Chapter 3661

Ye Chen quickly walked through the cave chamber and the long mountain tunnel, and the cave entrance came into view.

At this moment, the light outside the cave was very bright, appearing to be daytime, and the temperature was warm, indicating he was no longer in Antarctica.

Approaching the cave entrance, Ye Chen suddenly recalled the embarrassing scene from his first teleportation via the ring, so he immediately lowered his head to check himself, but unexpectedly, this time was different from before—previously, he had been stripped naked by the explosion of Chang Shengbo's self-detonation, so when he teleported to Lin Wan'er's side, he was completely naked; this time, perhaps because he hadn't faced danger, his clothes and belongings had teleported with him.

The only embarrassment was that after his bloody battle with Wu Boklin, his clothes had been torn to shreds by the Wan Jie Gui Zong technique, and combined with the heavy blood loss earlier, he looked quite terrifying; Ye Chen thought to himself: "With this appearance, I should still avoid people, lest I frighten them."

When Ye Chen reached the cave entrance, he saw lush, towering mountains outside—spring greenery in full bloom—so he deduced he must be in the Northern Hemisphere, and based on the temperature, it was neither tropical nor subarctic, but rather the northern temperate zone covering most of China's territory.

Based on this, Ye Chen concluded he was likely in China, though he still didn't know exactly where.

He stepped out of the cave and immediately took out the satellite phone he had used in Antarctica, opened the software to check his current satellite location, and was astonished to find himself in a place called Mount Heming in western Shu.

Ye Chen couldn't help muttering: "Mount Heming… this place feels somewhat familiar."

The next moment, he suddenly realized: Mount Heming seemed to be the birthplace of Daoism!

Upon this thought, Ye Chen exclaimed: "It seems the cultivators in that underground city inherited the Daoist lineage—the central position of the compass corresponds to Daoism's origin; could it be that they first cultivated here?"

Just as Ye Chen marveled, a mental cultivation mantra reappeared in his mind, and he subconsciously knew this mantra was the key to opening this cave and the teleportation array within.

Realizing the cave required a mantra to open, he immediately turned back to look at the cave entrance he had just exited, only to be astonished to find the entrance had completely vanished—or rather, from the outside, the stone wall showed no trace of an opening—but Ye Chen knew the entrance was still there, accessible only with the mantra.

It seemed every teleportation array's exit was protected by a formation to isolate it from ordinary people and enemies.

Ye Chen checked his satellite navigation and found Mount Heming was less than 1,500 kilometers in a straight line from Jin Ling—already quite close to his base; if the other eight teleportation points weren't closer to Jin Ling, he would come to Mount Heming to buy land and build a new base, so he could directly go to the Antarctic underground city for cultivation, where spiritual energy was extremely abundant, increasing his cultivation speed by over a hundredfold.

Ye Chen felt immense joy—originally, he thought the underground city was in Antarctica, making a future visit extremely difficult; even commercial flights had no direct routes, and private planes couldn't cross such a distance in one go.

But now it was different—with this teleportation array, he could not only travel directly from China to Antarctica, but also use it as a transit point to reach eight other unknown locations!

Having thought this through, Ye Chen had no time to familiarize himself with Mount Heming's surroundings; he immediately silently recited the mental mantra in his heart, and the cave appeared on the stone wall—without hesitation, he stepped into the entrance and returned to the square cave chamber.

The light circle on the ground was still slowly rotating; he stood in its center, silently recited the mantra, and his body was once again enveloped in light—next moment, he found himself back in the square treasure tower of the Antarctic underground city, still standing on the light circle at the compass's center.

Ye Chen pondered silently: the center of the compass corresponded to Mount Heming, the origin of Daoism; thus, the eight directions—Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui, Qian—on the compass respectively represented true north, northeast, true east, southeast, true south, southwest, true west, and northwest—dividing 360 degrees into eight 45-degree sectors.

Following normal logic, these directions were likely based on Mount Heming in western Shu as the reference point—so if he chose the Kan position, it would correspond to a location north of Mount Heming; choosing Zhen would place him east of Mount Heming.

However, he still didn't know exactly how far north or east would be from Mount Heming.

Ye Chen thought Jin Ling lay to the east of Mount Heming, so he decided to test the Zhen position to see how far east it would actually be.

Without hesitation, he stepped to the Zhen position and silently recited its corresponding mental mantra.

The next moment, golden light flashed.

When he opened his eyes again, he was still in an artificially carved stone chamber.

He walked out of the stone cave and found it was still daytime, still spring with lush greenery in the deep mountains, but the terrain differed from Mount Heming—peaks didn't resemble western Shu's style, feeling more volcanic.

Ye Chen took out his satellite phone, opened the location function, and was astonished to discover he was actually in Mount Mitake, western Tokyo, Japan.

Mount Mitake is also one of Japan's famous sacred mountains and a renowned religious site; Japanese Shinto tradition is said to have originated here.

Ye Chen wondered: why would those cultivators build one of their teleportation arrays in Japan? Could this place have also been within their ancient range of activity?

Originally, he had assumed all nine teleportation points were in China, but he hadn't expected that the eastern Zhen position would already lead to Japan.

He immediately returned to the square treasure tower and tried the Gen position, representing northeast—this time, he was teleported to Yakut in Russia's Far East.

Turning back, he tried the Kan position for true north—and was directly sent to northern Greenland Island within the Arctic Circle.

The Xun position for southeast sent him to the snow-capped mountains of the Great Dividing Range in southeastern Australia.

The Li position for true south placed him in the Mount Semeru volcanic range in Indonesia.

The Kun position for southwest brought him to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

The Dui position for true west teleported him to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, USA.

The Qian position for northwest sent him to the Alps Mountains on the border between France and Italy.

In just half an hour, Ye Chen had traversed nearly all continents of the world.

What amazed him was that, before the decline of the Dharma Era, these cultivators had already left their footprints across the entire world; even while hiding in Antarctica, they hadn't severed ties with the world, but instead used hidden teleportation arrays in major mountain ranges to travel freely between Antarctica and various global locations.

The fact that they could painstakingly establish such teleportation arrays indicated they weren't occasional visitors to these places, but needed to travel frequently between them.

In that era, what exactly did they need that required constant back-and-forth movement across so many places?