Chapter 155: The Second-Floor Tour Group

Amidst the sand and dust, the man desperately wanted to pursue, but the monster in his path, seeing someone charging with a sword, instinctively lashed out with a blast of power.

"Get lost!" The man shook off the monster and tried to pursue again, but the entrance had already sealed shut.

"Damn it!" The man was incredibly furious. He couldn't fathom how this second-floor entrance had opened and closed so coincidentally, as if it were helping Lu Xingzhou—and Lu Xingzhou had even known beforehand...

But then he thought, that couldn't be right. The second floor was so dangerous; was it a place where the three of them could go for a "tour"?

Lu Xingzhou had known this was the second-floor entrance because Sheng Yuanyao had informed him, warning him to be careful not to enter this battleground. But even Sheng Yuanyao hadn't expected Lu Xingzhou to act as if he were waiting for it to open, diving in with such high spirits.

"I've never been to the second floor; I'm not familiar with the terrain down here!" Once they were down, Sheng Yuanyao was quite anxious. "These are all Grade 3 monsters. Even if their strength is eroded, they are still at a Grade 4 level, and there are many of them, unlike the sparse ones on the first floor. I told you to be careful not to come down, so why did you jump down voluntarily?"

"If we didn't jump voluntarily, we wouldn't be able to handle that Grade 3 sword cultivator. With no visibility in the sandstorm, casualties are extremely likely; it's safer down here," Lu Xingzhou said. "Besides, a place with Grade 4 monsters is exactly the kind of trial ground I had in mind for A-Nuo and me. Heavenly treasures are found in danger; what trial value could those sparse goods on the first floor possibly have?"

Sheng Yuanyao was speechless. She hadn't realized before that Lu Xingzhou was essentially a mad martial arts fanatic at heart. This theory would have sounded more fitting coming from Dugu Qingli; she never expected it to come out of Lu Xingzhou's mouth.

No wonder your relationship is starting to get weird.

Of course, she herself was someone who didn't mind trouble; if not for the mission at hand, she might have been even more excited about the adventure than Lu Xingzhou.

Lu Xingzhou said, "Let's go, let's move first. We can talk while we walk. It wouldn't be good if they chased us down... Let's just change locations for now; it won't be easy for them to find us if they do follow."

A-Nuo quickly pushed the wheelchair and ran.

Sheng Yuanyao trotted along beside them and asked, "How did you seem to know that this second-floor entrance was going to open?"

"I didn't know beforehand. It's just that since you all said there are many monsters surviving on the second floor, it's very likely that monsters would be wandering near the entrance, and once it opened, some would rush out to escape. If someone wanted to trap me, seeing me near the entrance, the probability of a monster suddenly rushing out to mess with me was quite high. I just made preparations for such a contingency. Hmm... the person who opened this entrance is likely Chen Yu, and he is not with that sword cultivator."

Sheng Yuanyao: "..."

"Since I was prepared, I could naturally use this highly probable monster to help us stall the enemy. Then, with the sandstorm obscuring our vision, Chen Yu wouldn't know we were facing a Grade 3 sword cultivator and would want to run. Seeing us go down ourselves, he was likely overjoyed. Thinking he had sealed the entrance, he figured we were as good as dead on the second floor. Look, the entrance is sealed; didn't that help us block the enemy? Chen Yu is a good man."

The way Sheng Yuanyao looked at Lu Xingzhou, she might as well have been looking at a monster.

She had thought that losing visibility in the sandstorm was extremely disadvantageous for their side, but Lu Xingzhou had turned around and used this visual cover to cause the opponent to misjudge.

With the premise that Chen Yu was lurking, analyzing this wasn't exactly difficult. But in the midst of such a chaotic battle, while focusing on manipulating the Flame Demon to seize the fire, how did his brain manage to turn so much? She, Sheng Yuanyao, had been entirely focused on the battle situation; how could she have been distracted enough to think of all this!

She had previously thought that being hit by the stray monster energy was just pure bad luck, but now it seemed that might not be the case...

She asked, somewhat cautiously, "Then which side is this Grade 3 sword cultivator on?"

"Most likely a retainer of the Huo family. No other force has such a ruthless desire for my life. Old Huo is really going all out this time. On the surface, he used Xuanqing as bait to make me think the opponent was nothing special, but in reality, he buried a trump card to take my life."

Sheng Yuanyao let out a breath. This judgment was the same as her own. Thank goodness, thank goodness, he hadn't come up with another existence beyond her judgment, otherwise, she would have questioned if she were a moron.

But then Lu Xingzhou added, "But it's also possible it's an unknown force... the kind that doesn't want Shen Tang to have any help from the root. They are targeting Shen Tang, not me."

"The Prince of Jin?"

"Doesn't seem like the Prince of Jin. The Prince of Jin doesn't hide things this deviously. We didn't know Chen Yu was his man before, which was already hidden, and now he's hiding a double layer... Besides, this person doesn't seem to be in the same group as Chen Yu."

Sheng Yuanyao's expression turned very ugly.

It wasn't that she was afraid of becoming a moron; she was afraid that if this conjecture were true, then the matter was much bigger than the Huo family's internal strife! Was there another force besides the Prince of Jin?

"Hey, this matter has nothing to do with you, why is your face so pale?" Lu Xingzhou laughed. "Look, monsters are coming..."

Two dark shadows snuck up from the left and right silently.

The dark shadows had pitch-black bodies, but their eyes were bright red, appearing to be soul-type creatures without flesh or blood.

Shadow Demons.

Sheng Yuanyao drew her waist saber, about to hack at one, when with a "bang," A-Nuo slapped a large pancake out. The Shadow Demon on the right side crashed directly into the pancake, letting out a strange hiss.

On the other side, a ball of black flame silently wrapped around the other Shadow Demon. It looked like a meeting of compatible attributes, but the next moment, the Shadow Demon's whole body began to hiss and smoke, letting out an earth-shattering roar: "What kind of fire is this!"

"A newly fused fire; I haven't studied it carefully yet," Lu Xingzhou grinned. "Just right to use you two as a sacrifice."

The Shadow Demon was about to run, but ghosts rose up all around, binding it tightly in the center.

Black flames rose, the shadows twisted, and the bright red eyes gradually dimmed. Before long, it was refined into a Shadow Crystal.

Turning his head to look, A-Nuo had already pinned the other Shadow Demon to the ground with a pancake and was jumping on it, stomping: "Sneak attack me, let you sneak, sneak, sneak attack me!"

That Shadow Demon soon had more air going out than coming in, and black flames rolled over from the ground, also refining it into a crystal.

Sheng Yuanyao had only drawn her saber halfway; she hadn't had a chance to strike from beginning to end.

Who exactly was the monster here? These two were clearly Grade 4 Shadow Demons, and they had once been Grade 3. In just a few breaths, they were refined into crystals, and this master and apprentice hadn't even caught their breath.

I think I need to suppress you two first!

Lu Xingzhou, on the contrary, frowned and shook his head: "The effect of this black flame after fusion is not as good as expected. The fire seed absorbed just now might not be suitable for the black flame. If there's a convenient place later, I'll have to separate it and study it a bit more. Maybe it's unexpectedly more suitable for making elixir fire..."

As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed the two crystals: "This kind of monster condensed from shadows, if it has a Grade 3 rank, can be condensed into a Shadow Crystal after refining, similar to a demon core. Very lucky, although the monsters here have dropped to Grade 4 in strength, they were originally Grade 3."

Sheng Yuanyao asked, "Can it be used for artifact refining?"

"Yes, it can also be used to reinforce and strengthen my soul banner. Besides, it's quite good for refining A-Nuo's pancake, replacing some of the low-grade materials inside." Lu Xingzhou looked at Sheng Yuanyao's waist saber: "This saber of yours, does it look like a standard-issue saber from the Demon Suppression Division?"

"The style is standard-issue, but depending on the official rank, the quality of the distributed saber is also different."

"So it's still a standard-issue item in the end; there's no custom-made good saber?"

Sheng Yuanyao laughed: "What, do you want to refine an artifact for me?"

"Yes, although I am an alchemist, I also know a little bit about artifact refining; after all, I play with fire. If there are suitable materials here, I can refine one for you."

"But my true life-bound weapon is not this kind of waist saber."

"Then what is it?"

Sheng Yuanyao touched her ring and pulled out a long, wide, thick-backed saber, grinning: "This one. Used for war. The ancestral Grade 1 saber is in my father's hands, but this one of mine is also Grade 3."

A-Nuo stumbled and almost pushed the wheelchair away.

Sheng Yuanyao glared: "What, you're small and can slap iron pancakes, but I can't play with a thick-backed saber?"

"You can, you can." A-Nuo shrank back and apologized with a smile: "Spare my life, Great King."

"Hmph, hmph." Sheng Yuanyao pinched A-Nuo's face: "If I were the Great King of the mountain, I'd tie you back to be my mountain wife."

Although her hand was pinching A-Nuo, her eyes didn't know who she was glancing at.

Lu Xingzhou just smiled and didn't sit in the wheelchair anymore. He put the wheelchair into his ring and walked around to observe, collecting any medicinal herbs that might be there.

It was clear that the things growing on the second floor were much more numerous than on the first. Just walking in one direction, they found quite a few special materials for alchemy along the way, and the grade was not low.

But at the same time, the monster attacks they encountered along the way became more and more frequent, and later on, dealing with them was no longer easy.

"Swish!" Sheng Yuanyao slashed open a long-horned monster, and she also had some minor injuries on her body: "Walking blindly like this is not a solution; we will eventually get tired. We must find a specific location, preferably a terrain suitable for defense where we can squat and guard. After a while, when everyone discovers we have entered the second floor, someone will come to rescue us."

The second floor also formed different special terrains and landforms due to the long-term evolution of various monsters. In terms of terrain alone, it was no more complex than the first floor; they were all of those few types. Lu Xingzhou looked into the distance for a moment and smiled: "It's about time. See the smoke over there?"

"A volcano?"

"Yes." This time, Lu Xingzhou really wanted to go to the volcanic lava terrain. It was true that it was easy to hide fire seeds in such places; the first floor probably didn't have any, but the second floor probably did.

For Lu Xingzhou, no matter how many fire seeds there were, it was never enough, and now that A-Nuo was already refining elixirs independently, she also needed them.

The three of them quickened their pace toward the volcano, and just as they reached the edge, they slammed on the brakes.

A monster stood up from the lava, its body a zhang tall, shaped like black steel, but with cracks, and the cracks were filled with "blood" flowing like lava. Its bloody mouth opened, lava dripped from its mouth, and it puffed out scorching breath with a "ho-ho" sound, looking extremely terrifying.

This thing was less of a lava monster and more of a type of iron monster; the so-called flowing "lava blood" was actually molten metal in a liquid state.

It was worn out by the special power of the Demon Suppression Domain and was hiding in the lava, trying to merge with the environment to survive. To some extent, this place could be considered the territory it had circled after fighting with other monsters.

The problem now was that it was not one monster.

The three of them stared dumbfounded at the rock pillar behind it, where a naked, enchanting long-horned woman was tied up with iron chains.

Looking at the woman's charming eyes, the charm of her tongue licking the corner of her mouth when she saw Lu Xingzhou, and the obvious Grade 4 aura on her body... the so-called five-flower binding was less like being captured and more like a romantic interest.

Lu Xingzhou was stunned: "Did I go to the wrong place? How come there are succubi in this world too?"