Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 136

Han Li blinked and quickly took out the jade book, copying the patterns and structure of the teleportation array. He was considering whether he could repair it.

Having finished that, Han Li examined the huge cave again to see if he had missed anything. He discovered two transparent eggs behind a large stone pillar. As soon as he saw the fist-sized eggs, Han Li was overjoyed. They were clearly the eggs of the spider monster.

Having just experienced the terror of the demon beast, he wasn’t about to pass up such an opportunity. He took out a leather pouch for storing spirit beasts from his storage pouch and carefully placed the spider eggs inside.

Then, he examined the rest of the space even more carefully, but found nothing else.

He then chopped up the corpse of the spider demon beast, putting the parts into his storage pouch, and burned the bodies of the cultivators, including Lye Cheonmong and the others, before burying them.

He tried to burn the skeletons next, but after the flames subsided, seven or eight small, colorful beads condensed from the skeletons.

Now, all that was left was to leave this place. However, someone could discover it and damage the teleportation array again, so he shattered the entrance.

Now, the cave couldn’t be found from the outside, but he left a secret mark so that he could find it again later.

After that, he walked for a long time in the direction the wind was blowing before finally exiting the stalactite cave. Han Li was still worried that the demonic cultivators might be wandering around, so he immediately rode the Wind Spirit Shuttle and fled towards the Taiyue Mountains.

After that, he had a quiet period. After seven days, he returned to the Yellow Maple Valley. He first reported his experiences to the officer in charge of the sect and then returned to his residence.

The second great war had already begun. Moreover, although it was still in the early stages, they had the upper hand against the Demonic Path Six Sects due to reinforcements from other countries.

So, the atmosphere in the Yellow Maple Valley wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t as pessimistic as during the first great war.

Returning and confirming that his residence was as before, he took a breather. In fact, it didn’t seem wise to return to the sect now, as he could be conscripted again and sent somewhere, but the Seven Great Sects were severely punishing those who refused to go to battle or hid.

According to his expectations, both the Demonic Path and the Righteous Path were expanding their power simultaneously, so nowhere in the Tiannan region could be peaceful.

Although he wasn’t yet within their sphere of influence, it was only a matter of time before he was caught up in the war. If that was going to happen, it was better to be in the Yue Kingdom.

Returning to his residence, Han Li first placed the spider eggs in the Spirit Eye Spring. He intended to slowly absorb spiritual energy there to help them hatch.

Then, he immediately went into closed-door training for two days and succeeded in refining the first level of the Great Evolution Technique.

Whether it was a coincidence or not, the Azure Essence Sword Technique, which had been giving him trouble for a long time, also made progress, reaching the fifth level, and Han Li became a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator in both name and reality.

It was a joyous occasion. In any case, the higher his cultivation, the greater his chances of survival. However, strangely, even though several days had passed since he returned to the sect, he hadn’t been given any missions, which made him feel uneasy.

Whenever something felt strange, troublesome or dangerous things always happened.

But on the other hand, there were no safe missions at a time when the war with the Demonic Path had already begun. After surviving a near-death experience guarding the spirit stone mine, he didn’t care about any mission.

As soon as he had this thought, his mind calmed down. Since he had been given time, he decided to find out what the Great Shift Token was.

First of all, there was no need to explain the matter of Donghyeonha to his master, Lee Hwawon, and Hongbul. They had also been given missions and were not in the sect.

So, after searching for two days at the Heavenly Knowledge Pavilion in the Yellow Maple Valley, he found a document recording the Great Shift Token in a book called ‘Ancient Secrets’.

According to the book, this navy blue, shiny spirit token was surprisingly a magical artifact that ancient cultivators had to have when traveling long distances.

With the Great Shift Token, one could travel a great distance at once and not be harmed by the pressure created by the difference in space-time.

And if the teleportation distance was short, the pressure was negligible, so he had never felt anything strange in the teleportation array that connected the inside and outside of the Evil Rock Battlefield.

Today’s teleportation arrays could only travel about a hundred miles at best, but ancient teleportation arrays could travel a thousand or even ten thousand miles, so there was no comparison in performance. However, these teleportation arrays were so valuable that a family or sect would only have three or four at most.

After learning the use of the Great Shift Token, Han Li began to speculate that what he had hidden in the cave was an ancient teleportation array. This speculation made his heart race.

If everything was true, he could use the Great Shift Token and the ancient teleportation array to travel at least a thousand miles away.

Then, he could end these chaotic days of the Seven Great Sects and the Demonic Path Six Sects fighting and go to a completely new area to cultivate.

He immediately searched for books related to ancient teleportation arrays to see if there was a way to fix them.

However, after searching for several days, he found nothing about ancient teleportation arrays. But then, a person came to Han Li’s mind.

The person he thought of was Je Woonso. Je Woonso’s formation master friend seemed to be well-versed in the Inverted Five Elements Formation [a complex formation technique], so he must be well-versed in formations.

And since the ancient teleportation array was also a kind of formation, his friend might be able to repair it.

When he returned to his residence, the spider eggs had grown larger. The Spirit Eye Spring had accelerated their hatching. So, Han Li drew a formation to control the eggs or young of demon beasts and dropped a few drops of blood there.

Then, the formation activated, and the blood droplets were absorbed into the eggs. And as he was putting the eggs back into the Spirit Eye Spring, a talisman flew in, conveying an order to gather at the medical hall. A new mission had been given!

* * *

In the stone mounds of the Geumgowon border in the Chagi Kingdom, where a fierce battle was raging, Han Li’s pair of Five Dragon Talons were madly attacking an early-stage Foundation Establishment disciple of the Ghost Spirit Sect, using their brilliant dark light and the blade of the Golden Talisman Mother Sword.

Although the opponent was covered in a dark black light that exuded killing intent and was handling skeletons, he was soon torn to pieces by Han Li’s storm-like attacks.

He skillfully took the opponent’s storage pouch and immediately left the place.

He had already made some gains, and it was getting dark, so it was time for the usual Nascent Soul cultivators [a high level of cultivation] of the Demonic and Righteous Paths to become active.

If he got caught up in their fight, he would be dead. Han Li shuddered as he recalled the battle between the Nascent Soul cultivators he had witnessed.

A year ago, he had been ordered to transport spirit stones here, and since then, he had been staying in one place, acting as high-level cannon fodder for the Seven Great Sects.

He had been conscripted into battles of thousands of people several times, and he had often fought against enemies scattered in Geumgowon, just like before.

After the second all-out war between the Demonic Path Six Sects and the Seven Great Sects ended in a draw, the situation changed to a strange one where there was a big fight every month centered on Geumgowon, and small fights on the remaining days.

Even if the big fights were fierce, there weren’t many casualties. Unless one was truly risking their life, they could hide in the barrier when in danger.

In the small fights, the difference in strength between Nascent Soul cultivators and Foundation Establishment cultivators was too great, so Foundation Establishment cultivators killed each other from dawn to dusk, and when night fell, Nascent Soul cultivators came out to fight.

If Nascent Soul cultivators fought one-on-one, it was possible to defeat or even seriously injure their opponent, but it wasn’t easy to kill them.

In any case, if one had reached the Nascent Soul stage, they could run away at full speed, so their speed was tremendous. As a result, they had lost hundreds of Foundation Establishment cultivators in the past year, but not a single Nascent Soul cultivator had died.

Qi Refining cultivators [the lowest level of cultivation] had low magical power, so they only did auxiliary activities and suffered almost no damage. However, after more than a year of non-stop ambushes and battles, it was no longer possible to continue.

Everyone was trying to weaken the other side while trying to preserve their own strength as much as possible, and they were sensing that the final battle was not far away.

Han Li first returned to his residence. He firmly closed the door and set up a barrier using flags that could activate the Small Restriction Formation. Now it was time to look at the gains he had made today.

“It’s just full of skeletons and flags again! Who would use such strange things if not the Ghost Spirit Sect guys? Oh, this sword is a bit decent. And…”

After rummaging through the miscellaneous items, he quickly kept the useful magical artifacts or items and put the worthless or unnecessary ones into a separate storage pouch. Then, he took the storage pouch, broke the barrier, and left his residence.

He walked through the alleys and went to the most conspicuous place among the many rooms.

This wooden house was about seventy feet in area, and the entire house was painted with gold paint, so when it was lit by the sunset, it gave off an atmosphere as if it were made of pure gold.

He went inside without hesitation, and surprisingly, dozens of cultivators were setting up stalls and trading, and there were many people looking at the goods or haggling.

Han Li skillfully went to a few shops and exchanged the items in his storage pouch, and soon he had almost a hundred spirit stones in his hand.

He then headed to the largest stall in the area. It was three or four times the size of the others and was run by a plump Foundation Establishment cultivator. Without a word, Han Li handed the storage pouch containing the spirit stones to the plump cultivator.

“Brother Jin, it’s five hundred spirit stones, so I can exchange them for Dragon’s Roar Grass now, right?”

“Haha! It’s Junior Brother Han. You’ve gathered spirit stones so quickly, you’re really amazing!”

He looked at Han Li, smiled, and took the storage pouch, concentrating to check the number of spirit stones.

“Here, take the Dragon’s Roar Grass!”

Brother Jin smiled broadly and handed over a jade box. Han Li took the jade box, checked the contents, nodded, and put it in his arms. Then, he looked at him with expectant eyes.

“Do you have any news about the pill formulas I asked for last time? I’ll pay well as long as it’s a pill formula.”

“Junior Brother, pill formulas are rare, and if a Foundation Establishment cultivator has one, it’s like a treasure, so who would sell it? Besides, a pill formula that is effective for Foundation Establishment cultivators. I’m doing my best, but I haven’t had any luck.”

The plump Brother Jin made a troubled expression and groaned. Disappointed, Han Li forced a smile.

“It’s okay. It can’t be helped. I’m grateful that you’ve already sold me two formulas.”

“Well, those were almost useless, so I couldn’t throw them away for years. I was really surprised when you said you wanted to buy them! Even if you’re trying to improve the pill formulas, it takes too much time and effort! It’s almost impossible to succeed even after researching for several generations.”

At Han Li’s words, Brother Jin looked impressed.

While staying here, Han Li was very happy to hear that there was a temporary trading post in the camp. And surprisingly, rare items such as raw materials, herbs, magical artifacts, and cultivation techniques that were hard to find in the market were pouring out here.

He gathered all the remaining materials for the pill formulas he had been searching for here. Now, if he went back and matured the herbs and made the pills, he would be able to achieve rapid progress once again.

He had even spent almost a thousand spirit stones at this plump man’s shop and obtained two pill formulas that he had been longing for, so it was a huge gain.
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