In this mountain range, which spanned hundreds of square miles, Qin Li could clearly feel that the Spiritual Qi was far more abundant than elsewhere. This meant one thing: there had to be countless rare and wondrous treasures here!

At this thought, Qin Li almost had the urge to laugh out loud. A smirk played on his lips and a derisive glint flashed in his eyes. ’Paradise Celestial Palace? You can all go find your "paradise" in the Western Realm!’

The Innate Purple Qi’s ability to sense Spiritual Qi was truly a one-of-a-kind skill. Soon enough, Qin Li sensed a dense wave of Spiritual Qi drifting toward him from the path ahead.

After walking for another dozen miles or so, he didn’t even need any special senses to tell the difference. Even an ordinary person would have noticed something was off!

The Spiritual Qi here was so thick it was absolutely outrageous!

Spiritual Qi was the very essence of Heaven and Earth. On the Celestial Essence Continent, the Spiritual Qi was already incredibly abundant, which was how it could produce so many Martial Artists capable of using combat techniques.

But on the Earth of Qin Li’s past life, it was precisely because the Spiritual Qi had been depleted that the old Daoist had been unable to reach the Innate Realm in his entire life. ’With the old master’s talent and aptitude,’ Qin Li mused, ’if he had lived in this world, he would have surely become a peerless expert!’

Qin Li sighed with emotion as he stared, dumbfounded, at the white mist before him.

It was a patch of Spiritual Qi so dense it had condensed into a mist!

Qin Li didn’t make a reckless move. He was tempted, like a starving man lunging for bread, to pounce on that Spiritual Qi and devour it, but he managed to restrain the impulse.

’I just stumbled upon this place by sheer luck. There’s no way I’d believe there isn’t an absurdly powerful Spirit Beast guarding it!’

’For that kind of freakishly powerful Spirit Beast, it would be able to sense even the slightest fluctuation in the Spiritual Qi. And what’s countless times more valuable than the Spiritual Qi itself must be its source!’

’A treasure of heaven and earth!’

’And it has to be an absolutely supreme-grade one to release such an astonishing amount of Spiritual Qi!’

In all the records he’d ever read, Qin Li had never come across a treasure capable of making the Spiritual Qi in a several-hundred-meter radius condense into a fog.

To say he wasn’t greedy would be an absolute lie. Qin Li’s eyes were practically glowing green with avarice.

But he still held back, spreading his Innate Purple Qi out bit by bit. If it were visible to the naked eye, one would see that the Innate Purple Qi emanating from his body was infinitely more delicate than the morning mist, producing not the slightest energy fluctuation. Even the most sensitive creature would likely feel nothing amiss.

Ten meters, one hundred meters, one thousand meters... two thousand meters!

He had reached his limit!

Sensing no dangerous auras, Qin Li let out a long breath. ’Thank heavens,’ he thought. ’It seems the Spirit Beast that lives here isn’t around at the moment!’

’And for other Spirit Beasts, this place must also be a forbidden zone!’

’Otherwise, there’s no way a treasure like this would be left untouched, with no other Spirit Beasts trying to get their claws on it!’

’In that case, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands!’

Qin Li’s heart pounded with excitement.