Chapter 454: Spirit Gathering Altar

When Li Luo opened his eyes, he found himself on a red soil hillside, and as far as he could see, trees formed a forest.

Turning his head, he saw Bai Bai Mengmeng and Student Xin Fu not far away; both quickly woke up and leaped toward Li Luo's direction.

Li Luo nodded to them, pulled out the crystal compass, and on its screen, numerous tiny light dots were scattered, each with slightly different colors, allowing them to distinguish which team each dot represented.

"Looks like we got scattered pretty badly," Student Xin Fu said beside him.

Li Luo nodded and smiled: "But at least we're not too far apart—they'll head straight here after landing. Let's scout this forest first and see if we can find any Soul-Returning Dew."

"I hope we landed right inside a Spirit Gathering Altar," Bai Bai Mengmeng chuckled lightly.

Li Luo fell silent—she was dreaming too sweetly.

In the past ten hours, they had urgently studied all available information about this arena, and the so-called "Spirit Gathering Altar" referred to areas where the natural energy of heaven and earth was exceptionally dense, thus producing large quantities of "Soul-Returning Dew"; such zones were called "Spirit Gathering Altars."

In the first half of this academy-level competition, "Spirit Gathering Altars" were critical strategic locations—if they could locate one, wait for the Soul-Returning Dew to form, and harvest it, they would gain a massive reward, far more efficient than aimlessly searching everywhere.

But "Spirit Gathering Altars" were hard to find, and most importantly, once discovered, they would emit dazzling auroras, inevitably drawing attention from other academies, leading to brutal fights where even brains would be smashed.

This was clearly part of the academy-level competition's mechanism.

"Spirit Gathering Altars" were the coveted resource sites all academies dreamed of and their primary early targets; thus, Bai Bai Mengmeng's hope that they'd land directly on one was far too idealistic.

The three of them searched inch by inch through the forest, but after an hour, they found nothing.

They were exhausted and now understood even better how hard Soul-Returning Dew was to find; Li Luo secretly worried—if this continued, gathering ninety-nine drops would be no easy task, and if they couldn't even reach that number, how could they send anyone to Dragon Bone Island?

The three refused to give up and kept searching.

During their search, Yi Yi Lisha's team, being the closest, arrived first to regroup and joined their search party.

After two or three hours of fruitless searching, they finally discovered a pond nestled between two Dashan mountains, its surface covered in lotus leaves, and most importantly, on the central lotus leaf floated a single drop of faint golden liquid, as if sentient, slowly swirling upon the leaf.

A peculiar aura emanated from it.

Li Luo and the others recognized it at once—it was the Soul-Returning Dew they had been desperately seeking.

Li Luo stepped forward, took out his Spirit Gourd, drew near the drop, and it immediately, as if drawn by invisible force, slipped into the Spirit Gourd.

Collecting it was easy—but finding it took too much time and effort; after hours of searching, their two teams had gathered only this one drop.

Li Luo tucked away the Spirit Gourd, looked at Student Xin Fu, Yi Yi Lisha, and the others, and sighed: "This needle-in-a-haystack method won't work—we must find a Spirit Gathering Altar; otherwise, gathering enough Soul-Returning Dew could take forever."

Only a Spirit Gathering Altar could yield a large harvest at once.

Yi Yi Lisha, still wearing his flip-flops, smiled: "Pursuing Spirit Gathering Altars means preparing for large-scale team battles—this won't be some leisurely treasure hunt anymore."

"It's unavoidable," Li Luo said. "The academy-level competition follows an elimination format; trying to collect Soul-Returning Dew all the way to the core zone is unlikely."

Yi Yi Lisha nodded, hands in his pockets, grinning: "Right, you're the overall captain—everything follows your orders."

Beside Yi Yi Lisha, Si Qiying remained silent; she could sense her team leader's recognition—or rather, his respect—for Li Luo… not because of Li Luo's status, but because of his dazzling combat record over the past year, especially his performance in the Ticket Match, which had won over everyone in First Star Academy—even captains like Yi Yi Lisha from the Purple Radiance Team now fully acknowledged Li Luo's strength and regarded him as the undisputed leader of First Star Academy.

It was hard to imagine that when he first entered the academy, hardly anyone had believed in this young master from Tian Shu Commandery… including her.

Now, Li Luo was the undisputed top figure in Saint Zhu Xuan Star Academy's First Star Academy—but… was this the peak?

Having learned from past mistakes, Si Qiying dared not make any hasty judgments—everything would be decided by this grand Holy Grail War.

As Li Luo and Yi Yi Lisha spoke, Bai Bai Mengmeng suddenly cried out: "Captain, a team has sent a distress signal!"

Li Luo and Yi Yi Lisha's faces turned solemn at once; they quickly pulled out the crystal compass. This academy-level competition was a team-based format—they had to preserve team integrity at all costs; if any team was eliminated early, it would be a massive blow to their overall strength.

On the crystal compass screen, three tiny light dots had turned red and were emitting continuous red rings.

It was the distress signal.

And what sent a jolt through Li Luo's heart was that he recognized the distressed team—it was Qin Qin Zhulu, Lü Qing'er, and Yin Yin Yue!

"Looks like Qin Qin Zhulu's in serious trouble," Yi Yi Lisha said, face turns solemn. Qin Qin Zhulu was the strongest in First Star Academy after Li Luo; in all of Outer Shenzhou's First Star Academies, he was unquestionably top-tier. Yet now even he had sent a distress signal—what enemy had he encountered? Or was he surrounded?

"Go!"

Li Luo acted instantly, gave a sharp command, and leaped forward first, his spiritual energy surging around his body as he raced swiftly beyond the forest.

At the same time, using his authority as overall captain, he immediately changed the gathering point on the crystal compass to Qin Qin Zhulu's location.

The moment he completed the change, all other teams across the arena received the order; one by one, they altered course and raced at full speed toward Qin Qin Zhulu's position.

Clearly, the intensity of the Holy Grail War had escalated faster than they'd imagined.