Chapter 454: Spirit Gathering Altar

When Li Luo opened his eyes, he found himself on a red-soil hillside, and looking out, he saw a forest of trees.

Turning his head, he saw Bai Mengmeng and Xin Fu not far away; the two of them quickly sobered up and then leaped toward the direction where Li Luo was.

Li Luo nodded to them in acknowledgment and took out his crystal compass. On the compass's light screen, tiny dots of light were scattered about, and the colors of the dots varied, allowing them to distinguish which team each dot represented.

"Looks like we were scattered quite a bit during the teleportation," Xin Fu said from the side.

Li Luo nodded and smiled, "But fortunately, it's not too far. They will come to rendezvous immediately after landing. Let's search this forest first and see if we can find some Heavenly Spirit Dew."

"I hope we landed directly inside a Spirit Gathering Altar," Bai Mengmeng said with a light laugh.

Li Luo was speechless; that was certainly a lovely thought.

In the previous ten hours, they had crammed all the information about this venue. The so-called "Spirit Gathering Altar" actually refers to areas where the heaven and earth energy is exceptionally dense, which leads to the birth of large amounts of "Heavenly Spirit Dew." Such areas are known as "Spirit Gathering Altars."

In the first half of this Academy-level Tournament, the "Spirit Gathering Altar" is an extremely important strategic location. If they can find one and wait for the "Heavenly Spirit Dew" to be born before harvesting it, they will gain a huge haul, which is far more efficient than searching aimlessly everywhere.

It is just that "Spirit Gathering Altars" are not easy to find, and most importantly, once a "Spirit Gathering Altar" is discovered, it will emit a dazzling glow, which will undoubtedly attract the attention of other academies. When that happens, the fighting will be so fierce that they'll be at each other's throats.

This is clearly also a mechanism of the Academy-level Tournament.

The "Spirit Gathering Altar" is a resource site that all academies dream of and is also their main goal in the early stages, so Bai Mengmeng hoping they would appear inside one the moment they landed was truly thinking too wishfully.

The three of them searched the forest inch by inch, yet after an hour, they had nothing to show for it.

The three were exhausted, and at the same time, they understood even more how hard it was to find this Heavenly Spirit Dew. This made Li Luo secretly worried; at this rate, gathering ninety-nine drops of Heavenly Spirit Dew really wouldn't be an easy task. If they couldn't even gather that amount by the end, wouldn't they be unable to send even a single person to Dragon Bone Island?

The three refused to give up and continued their search.

While they continued searching, the team led by Yi Lisha, being the closest, was the first to rendezvous, and then they joined the search party together.

After tossing and turning for two or three hours, they finally discovered a pond in a ravine between two large mountains. The pond was filled with lotus leaves, and most importantly, on a lotus leaf in the very center, there was a drop of pale golden liquid that seemed to possess spirituality, slowly flowing on the lotus leaf.

A peculiar aura emanated from it.

Li Luo and the others recognized it at a glance; this was exactly the Heavenly Spirit Dew they had been struggling to find.

Li Luo stepped forward and took out a spirit gourd, bringing it close to that drop of Heavenly Spirit Dew. The latter, as if driven by some force, went straight into the spirit gourd.

Collecting it was easy, but finding it was too time-consuming and laborious. Their two teams had spent several hours only to harvest this single drop.

Li Luo put away the spirit gourd and looked at Xin Fu, Yi Lisha, and the others, saying helplessly, "This needle-in-a-haystack way of searching is probably not right. We must find a 'Spirit Gathering Altar,' otherwise, who knows how long it will take to gather enough Heavenly Spirit Dew."

Only a Spirit Gathering Altar can allow for a large harvest all at once.

Yi Lisha was still wearing his flip-flops. He smiled upon hearing this, "Going the route of the Spirit Gathering Altar means preparing for large-scale team battles. The intensity will not be like this leisurely treasure-hunting mode."

"It's unavoidable. The Academy-level Tournament follows an elimination format. It's probably very difficult to just pick up Heavenly Spirit Dew all the way to the core area," Li Luo said.

Yi Lisha nodded, hands in his pockets, and said with a smile, "Mm, you are the commander-in-chief; everything will follow your command."

Beside Yi Lisha, Si Qiuying remained silent. She could hear her captain's recognition or perhaps respect for Li Luo... That was not because of Li Luo's status, but because of the dazzling record Li Luo had achieved over the past year, especially in the previous ticket tournament. Li Luo's performance had conquered everyone in the One-Star Academy. Even captains of Purple Glow teams like Yi Lisha had completely recognized Li Luo's strength, viewing him as the undisputed leader of the One-Star Academy.

It was hard to imagine that when he first entered the academy, hardly anyone thought highly of this young master of the House of Luolan who had just returned from Tianshu Prefecture... including her.

The current Li Luo was already the undisputed number one in the One-Star Academy of the Astral Sage College, but... was this the peak?

Having learned from past experience, Si Qiuying no longer dared to judge rashly; everything would depend on this grand Holy Grail War.

Just as Li Luo was speaking with Yi Lisha, Bai Mengmeng suddenly exclaimed, "Captain, a team has sent out a distress signal!"

Li Luo and Yi Lisha's expressions changed upon hearing this, and they hurriedly took out their crystal compasses. This Academy-level Tournament was a team-based system; they had to maintain the integrity of their teams as much as possible. If a team were to be eliminated early, it would be a huge loss to their overall strength.

On the crystal compass, three small dots of light on the screen had turned red and were continuously emitting red light rings.

It was indeed a distress signal.

And what shocked Li Luo the most was that he discovered this team calling for help was none other than Qin Zhulu, Lu Qinger, and Yin Yue!

"It seems Qin Zhulu has run into big trouble." Yi Lisha's expression was grave. Qin Zhulu was the person in their One-Star Academy whose strength was second only to Li Luo. With his strength, looking at the One-Star Academies across the entire Eastern Divine Continent, he was definitely in the top tier. Yet now, even he had sent a distress signal—what kind of powerful enemy had he encountered? Or had he been surrounded?

"Let's go!"

Li Luo made a prompt decision and gave a soft shout. His figure leaped out first, his resonant power rising to the surface of his body, and with his leaps, he quickly headed out of the forest.

At the same time, he used his authority as commander-in-chief to change the gathering point on the crystal compass directly to the area where Qin Zhulu and the others were.

And the moment he finished the change, the various teams in other areas also immediately received the order, so one team after another began to change direction, all rushing at full speed toward the area where Qin Zhulu and the others were.

Clearly, the intensity of the Holy Grail War was arriving even faster than they had imagined.