Outer South Garden.
An eerie, ancient stone house with moss growing on the stone walls, two of the walls had cracks and broken holes, and the bronze door had long since rusted into a greenish-coloured hunk of metal.
In the stone house, the dense holy qi contracted inwards, converging from one hundred and forty-four orifices into Zhang Ruochen’s body.
“Whew.”
Zhang Ruochen opened his lips and exhaled a long breath.
The qi condensed into a column as thin as silk and struck the rusty bronze door, making a soft sound of “giggling”, actually piercing through the bronze door.
“Swallowing six different Saint Fruits in a row, the Saint Dao rules in my body have increased by another 3,700, totalling 8,200.”
Because of his great advancement in cultivation, Zhang Ruochen exhaled a breath that was able to strike through the palm-thick bronze door within ten feet.
In the Qi Sea, the flow degree of the Tongtian River was obviously faster than before.
Having cultivated 8,200 Saint Dao Rules, even if he didn’t go to the Nine Steps to Heaven Road to test it, Zhang Ruochen was certain that he had reached the Second Step Saint King Realm.
“Feng Yan is right, the God Sealing Platform Assembly is indeed an unprecedented great opportunity. Continue searching for the Sacred Fruit and strive to break through to the Third Step Saint King Realm at the God Sealing Platform.”
With his cultivation growing substantially, Zhang Ruochen was in an excellent mood and had even more confidence.
Next to him, Mu Lingshi was still refining the Holy Fruit, the holy aura radiating from her body was getting brighter and brighter, and her holy and delicate body was as if it was carved out of Immortal Jade.
Zhang Ruochen took out the holy fruits that he had collected earlier, one by one, some were kept inside the Divine Wood Wooden Jar, some were kept in the Jade Box, and in total, they actually added up to hundreds.
The seven types of holy fruits that could raise the cultivation level of a Saint King, including the Heart Moon Holy Fruit, Zhang Ruochen had swallowed all of them.
The remaining twelve types of Saint Fruits were those that could cleanse Saint Veins, those that could increase longevity, those that could enhance Saint Souls, and those that could help a warrior cultivate special techniques and Saint Arts ……
In short, they were all worldly treasures that were hard to find outside.
Zhang Ruochen didn’t take these holy fruits for the time being, after all, the time for the God Sealing Platform Assembly was only three days, so he had to seize the time to find other treasures.
Mu Lingshi’s cultivation technique was not as good as the Nine Heavenly Bright Emperor Scripture, and the degree of refining the holy fruits was naturally not as good as Zhang Ruochen.
Another half an hour passed before she leisurely turned awake, opening her eyelids and staring forwards.
Only to see that Zhang Ruochen was holding a wide, heavy sword and was studying it, and from time to time, he would also swing a sword or perform a complete sword technique.
Seeing Mu Lingshi awake, Zhang Ruochen stuck the heavy sword on the ground, turned around, sized her up, nodded with a smile, and said, “Not bad, your cultivation should have already reached the realm of a Second Step Saint King.”
“Swallowing the seven types of Saint Fruits has allowed me to increase close to four thousand Saint Dao rules, isn’t it a normal thing to break through to the Second Step Saint King realm?”
Mu Lingshi slowly stood up and walked out of the stone house, a ball of Extreme Yin Underworld Ice Qi escaping from her palm as she waved her arm behind her.
“Giggle.”
The Extreme Yin Underworld Ice Qi fell into the stone house, and in an instant, the stone house was frozen inside a small iceberg. With a pinch of her five fingers, the ice mountain, along with the stone house, burst into a fist-sized chunk of broken pieces.
Mu Lingshi stared at the heavy sword stuck on the ground, a strange colour appearing in her eyes as she said, “This is a Three Flare Ten Thousand Stripes Sacred Artifact grade battle sword, the material is very special, it should be extremely heavy.”
Zhang Ruochen grabbed the heavy sword with one hand, shrunk it to the size of a dagger, and stowed it in his sleeve, saying, “It’s not good to reveal your identity at the God Sealing Platform, and it’s easy to invite those enemies over. For the time being, I’ll use this heavy sword, instead of Sinking Abyss, I’ve already domesticated its sword spirit just now, so I can use it as I please.”
Next, Zhang Ruochen and Mu Lingshi continued their search in the Outer South Garden, travelling to areas they hadn’t reached earlier, wanting to pick more Sacred Fruits.
The Outer South Garden was vast, travelling more than three hundred miles in one direction before reaching the edge.
Within this area, there were a large number of ruins, canyons, cliffs, and ancient forests …… spread out, and the Sacred Trees were growing in rather treacherous environments with various different dangers.
However, because of the large number of cultivators attending the God Sealing Platform Assembly, and several hours had passed, when Zhang Ruochen and Mu Lingshi rushed to those dangerous places where the sacred trees were growing, they realised that the vast majority of the sacred fruits on the sacred trees had all been picked clean.
This was a robbery, whoever was stronger and faster would be able to pick more holy fruits.
After spending an entire hour, the two of them had harvested very little.
“Apart from the area above the White Bone Slope, we’ve almost searched the entire Outer Southern Garden. Even if there are still some Sacred Trees that are hidden inside illusions or formations, finding them out will definitely take a lot of time. How about, first, going to the Outer East Garden to excavate the Sacred Flowers and Sacred Herbs?”Mu Lingshi proposed so.
The venue of the God Sealing Platform Assembly was divided into ten gardens:
The Outer Four Parks, the Inner Four Parks, the Centre Bihuang Park, and the Free Trade Park.
According to the rules, cultivators from great worlds that ranked after one thousand on the Ten Thousand Worlds Merit Ranking List, other than world leaders, all other cultivators, could only stay in the outer four parks.
Cultivators who passed the qualification test and entered the God Sealing Platform could naturally only stay in the Outer Four Gardens.
Of course, the cultivators of the great worlds ranked 1,000th could also be in the outer four gardens, seizing all kinds of treasures. This was the advantage of the strong worlds, and cultivators from other great worlds could only be red in the eyes.
In any place, it was always the weak that preyed on the strong, and the God Sealing Platform Assembly was no exception.
Even the outer four gardens, the distribution of treasures, were each different.
The Outer South Garden, mainly grew all sorts of holy trees.
The Outer East Garden, there were all sorts of exotic flowers and herbs growing, of which, the main ones were ten thousand year old sacred medicines.
The Outer North Garden, on the other hand, had all sorts of holy springs spread out.
The Outer West Garden, on the other hand, was an ancient mining pit, capable of digging out holy stones, along with all sorts of holy jades.
In the Outer South Garden, the only area that hadn’t been explored yet was located above the White Bone Slope, where it was pitch black, and from afar, it looked like thick black ink surging, so that the spiritual power couldn’t even probe into it.
Many cultivators stood at the periphery and watched, revealing hesitant expressions.
Before they participated in the God Sealing Platform Assembly, they had been advised by their elders that that area was quite treacherous, and that they must not intrude into it, and that more than one living being had fallen in it every time the Assembly was held.
The reason why they hesitated was because, again, their elders had said that the area was quite vast, much larger than the entire Outer South Garden, and that there had once been some characters with great strength and unbelievable luck who had entered that area, walked out alive, and brought back a large number of holy fruits. Some of these holy fruits were so valuable that they even surpassed the treasures of the inner four courtyards.
Since they were unable to enter the inner four courtyards, this area, too, became a place for them to seize great opportunities.
However, there was only one life, and no one dared to risk it easily.
Feng Yan had talked about that area, and at that time, his face was quite grave, as if he was quite afraid, and he had repeatedly warned Zhang Ruochen not to take any risks, and that there had once been a Divine Transmission Disciple of the Eight-Step Saint King Realm who had fallen in there.
Thus, although Zhang Ruochen was quite curious about the place, he suppressed the curiosity in his heart and did not go there, instead, he joined Mu Lingshi and rushed towards the Outer East Garden.
Between the Outer South Garden and the Outer East Garden, there was a river more than twenty metres wide.
What flowed in the river was not water, but a white holy spring. On the surface of the river, a faint layer of white holy mist filled the surface, appearing to be a slight haze of smoke and waves, making the two sides of the small river seem like a fairyland.
Near the river, there were all kinds of exotic flowers and plants growing, the vast majority of which were hundreds of years old, and some of them, even a thousand years old.
Of course, this level of spiritual flowers and herbs were no longer useful to Zhang Ruochen and Mu Lingshi, and they couldn’t even look at them.
Mu Lingshi sighed, ”The Sacred Spring in the river, if it were to be revealed by cultivators below the level of Half-Saint, they would definitely collect it frantically. However, it is of no use to us at all.”
Zhang Ruochen said, “These Sacred Springs are useless to us, but they can contain Sacred Flowers and Sacred Herbs. Let’s search upstream along the river and we might be able to find some of these precious ten-thousand year old Sacred Pills.”
Some of these precious ten-thousand year old sacred medicines could also raise the cultivation realm of a Saint King.
Mu Lingshi nodded and unfurled a pair of phoenix feather wings, taking the lead to fly out.
Zhang Ruochen stepped out in a kind of arcane pace and walked along the bank, seemingly very slowly, but the degree was not below Mu Lingshi’s.
The exotic flowers and herbs on both sides of the river had already been searched for more than once by other cultivators, and there was no way to find ten-thousand year old sacred medicines. Spirit medicines that were more than three thousand years old were rare.
After roughly seven or eight miles of travelling upwards, suddenly, Zhang Ruochen stopped as if he had noticed something, and his eyes stared towards the surface of the small river.
In the centre of the river, there was a small whirlpool.
Just a moment ago, Zhang Ruochen, with his powerful spiritual power, sensed a strange fluctuation emanating from the bottom of the whirlpool.
That fluctuation only appeared for a moment and then disappeared again, and when he used his spiritual power to probe again, he couldn’t detect any abnormality, making Zhang Ruochen somewhat doubt if his perception was wrong.
“What’s wrong?”
Mu Lingshi flew over from the opposite side of the river and landed beside Zhang Ruochen, her gaze also staring towards that whirlpool.
“There seems to be an unimaginable present.”
Zhang Ruochen took out the Mercury Gourd, struck it out, levitated it to the sky above the small river, and softly chanted, “Collect.”
Immediately, the mouth of the gourd exploded with a powerful suction force, drawing the holy spring in the river, inside the gourd. The water level of the river quickly became shallower, and a few moments later, the small river broke off, revealing a dark purple riverbed.
Zhang Ruochen fixed his eyes on it and saw that, there was actually a cave in the riverbed, and it was unknown where it led to, the diameter of the hole was less than two metres.
There was an amazing medicinal fragrance that filled the cave.
Zhang Ruochen and Mu Lingshi simultaneously revealed joyful colours and were about to immediately enter the cave to explore.
However, just at this moment, several wind-breaking sounds came from the distance, and a somewhat familiar voice rang out, “What a strong medicinal fragrance, could it be that there is an Ancient Sacred Pill with a 100,000 year vintage here?”
In the next moment, five figures with white angelic wings appeared in Zhang Ruochen and Mu Lingshi’s line of sight, all of them were Saint King level powerhouses, and one of them was none other than that Lance White, who claimed to be Shang Ziqiao’s cousin.
