Chapter 188: Clam Shell Boat

The surroundings remained pitch-black and endless, as if the heavens and earth were submerged in ink.

There were slight signs of wind flowing within the canyon, but it was impossible to distinguish north, south, east, or west.

Since land had been found, there was great hope of finding a way out.

However, there was absolutely no clue as to which direction to head.

After observing the surroundings for a long while, Xu Chen looked up at the shell floating not far away, a thought flashed through his mind, and he leaped into the shell, trying to see if he could propel it with Yuan Qi; unexpectedly, it succeeded on the first try, and the shell drifted forward lightly along the flowing Black Wind.

Xu Chen was overjoyed; he used his Flying Sword to clear a space inside the shell, then with a surge of Yuan Qi, he swept the large amount of fascia, minced meat, and mucus out of the shell, sat down cross-legged, and released a stream of Yuan Qi to push the shell forward along the direction of the canyon's Black Wind.

With the direction currently indistinguishable, he could only rely on his intuition.

The shell floated silently through the canyon, moving at a steady pace.

Xu Chen was not in a hurry, releasing his Divine Sense along the way to continuously observe the surroundings.

"Eh, what is that?"

After traveling for about two double-hours, there was no special change in the environment; it remained a pitch-black, rugged stone canyon, with not a trace of Spirit Qi fluctuation visible, nor any sign of biological activity.

But after the earth-shattering and terrifying incident he had just experienced, he knew that in this pitch-black, boundless world, there were hidden super-fierce beasts he could not possibly contend with, so he did not dare to be careless in the slightest.

However, his Divine Sense flickered suddenly during his observation; something seemed to have flashed by, and he had caught a glimpse of a slightly familiar aura.

Xu Chen hurriedly controlled his Yuan Qi to make the shell stop, then slowly backed up; sure enough, after a few breaths, his Divine Sense once again felt this aura on a rugged rock.

Yet, no matter how he focused his Divine Sense to observe it carefully, this aura remained very illusory, as if it existed, yet as if it were separated by a vast distance.

After hesitating for a moment, he controlled the shell to slowly approach the rock, finally stopping at the place where the aura fluctuated; when he saw it clearly by the light of the large pearl, he could not help but be filled with astonishment.

This was a fist-sized, deep blue stone embedded in the pitch-black rock, but his Divine Sense could not identify it at all; it had neither Spirit Qi fluctuations nor any of the Five Elements attributes that other Spirit Materials possessed, giving him a very unreal feeling, like an illusory object.

This thing is very strange; it must be a Spirit Material never seen before.

This feeling made Xu Chen both surprised and excited.

As the saying goes, seeing is believing, but today he felt his horizons had been broadened; this thing existed in reality but was also very illusory, feeling as if it were between the real and the illusory, extremely difficult to grasp.

And the consensus in the Immortal World was that the more mysterious and unfathomable an object was, the more immeasurable its value.

Many Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasures possessed very strange characteristics.

This blue crystal must be of great significance.

So, without hesitation, he took out his Flying Sword, preparing to dig this crystal out.

But to his surprise, the black rock was incredibly hard; his Second-Grade Flying Sword struck it as if hitting iron or stone, sparks flying with a clatter, and even when he exerted his full strength, he could only break off a tiny bit each time.

However, the more this was the case, the more excited Xu Chen became.

Good things usually exist in harsh environments; this place was highly likely to be within the Nether Rift, and under the erosion of the Black Wind for hundreds of millions of years, the remaining rocks should naturally be incredibly hard; if it were easy to dig out, this thing would have long since been swept away by the Black Wind to parts unknown.

Thus, in the pitch-black, silent, and quiet world, Xu Chen dug diligently with a constant scraping sound, and after spending nearly half an hour, he finally dug out this deep blue crystal.

Holding it in his hand made him even more surprised; this crystal, which should have been naturally formed, was actually a standard prismatic structure, only half a foot long, but it was extremely heavy in his hand, likely weighing several hundred catties.

Likewise, even when held in his hand, while he could see it clearly with his naked eye, his Divine Sense still perceived it as incredibly illusory, as if it were in a semi-transparent state.

He tried inputting Yuan Qi, but although the crystal could absorb it, there was no reaction.

He tried again to input a wisp of white Qi with his Divine Sense, but there was still no movement.

So he decided to give up on the experiment and put it directly into his Storage Bracelet.

Next, Xu Chen steered the coffin-like Clam Shell Boat to continue forward along the valley. This time, he didn't go far before he made an even more astonishing discovery.

At the bottom of the valley was a large pit containing a pool of Black Water; within the Black Water, a white flower over a foot in size was blooming, its petals like tentacles, resembling a cluster of burning white flames.

This situation suddenly reminded him of the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus.

However, after hesitating for a moment, he still propelled the Clam Shell Boat to fly to the edge of the pool, landed on the ground, and released his Divine Sense to observe carefully.

The shape of this flower was completely different from the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus, and its color was at the other extreme—pure white without a single flaw—but its aura was very similar, incredibly cold and chilling.

Through his Divine Sense, he did not feel anything unusual about the flower.

However, this pool of Black Water could not be penetrated by his Divine Sense, and it was so icy that his Soul felt a faint sensation of being frozen stiff.

This must also be a good thing.

Xu Chen pondered in his heart, but he did not dare to directly reach out and pick it, because this Black Water looked calm and waveless as if it were congealed, but he could not guarantee that there wasn't some dangerous Soul Beast hidden beneath.

Therefore, after hesitating for a moment, he tried to communicate with the Blue Light Treasure Bottle to collect this Black Water and the lotus; unexpectedly, it went very smoothly this time—a beam of Blue Starlight erupted from between his brows, a phantom image of the Blue Light Treasure Bottle hovered above his head, and then a vortex composed of Blue Starlight appeared at the bottle's mouth, emitting a powerful suction, and the pool of quiet Black Water was drawn into the treasure bottle as if by a long dragon drinking water.

"Roar, roar~"

At the bottom of the treasure bottle, the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus seemed to have been stimulated and began to dance and roar wildly again.

But it was useless; the Blue Light Treasure Bottle suppressed it firmly.

Soon, the pit of Black Water, several tens of feet square, was sucked dry by the bottle, and the bottom of the pit slowly revealed a snow-white, jade-like spherical root, half-hidden and half-exposed in the black mud.

After Xu Chen observed carefully with his Divine Sense for a while, he used a surge of Yuan Qi to pull the flower out of the black mud by its roots.

Holding the flower stem, which was several inches thick, felt like holding a piece of ice that had existed for hundreds of millions of years; Xu Chen's face turned deathly pale instantly, and not only did a layer of frost appear on the outside of the Blue Light Treasure Bottle, but ice crystals even began to accumulate in his Meridians and dantian, and his Yuan Qi flow became obstructed instantly.

Xu Chen did not dare to examine it closely and hurriedly put the flower into his Storage Bracelet.

If he continued to hold this flower in his hand, he feared that he would be frozen into an ice sculpture from his body to his Soul.

The danger of this flower was far less than that of a monster like the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus, but it was no simple matter either; the icy aura was completely beyond what he could resist with his current cultivation.

Therefore, he could roughly make a judgment: if judged according to the normal grades of spiritual items in the Immortal World, it was at least Fourth-Rank or higher.

The aura impact brought by that Fourth-Rank Blood God Grass back then seemed equally powerful.

However, when he obtained the Blood God Grass back then, he was only at the early stage of the Kaiyuan Realm, so the feeling was very intense.

But now, he was already at the early stage of the Zhenyuan Realm, and his cultivation was even comparable to the early stage of the Danyuan Realm, yet the feeling was still just as intense.

Judging by this, the grade of this flower might be even higher.

Soon, Xu Chen returned to the Clam Shell Boat and continued forward, propelled by Yuan Qi.

In the blink of an eye, another three days passed.

Xu Chen continued to wind his way along this canyon, which he did not know the length of, until the Bigu Pill he had taken was consumed again; he knew that he had already spent six or seven days in this world without day or night.

However, the canyon before his eyes remained the same, merely winding and twisting, with the mountain ridges on both sides rising and falling, and apart from that, there was nothing else different.

During these three days, he was not traveling the entire time, but rather stopping and going, discovering more than a dozen strange and peculiar things along the way.

He had dug up seven or eight of those blue prismatic stones in total.

He also found two white flowers and one red flower, and even picked up a piece of bone, over a foot long, as black as crystal.

In addition, there were several other things he had never seen in the outside world, including ores and plants; in particular, one black spirit mushroom grew on a piece of rotten wood stump that looked like jade in a cliff crevice, its entire body covered in golden cracks, emitting an extremely eerie aura as if it were a living thing, yet it was not.

Xu Chen originally wanted to dig it out along with the rotten stump, but after digging for two full hours without success, he nearly ruined his Second-Grade Flying Sword; in the end, he had to take out the Thunder Fire Pestle and, with one strike, blasted the rotten stump and the rock apart, finally storing the spirit mushroom and the shattered stump into his Storage Bracelet.

Although the harvest was not small, Xu Chen gradually began to feel anxious.

No matter how many treasures he collected, they would be useless if he could not get out.

This canyon seemed to have no end, and if he continued walking aimlessly like this, heaven knows when he would ever find a way out.

Thus, Xu Chen decided to abandon this canyon, piloted the Clam Shell Boat to ascend above the canyon, crossed the mountain ridges, and changed direction to continue forward.

This decision quickly yielded results.

About three days later, Xu Chen had just closed the Shell, leaving only a slit to move forward slowly, when suddenly a red light shot up into the sky ahead, followed immediately by a loud "Boom—" and then several roars of beasts, interspersed with sounds resembling human screams.

"People?!"

Xu Chen was overjoyed in an instant and hurriedly looked toward the direction the sound came from through the slit in the Clam Shell Boat.

He saw the light still flickering, which seemed to be the radiance released by a Magic Treasure; additionally, he could vaguely see several light shadows resembling Magic Spell Escape Lights scattering in all directions, among which two red lights were rapidly heading toward him.

Xu Chen did not dare to carelessly open the Shell; instead, he closed the Shell even more tightly, then sent out only a sliver of Divine Sense to observe.

(End of this chapter)