The Sacred Book Talent Maiden lowered her cicatrix, looking torn and conflicted as she said, “I have a question that I want to ask you.”
“What question?”
Zhang Ruochen felt a bit surprised, this was the first time he had seen, the Sacred Arts Talented Girl look uncertain.
The Sacred Scripture Talented Lady asked, “Did you come here to save me, or to trace the secret of the Blood Beast?”
Zhang Ruochen said frankly, “Both!”
“Which is a bit more?”
The Sacred Book Talented Maiden wanted to ask this question, but, after thinking about it, she felt that it seemed too obvious to ask. Thus, she swallowed back the words she was about to ask.
How could she ask such a childish question when she was the Sacred Book Talented Maiden, a representative of the Confucian Way, and a Saint of Spiritual Power?
Zhang Ruochen did not notice the Sacred Book Talented Maiden’s strange expression and said, “In fact, I still feel quite guilty after hearing the news of your fall. At the same time, I don’t quite believe that you have really died, which is why I wanted to take a look at the Endless Abyss.”
“Why do you feel guilty?”The Sacred Book Talented Maiden asked.
Zhang Ruochen said, “If it weren’t for the fact that I told you that the person who compiled the Secret Scrolls of the Blood Race was the old ancestor of the Shangguan Family, how would you have gone there? If you didn’t go to the Shangguan Family, you wouldn’t have been in danger.”
“So that’s how it is.”
The eyes of the Sacred Book Talented Lady became a little darker and less lustrous.
It turned out that Zhang Ruochen had only come to the First Echelon to save her because of the guilt in his heart.
With Zhang Ruochen’s character, even if the person in danger was not the Sacred Book Talented Girl, but another cultivator, I’m afraid he would have come without hesitation.
He, was that kind of person.
The position of the Sacred Book Talented Maiden in his heart didn’t seem to be as important as she thought.
Zhang Ruochen’s expression, rather serious, asked, “Miss Nalan, did you obtain the Blood Clan Secret Scroll in the Shangguan Family or not? And why did you come to the Endless Abyss? What exactly happened a month ago?”
The Sacred Scripture Talented Girl gathered her lost emotions and gently shook her head, saying, “I didn’t meet with Saint King Que, however, Saint King Que sent someone to send me a note with the words ‘Endless Abyss’ written on it. I was unable to guess what his old man meant, so I planned to personally explore the Endless Abyss.”
“However, it was only a short while after I left the Shangguan Family that I encountered several saints of the Immortal Blood Race intercepting me. I guessed that there should be an Immortal Blood Race lurking within the Shangguan Worldly Clan, and moreover, this person must have an extremely high status.”
Zhang Ruochen said, “Impossible, with Saint King Que’s cultivation and his knowledge of the Immortal Blood Race, how could there be an Immortal Blood Race lurking under his nose without him noticing?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but my whereabouts must have been leaked out by the clansmen of the Shangguan Family. There are only a few people who know that I’ve been to the Shangguan Clan, and as long as I can return to the surface alive, it won’t be difficult to find that person out.”The Sacred Book Talented Lady said.
Originally, Zhang Ruochen wanted to solve some doubts in his heart through the Sacred Book Talented Lady.
After interacting with her, Zhang Ruochen however found that more confusion and unanswered questions welled up in his heart.
Why did Saint King Que not hand over the Secret Scroll of the Blood Race to the Sacred Book Talented Woman, but instead guided her to the Endless Abyss?
Did it mean that the Secret Scroll of the Blood Clan was in the Endless Abyss, or did it mean something else?
Most importantly, since Saint King Que could have sent someone to pass a note to the Sacred Scripture Maiden, why didn’t he meet her in person?
Could it be that Saint King Que was hiding something and didn’t dare to say it in person.
Or perhaps, the person who passed the note to the Sacred Book Talented Girl wasn’t the Que Sacred King at all. It was even an unknown whether or not Que Sacred King was still alive.
Regardless of what the truth really was, the Shangguan Family and the Endless Abyss were definitely hiding a great secret.
Zhang Ruochen even vaguely felt that that secret was somehow related to the Palace Change Incident in the Sacred Brightness Central Empire eight hundred years ago.
This area, which was already quite hidden, even if Immortal Orchid King got away, it would not be an easy task to find this place.
Zhang Ruochen found a natural grotto with a triangular configuration in a location between two cliffs, which was roughly a dozen feet deep and could be used as a temporary shelter.
Zhang Ruochen simply tidied up the grotto and took out some commonly used items from his spatial ring, including clean clothes, fresh water, healing pills, and so on, and handed them over to the Sacred Book Talented Maiden so that she could nurse her wounds and recover her mental strength in the grotto.
Zhang Ruochen didn’t go far, so he took out the box he had retrieved from Mei Lanzhu’s body at the location of the cave entrance, studied it some more, and still couldn’t make it unopenable, so he had to give up and put it away again.
Nowadays, his cultivation had just broken through to Third Order Half-Saint, and within a short period of time, he was simply unable to impact to Fourth Order Half-Saint.
If he wanted to raise his strength, he could only think of a way from somewhere else.
Zhang Ruochen took out the Secret Code of Time and Space and began to study the second level realm of the Time Sword Technique, the Scale Sword Technique again.
The Scale Sword Technique had only eight moves in total and was known as the “Scale Eight Changes”.
The first realm of the Time Sword Technique, the Braking Sword Technique, was only 900 simple sword moves that were not coherent with each other. Furthermore, each move only incorporated a single time mark, so the power that erupted from it was naturally limited.
The Graduated Sword Technique was even more powerful than the Shakura Sword Technique, containing more time seals, more complicated changes, and each move was very profound. With each move learnt, the power of the sword technique, would increase exponentially.
The first move of the Eight Changes of Scale was known as the “One Moment Four Directions Change”.
According to the records on the Secret Code of Space and Time, when this move was cultivated to a great extent, it would affect the flow of time in a hundred feet in a radius when the sword technique was performed.
If the eighth move, “Eight Moments of Life and Death Transformation” was successfully cultivated, within a short period of time, one could even make time stand still.
The true subtlety of the Scale Sword Technique was not just changing the flow of time.
The subtlety of the swordsmanship was enough to be compared to a holy art.
Each sword move contained twenty-five stances and one hundred and twenty-five variables.
It wasn’t the first time Zhang Ruochen had studied the Scale Sword Technique, and before that, he had already cultivated it for a long time, only that he had never managed to cultivate the first move to a great success.
To incorporate five time seals, simultaneously, into a single sword move was not an easy task in the first place.
“I’m now able to incorporate four time seals into a sword technique at the same time. All that’s missing is the final step.”
Zhang Ruochen put the Space-Time Mystical Codex back away, grabbed the Sinking Abyss Ancient Sword, and closed his eyes to feel the serenity of the world around him.
“Time and space are not isolated, the four directions also have boundaries.”
Zhang Ruochen captured the time imprints and integrated them into his sword technique, stabbing and moving out with his sword, and immediately, there was a subtle circle of fluctuations that spread out.
“Swish swish.”
The practice continued without stopping.
For an entire day, Zhang Ruochen had stabbed out at least a thousand swords, but he had not succeeded in cultivating the first move, “One Moment Four Directions Change”.
The difficulty of the second level realm of the Time Sword Technique was far beyond his imagination.
Next, Zhang Ruochen continued to study the Secret Code of Time and Space, always feeling that he was already on the verge of a breakthrough, just missing the last bit.
“Ow!”
A blood beast’s howl, deafening to the ears, emanated from a deep gully in the distance.
The black cliffs around them all shook.
Zhang Ruochen only felt pain in his eardrums, a blackness in front of his eyes, and the blood qi in his body tumbled, if not for his strong physique, he was afraid that he would have already suffered a heavy blow.
How could there be such a terrifying blood beast in the first echelon?
He immediately closed the Secret Canon of Time and Space and leapt, his feet stepping on the stone cliff as if he was walking on a flat surface, rushing all the way up to a height of more than a hundred feet.
“Giggle!”
The Sinking Abyss Ancient Sword pierced into the stone wall, revealing only half of the sword body.
Zhang Ruochen grabbed the hilt of the sword and stuck to the top of the stone wall, looking in the direction of the beast’s howl.
In the distance, a large, blood-coloured light emanated, gushing out from a deep, bottomless gully, illuminating hundreds of miles in every direction in a dark red colour.
The intense blood mist, transformed into a gas cloud, rolled between the gullies, and faintly, a pair of huge wings could be seen flapping in the blood mist.
Standing at such a distant distance, one could still see two wings, from which it could be seen that the body of that one blood beast was unknown how huge it had to be.
Not only that, Zhang Ruochen also saw that on the back of that blood beast, there was a small black dot.
That black dot, it seemed …… to be a person.
Being so far apart, the roar of the blood beast almost hit Zhang Ruochen hard even with its roar. That blood beast must be many times more powerful than the Cloud Gold Beast.
How could there be a person standing on the back of such a powerful blood beast?
Who was that person?
That blood beast, flew out of the gully and turned into a ball of blood-red fire that shot straight into the sky and disappeared into the darkness.
The blood light in the gully also gradually dissipated and finally disappeared completely.
Zhang Ruochen sucked in a breath of cold air and said, ”That location, could it be the entrance to the second gradient. Who exactly is the person standing on the back of the blood beast?”
Zhang Ruochen visually measured the distance, the gully where the blood light had just gushed out was roughly 1,300 miles away.
“Not good, the screams of that blood beast just now have travelled at least thousands of miles, it’s very likely that it will lure the Immortal Orchid King over.”
Zhang Ruochen immediately pulled out the Sinking Abyss Ancient Sword and swam downwards along the cliff wall, falling back to the ground.
The Sacred Book Talented Maiden was also startled by the roar of the beast just now and walked out of the grotto.
She had already completely washed the blood and dirt from her body and changed into a clean white silk wrapped dress with a jade belt tied around her waist, outlining her lithe willow waist.
The green silk on her head, which had also been cleaned, hung softly on both sides of her cheeks, all the way down to her waist.
Soft, beautiful, holy, elegant, pure, no matter the words of praise can be used on her body, and also, it is not enough to describe her beauty.
Compared to yesterday’s wretched appearance, she was a complete different person.
Zhang Ruochen stared at the top of her face and froze for a moment, after all, it wasn’t often that the Sacred Book Talented Lady looked like she was dressed in women’s clothing, and every time, she was so stunning, giving off a much different aura.
“What happened?”Sacred Book Talented Lady asked.?Zhang Ruochen said, “Just a moment ago, a blood-red alien light appeared, spreading for hundreds of miles. That alien light is most likely from the second echelon of the Endless Abyss, or it could be the blood aura left behind by the Blood Queen
