Nan Zhi's speed underwater was not slow.
But the depth of the grotto clearly exceeded her expectations.
The deep, silent waterway was vast and long, pitch black without a single speck of light. Nan Zhi could only rely on her divine sense to continue her exploration.
Based on its shape, this underground waterway was wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, its cross section forming a distorted fan shape. Interlaced aquatic plants and weeds drifted within the water, their long strands swaying in the passage, making it easy for one to become entangled and unable to break free.
There seemed to be something in the waterway that could isolate divine sense. Even with Nan Zhi focusing her perception to the utmost, she could only explore up to five hundred meters ahead.
Moreover, the deeper she went, the smaller the range of her divine sense became.
Glub, glub, glub...
Splash, splash, crash!
Glub, glub...
In the waterway where she could not even see her own hand, Nan Zhi occasionally heard massive sounds of water breaking. Judging by the sound, they should be some kind of large aquatic animal similar to the giant soft shell turtle and giant python she had seen before.
These animals seemed possessed, continuing deep into the waterway. Before them, Nan Zhi 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 giant fish over a hundred meters long swimming past her that she realized she had unknowingly descended to a quite dangerous depth.
Time seemed to have frozen here. There was no air and no sunlight; there was only endless darkness and a long waterway that seemed as if it would never end.
At the bottom of the water were layers upon layers of countless skeletal remains. She could even see the skeletons of giant fish whose sizes were comparable to whales.
She did not know 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 eerily sank to the bottom, falling with a mournful wail—
Glub, glub...
As the first scent of blood gradually spread, the aquatic beasts that had been lurking for a long time swarmed forward, madly devouring the giant beast's flesh until the smell of iron 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 clung to the water plants to fight for the pieces of flesh in the water.
Even the swaying water plants seemed to have fallen into a sort of frenzy, dancing wildly within that eerie fragrance—
Before long, a hundred meter giant beast was devoured by the many predators, leaving only a bare skeleton.
The dense swarm of water ghosts then returned to their calm, continuing to drift aimlessly downstream.
Nan Zhi pressed herself against the water wall, her heart gradually sinking.
The unknown was the most terrifying thing.
What exactly was in the waterway that could cause a hundred meter giant beast to die for no reason?
Could the source of that fragrance be the culprit?
She cast aside the last bit of wishful thinking in her heart and continued forward, hugging the stone wall. As she felt her way along, she suddenly caught hold of a patch of fine, dense, filamentous material—
It was slippery and stringy, soft yet resilient.
She tried to perceive it and discovered that a type of water plant with fine, dense leaves was growing on the waterway walls. It was lush and flourishing, its long leaves like strands of hair swaying with the current.
【Spirit Swallowing Grass: A rare spirit herb that grows in places that never see sunlight. It can devour surrounding spiritual energy and block divine sense.】
!
Nan Zhi exhaled a bubble and hurriedly extended her divine sense.
The walls of the waterway were covered with this hair like Spirit Swallowing Grass, stretching endlessly down along the passage.
A flash of realization crossed her eyes.
She finally understood why there were so many demon beast corpses at the bottom of the waterway.
Attracted by the strange fragrance, large numbers of demon beasts scrambled to enter the waterway, but they all ignored the Spirit Swallowing Grass growing on the walls.
These seemingly small and harmless plants would subtly devour the spiritual energy in the water, including the spiritual power within the demon beasts' bodies. By the time they noticed something was wrong, it was already too late.
Nan Zhi circulated her spiritual energy and indeed found it sluggish and congealed, like rusty gears. The spiritual power in the sea of qi within her dantian was also dissipating bit by bit.
At this rate, her spiritual energy would be completely exhausted in just a few hours, and she would sink to the bottom 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.
Continue downward.
If a cultivator is hesitant and timid, what is the point of cultivation?
Only through the struggle between life and death can one comprehend the heavens and earth.
But—
Glub, glub, glub... (I can't let this trip be for nothing. Even if there's nothing down there, harvesting some Spirit Swallowing Grass won't be a loss.)
Nan Zhi excitedly took out the Fish Dragon Guillotine and began cutting along the water wall bit by bit, as if she were reaping wheat. Everything before her was pitch black, but her ears were filled with the dinging sounds of system prompts:
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" x5, Gathering Experience +1, Planting Experience +1】
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" x10, Gathering Experience +2, Planting Experience +2】
【Cultivator obtained "Spirit Swallowing Grass" x5, Gathering Experience +1, Planting Experience +1】
【Cultivator...】
【Cultivator...】
Any insights on life and death, any fear of the unknown—all of it was replaced by the golden glow of system experience.
Glub, glub, glub... (This stuff can block divine sense. It's good stuff. I'll harvest more to take back and weave into a small camisole; maybe it can even mask my cultivation level.)
Nan Zhi grew happier as she harvested. She swam down for another two hours before swallowing a Qi Augmenting Pill and stuffing her head into a large hollow water sphere to replenish her air.
The waterway was dark, making it impossible to perceive time. She could only make a rough estimate based on the intervals between her air changes.
She had changed her air at least fourteen times. With each breath held for two hours, she had been swimming down for at least a day and a night, yet she still had not reached the bottom.
What exactly was at the end of this grotto?
And what kind of person had dug this tunnel?
Nan Zhi's movements slowed, her expression thoughtful. A sudden pain stung her fingertips as she gripped the Spirit Swallowing Grass. She instinctively "looked" and found that these plants seemed thicker, with dense barbs at the ends of the leaves that could easily pierce flesh:
【Mutated Spirit Swallowing Grass: Spirit swallowing grass nourished by flesh and spiritual energy. It has undergone a rare and precious mutation. It can be used to refine Lock Spirit Pills (used to suppress enemies; anyone below the Golden Core stage will have their spiritual energy locked, 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, she only found three more small areas of mutated plants, and no matter how she looked, she could find no more.
In the end, she only gathered a bundle of Mutated Spirit Swallowing Grass about as thick as half a palm.
If Xu Zi were here, she would surely tell Nan Zhi that Spirit Swallowing Grass only grows one leaf every hundred years, a core every five hundred years, and takes a thousand years to reach maturity. Not to mention, its requirements for the growing environment were extremely high.
First, it had to be a place of extreme yin without a single speck of light. Once exposed to light, Spirit Swallowing Grass would turn into useless weeds, no different from common wild grass.
Second, it required a massive amount of spiritual energy for nourishment. Out of millions of plants, only one mutated strain might grow, making it exceptionally rare.
Now that she had harvested it, if she wanted more, she would have to wait another thousand years.
**
After two more air changes, the expression on Nan Zhi's face grew more and more serious.
There was not much oxygen left in the large water sphere, enough to support her for about three more days of swimming. But if she still could not find the source of the fragrance after three days, was she, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, really going to drown in this field of Spirit Swallowing Grass?
Should she turn back now...
Before the thought could even fully form, the current within the grotto suddenly grew much swifter, and an intense fragrance, concentrated to the extreme, erupted outward almost like an explosion—
Rate on N.U.
