Interesting.
Wang Xiu slowly extended his hand, touching the rock wall. Where his finger touched, he felt no resistance; it was an extremely clever blinding enchantment. He pushed aside the vines and stepped into the rock wall. The light before his eyes flickered, transforming into a stone tunnel that snaked its way deep underground.
After walking for several hundred meters along the tunnel, a stone door emerged before him. The door was engraved with formations, though they were not particularly profound. They must have been added after the Tiger Demon arrived.
Four tiny Soul Pets emitted a faint glow, their light converging into streams of Daoist magic seals that struck the stone door.
RUMBLE.
The stone door burst open and a thick surge of Yin energy rushed out to meet him. The temperature of the passage dropped by dozens of degrees in an instant, causing his breath to turn to frost.
This was a huge stone grotto, about twenty Zhang square and approximately three Zhang high, with layers of ice covering its rock walls. The Yin energy in the grotto was extremely dense; it could be called a holy land for Ghost Cultivators.
In the center of the stone grotto was a round pool that took up nearly half the area. The water in the pool was not clear but a turbid, muddy liquid. The very sight of it was enough to induce heart palpitations.
This is water from the Yellow Springs! The Yellow Springs of the Netherworld… why would they appear here in Mingyue Mountain? Could it be… that a Netherworld Passage is hidden beneath this mountain?
As the inheritor of the Nether Emperor's Prison-controlling Scripture, Wang Xiu was very sensitive to things from the Netherworld, like the Yellow Springs water, and he spotted the anomaly at a glance.
Yellow Springs water is sludge formed from the waters of the Netherworld's River of Oblivion mixed with Netherworld soil. Living beings must not drink it. However, for many Yin-attribute and ghost-attribute spiritual medicines, it is an unparalleled source of nourishment.
At this moment, within the turbid Yellow Springs water, white lotuses grew, standing tall and pristine. They exuded an intoxicating fragrance that seemed to make one's very Spirit expand in bliss.
Nourishing Soul Lotus! Wang Xiu pondered. No wonder that Tiger Demon could control forty to fifty Foundation Establishment Stage Ghoul Servants at once; it had such a spiritual medicine on hand.
The Nourishing Soul Lotus was a special spiritual medicine that could only grow in places of extreme Yin and had a very long growth cycle; it supposedly took hundreds of years to fully mature. When consumed by ghostly beings, it could nourish their Spirit and increase their cultivation speed.
However, only a foolish spendthrift would choose to use a precious spiritual medicine like the Nourishing Soul Lotus to raise low-level ghostly beings. The greatest use of this spiritual medicine was to heal the injured Spirits of Cultivators. For someone whose Spirit was not severely injured, consuming a single petal could bring about a complete recovery. If the Spirit had suffered serious damage, then using the lotus seeds as the main ingredient to refine Soul Supplement Pills and taking them regularly could also lead to a gradual recovery.
Under normal circumstances, a Nourishing Soul Lotus of average quality could sell for nearly a thousand Spirit Stones on the black market. If there was a shortage of such spiritual medicines and many people had suffered injuries to their Spirits, the price could skyrocket by several times, or even ten times. In today's chaotic world, the struggle between the righteous and the demonic was constant. All the great Immortal Sects had seniors whose Spirits were injured from fighting Evil Demons, all waiting for spiritual medicines to heal them.
Once a Nourishing Soul Lotus appeared on the black market, it was bound to spark a bidding war. Even one of ordinary quality could sell for two thousand Spirit Stones as if it were nothing.
Here, there were densely packed Nourishing Soul Lotuses, at least a hundred of them. The number of fully bloomed ones alone numbered in the dozens. The sheer number was dizzying. Moreover, every single one was of exceptional quality. If the supply were controlled and they were slowly released onto the market, the price per lotus could reach at least three thousand Spirit Stones, or even higher!
I'm rich! Wang Xiu couldn't help but grin, his eyes squinting with delight. Only the Yellow Springs water from the Netherworld could nourish so many Nourishing Soul Lotuses and have them be of such exceptional quality.
According to Wang Xiu's observations, nourished by the Yellow Springs water, the growth rate of these Nourishing Soul Lotuses was simply incredible. He estimated that it wouldn't take hundreds of years at all; one could probably harvest a crop every year. The news alone would be enough to shock people to death!
"From now on, this will be a branch of my Divination Sect," Wang Xiu chuckled.
He took out a blank banner from his Storage Bag, wrote "Divination Sect Branch, No Trespassing" in large characters, and planted it in front of the stone door. Then, he began to carefully harvest the fully bloomed Nourishing Soul Lotuses, his touch as gentle as if he were caressing his girlfriend. After all, these were shining Spirit Stones!
Soon, Wang Xiu had picked all of the fully blossomed Nourishing Soul Lotuses, a total of thirty-four. He left behind those that had not yet bloomed or whose medicinal efficacy had not yet reached its peak. This type of spiritual medicine only reached its maximum potency when fully mature; if picked prematurely, its efficacy would be greatly reduced, and its price would naturally be heavily discounted as well.
"I was just thinking," Wang Xiu said, squinting at the pool full of Yellow Springs water. "You probably can't use all this water, right? How about you let me take some with me?"
"That way, when I'm back on Spirit Turtle Peak, I can use the lotus seeds to grow some brothers and sisters for you all. Since you're not saying no, I'll take that as a yes."
With that, Wang Xiu took out a Jade Bottle from his Storage Bag, carefully inscribed the Water-Attracting Spell on it, and aimed it at the Yellow Springs Pool.
"Absorb!"
The Yellow Springs water, thick with the aura of the Netherworld, immediately formed a torrent and poured into the Jade Bottle in Wang Xiu's hand. The small bottle was like a bottomless pit, swallowing several large vats' worth of the water before it was finally filled.
Then, Wang Xiu took out a second Jade Bottle.
Two bottles!
Three bottles!
Four bottles!
Five bottles!
...
Sixteen bottles!
Seventeen bottles!
...
Soon, the Yellow Springs Pool, which had been several meters deep, was drained by Wang Xiu until only a thin layer of two feet remained, nearly exposing the roots of the Nourishing Soul Lotuses. Of course, Wang Xiu knew what he was doing. Even at only two feet deep, the Netherworld aura contained in the Yellow Springs water was more than enough to supply the growth needs of these Nourishing Soul Lotuses. A whole pool was never necessary.
Suddenly, Wang Xiu's brows furrowed. He noticed that in the very center of the pool, there was a raised stone platform, significantly higher than the surrounding area. After he washed the filth from the stone platform with water, he discovered a Yin-Yang Eight Trigrams Chart engraved with countless Daoist Formation Patterns. Judging from the aura it emitted, it appeared to be a sealing formation.
Perhaps due to the immense passage of time, a crack had appeared on this sealing platform. The Yellow Springs water was slowly seeping out from this very crack. However, judging by the seepage rate, it must have taken at least a thousand years to fill a pool this large.
A Netherworld Passage really is sealed here, and the seal is damaged. Wang Xiu's gaze became grave.
Many places in the mortal world had spatial fissures that led to the Netherworld, the Yao Realm, or the Demon Realm. These fissures were usually discovered and sealed by the great Immortal Sects. But as long years passed, the energy of the formations gradually depleted, and the seals could loosen or even break. The calamity on Demon Sea Island eight hundred years ago was caused by a damaged seal to the Demon Realm. Although this Netherworld Passage might not be as dangerous as that one, it was certainly not to be underestimated.
Based on the sealing patterns, this had to be the Dual Polarity Heaven-Sealing Formation, a supreme technique of the Sanqing Immortal Sect's Formation Sect. It was one of the strongest of all spatial sealing formations. In addition to the Dual Polarity Heaven-Sealing Formation, several other reinforcing formations had been laid, though Wang Xiu could not identify them. But from the residual Dao Yun, they all seemed to be the Formation Sect's most ultimate techniques.
For the Sanqing Immortal Sect's Formation Sect, even at the height of its power, to have acted with such extreme caution clearly showed the importance of this seal. Perhaps, in the distant past, a tragic invasion from the Netherworld had truly occurred right here.