Chapter 67

After the plum rain season passed, the summer heat gradually grew heavier. Unknowingly, the beginning of summer was approaching. Other places in Jiuzhen County had gradually become hot, only on Jiuzhen Lake, it remained as cool as before.

In the morning mist, a small boat with a black canopy drifted with the waves. Qian Chen leaned against the side of the boat, a bamboo pole tied with a ten-foot silk line hanging into the water...

But the end of that ten-foot silk line floated on the water, clearly not tied with a single-inch silver hook.

Qian Chen just leaned on the water, flipping through the secret map of the Great Swamp in his hand. Not long after he shot and killed the Three Corpses in Daoist Zhen's body under the big plum tree that day, Wei Chenghuang dispatched ghost messengers to send this secret map... I don't know how Wei Chenghuang explained it to those two ghost messengers, but when Qian Chen saw them, their trembling and cautious appearance was as if Qian Chen were some kind of ghost-eating monster.

The secret map of the Great Swamp in his hand was not very detailed, but he thought the Wei family would not dare to fool Qian Chen again. Moreover, Qian Chen also had a secret map sent by Cui Dan as a reference... As a member of the Cui family and a local county magistrate, Cui Dan had too many ways to get the bottom-of-the-box maps from the local gangs.

Combining the two maps, they only recorded one or two percent of the situation in the depths of the Great Swamp.

In the past few days, Qian Chen followed the markings on the map and went deep into the Great Swamp several times. It was much safer than the first time. He explored many situations inside the Great Swamp, and the map he bought was gradually completed by him. Now it was more than three times more detailed than when the Wei family first sent it... This time, the quality of the malevolent qi explored had improved, and Qian Chen had already discovered several Earthly Evil Yin Veins that could be refined into the Seven Killings Banner.

But compared to the Ice Soul Cold Light Gang in Qian Chen's hand, it was still much worse.

In fact, the malevolent energy corresponding to the Ice Soul Gang Qi should be most abundant in the extremely cold places at the North Pole... But between the Chixian Divine Continent where Great Jin is located and the North Pole ice sheet, there is a huge North Underworld Sea. Even if one takes a Great Peng and travels ninety thousand miles a day, it would take three months to get to the North Pole. Relying on Qian Chen's slow Flying Cloud Pocket, let alone the Samsara Realm only giving a one-year mission gap, even if it were ten times longer, Qian Chen wouldn't have time to make a round trip.

Qian Chen marked a few places on the map and made marks at several dangerous places, indicating that the Earthly Evil was insufficient here, or the quality was too mixed, or there was no Earthly Evil Yin Vein, but a natural trap or Great Swamp poison. There were also several places that produced high-quality spirit medicine and heavenly materials, which Qian Chen also marked one by one...

There are not many spirit medicines that can withstand storage.

Cultivators often refine spirit medicines into semi-finished products, such as the nine kinds of spirit insect sloughs when Daoist Zhen was refining pills, all of which were powders that had been prepared with medicine—because apart from plant spirit medicines that can be dried like ginseng and ganoderma, and mineral spirit medicines that will not rot like mica and quartz, there are more spirit medicines that are strange and cannot be preserved at all.

Such as the rootless water commonly used in pill refining—it is rainwater containing clear spiritual qi.

This kind of spirit medicine can only be taken fresh, otherwise, no matter how high the quality of the rootless water is, it will turn into ordinary water after more than three days.

And rootless water also has quality distinctions, such as the pure Yin four-season water at the Zi hour—it is the two or three drops of rain that fall in an extremely Yin place in the Zi year, Zi month, Zi day, and Zi hour. Similarly, there is the pure Yang four-season water at the Wu hour, which is also the rain that falls in a pure Yang place in the Wu year, Wu month, Wu day, and Wu hour... This kind of timing only happens once every twelve years, and cultivators can wait with their longevity.

But if it doesn't rain on that day, then these twelve years will be waited in vain.

The art of calling wind and rain is to mobilize the water vapor in the sky. The clear spiritual qi contained in ordinary rootless water is weak, and summoning some to cast spells doesn't hinder anything, but the clear spiritual qi required for the four-season water must be naturally fused with pure Yin and clear spirit to have that bit of mystery. If a cultivator waits hard for twelve years, and it doesn't rain a drop that night, presumably that night will be very depressed.

If one is unlucky and waits ten times for one hundred and twenty years without getting a single pure Yin four-season water, that is also a common thing.

It's just that the alchemist waiting to refine pills presumably has the heart to kill the Dragon King...

And if one is more miserable, and one's hand shakes when refining that furnace of pills, ruining the furnace, then the pure Yin four-season water cannot be used when the sun comes out. Looking at the spirit medicine one has waited hard for, at the moment the sun rises, it turns into ordinary rootless water... one can imagine what the alchemist is thinking.

Qian Chen had seen in the Daoist books of Geng Yuanzi that the famous pill refining ancestors of the Supreme Dao, Ge Hong, Su Fei, Li Shang, Zuo Wu, Tian You, Xu Jian, Chu Ze... all had histories of kicking over the pill tripod in a fit of rage and declaring they would no longer refine external pills.

The most famous one is Ge Hong failing to refine the immortality medicine on Hundred Grass Mountain, kicking over the pill furnace in a fit of rage, causing the semi-finished immortality medicine in the furnace to turn into pill water and scatter. Hundred Grass Mountain was covered with spirit medicine in one day, becoming a wonderful place of creation. It is rumored that the Immortal Ge Hong pointed to the sky and said angrily: "Persuading people to learn pill refining is like being struck by lightning!"

So many alchemists will open a medicine garden in their magic treasures to facilitate the collection of spirit medicine at any time. Or like Qian Chen, make production records and come back to pick them when they want to open the furnace...

"This Jiuzhen Great Swamp is indeed dangerous. Today I actually discovered the trace of a Nine-Winged Heavenly Centipede. Fortunately, this fierce object is not yet an adult. If it had grown all twelve pairs of wings... I wouldn't even want this malevolent energy! I would turn around and leave..."

Qian Chen also knew that the incubation period of the twelve-winged Heavenly Centipede is long, and it takes ten thousand years to become an adult. I don't know how many thousands of years ago this one was incubated. Its parents were probably far away in the Middle Ages... and didn't stay to raise it, otherwise, he really wouldn't dare to stay in this Jiuzhen Great Swamp! This is a fierce object that is comparable to a Nascent Soul when it is an adult...

Just sitting there, a streak of escaping light came from far to near, slightly pressing down on Qian Chen's head.

After circling a lap, it turned and fell towards the distant Jiaobu Town.

"Approaching the Dragon Boat Festival, there seem to be more cultivators coming and going. It seems that the Dragon Boat Festival in Jiuzhen County is indeed as Cui Dan said, with considerable fame. In the cultivation world, it can also be called a grand event!"

Driving the escaping light was a pair of master and apprentice sisters. The slightly older senior sister raised a flying magic treasure like a silk ribbon, taking her junior sister to Jiaobu Town. When she saw the black-canopy boat where Qian Chen was, she gave a light 'eh', and the cute junior sister asked curiously: "Senior sister, look, it's so close to the Great Swamp, are there actually mortals fishing here?"

"This place is close to the Great Swamp, where crocodiles and dragons often appear, and even big ships of dozens of feet can be overturned. This small boat drifting here is too dangerous!" The senior sister, whose expression was slightly colder, pressed down the escaping light and said: "I will go and persuade him to leave!"

"Can you fish without a hook?"

Getting closer to the ground, the junior sister had sharp eyes and found that the silk line tied to the fishing rod by Qian Chen's hand was hanging loosely, and there was no fish hook.

The senior sister also saw Qian Chen raising his head to look in the direction of their escaping light, and even had the leisure to nod at them.

"So it is a fellow Daoist..." Finding that it was not a mortal who had strayed into this place, the senior sister raised her escaping light and passed by Qian Chen. The junior sister chattered on the silk ribbon: "Senior sister, this should also be a fellow Daoist who came to participate in the Dragon Boat Festival, right? It's just that I am familiar with the sects near Jiuzhen, but that fellow Daoist seems a bit unfamiliar. I don't know which sect's disciple he is?"

"Let's go to the town to settle down first. Since this fellow Daoist is also here to participate in the Dragon Boat Festival, we will meet sooner or later." The senior sister was indisputable and took her junior sister to Jiaobu Town first.

At the same time, she muttered in her heart: "Where did this cultivator come from, setting up a hookless fishing rod to fish, acting so profound, trying to deceive ignorant little girls?"

Immediately, she kept a closer eye on her little junior sister.

Qian Chen stretched, lifted the bamboo pole in his hand, and the silk line seemed to be pulling something. The empty end was pulled straight, and Qian Chen said: "Let's go! Back to Jiaobu Town..."

"It's not far from the Dragon Boat Festival now, everything that needs to be prepared has been prepared, and there are more cultivators coming and going now. Let's go and inquire again to see if there are any clues about the Earthly Evil Yin Veins."

At this time, the small boat Qian Chen was riding on suddenly lifted, pulling out a line of water marks, and went to Jiaobu Town by itself.

Where the silk line was tied, a black back floated out of the water... Surprisingly, one could see that under the black-canopy boat, there was a huge crocodile carrying it. From head to tail, this crocodile was several times larger than the boat, and wherever it went, countless aquatic creatures fled in panic... Those crocodile big snakes that could overturn small boats also cautiously avoided its edge.