515: Chapter 25 Exploring the Ancient Cave of Ten Thousand Bats

Under the guidance of Meng Li and Tian Linger, Lin Jingyu managed to cut through a black-joint bamboo with a single strike in just half a month.

In contrast, it took Zhang Xiaofan a full three months to achieve the same feat.

The gap in talent between the two was plain to see.

Because of this, their progress diverged, and they were taught separately.

As time passed, the gap between them grew larger. Lin Jingyu, who was a step ahead and remained so at every turn, even began to teach Zhang Xiaofan through sparring.

Tian Linger and Meng Li were pleased to see this development.

Lin Jingyu and Zhang Xiaofan were childhood friends; it was good for the advanced student to lead the way for the other on the path of cultivation.

Furthermore, they had their own matters to attend to and couldn't revolve around these two little ones constantly, only checking in periodically to test and guide them.

Like Song Da Ren and Wu Da Yi, Tian Linger had to focus on her cultivation to prepare for the Seven-Peak Martial Tournament in a few years.

However, Meng Li encountered a problem in his cultivation: he had already reached the ninth layer of the Shangqing Realm at Perfection. To go further, he needed to obtain the Taiqing Volume of the Cultivation Technique.

The Taiqing Volume of the Taiji Xuanqing Dao was held by Mysterious Dao. He was the Sect Head and the only person in the Qingyun Sect currently touching the Taiqing Realm. However, Mysterious Dao was in seclusion due to the poison of the Seven-Tailed Centipede, and it was unknown when he would emerge.

Therefore, Meng Li could not obtain the Taiqing Volume for the time being.

This gave him the idea of going out to search for the Heavenly Book.

Thus, after some preparation, Meng Li went to the Affairs Hall on Tongtian Peak to accept a mission.

Descending from Qingyun Mountain, he performed the Flowing Light Escape Technique, transforming into a streak of light and heading straight for Yudu City.

The Flowing Light Escape Technique was a Spell Meng Li had learned after entering the Shangqing Realm. When cast, one could transform into a flash of light to escape and travel. It was faster than flying on a sword, though it had a high consumption rate and was inconvenient for carrying others.

However, this was of no concern to Meng Li.

After forming his Dao Core, he could easily borrow the natural power of heaven and earth within a certain range; ordinary consumption was negligible to him.

While traveling with the Flowing Light Escape Technique, Meng Li found the speed to be truly fast. Previously, when flying on swords with Tian Linger and Lu Xueqi, it had taken over two days to reach the Yudu City area; now, he arrived in about two hours.

And this was without him traveling at full speed; otherwise, it would have been even shorter.

This allowed Meng Li to personally experience what it meant to "travel to the North Sea in the morning and reach Mount Cangwu by dusk."

Upon reaching the Yudu City area, Meng Li did not enter immediately. Instead, he used the transformation arts of the Wind-After Odd Gates to change his appearance before entering the city. He was here to find the Wanfu Ancient Cave and the Heavenly Book and was unsure what accidents might occur; to avoid trouble later, it was better to use an alias.

After entering the city, Meng Li did not specifically inquire about the Wanfu Ancient Cave. Instead, he found a place to stay and then released his Divine Thought, directly covering the entire city to begin scanning.

The reason he was so blunt was twofold: first, his cultivation had reached the ninth layer of the Shangqing Realm at Perfection, giving him the confidence to act freely; second, through deep understanding, he found that the path of cultivation in this world was somewhat unbalanced.

Perhaps because the original works focused on the plot, the cultivation system was not fully developed.

For example, regarding Divine Thought, the fourth layer of the Yuqing Realm could produce mental power for Object Manipulation and Spells, but thereafter it only grew stronger without a qualitative change, such as developing the means for an external scanning Divine Thought, let alone Soul sublimation to produce a Golden Core, Spirit Embryo, or Nascent Soul as a foundation for Immortal Ascension.

After an invisible scan, Meng Li did not get the desired result. However, he was not disappointed. Instead, he constricted his Divine Thought to penetrate the ground, searching deep below.

Before long, he sensed a barrier. Following it with a careful scan, he discovered a massive boundary.

If nothing was amiss, the Wanfu Ancient Cave should be within this boundary.

Meng Li immediately used the Earth-Traveling Immortal technique to dive underground and swim toward the boundary, soon seeing its form—a dark red light shield!

After a moment's thought, he did not force his way through the boundary. Instead, he expanded his Wind-After Qimen Formation and found it was not obstructed and could extend inside the boundary. His eyes brightened slightly as he used Eight Doors Transportation to open an Eight Gates Space entrance in front of him and another inside the boundary.

Entering one and exiting the other, Meng Li easily bypassed the boundary and reached its interior.

Next, he released his Divine Thought and quickly surveyed the surroundings. He realized he was in a canyon with narrow paths at both ends; the former led deeper inside, while the latter led to the surface, clearly being the exit.

Recording the situation, Meng Li transformed into flowing light and dove into the forward path, heading deeper.

Shortly after, he passed through the narrow passage and reached the next level. Sensing the surroundings open up, he couldn't help but stop to investigate with his Divine Thought, only to be startled.

For he discovered this was a cavern filled with numerous bats, especially on the ceiling. A rough scan revealed tens of thousands of them.

Meng Li immediately understood; this must be the Wanfu Ancient Cave.

Since he made no sound, the bats did not notice his arrival.

Meng Li didn't want to provoke them for no reason, so he transformed into flowing light again and flew toward another passage detected by his Divine Thought.

Passing through the passage, he stopped again, only to find there was no road ahead, only a bottomless cliff. After a brief thought, he flew down the cliff.

As he approached the bottom of the cliff, Meng Li clearly sensed a dense Yin Qi below, where many Yin Spirits were gathered.

If his calculations were correct, the bottom of the cliff should be the so-called Dead Spirit Abyss.

This caused Meng Li's heart to stir as he thought of Restraining Spirits and Dispatching Generals. Since obtaining this ultimate technique, he had mostly used it for restraining spirits as a control skill; its ability to nurture Spirit Generals and summon spiritual bodies for combat had never been used.

Firstly, he hadn't encountered a situation where he needed help from others.

Secondly, nurturing a Spirit General required feeding it spiritual bodies, and he didn't have that many resources.

But this Dead Spirit Abyss happened to have an uncountable number of Yin Spirits that could be used to nurture Spirit Generals.

Thinking of this, Meng Li immediately performed the Spirit Observation Method from Restraining Spirits and Dispatching Generals and began selecting suitable targets for nurturing...