Chapter 103 - Snake Pond
Chapter 103 - Snake Pond
Chapter 103 – Snake Pond
Originally, this place should have been the best passage from Chenyu County to Tan Xi County. However, because the Tuo Wu Shan and the mountain spring water had been poured into this depression, it had formed a marsh that separated the two places.
There were dangers everywhere in Nanxuan swamp. Other than the quagmire that could swallow a person at any time, this place was alsaradise for mud snakes. There were also many poisonous mud snakes that could jump out to kill someone at any time.
Other than that, there were also some desperate rogue cultivators hiding in the Nanxuan swamp. Whether they were in the Yuxian or the Xi’an County, where they had committed murder, they had no choice but to hide in the swamps after being hunted down. There were very few human restrictions here, and killing people to steal their wealth was the most common thing.
However, before they came to the Nanxuan swamp, Yang Junshan noticed that there were a few cultivators from Stone Village that had organized themselves to venture into the swamp in an attempt to cross into the territory of the Xi’an County’s Tan Xi County. Most of them were carrying a lot of bags, and should be merchants who were openly using this chance to avoid the tax cards that the Heaven-Shaken Sect had set up on other passages, to transport the products of Rock Town to Tan Xi County, and then exchange them for items that were urgently needed to be returned to the town.
A cold light flashed past Yang Junshan’s body, and a finger-thick snake was slashed into two by him. It fell to the ground and struggled back and forth in the mud, splashing a bit of mud water.
was extremely familiar with Nanxuan swamp, he was able to discern whetheath or a trap was beneath the mud and water. Although it was still impossible for them to traverse the swamp on foot, at least the other people who entered the swamp would be able to walk much faster.
The horizontal blade in Yang Junshan’s hand was a weapon that Han Xiusheng used before, although it was not a spirit weapon, it was still made of refined steel, and the quality was not bad. This time when he entered the swamp, Han Xiusheng gave the blade to him for protection.
Other than that, Yang Junshan’s Seven Stones Bow was also slung across his shoulder. On his back, there waot of Runic Arrows, and even though the Seven Stones Fetal Bow was still considered soft for the current Yang Junshan, at this moment, he did not need the bow’s strength anymore.
The Heaven Glaze Mud was usually found in the mud puddles where mud snakes would gather, and the mud pools where mud snakes would gather would usually be where spirit energy would gather. The mud pools here had been used for a long time, and under the constant whipping of the snake’s body, a portion of the mud water that was mixed with spirit energy and mud snakes’ body fluids would turn into the spirit material, Heaven Glaze Mud.
The quality of the Heaven Glaze Mud was not necessarily low-grade, and with the change in color, the Heaven Glaze Mud could also be divided into high-middle and low-grade, and the green Heaven Glaze Mud was the lowest-grade and most common low-grade spirit material, which was also Yang Junshan’s first target to enter the swamp. If the Heaven Glaze Mud’s color turned red, then the quality would rise to mid-grade Dharma grade spirit materials, and if it turned pale yellow, then it could be used to refine high-grade Dharma spirit materials for High quality magical equipment.
Therefore, the most likely place where the Heaven Glaze Mud in the swamp existed was the place where the mud snakes gathered the most densely. And this time, the place Yang Junshan wanted to go was a snake pond from his memories from his previous life.
The horizontal blade in his hand was like an arm, the mud snakes that scuttled out of the quagmire were all sliced into two by Yang Junshan’s blade, regardless of their size. However, there were some mud snakes that continued to lurk on the road that Yang Junshan was walking on, until the moment they reached the bottom of their feet, they suddenly extended their heads out to bite their calves or feet, but their bones immediately turned soft from the impact of his stomp.
Although Yang Junshan had never engraved the Earth Shock Technique on the Immortal Foundation as his own life technique, he was still able to cultivate ordinary techniques after advancing to the fifth stage. There was no reason for him to not cultivate the two techniques that were passed down in the Yang Family.
Although he hadn’t successfully mastered the Earth Shock Technique in a short period of time, it wasn’t too difficult for him to use it to kill one or two mud snakes.
In his previous life, Yang Junshan had learned many things aogue cultivator, and this included the art of tracking. Although mud was flowing in the swamp and it would gradually cover up any traces of people walking across it, the footprints in front of him had yet to be filled with mud.
Judging from Yang Junshan’s experience, the tracks left on the ground should have been the path of two groups of people walking past from the front and back. The path that the first group of people had taken to get here was roughly the same as Yang Junshan’s, and they should also have come from Stone Town.
However, what made Yang Junshan curious was not that the paths of these two groups of people converged at the same direction, but that the group of people behind him were obviously following the group of people in front of them.
Ha, could it be that he had run into the evil side of a fugitive cultivator in the swamp?
However, it was clear that Yang Junshan was not interested in inserting his leg into the chase. After following along this path for a while, Yang Junshan realized that the reason why the last group of people were able to chase after the previous group of people was not because they also had experts that were following them like Yang Junshan. Instead, it was because the previous group of people should have a spy on them, and had left an extremely secretive mark on the road.
On top of the rocks that were occasionally exposed in the swamp, Yang Junshan dug ouiece of mud from above and took out a rune stone the size of a fingernail. This should be a tracking stone, and was usually used by cultivators to prevent stray into the swamp, and should be used by the previous group of people to place the rune stone inside the mud as the tracker for the later group.
However, maybe it was because they found the stone dirty or something else, but after walking along the marking, they did not pick it up. Instead, with a stomp of their feet, they shattered it, but they did not think that in the eyes of a tracking expert like Yang Junshan, this would not be an obvious sign.
After walking in this direction for a while, Yang Junshan turned and headed in another direction. He was getting closer and closer to the snake pond, and the mud snakes that attacked him along the way became more and more, more and more frequent.
Gradually, there came the sound of splashing and crackling from the distance, likiver rushing down, the sound of rushing water splashing and splashing against the rocks of the river.
As Yang Junshan walked further in, the sounds became louder and louder until he finally reached a giant boulder that was in the middle of a swamp. Then, he slowly stuck his body out from behind the boulder and looked at the scene in front of him.
Although it was not the first time Yang Junshan had seen the Serpent Pool, every time he saw it again, he would feel his scalp go numb.
These mud snakes intertwined with each other in the quagmire, swimming, whipping, playing, battling, and bustling. Countless mud flowers flew from the quagmire into the air, accompanied by the flutter of the mud snakes’ bodies, and then fell with a “hualala” sound. This was the sound that Yang Junshan had just heard.
Yang Junshan was trembling with fear as he bent his waist and slowly walked around the edge of the quagmire, afraid that he would alarm the tens of thousands of mud snakes in the quagmire. With his current strength, if he were to be chased by tens of thousands of mud snakes, he would not even be left with anything.
Some of them landed outside the mud puddle directly, while Yang Junshan swam along the mud pool, carefully inspecting the mud that flew out, to see if there were any specks of star-like glaze mud in it.
Before Yang Junshan did not have the strength to exterminate the tens of thousands of mud snakes in the pool, this method of inflicting suffering on others was the quickest method to do so, unless he had heaven defying luck and coincidentally found a piece of Celestial Glaze mud in the swamp.
Crash …
A clump of mud fell from the sky, splashing all over Yang Junshan’s face, but not only was he unable to dodge, he could not even wipe off the mud on his body, because Yang Junshan saw a ball of green mud falling to the ground and splashing everywhere.
Yang Junshan hurriedly collected the cyan colored water into a gourd. After that, he still had to precipitate, filter, and purify the mud water before he could use it to refine the low rank spirit material, Heaven Glaze Mud.
A mud snake suddenly scuttled out of the quagmire, causing Yang Junshan, who was extremely tensed, to immediately dash over. The scimitar in his hand flashed, and with a “Puchi” he chopped off the snake’s head.
Yang Junshan did not dare to use any techniques during this process, nor did he dare to pour any spiritual energy into his weapon.
The Mud Snake was extremely sensitive to Spirit Qi. Once Yang Junshan used the Spirit Qi in his body to cause the Spirit Qi to roil around, it could cause tens or even hundreds of Mud Snakes to rush out from the quagmire at any time, and if he did not kill the Mud Snake in time, more comrades would be summoned by the Mud Snake.
In the three hundred zhang radius of the quagmire, Yang Junshan carefully walked one round down, and after killing more than ten large and small mud serpents, he only collected abouenth of the large gourd’s length.
After resting for a while, Yang Junshan started to walk around the quagmire again. Just as he was halfway, as Yang Junshan was collecting a ball of glazed mud water that just happened to fly out, three or four mud snakes rolled out from the quagmire. The moment they landed, they were all flung away.
Yang Junshan saw that the situation was not good, he did not care about tidying up the Heaven Glaze Mud Water, and rushed forward with a few flashes of his blade, killing all the mud snakes around him. But at that moment, the hair on Yang Junshan’s back suddenly exploded, as someone was sneaking an attack from behind!
Yang Junshan did not care about the mud on the ground, witoll, he avoided a cold wind that blew past his back, and when he looked up, he immediately sucked in a cold breath, and without thinking, he turned and ran!
A 10 meter long gigantic mud snake that was as thick aerson’s calf had appeared at the place where he had just collected the heavenly glaze mud water. The cold wind just now was obviously from the mud water sweeping Yang Junshan with its tail, and seeing that Yang Junshan had actually escaped, the giant snake’s tongue in its mouth hissed loudly as it spat back and forth. Not far away, the noisy “crackling” sound of the mud snake suddenly stopped, and then, a wave of snakes suddenly surged out of the mud and chased after Yang Junshan.