Nan Zhi's speed underwater was not slow.
But the depth of the underground cave was clearly beyond her expectations.
The deep and quiet waterway was wide and long, pitch black without a single speck of light. Nan Zhi could only rely on her divine sense to continue exploring forward.
—Judging by its shape, this underground waterway was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, its cross-section presenting a distorted fan shape. Water weeds and algae were tangled and crisscrossed inside, floating in strands and clumps within the passage, making it easy for one to get caught and unable to break free.
There seemed to be something in the waterway that could isolate divine sense. Even when Nan Zhi concentrated entirely on perceiving her surroundings, she could at most explore up to five hundred meters.
Moreover, the deeper she went, the smaller the range of her divine sense perception became.
“Glub, glub, glub...”
“Splash, splash, splash!”
“Glub, glub...”
In the pitch-black waterway where she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face, the loud sound of water breaking would occasionally echo by Nan Zhi's ears—judging by the sound, it should be some kind of large aquatic animal, similar to the giant soft-shell turtle and giant python from before.
These animals seemed possessed, continuing to plunge deeper along the waterway. In front of them, Nan Zhi's body was as small as a sparrow that had just left its nest.
The deeper she went, the wider the waterway became. It was not until Nan Zhi sensed a hundred-meter-long giant fish swimming past her that she suddenly realized she had unknowingly descended to a highly dangerous depth.
Time seemed to freeze here. There was no air, no sunlight, only endless darkness and a long waterway that seemed to have no end in sight.
At the bottom of the water lay layer upon layer of countless skeletonized corpses, and she could even see giant fish skeletons comparable in size to whales.
It was unknown how much time had passed.
Nan Zhi saw with her own “eyes” an unknown giant beast passing through the waterway. It did not have a single wound on its body, yet it suddenly and bizarrely sank to the bottom, wailing as it fell—
“Glub, glub...”
As the first trace of bloody scent gradually spread, the fish-beasts that had been lurking for a long time swarmed forward, crazily devouring the giant beast's flesh. The metallic smell of blood filled the entire waterway!
“Glub, glub, glub!”
“Glub, glub, glub...”
“Glub...”
Stimulated by the scent of blood, the water ghosts began to grow restless. Like slippery fish, they pressed against the water plants to scramble for the pieces of flesh in the water.
It seemed that even the swaying water plants had fallen into some kind of frenzy, dancing wildly within that bizarre fragrance—
Before long, a hundred-meter-long giant beast was devoured completely by the group of predators, leaving behind only a bare skeleton.
Only then did the dense swarm of water ghosts regain their calm, continuing to drift aimlessly downstream.
Nan Zhi clung to the stone wall, her heart gradually sinking.
The unknown was always the most terrifying.
Just what was in this waterway that could cause a hundred-meter-long giant beast to die so mysteriously?
Could the source of that fragrance be the culprit?
She cast aside the last bit of wishful thinking in her heart and clung tightly to the stone wall as she continued forward. Feeling her way along, she suddenly grabbed a patch of fine, dense, thread-like matter—
It was slippery, fibrous, soft, yet resilient.
She tried to perceive it and discovered that a type of water grass with thin, dense leaves was growing on the walls of the waterway. It was lush and flourishing, its long leaves resembling strands of hair, swaying with the current.
【Spirit Swallowing Grass: A rare spirit herb that grows in places untouched by sunlight all year round. It can swallow surrounding spiritual energy and isolate divine sense.】
“!”
Nan Zhi exhaled a stream of bubbles and quickly extended her divine sense.
Growing densely all over the walls of the waterway was this hair-like Spirit Swallowing Grass, stretching boundlessly downward along the passage.
A realization flashed in her eyes.
She finally understood why there were so many demon beast corpses at the bottom of the waterway.
Attracted by the exotic fragrance, a large number of demon beasts had scrambled to enter the waterway, but they had all ignored the Spirit Swallowing Grass growing on the walls.
These seemingly small and harmless water grasses would subtly swallow the spiritual energy in the water, including the spiritual power within the demon beasts' bodies. By the time they realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
Nan Zhi circulated the spiritual power in her body and indeed found it sluggish and congested, like rusty gears. The spiritual energy in her dantian's sea of qi was also dissipating strand by strand—
At this rate, in just a few hours, the spiritual power in Nan Zhi's body would be completely exhausted, and she would sink to the bottom of the water just like that giant beast.
Should she continue downward?
Nan Zhi pursed her lips, glanced back at the path she came from, checked her remaining oxygen, and quickly made up her mind.
She would continue downward.
If a cultivator was timid and hesitant, what was the point of cultivating?
Only in the struggle between life and death could one truly comprehend heaven and earth.
But—
“Glub, glub... (I can't come all this way for nothing. Even if there's nothing down there, harvesting some Spirit Swallowing Grass won't be a loss.)”
Nan Zhi gleefully took out the Fish-Dragon Guillotine and began cutting along the stone wall bit by bit, as if harvesting wheat. Although it was pitch black before her eyes, her ears were filled with the constant chiming of system notifications:
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" ×5, Gathering EXP +1, Planting EXP +1】
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" ×10, Gathering EXP +2, Planting EXP +2】
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" ×5, Gathering EXP +1, Planting EXP +1】
【Cultivator...】
【Cultivator...】
Any comprehension of life and death, any fear of the unknown, was entirely replaced by the golden system experience points.
“Glub, glub, glub... (This thing blocks divine sense. It's good stuff. I'll harvest more and weave it into a shirt to wear. Maybe it can hide my cultivation level.)”
Nan Zhi grew happier the more she cut. She swam downward for another two hours before swallowing a Qi-Augmenting Pill and stuffing her head into a hollow giant water ball to catch her breath.
The waterway was dark, and there was no way to perceive time. She could only make a rough estimation based on the intervals between her breaths.
She had probably caught her breath no less than fourteen times. With each breath-holding session lasting two hours, she had been swimming downward for at least a day and a night, yet she still hadn't reached the bottom.
Just what lay at the end of this underground cave?
And who was the one who dug this cave?
Nan Zhi's movements slowed down, a thoughtful expression on her face. Suddenly, a sharp pain pricked the tip of her finger as she pulled at the Spirit Swallowing Grass. She instinctively “looked” closer and found that these Spirit Swallowing Grass plants seemed much thicker, and the tips of their leaves were covered in dense, tiny barbs that could easily pierce flesh:
【Mutated Spirit Swallowing Grass: Nourished by flesh and blood and nurtured by spiritual energy, this Spirit Swallowing Grass seems to have undergone a rare and precious mutation. It is extremely hard to come by and can be used to refine Lock Spirit Pills (used to subdue enemies; locks the spiritual energy of anyone below the Golden Core stage, rendering them no different from mortals).】
She immediately harvested this small patch of Mutated Spirit Swallowing Grass and searched again with her divine sense. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she looked, she only found three other small areas with mutated strains, and could find no more.
In the end, she only gathered a bundle of Mutated Spirit Swallowing Grass about half a palm thick.
If Xu Zi were here, she would definitely tell her that Spirit Swallowing Grass takes a hundred years to grow a single leaf, five hundred years to grow a core, and a thousand years to mature. Not to mention, its growth environment requirements were extremely harsh.
First, it had to be a land of extreme yin, without even a single speck of light. Once exposed to light, the Spirit Swallowing Grass would turn into useless weeds, no different from common wild grass in the mountains.
Second, it required a vast amount of spiritual energy for nourishment. Out of millions of Spirit Swallowing Grass plants, only one mutated strain might grow, making it extremely rare.
Now that she had harvested it, if she wanted more, she would have to wait another thousand years.
...
After catching her breath two more times, the expression on Nan Zhi's face grew increasingly serious.
There was not much oxygen left in the giant water ball, enough to support her swimming downward for about three more days—but if she still couldn't find the source of the fragrance after three days, was she really, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, going to drown in this patch of Spirit Swallowing Grass?
Turning back now...
Before this thought could even fully form, the water current beneath the cave suddenly grew much more rapid. A rich, intense fragrance, dense to the absolute limit, diffused outward almost explosively—
Rate on N.U.
