Chapter 21: Black-Feathered Python

By the water pool, the Song family cultivators, except for those responsible for setting up the formation together, all had more or less injuries. At this moment, they were all choosing a place by the water pool and using healing elixirs to slowly recover their injuries.

Song Qingming, Great Elder Song Gubai, and Twelfth Aunt Song Zhangyun were not injured. At this moment, the three were collecting the remaining monster beast materials by the water pool.

In this battle, the Liu family also died a cultivator. An elderly cultivator put away the corpse of this clansman and was about to ask the patriarch how to deal with it, but found that he had been looking for a long time and did not see the figure of his patriarch. A few people who knew the situation among the Liu family cultivators hurriedly pulled the old man to one side.

The Wu family and the Song family were lucky and had no cultivators killed. Only one clansman was seriously injured, and the others were only slightly injured. Accepting this mission could be considered to have earned a lot. Patriarch Wu Xiyun was smiling and urging the Wu family clansmen to collect monster beast materials quickly.

Du Shaokang, who led the Du family team, did not smile as easily as Wu Xiyun. Although the Du family cultivator who died in battle did not have high cultivation, he was a close junior of the Du family patriarch. He didn't want to be careless and fall here. Although so many clansmen on the scene saw it and could testify for him, his own patriarch happened to be a person who loved to protect his shortcomings. This time, the person who led the team will inevitably be blamed. Thinking of this, he also kept his frowned brows unable to relax.

The remuneration given by the Liu family for this mission was not low, two hundred spirit stones for each family. Added to the first-tier monster beast materials divided by the three families, each family also received extra monster beast materials worth about one hundred and fifty spirit stones. If no clansmen died, this trip was worth a year's income for the family.

High returns also mean high risks. Except for young cultivators like Song Qingming who went out for the first time, others were already accustomed to such bloody battlefields.

Just when everyone was about to finish collecting the remaining monster beast materials, a few air bubbles suddenly appeared in the center of the water pool. Liu Tianlong, with a pale face, jumped out of the water pool and shouted at the Liu family cultivators by the water pool while running.

"Run quickly, there is another second-tier monster beast below!"

The originally calm water pool, after Liu Tianlong jumped out, suddenly appeared a huge black whirlpool. Several cultivators with lower cultivation by the water pool were instantly sucked into this whirlpool.

Song Gubai saw that the situation was not right and hurriedly pulled Song Zhangyun, who was closest to him, and jumped to the shore quickly.

Everyone fled the water pool and looked back, the black whirlpool rolled larger and larger, and suddenly disappeared into the water pool not long after. Not long after, a huge black head in the middle of the water pool slowly probed out of the water surface, opening a pair of blood-red big eyes and staring dead at the crowd on the shore.

"This is a Black-Feathered Python, everyone run quickly!"

As soon as Wu Xiyun saw this huge head, he recognized the origin of this monster beast and hurriedly led the Wu family clansmen to flee for their lives without looking back.

This Black-Feathered Python came from the depths of the Fuyun Mountain Range and was a second-tier mid-quality monster beast. Two years ago, it arrived at this water pool and occupied this cave dwelling that was originally a silver-armored crab, and also ate many of its clansmen. The silver-armored crab could not beat this monster python and could only swallow its anger and change to another cave dwelling in the pool.

The Liu family would send people to check this water pool every half a year, but they did not dare to go deep into the water pool and never noticed the changes at the bottom of the pool.

The Black-Feathered Python cultivated on the water vein at the bottom of the pool all day long, wanting to swallow the Water Spirit Fruit on the Water Spirit Fruit Tree to help itself advance when it broke through to the Foundation Establishment late stage. Unexpectedly, Liu Tianlong and the three intervened and picked the Water Spirit Fruit in advance. At this moment, it finally rushed out of the water pool in a rage and exposed its sharp fangs to these cultivators on the shore.

A group of cultivators on the shore heard the name of the Black-Feathered Python and were also taken aback. Seeing that this monster beast was already at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, they had no courage to fight. Soon, under the leadership of the Wu family cultivators, they scattered in all directions like frightened birds.

The Black-Feathered Python roared angrily, flew out of the water pool, danced its huge body, and chased toward the Liu family cultivators in front.

——

Song Qingming only felt that he, along with the monster beast corpse under him, was instantly sucked into the center of the whirlpool by a huge force, and instantly sank to the bottom of the pool along with the water flow.

After a dark and dim time, Song Qingming felt that he seemed to have fallen into a cave at the bottom of the pool. He took out a night-luminescent pearl the size of a fist from his storage bag. Relying on the faint light of the night-luminescent pearl, Song Qingming found that he was sitting in an underwater cave.

The night-luminescent pearl is just a common thing in the mortal world. Although such a large night-luminescent pearl is a treasure worth a city in the secular town, this thing is just a fun item in the hands of cultivators. When Song Qingming set up a stall at Caolu Mountain, he only used a low-tier spirit talisman to exchange for this item from an elderly mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator.

Relying on the faint light emitted by the night-luminescent pearl, Song Qingming used a water-avoidance spell to separate the clear water from his body. Just as he was about to get up, he found a burst of pain in his abdomen. It seemed that a few bones were broken. He checked other places on his body, and there were some injuries all over his body. He hurriedly poured out a few hemostatic elixirs and took them.

Looking at the pitch-black cave entrance in front, with piles of monster beast bones beside him, Song Qingming couldn't help but feel a bit scared. He seemed to have been rolled into its cave by some monster beast. Before being rolled into the whirlpool, he also clearly heard Liu Tianlong's shouting. There seemed to be a monster beast at the bottom of the water, and the front of the cave might be the cave dwelling of that monster beast.

He must leave here quickly to find a place to heal his wounds and recover his spiritual power, otherwise, he would be in danger of his life when the monster beast comes back.

Walking more than ten zhang toward the cave exit, Song Qingming quickly walked out of the cave and came to the bottom of the pool. Fortunately, the monster beasts in this water pool were basically strangled by the crowd before, otherwise, even if a mid-tier monster beast came in this water, Song Qingming would be afraid that he would have no way to heaven and no door to enter the earth.

Carefully exploring the surroundings, seeing that there was no danger, Song Qingming left the cave and swam toward the top of the water pool. Just after swimming a few zhang away, his eyes were attracted by a few spirit grasses on a reef not far away.

Song Qingming swam over and took a look. This seemed to be a few first-tier Xuan You Flowers, looking like they had a medicinal age of about fifty or sixty years. These few spirit grasses could be exchanged for at least seven or eight spirit stones in the market. Looking around and seeing no movement, he happily picked these few medicinal herbs and put them into his storage bag.

Just as he was about to leave, he found a delicate small red bag hanging on the other side of the reef.

"This seems to be... a storage bag."

Song Qingming picked up the red bag and looked at it carefully. It was indeed a cultivator's storage bag. It was just that ordinary cultivators' storage bags were all set with restrictions. He could not open the bag now and did not know who dropped it here, but he could be sure that this storage bag was definitely not from the Song family, because all the storage bags used by the Song family cultivators, including himself, were uniformly cyan-yellow.

"It should be some unlucky cultivator like me who dropped it here when he was rolled into the pool just now."

Song Qingming looked at the style of the storage bag, which seemed to be of higher quality than the low-tier storage bag he used.

The storage bag Song Qingming used had always been the one he received in the family's Gold Collection Pavilion when he broke through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining. This kind of low-tier storage bag had limited space, and the inside was only three feet in circumference. And the storage bag in his hand now should be a top-grade storage bag, and the space inside was several times larger, six feet in circumference.

After he goes up later, if someone comes to check and ask, he will definitely have to hand it over actively. If that person has already died in this water pool, then he can naturally deny it. This water pool is full of crises, and there are unknown monster beasts. It is normal for the storage bag to be swallowed in one bite, and they may not dare to come down to look for it. Such a storage bag can be sold for at least a hundred spirit stones in the market. Even if the storage bag is empty, it is worth him taking this risk.

He sold spirit talismans for two years with great difficulty, but only saved a little over a hundred spirit stones. The value of this storage bag was worth his two years of day and night talisman-making income.

Song Qingming looked around carefully to make sure no one was there, quietly put away the storage bag, and swam quickly toward the top of the water pool.

Jumping out of the water pool and looking, the shore was a mess, but there was no one in sight, only a pile of monster beast materials they hadn't had time to collect just now, and two corpses of Liu family cultivators not far away.

Song Qingming was startled. This must have been a terrible monster beast. Even these monster beast materials, which were usually worth a lot of money to him, he couldn't care about at this moment, and he ran away in a panic.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 22 =====