Chapter 715: Monarch Blood Grass
Just as Xiao Chen stomped on the ground and flew up together with the tiny Azure Dragon, a resonant dragon roar rang out.
Xiao Chen turned into a true dragon and soared into the sky, moving like a bolt of lightning as he charged at the Flying Celestial Demonic Panther at extreme speed.
The tiny Azure Dragon in his dantian moved along his meridians and charged out of his body. In that instant, Xiao Chen also drew his Lunar Shadow Saber.
“Ka ca!”
Purple lightning lit up the sky. From the moment Xiao Chen turned into a dragon and soared up to the moment he drew his saber, only one breath passed.
Now, he easily grasped that feeling that he had struggled to find previously.
When the saber light flashed, it was like a true dragon opened its jaws in fury. An unrivaled might immediately tore this Rank 8 Demonic Beast in half.
With just one attack, Xiao Chen dispatched a Rank 8 Demonic Beast, which could rival a Superior Grade Martial Monarch.
Blood spattered across the sky. The halves of the Flying Celestial Demonic Panther quickly fell to the ground.
Xiao Chen sheathed his saber and stood upright. Then he revealed a faint expression of joy. He had never executed Soaring Dragon this smoothly before.
He had completed this move in one breath, not feeling any obstruction when he attacked right as he got that feeling in his heart.
Xiao Chen descended to the Demonic Beast corpse and thought to himself, The Item Spirit of the Azure Dragon Palace was right. The problem was due to my Martial Spirit.
Ao Jiao, an exquisite figure dressed in green, squinted as she stood on the truncated mountain.
As she looked at Xiao Chen filled with renewed self-confidence, her lips curled up in a satisfied smile.
Xiao Chen’s figure flashed, and he landed beside Ao Jiao once again. After some thought, he took out the brocade box containing the Savage Battlefield map.
Originally, he had intended to practice the Dragon Tone Art before seeking out forbidden lands. However, the surging vast Quintessence in his body, in addition to the Small Perfection Soaring Dragon, gave him great confidence.
He had already wasted a lot of time. He could not afford to continue dawdling.
All the experts of the Tianwu Domain’s younger generation had probably revealed themselves already. The situation could change at any time. Xiao Chen had to grasp this fleeting opportunity.
If he did not make a move now, when would he?!
Ao Jiao looked at the brocade box that Xiao Chen took out and asked curiously, “What is that? To think it actually needs a Spirit Sealing Box to contain it!”
He opened the brocade box and then took out an ancient-looking beast-skin map full of Spiritual Energy from the bottom layer.
The instant Xiao Chen took the beast-skin map out of the box, the boundless savage Qi contained in the map surged out. Then, the savage Qi quickly merged with this vast Savage Battlefield, indistinguishable from each other and forming a wondrous connection.
Ao Jiao’s lashes fluttered as her bright eyes opened wide. At first, her face was blank from shock. After she reacted, her expression changed.
Suppressing the excitement in her heart, she said joyfully, “This is the Savage Battlefield map! Where did you get it?”
Xiao Chen opened up the Savage Battlefield map and gave Ao Jiao a simple explanation of how he managed to obtain it from the loose cultivator Lone Wolf.
After Ao Jiao heard him out, she sighed and said, “You are really lucky. Back then, Sang Mu had searched the entire Tianwu Domain to no avail looking for this map.”
“This Savage Battlefield map is so great that the Thunder Emperor spent so much effort searching for it?”
Ao Jiao nodded and said very naturally, “Of course. Before the war of the Emperors, the Savage Battlefield was one of the two centers of the Kunlun Realm. It hid the secrets of the Immortal Epoch’s destruction. All you see now is just the tip of the iceberg.
“The Savage Battlefield was a land of fortuitous encounters even for the Martial Emperors of the Kunlun Realm.”
Xiao Chen revealed a grave expression. It had not occurred to him that the Savage Battlefield was so vast and boundless.
“Wasn’t it said that Martial Sages and above could not enter the Savage Battlefield? How could Martial Emperors come here? That is too ridiculous.”
Before coming here, Xiao Chen had heard that there would be no Martial Sages coming on this experiential training. Even for the loose cultivators, there would not be any Martial Sages who dared to break this restriction.
Ao Jiao smiled faintly and quickly replied, “The experiential training of sect disciples only happens once every three years when the Demonic Barrier weakens. During other times, there are not that many restrictions. How could Martial Emperors care about that Demonic Barrier?”
With this explanation, Ao Jiao laid to rest one of Xiao Chen’s doubts. After that, the two stopped discussing that topic and focused on examining the various forbidden lands on the map.
Wherever he looked, a vast scene would appear in his mind. Mountains and rivers appeared one after another with nothing missing.
Xiao Chen could even clearly see the Demonic Beasts around the forbidden land. It was like he was visiting these places personally. He found it extremely interesting.
Every forbidden land had a red marker. Xiao Chen knew his limits and did not bother to check anything else besides the ones with the weakest shade of red.
However, even with just these, Xiao Chen got a headache from simply looking at them.
Even the forbidden lands with the lowest danger were not places he could explore on his own. The Demonic Beasts around them were mutated Demonic Beasts, much stronger than regular Demonic Beasts.
Furthermore, the environments in the forbidden lands were extremely hazardous, making one’s scalp go numb. There were pools of boundless lava, forests with seven-colored poison spreading throughout the place, or even ancient formations.
Xiao Chen withdrew his gaze and sighed, “It looks like my thoughts were too optimistic earlier. Without advancing to Martial Sage, it would be too difficult to enter these forbidden lands alone.”
When Ao Jiao heard his muttering, she smiled faintly. “Naturally, it would be difficult to go through the entire forbidden land. However, you can still obtain a bountiful harvest just by going to the surroundings of forbidden lands that no one has discovered.”
“Xiao Chen’s eyes lit up as he asked, “What have you discovered?”
Ao Jiao pointed at a corner of the map and said, “Look here, here, and here.”
“Monarch Blood Grass!” Xiao Chen exclaimed in pleasant surprise.
The forbidden lands that Ao Jiao pointed out had a stalk of Monarch Blood Grass sitting at desolate corners in their periphery.
Furthermore, these forbidden lands were not very far from Xiao Chen’s current location, so traveling there would not take up a lot of time.
Xiao Chen had already experienced the miraculousness of the Monarch Blood Grass for himself. It could temper the blood and strengthen Qi and blood, and it even contained the aura of an ancient sovereign. Just one stalk enabled him to resist the aura of a Martial Sage.
If he could obtain a few more stalks, the sovereign’s bloodline in his blood would increase significantly. By then, not only could it be used to resist a Martial Sage’s aura, but it might also be capable of attacking.
“However, these stalks of Monarch Blood Grass do not seem easy to get. They all have mutated Rank 8 Demonic Beasts guarding them,” Xiao Chen said with a frown after he calmed down.
Mutated Demonic Beasts were challenging. In the Bloody Ground Wasteland, even Shui Lingling had not dared to be careless when dealing with a group of mutated flying Demonic Beasts.
Ao Jiao withdrew her finger and said placidly, “That is natural. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. You are too naive to think that you can obtain treasures just by having a map.”
Xiao Chen nodded quietly in agreement. After thinking for a while, he said, “Let’s find the section with the Dragon Burial Mound. I want to see how many of the True Dragon Caves are open already.”
After looking around on the Savage Battlefield map, Xiao Chen finally understood that it would not be possible to roam the Savage Battlefield on his own, not even in the forbidden lands with the lowest danger ratings.
At this moment, his greatest hope was still the True Dragon Cave where the seven giants were taking the lead to explore. Only when they entered into the depths of a forbidden land could they obtain something marvelous.
Ao Jiao moved her finger gently and quickly found the Dragon Burial Mound on the map. Then, she looked around for the place with the most people. That would be the True Dragon Cave that was discovered recently.
She could see many people with excited expressions around the pitch-dark hole, a continuous stream of them entering it.
Corpses of several cultivators were visible on the path in the True Dragon Cave. These corpses had saber wounds, sword wounds, or injuries from Quintessence.
Clearly, these people were not victims of Demonic Beasts. Instead, they died in the process of fighting for the strange fruits, Spirit Herbs, and ores, slain in the intense competition.
The two continued looking, and the scene inside the True Dragon Cave appeared in their eyes. The barrier preventing entry was no longer there.
The corpses of the many Demonic Beasts that had blocked the way lay tossed to the side, their bellies split open and all the precious materials harvested.
Here, the two saw only scattered disciples of ordinary sects who did not dare to enter too deep. Instead, they stayed in the outskirts of the cave to try their luck.
Xiao Chen continued looking, and he finally felt the vastness and the complexity of a True Dragon Cave. The caves interconnected in a complicated fashion. Several cultivators walked around in circles inside, unable to find the right path.
Seeing these people wandering aimlessly on the map, Xiao Chen snickered slightly. He felt they were very foolish.
With the map to guide the way, Xiao Chen’s vision could pierce through these vast and complicated caves. He even managed to find some Rank 8 Spirit Herbs that no one noticed.
“Boom!”
Suddenly, the scene on the map changed. Fiery-red light filled the place. Churning lava covered the ground. Occasionally, golden flames shot out from the lava.
There were even snakes made of fiery-red stones connected together in the lava. These snakes spewed out red flames from their hollow eyes.
Although Xiao Chen observed these from a distance via the map, he could almost feel the surging heatwave that deterred everyone from approaching.
A large group stood in front of the lava. All of the cultivators frowned, not daring to charge across.
Xiao Chen saw the Thunder and Lightning Palace’s An Junxi, the Passionate Young Master, Murong Lingfeng, the Extreme Yin Sect’s Bai Wuxue, and others of the seven giants.
Niu Deng’s group of stout battle-realm geniuses, the Ximen Clan led by Ximen Bao, the Full Moon Pavilion’s Feng Xingsheng, and the Thousand Mystery Sect’s Hua Dao were also there.
These were the people Xiao Chen was more familiar with or the young experts he had seen before. Aside from them, there were still many other experts, whom he did not recognize.
Without exception, all these people balked at the lava before them. They all cautiously discussed measures to deal with it.
After looking around, Xiao Chen finally saw Shui Lingling. She maintained a calm expression, not showing any fear on her icy face.
However, neither did she show any joy at entering a new forbidden land. In fact, her countenance betrayed only a faint trace of grief.
Now that Xiao Chen thought about it, the figure that tried to save him when he faced the danger of the True Dragon Storm had to have been Shui Lingling.
She probably thinks I’m dead, Xiao Chen thought to himself. Then, his gaze fell on Wang Cheng, who stood behind Shui Lingling, and a murderous intent flashed in his eyes.
At this moment, Wang Cheng looked radiant, appearing extremely happy. He must have obtained many benefits from this True Dragon Cave.