Chapter 1782

A human figure suddenly appeared—a young man in a green robe with a pair of crystalline feathered wings on his back, his face ordinary but filled with an annoyed, resentful expression.

The one-armed scholar's heart stirred, and his spiritual sense swept over.

After a moment of shock, his face instantly lit up with great joy, and he hurriedly shouted loudly:

"Senior, be careful—the stone elemental turtle below has already gained spiritual intelligence; it is extremely terrifying."

"Stone elemental turtle!"

Upon hearing this, the youth seemed to only then notice the four people and one beast below, but after a glance, he burst out laughing:

"You are humans! Good, very good—is this place not far from Tianyan City?"

The young man didn't even spare a second glance at the ancient giant turtle beast, completely ignoring it.

The ancient giant turtle beast also seemed to sense that the man in the air was not to be provoked; with its not-low spiritual intelligence, its eyes rolled continuously without making a rash attack.

"This place is still some distance from Tianyan City. If the senior doesn't disdain us, we four juniors would be willing to serve as guides." The red-armored strong man also noticed the airborne man's unfathomable cultivation, his spiritual sense unable to gauge its depth, and likewise cried out desperately, as if clutching a lifeline.

The scholar and the remaining two women likewise nodded in agreement.

"Guiding? Sure, that works. But wait a moment—this stone elemental turtle does have some presence; let me take its inner core before we set off!" After a slight smile, the youth turned his gaze toward the ancient beast below.

Though the stone elemental turtle couldn't understand their words, upon seeing the youth's gaze, it involuntarily shuddered in its heart, let out a low roar without thinking, opened its mouth, and spewed a thick, hazy blue light pillar straight into the sky, while over a dozen tentacles on its back flailed wildly, transforming into countless black shadows that lunged toward the youth.

After sensing a vague premonition of mortal danger, the beast suddenly went into a frenzy of rage.

Seeing the giant turtle launch such a shocking attack, the four below paled, hurriedly activated their treasures to form rosy light shields around their bodies, and quietly retreated a few steps.

The winged youth in the air, seeing this, let out a long laugh.

He flicked one sleeve forward, and instantly a layer of hazy gray light curtain appeared, blocking his front.

When the blue light pillar struck the light curtain, the light flashed once and silently dissolved into nothingness.

The seemingly formidable attack had absolutely no effect.

As the sky-filling black shadow net descended like a flood, the youth didn't even blink, but his wings behind him suddenly flapped—thunder roared, and countless cyan-white electric arcs appeared on his wings, then crackled loudly as they surged wildly into the sky.

At the same time, the youth moved his arm, and a jet-black hand like ink extended from his sleeve, reaching out to grab the giant net.

A thunderclap from a clear sky!

A startling scene appeared.

At the moment the hand was extended, the cyan-white electric arcs in the air instantly converged to a single point, and with a thunderous boom, instantly transformed into a huge cyan-white hand, several zhang in size, entirely woven from thick electric arcs.

As the fingers spread, the giant net formed from tentacles was torn apart like paper by the lightning hand, and then the hand flashed and vanished.

The next moment, at the top of the giant turtle below, a massive electric arc flashed into view, immediately recondensing into a giant palm, which shot down with the speed of thunder—too fast to cover one's ears.

This attack was lightning-fast!

The giant turtle had no time to react before the lightning shattered its protective cyan spiritual light and firmly grasped its body.

A tremendous thunderclap rang out, cyan-white light blazed downward, and countless electric arcs appeared.

These electric arcs, unknown how terrifying their power, caused the stone elemental turtle's body to flicker several times in the lightning and turn to ash, without even a chance to cry out.

When the lightning vanished into thin air, only a chicken-egg-sized demon core remained, silently floating in midair.

The youth's eyes flashed, and without a word, he reached down again with one hand.

With a "swish," the demon core shot upward into high altitude, being drawn into his hand from empty space.

After playing with the demon core a few times, the youth's spiritual light flashed as he stored it away, then calmly said to the scholar and the others:

"Alright, we can set off now."

But the four scholars had already stared wide-eyed, mouths agape.

That stone elemental turtle, with a cultivation level of the Void Refinement stage, was formidable—they had just personally experienced it and nearly perished at its hands. Yet before this unfamiliar youth, the beast was merely glanced at and casually slain.

It was truly unbelievable. Could the opponent's cultivation level be far beyond what they had previously imagined?

"May I ask, senior, what is your esteemed name? Are you perhaps a Sacred Stage cultivator of the Body Integration realm?" The scholar took a deep breath, then bowed deeply and asked respectfully.

"Body Integration? I haven't reached that step yet. As for my name, I am surnamed Han." The youth glanced at the scholar and calmly replied.

This young man was naturally Han Li.

And now, it had been over a hundred years since he transmitted back to the Fengyuan Continent.

Back then, when he returned from the Thunder Continent via transmission, the point of arrival was an extremely remote place on the Fengyuan Continent; besides the Tian Yun clan's specially dispatched guardian cultivators near the transmission formation, no other foreign races were present.

After presenting his identity-proving jade slip, he calmly drifted away.

But in Han Li's subsequent days, he himself never expected that his return journey to the human race would be so long and arduous.

With his abilities at that time, even a Body Integration stage existence would not have frightened him much.

However, the Fengyuan Continent was simply too vast, and along the way, all kinds of dangers were countless, requiring passage through some foreign races' inhabited areas.

Even if Han Li exerted a hundred and twenty percent of his energy to carefully deal with all this, he still encountered mortal dangers several times.

Among them were being chased for months by a group of seven or eight Body Integration stage ancient beasts, relying on abundant spirit pills and spirit stones to finally shake off the herd; also mistakenly entering a land of extreme cold, where he was swept into a strange cold 'tide' and faced terrifying events. That time, if not for his internal five 'color' cold flames advancing unexpectedly under the cold current's stimulation and absorbing this strange cold power instead, he would likely have truly become a permanent ice sculpture left there.

Thus, he spent over a year before finally escaping that forbidden land.

Another time, he encountered a group of high-level foreign beings; seeing him alone, they conceived the thought of killing him and seizing his treasures.

After a great battle, even though he displayed great divine powers—even releasing the Gold Devouring Insects and the Xuan Tian残blade—he killed seven or eight Void Refinement stage beings in succession, even severely injuring two Body Integration stage beings, but his own vital energy was greatly damaged and he fled while suffering from a strange poison.

This severe injury caused him to retreat into seclusion for over ten years in a hidden place before his vital energy fully recovered and he resolved this poison.

Thereafter, he naturally became even more cautious on his journey, but dangers remained constant, leaving him deeply vexed.

Now he finally understands why, whenever crossing continents for travel is mentioned, even Body Integration stage beings would turn pale.

With his current abilities nearly costing him his life several times, ordinary Body Integration stage beings probably truly have many who perish in such continental travels.

But speaking of return, such travel is also something that top-tier beings of all races undertake after their cultivation reaches completion. Only after enduring so many dangers can they temper their minds anew and possibly regain a thread of their own fate and fortune.

Likewise, Han Li encountered so many dangers on his return journey to the human race, and his gains were likewise unimaginable.

Do not speak of the journey—even in the wild depths, he obtained numerous rare materials; just by sneaking into some foreign races' inhabited places during his travels and secretly learning from them many secret arts and techniques utterly different from those of the human race, he benefited immensely.

To avoid being discovered by foreign peoples, he each time only operated at the edges of their inhabited regions, entering only small towns without top-tier beings stationed there.

In this way, the risk naturally decreased to an extreme degree.

But even if it was like that, it was not every time that he could remain unharmed. Once when he entered a small city of a foreign tribe called the "Ming" tribe, he actually encountered a foreign tribesman who called himself Lei Yunzi by chance.

This person, who was clearly only at the mid-stage of Void Refinement, actually recognized his foreign tribesman identity at a glance.

Between the two, naturally a great battle broke out immediately.

As a result, Han Li, who originally wanted to silence him, was astonished to find that he could not do anything to this mere mid-stage Void Refinement existence at all.

This foreign tribesman called Lei Yunzi was actually the legendary "Five Thunder Physique," born with the ability to freely drive and use five completely different kinds of thunder and lightning powers, plus the cultivation of which was also an ancient thunderous great divine ability that had long been lost. He could transform his body between substance and thunder and lightning at any time. Although limited by his cultivation, he could not maintain it for too long, but it was enough to let Han Li stare at him helplessly, with nothing he could do.

What was even more heaven-defying was that this Lei Yunzi was also the formation master of his tribe, and combined with his own thunderous divine ability, he researched a unique thunder-light formation. He could transform the thunder and lightning in his body into various formations at any time to trap enemies or for attack and defense, which was truly unimaginable.

Of course, with Han Li's great divine abilities, Lei Yunzi similarly could not hope to take any advantage. After a great battle lasting as long as a month or so, they instead developed a bit of friendship.

Han Li was naturally very curious about Lei Yunzi's thunder-light formation that freely drove thunder and lightning power, and Lei Yunzi was also very interested in Han Li's evil-avoiding divine thunder and the thunder pattern condensation technique he had comprehended from the thunder-wood years ago.

After the two chatted a bit, they simply found a place to settle down and began to exchange their insights.

As a result, Han Li indeed learned several very practical thunder-light formation techniques, while the other also absorbed some evil-avoiding divine thunder power from him and learned the thunder pattern technique.

Only then did the two part ways satisfied.

However, this thunder-light formation was either truly extremely difficult to cultivate, or Lei Yunzi had concealed some key point, which caused Han Li, in his later cultivation, to always be unable to achieve true freedom of use, and often encounter some minor problems when executing it.

This made him feel very depressed.

In the following days, as his research on this formation deepened, Han Li finally confirmed that it was most likely the latter.

This made him naturally resent Lei Yunzi greatly.

Although he similarly tampered a bit with the thunder pattern technique, when Lei Yunzi condensed Lei Zhu, he could succeed once in ten attempts, which was already not bad.

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