Chapter 353: Revisiting Herb Mountain
Liu Yan didn’t have a good impression of Qin Lie who was using the alias “Yao Tian.” Therefore, he didn’t have much to talk about with him.
From Liu Yan’s perspective, this “Yao Tian” was arrogant and conceited. He relied on his Manifestation Realm strength to carry out an aggressive offense on Liu Ting. He also launched endless provocations toward Wei Li, Feng Yi, and the others. It was clear that he was someone that lacked discipline and was out of control.
Liu Yan did not dare to offend someone like this. In order to avoid inviting trouble, he was also unwilling to befriend him.
However, in the dead of night, if this person insisted on barging in and asking him for guidance on growing spirit plants and herbs, he was unable to chase him away.
As a result, Liu Yan wore a helpless expression and unfolded his arms within the house, “Brother Yao, I really think you are mistaken. I’m really not knowledgeable on growing spirit plants and herbs. I mean it. It would be better for you to find someone who’s more qualified than me. Right, there’s the Feng Family’s Patriarch, Feng Bin. His knowledge of spirit herbs is definitely better than mine. It would be more appropriate for you to find him.”
“Big Brother Liu is too humble.”
Qin Lie smiled indifferently and suddenly said, “I’ve been travelling all over lately. The place where I chose to stay was Ling Town. I heard from some martial practitioners that Ling Town originally belonged to a small family called the Ling Family. Recently, I heard that, in the Ling Family, there was a martial practitioner called Qin Lie working as a spy for the evil race. I wonder what Brother Liu thinks of this matter?”
“I am not too sure,” Liu Yan said with a calm face.
Liu Yan secretly became more cautious toward Yao Tian whose origins were unknown. He guarded himself carefully, not knowing this person’s true intentions behind asking about the affairs of Qin Lie and the Ling Family.
Recently, people from Eight Extreme Temple and Joyful Union Sect would turn up on occasion. Due to the unknown origins of Qin Lie and the Ling Family, they visited Nebula Pavilion and became active near Ling Town.
In Liu Yan’s opinion, it was very likely that Yao Tian, who had suddenly appeared, was someone from either Eight Extreme Temple or Joyful Union Sect.
Therefore, Liu Yan kept his words brief, unwilling to say much. Only when Qin Lie changed the subject and mentioned something about medicinal plants would he occasionally contribute to the conversation.
After a long time, the sky became pitch black. Qin Lie finally got up, looked at Liu Yan deeply, and said, “Big Brother Liu, there are too many disputes around here. If there isn’t much for you to do, it would be better for you to leave earlier.”
“I would like to leave earlier as well.” Liu Yan smiled bitterly.
Qin Lie nodded his head. He didn’t say anything else and took his leave.
After exiting Liu Yan’s stone building, he looked up at the sky and discovered that the silhouette of the moon was still dim. The clan members of the Feng Family and the young martial practitioners from Nebula Pavilion were either sleeping or silently cultivating in meditation.
“I need to seize this moment.” Knitting his brows, Qin Lie quietly headed toward Herb Mountain under the night sky like a shadow in the night.
Originally, he had planned to train in Ling Town for a period of time in order to master the technique of converting spirit diagrams into a means of attack. After that, he would investigate the secret of Herb Mountain to confirm if the teleportation formation existed within.
Due to the sudden arrival of Liu Ting and the Feng Family, he couldn’t help but pick up the pace to make sense of the secret inside Herb Mountain as soon as possible.
Not long afterward, he arrived behind Herb Mountain once more. Wandering under the night sky, he attempted find a new path to enter Herb Mountain.
In the past, when he left for Nebula Pavilion, Qin Lie followed the instructions of his grandfather and activated the crux inside Herb Mountain.
The cave inside Herb Mountain crumbled shortly thereafter, causing its entrance to be blocked by rubble.
In his opinion, his grandfather wanted to remove all traces of evidence in order to prevent others from finding out that he used to cultivate by harnessing the power of a strange lightning formation.
If it weren’t for the series of events that happened afterward, such as Ku Luo from the Horned Demon Race telling him that there might be a teleportation formation inside Herb Mountain that was linked to the Nether Continent, he might never have thought of stepping foot inside Herb Mountain ever again.
“I don’t think that Ku Luo would lie to me. He said that the Transmission Formation would be inside Herb Mountain, so it must exist!”
After wandering around, Qin Lie realized there were no caves that he could enter. Having no choice, he could only use the stupidest method.
—creating a new entrance from scratch.
He took a tool for mining ores out from the spatial ring and got to work in a relatively remote area.
“Crack! Crack!”
Hacking at the rock, he bore a hole as a cave entrance, digging a new tunnel into the cave late into the night.
Since the rock of Herb Mountain was rather solid, Qin Lie busied himself until dawn just to dig a tunnel into the cave that was only around ten meters large.
Seeing that he was almost out time, Qin Lie exited the cave and blocked the entrance with a giant boulder that he had prepared earlier on before quietly returning to Ling Town.
Before dawn, he showed himself at Ling Town once more. At this moment, Liu Ting had just woken up and started asking anyone she could about where he was.
“I’m used to waking up early. I was just doing my morning exercise outside of town.” With a careless expression, Qin Lie shot Liu Ting a faint smile and said, “Actually, I’ve been staying at Ling Town for the past two months. Heh, the sudden appearance of you all is what disrupted my routine.”
“Ah, it seems that it’s us that are affecting Big Brother Yao. We are really sorry.” Liu Ting wore an apologetic expression on her face.
Today, Liu Ting was wearing a light green dress with a white floral skirt. The neckline was rather low, causing her fair, well-endowed chest to be revealed. This attracted Wei Li and other young martial practitioners from Nebula Pavilion, making each of them feel restless.
Compared to yesterday, Liu Ting’s lips looked alluring, both her cheeks had a faint blush, her eyes were bright, and her face glowed with radiance.
It was obvious that she had seriously dolled herself up this morning and put on makeup, which was why she seemed more beautiful and captivating.
The light green dress wrapped tightly around her nimble, delicate figure resulted in her towering silky chest, slim waist, and her flawless, shapely bottom, being cleverly and prominently displayed.
Not only did both Feng Yi and Wei Li feel stunned this morning, even Liu Yan, who usually thought of Liu Ting as an eyesore, could not stop looking at the current Liu Ting, his eyes shining brightly as well.
“This girl…” Liu Yan couldn’t help but smile.
As the proverb went, “a girl dresses up for her admirers.” From how Liu Ting had deliberately dressed up today, Liu Yan knew that Yao Tian had managed to make Liu Ting’s heart flutter in just a single day. She was dressing herself up with utmost care because of him.
“Bitch,” Feng Yi swore silently in his heart. Listening to Liu Ting’s gentle voice and seeing her enthusiastic affection for Qin Lie, he knew that Liu Ting definitely didn’t dress up for him.
In reality, even after he had chased Liu Ting for so long, she had never specially dolled herself up in front of him.
Furthermore, she had never worn a dress in front of him.
This made Feng Yi’s jealousy grow even stronger.
“Miss Liu, are you all going to Herb Mountain today?” Qin Lie asked with a smile.
“Big Brother Yao, if you don’t dislike me, just call me… Tingting.” Liu Ting pouted her lips, her expression somewhat flushed, and felt embarrassed to look at Qin Lie. She lowered her head and said, “Yes, we are going to Herb Mountain today to see what kind of spirit plants and herbs we can grow. Furthermore, we also want to see if we can open up a new tunnel into Herb Mountain and find out if there are any strange rare ores within. The people from the Du Family used to say that they were some inside Herb Mountain and we want to confirm it for ourselves.”
“If that’s the case…” Qin Lie laughed and said, “I’m not interested in Herb Mountain. I will train in town today, so you all can busy yourselves.”
“Actually, I also don’t have much interest.” Liu Ting thought for a moment and suddenly laughed. “ I’m much more interested in the overseas matters that Big Brother Yao mentioned. I-if it doesn’t bother Big Brother Yao, can you talk about them?”
She looked at Qin Lie with anticipation.
Qin Lie grinned and laughed heartily. “I’d be happy to.”
As a result, Liu Ting turned around and hurriedly told Feng Yi in a cold manner, “I’m not accompanying you to Herb Mountain today. Liu Yan, take a trip with the Feng Family clansmen and walk around Herb Mountain.”
The Feng Family clansmen, Wei Li, and the others, looked at Feng Yi, then looked at Liu Ting again. Each of them wore a strange expression.
“Father, let’s go.” Feng Yi suppressed the anger inside him with a gloomy face. With the Feng Family clansmen they went toward Herb Mountain.
Liu Ting didn’t even look at the people from the Feng Family, and she didn’t say much to Wei Li’s people. She only asked Qin Lie affectionately, “Have you eaten? If not, we can eat something at my place.”
“Alright.” Qin Lie laughed heartily.
In the following days, Qin Lie stayed at Ling Town during the day. He enjoyed himself by feasting with Liu Ting and talking about the interesting things that happened overseas.
At night, he went to Herb Mountain alone. On one hand, he wanted to know the Feng Family’s progress in reclaiming Herb Mountain for cultivation. On the other, he wanted to secretly dig a concealed tunnel that lead to the belly of Herb Mountain.
People from the Feng Family were all greedy for spirit plants and the rumored ore of Herb Mountain.
In these few days, although Feng Yi wore a gloomy face, the Feng Family continued to mine Herb Mountain.
On Herb Mountain, the land had been reclaimed and was ready for growing spirit plants.
The Feng Family had also opened up a few tunnels in different directions trying to penetrate deep into the belly of Herb Mountain.
In terms of progress, although they were still slower than him, Qin Lie still felt uneasy in many aspects.
If the day came when a tunnel of the Feng Family led to the secret inside Herb Mountain first, he would have to do the worst thing out of desperation—killing everyone in Ling Town just to protect his own identity and safeguard the secret inside of Herb Mountain.
Spying on the Feng Family on one side and teasing Liu Ting on the other, he still secretly dug the tunnel into Herb Mountain at the same time.
Today, in the pitch black night, when Qin Lie was digging the tunnel.
“Crack!”
Following the breaking of a piece of stone, Qin Lie suddenly saw a faint gleam of light. The light came from the interior of Herb Mountain from the place where he used to cultivate!
After calming himself, Qin Lie placed the broken stone behind him, shrunk his body, and burrowed in head first.
An unadorned yet complicated and strange formation in the middle of an exceptionally vast cave suddenly came into view.
This strange formation was made with eighteen different colored pieces. These pieces of unusual stone were all about the size of an ordinary millstone. They formed the shape of a ring.
The formation was only about thirty meters wide located within the spacious cave. The insides of the eighteen pieces of stone were all marked by an unknown symbol that endlessly flashed like a lightning bolt.
In the center of the formation, there were several gentle rays of light, each about as thick as a finger, all densely packed and woven together.
The rays of light tangled together inside the scattered ring shaped stones, causing the cave to shine brightly. The entire cave began releasing stable waves of energy.
This was where Qin Lie used to cultivate Heavenly Thunder Eradication. In the period of time that he thought this place had crumbled and no longer existed, it turned out that the formation he used to cultivate Heavenly Thunder Eradication had disappeared.
In its place, sitting in the belly of the mountain, was a strange new formation.