Chapter 341: Chapter 326: Celestial Eye Race
A month passed quickly.
Taking advantage of the once-in-a-decade "Holy Fire Festival" in Prison Fire City, the four of them, who had hidden in Yunxiang Villa for more than a year, finally embarked on their journey deep into the Wilderness Jungle for a treasure hunt.
This journey was destined not to be smooth sailing.
The Wilderness Jungle has a notorious reputation for devouring countless lives of cultivators who ventured inside seeking treasure.
There are too many existences here that can threaten a cultivator’s life.
Barbaric Alien Races, Barbaric Beasts, Demon Beasts—these are just the visible dangers.
The invisible dangers are even more numerous than these.
For instance, when Zhouyang and his companions ventured ten thousand miles into the Wilderness Jungle, while flying over an ink-green lake, countless black shadows suddenly shot out from the lake, attacking them like a rain of arrows.
Those black shadows were, of course, not arrows but black fish, each ranging from five feet to one yard in length, their bodies covered in dense scales like snakes, with sharp teeth like those of piranhas.
From their aura, these black fish emitted a presence equivalent to Tier Two or Three Demon Beasts.
However, their numbers were overwhelming—a sudden appearance of tens of thousands, without any prior warning.
Zhouyang and the others were caught off guard and quickly surrounded by these black fish.
It took substantial effort for the four to cut a bloodied path and retreat to the lakeshore, taking a detour of a thousand miles to bypass the lake.
Additionally, when they chose to walk through the territory of a Tier Five flying Barbaric Beast, they accidentally strayed into the domain of the Wilderness Cannibal Vines, facing an onslaught from countless such vines.
These Wilderness Cannibal Vines can be considered plant demons, their vines tough and durable, with some thousands-year-old vines having trunks difficult to sever even with Tier Four Flying Swords.
And these demonic entities are extremely adept at camouflage, seeming indistinct from the countless vines throughout the Wilderness Jungle until they strike, showing no aura whatsoever beforehand.
It is only when prey that interests them enters their hunting range that they will suddenly strike to ensnare and attack.
In the territory of the Wilderness Cannibal Vines that Zhouyang ventured into, there were quite a few thousand-year-old vines. Once they struck, they wove a vine net that blocked out the sky, cutting off the possibility of escape by air.
If Zhouyang hadn’t realized the dire situation and decided to expose the secret of possessing the "Qianyang Treasure Body," using the "Qianyang True Flame" to burn away those Wilderness Cannibal Vines, the team would surely have suffered casualties.
After this battle, Zhouyang’s exposure of the "Qianyang Treasure Body" to save the team meant no one dared to underestimate him again.
In the subsequent journey, Zhouyang and his companions fought Tier Four Barbaric Beasts, killed Tier Four Demon Beasts, and fled in panic under the pursuit of Tier Five Barbaric Beasts.
However, their greatest crisis came while passing through a range in the Wilderness Mountains, where they encountered a swarm of Wilderness Strange Insects known as "Blood Patterned Dragon-Eating Ants" that chased after them.
The "Blood Patterned Dragon-Eating Ants" are a type of ancient Wilderness Strange Insect, whose matured teeth are sharp enough to pierce even Tier Five Flood Dragon Scale Armor.
This kind of Wilderness Strange Insect does not belong to the Demon Beast or Barbaric Beast categories but is jointly referred to as Wilderness Strange Insects by cultivators, along with some equally powerful and rare insects.
The group of "Blood Patterned Dragon-Eating Ants" Zhouyang encountered did not have any mature individuals as these insects need to consume a significant amount of Flood Dragon flesh and blood to mature.
Yet, facing the pursuit of thousands of "Blood Patterned Dragon-Eating Ants," they had no choice but a desperate flight ahead.
Zhouyang even tried using "Qianyang True Flame" to burn those ants, but the effect was not ideal; these insects would not die immediately even when burned by the True Flame.
Perhaps using the power of the "Qianyang Treasure Pearl" might achieve that, but he wasn’t willing to use this trump card in front of others unless absolutely necessary.
Thus, their only solution was to escape far enough beyond the activity range of the "Blood Patterned Dragon-Eating Ants."
After persevering through numerous challenges and overcoming many difficulties, Zhouyang and his companions finally ventured into the region ten thousand miles away in the Wilderness Jungle after a month.
Reaching this area meant encounters with Barbaric Alien Races could occur at any time, so the four of them became much more discreet, avoiding making themselves visible targets in the sky unless absolutely necessary.
"Fellow Daoist Li, we’ve searched this area over tens of thousands of miles multiple times, but haven’t found the giant stone marked on your map. Could there be a mistake in your information, and the giant stone isn’t in this area at all?"
In a temporarily excavated cave, Zhouyang and the others sat cross-legged, each with a somewhat distressed expression.
The three of them occasionally cast suspicious glances towards the short and stout figure flipping through a book in the cave, their eyes unabashedly filled with anxiety.
It had been over two months since they set out on their treasure hunt, and now they found themselves deep within the Wilderness Jungle, some 140,000 miles in.
However, they had yet to find the Cultivator’s Cave Mansion of the senior they sought.
Li Zhengwei had confidently assured them before setting off that he had thoroughly investigated and prepared a route map. Yet, after following his map to this place, they had scoured a vast area of tens of thousands of miles without finding a single reference point marked on his Treasure Map.
Without a reference point, none of them dared to venture further. They could only temporarily stop here, watching as the short and stout cultivator Li Zhengwei compared a heap of documents to his maps.
But continuing like this was not a solution.
Especially since, a few days ago, while everyone had dispersed to search for the reference point, Xiao Feng had unexpectedly discovered warriors from the "Celestial Eye Race," a Barbaric Alien Race, in the Wilderness Jungle.
The "Celestial Eye Race" was a large tribe within the Barbaric Alien Races, with its people resembling a giant gorilla in appearance. Besides their normal pair of eyes, members of the "Celestial Eye Race" are born with an additional "Celestial Eye."
This "Celestial Eye" is usually located on the back or chest of the "Celestial Eye Race" members.
Just like human cultivators’ Spiritual Roots, the "Celestial Eye" also has attributes, and the people of the "Celestial Eye Race" can control one of many attribute powers like gold, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, ice, and illusion through it.
Some exceptionally talented people of the "Celestial Eye Race" can control multiple attribute powers.
Generally, a naturally adult member of the "Celestial Eye Race" can, through the power of their "Celestial Eye," completely rival a Ninth-Layer Qi Cultivation Cultivator of human cultivators.
And as long as a member of the "Celestial Eye Race" has some aptitude for cultivation and understands their cultivation method, they can gain power comparable to a Foundation Establishment Cultivator of humans.
The "Celestial Eye Race" member Xiao Feng encountered only possessed Tier Three strength, which was the reason they still dared to linger here.
But another bad piece of news was that the presence of a Tier Three "Celestial Eye Race" warrior suggested that a village of the "Celestial Eye Race" must exist within tens of thousands of miles since weaker Barbaric Alien Race members usually don’t stray far from their settlements.
And any Barbaric Alien Race village would have, at the very least, a leader with strength equivalent to a Golden Core Stage Cultivator. If the "Celestial Eye Race" on patrol discovered their whereabouts, they would be in grave danger.
Therefore, they were all feeling a bit agitated, eager to leave this dangerous area as soon as possible.
"There’s no mistake. I’ve rechecked it against an older cultivator’s records from the Wilderness. We’ve passed through the Blood Fruit Forest and Chishui River along the way here, which match this route. Hence, the Giant Stone Peak must be in this region!"
Inside the cave, the short and stout cultivator Li Zhengwei put down the materials and maps in his hands, reconfirming the authenticity of his map with a decisive tone.
Upon hearing this, Zhouyang and the other two exchanged glances. Finally, it was Xiao Feng who voiced their concerns, "But according to what you said, the Giant Stone Peak is over a thousand feet high. If it truly exists, there’s no way we wouldn’t find it!"
"Thus, there are only two possibilities: either the Giant Stone Peak was destroyed by Barbaric Beasts or an Alien Race over the centuries, or it is hidden by an Array!"
Li Zhengwei met Xiao Feng’s gaze and shared his speculation in a deep voice.
"Even if that’s the case, do you have any methods to find it?"
"I’m leaning more towards the first possibility, so we can low fly and search for areas with scattered rock formations. Such a massive Giant Stone Peak, even if collapsed into rubble, would still leave obvious traces."
"That’s easier said than done, but considering this is the Wilderness Jungle, where plant growth and reproduction are rampant, it would only take a decade or so for the entire rubble forest you mentioned to turn into a forest!"
"Therefore, we must search carefully. Even if the rubble forest is covered by vegetation, it can’t escape our Divine Sense. I refuse to believe that with a thorough search, we won’t discover its presence!"
...
Although Zhouyang and the others complained quite a bit, none of them considered giving up on the treasure hunt, so in the end, after some discussion, they largely decided to follow Li Zhengwei’s proposal.
Half a month later, after meticulously searching the tens of thousands of miles of land inch by inch, they finally found a large quantity of collapsed stones near a hill covered with innumerable green vines. Calculating the area of the collapse, it should be the remains of the Giant Stone Peak they were looking for.
Having found the reference, they reconstructed the model shape of the intact Giant Stone Peak and finally aligned it with the route on the Treasure Map.
However, just as they left the area where the Giant Stone Peak was located, less than a hundred miles later, they suddenly encountered an attack from a group of "Celestial Eye Race" people.
The "Celestial Eye Race" seemed to have known in advance they would head this way, having laid an ambush on their inevitable path, and then abruptly attacked, dragging them into battle in an instant.