An Yi was completely unaware that she had gone naked, instead she hugged Ning Cheng tighter and even trembled a little.
“An Yi ……” Ning Cheng was about to call An Yi to get up when he also felt that something was wrong, there was haze everywhere around him and An Yi, even An Yi’s snow white breasts were blocked by the haze and appeared to be hidden.
“There are soul soldiers ……” An Yi’s tone was a little trembling, she seemed extremely afraid of those soul soldiers.
Ning Cheng had long since tossed the problem of An Yi’s breasts aside, and instantly sat up, not even caring about being tired, and grabbed An Yi and hid behind a reef.
A headless man was carrying a human head in his hand, moving slowly with his back hunched in the faint haze. After walking a few steps, the man suddenly took out a bloody piece of palm from inside the package behind his back, and then stuffed it into the mouth of the human head in his hand. That human head, which he was carrying in his hand, unexpectedly slowly began to chew.
Ning Cheng felt his scalp tingling, even when he was on Fang Yijian’s ship, he did not have this eerie and terrifying feeling.
After that human head had chewed on one palm, it suddenly turned its head in a direction of its own accord, and its two dead grey eyes stared directly at the position where Ning Cheng and An Yi were hiding, and there were even some bloodstains at the corners of its mouth.
Ning Cheng felt a coldness in his heart as an aura emanated from the Xuanhuang Pearl once again, driving away that icy coldness.
Luckily, the headless man did not seem to be aware that the human head in his hand was looking at Ning Cheng, and still walked unhurriedly into the haze, slowly disappearing.
“Brother Ning, that soul soldier has no head ……” An Yi’s voice trembled a little, apparently she had never seen such a bizarre thing.
Ning Cheng said in a deep voice, “An Yi, I suspect that it wasn’t a soul soldier, when we first came here, this was just an island. Now there is suddenly a lot more mist and it is impossible to see clearly around. It’s likely that this place is a formation, maybe an illusion formation. The one without a human head, or maybe it doesn’t exist at all and we are hallucinating ourselves.”
Although comforting An Yi, Ning Cheng himself did not have a clue in his heart, he was not sure if it was an illusion, because the scene just now was too real.
An incense stick later, the fog gradually dispersed and the original scene once again returned before Ning Cheng and An Yi’s eyes.
“I know now, this is Lan Sha Island.” Ning Cheng woke up, he felt that this place was somewhat familiar, the surroundings were clearly on the map that Daoist Ye had given him.
Ning Cheng could not forget anything, although he had thrown away those two diagrams, he still remembered clearly what was drawn in the formation diagram. The periphery of Lan Sha Island that that formation diagram drew was the kind of scene in front of him.
“Then what do we do? I’ve heard that the Golden Cicada Fruit has appeared here, and there will be many people coming over then.” An Yi asked with some worry once she heard that this was Lan Sha Island.
Ning Cheng immediately said, “That Daoist of Karma wants us to join their small group, he is definitely uneasy about good intentions. Whether that Daoist of Karma has already come on the fifteenth day of last month or if he is coming on the fifteenth day of this month, we are not strong enough to intervene. This month’s fifteenth should be a few days away, so let’s find a safe place to hide first.”
If he had a boat, Ning Cheng would want to leave this place right now. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a boat, so he couldn’t get away at all. He simply did not believe that there was a Golden Cicada Fruit here, and if there was such a thing as a Golden Cicada Fruit, would he be able to wait for a mere mole at the third level of Qi gathering like the Ye Daoist to snatch it?
Ning Cheng and An Yi both dared not enter the heart of the island and walked along the edge of the island for more than an hour before finally finding a huge reef again at the edge of the island.
Ning Cheng took out the lower grade magic weapon long knife that he had obtained from Pi San, found a hidden place among the rocks and started digging a hole. With Ning Cheng’s fourth level Qi gathering cultivation and a lower grade magic weapon, and the fact that he did not cherish this magic weapon at all, in just half a day’s time, Ning Cheng had dug out a huge reef rock cave.
At this time, An Yi had already changed into a set of clothes and followed Ning Cheng into the newly dug out reef cave. Not long after the two of them had entered, the outside was once again shrouded in fog.
“This place is really weird, I need to think of a way to refine some formation flags and then set up a formation to seal this cave up. An Yi, you have spirit stones, go ahead and cultivate on your own.” Ning Cheng saw the thickening mists outside and secretly thanked himself for making the right choice. If he was still in the mist, he might have lost his way and gone straight into the heart of the island.
An Yi had no objection to Ning Cheng’s opinion, she knew that Ning Cheng needed an extremely large amount of spirit stones for his cultivation, and it would be pointless for her to give these spirit stones to Ning Cheng, so she might as well cultivate them herself. When her cultivation level was high, she would then go and help Ning Cheng find spirit stones for cultivation.
Seeing An Yi start cultivating, Ning Cheng took out some materials and started refining formation flags. He had never learnt how to refine weapons, but there were some simple introductions to refining formation flags in Formation Fundamentals. After two days of fumbling and countless trials, Ning Cheng had surprisingly refined some first grade formation flags. Although they were still a bit crude, these formation flags were already capable of setting up first level formations.
Ning Cheng, however, was very dissatisfied and he somewhat regretted that he had not asked Fang Yijian for a few jade slips for refining before. At this point, he was already very clear that refinement and formations were really closely linked. If he didn’t learn how to refine weapons well, he definitely couldn’t become a good formation master.
Thinking about the fact that weapon refinement and formations were closely linked, Ning Cheng sighed, weapon refinement would definitely not be easier than pill refinement. The Xuanhuang Pearl could only help him correct his cultivation techniques, but it would not allow him to quickly master the skills of alchemy and refining. It looked like even if he mastered more formation theories, it would still be unlikely for him to become a formidable formation master.
After simply setting up the cave with a level one concealment formation, Ning Cheng took out the several jade slips given by Fang Yijian. Of the two spell jade slips, Ning Cheng could not see a single word. He did not know if his cultivation level was too low, or if the jade slips given by Fang Yijian were fake.
Ning Cheng took out those four more spell jade slips, the first one could not be seen, the second one could not be seen, and the third one ……
Ning Cheng had already decided in his heart that Fang Yijian had cheated him, even if he was unable to see everything on the jade slips clearly, his cultivation technique was already corrected by the Xuanhuang Pearl, and his divine thoughts were definitely much stronger than the average Qi gathering cultivator. Now he couldn’t even see a single word on the jade slip, so what was Fang Yijian doing if he wasn’t lying to him?
This thought changed when Ning Cheng picked up the fourth jade slip, the fourth jade slip Ning Cheng was actually able to use his divine thoughts to scan the contents.
“Ru Yi Xuan Mu Skill ……”
The words at the beginning were not a problem for Ning Cheng, but the later it got, the more blurred it became, and when Ning Cheng saw ‘Gather Qi to form a Yuan, achieve Condensed Truth’, his brain ached and he could no longer read on. However, with Ning Cheng’s perverted memory, he simply couldn’t forget it if he read it once.
This was a wood-based gong method, and Ning Cheng closed his eyes and carefully thought about this gong method once more. He found that this gong method was no better than the Ning Family gong method that he had corrected.
Ning Cheng himself did not want to cultivate this gong method, so he thought of An Yi. At this moment, An Yi was cultivating, and after listening to Fang Yijian’s words, Ning Cheng already felt that An Yi’s cultivation technique was also very average. He interrupted An Yi who was in the middle of cultivation and asked, “An Yi, what kind of spiritual root do you have? What kind of gong method do you cultivate?”
An Yi opened her eyes and said, “My main spiritual root is wood, and I cultivate the Mortal Wood Technique. My master said that when I condense my truth, I need to find a new gong method again.”
“The Mortal Wood Skill, ah, it should be the lowest grade Mortal Grade gong method. Among the gong methods that Fang Yijian gave me, there is a Ru Yi Xuan Mu Skill, I have no use for it, so I’ll leave it to you to cultivate.” With that, Ning Cheng tossed the jade slip in his hand to An Yi.
“Xuanmu Skill? This should be a Xuan level technique, something that my master has never even seen, Fang Yijian just gave it to you out of hand, he is really rich.”
An Yi said in awe as she took the jade slip. Even if she wasn’t a flamboyant personality, she was still a little excited to get a Xuan-grade gongfa. Of course she knew how precious Xuan-ranked merit methods were, and her master said that even the Three Star Academy did not necessarily have a few Xuan-ranked merit methods.
The lowest grade of cultivation techniques was the Mortal Grade, followed by the True Grade, and only higher than the True Grade was the Xuan Grade. And after the Xuan level there are Earth level and Heaven level techniques, which are all legendary.
Even if An Yi was of such a nature, when she got a Xuan-level gongfa, she couldn’t wait to read it out through her divine thoughts. Unfortunately, the strength of her divine thoughts was far less than Ning Cheng’s, and she simply could not see a single word.
Once Ning Cheng took a look at An Yi’s expression, he knew that An Yi was unable to read the jade slip, so he simply said, “I will speak to you and you can just write it down.”
An Yi did not find it unusual that Ning Cheng could see the contents of the jade slip, during the time she had been with Ning Cheng, she had become more and more accustomed to some of the things that happened to Ning Cheng.
Although An Yi’s memory was good, it was far from being as perverted as Ning Cheng’s. It was only after Ning Cheng kept talking several times that An Yi memorised all the Qi gathering techniques of the Ruyi Xuan Mu Duel.
“Brother Ning, why don’t I practice the ‘Ru Yi Xuan Mu Duel’ instead?” Immediately after An Yi finished memorising the Qi gathering technique of the ‘Ru Yi Xuan Mu Duel’, it became clear that this technique was many times stronger than her original ‘Mortal Wood Technique’.
Ning Cheng, like An Yi, had no idea of the dangers of changing the cultivation technique, since it was a good technique, then of course it was nothing unusual to change a good technique to cultivate it.
Ning Cheng was about to agree with An Yi’s words when a refreshing fragrance suddenly entered the reef cave. Ning Cheng took a few sniffs and instantly felt refreshed. He subconsciously stood up, “What is this smell? It seems to be a familiar scent of spiritual fruits, wait, I remember ……”
“It’s the Golden Cicada Fruit.” An Yi also stood up, Ning Cheng’s book of primary spiritual herbs was still the one she had given to Ning Cheng, Ning Cheng could know from that book what the scent of the Golden Cicada Fruit was like, she obviously knew it too.
“There’s really a Golden Cicada Fruit?” Ning Cheng’s tone rose somewhat excitedly.