“What’s that?”
At that moment, a spark of joy flashed in Chu Feng’s eyes. He darted downward once again, landing before the egg.
By now, the egg wasn’t just glowing brilliantly, as dazzling as the sun—it was also releasing a peculiar scent.
This scent, astonishingly, contained traces of the Martial Path.
Chu Feng had visited countless sacred cultivation grounds and had often gleaned insights into the Martial Path from the relics of predecessors, elevating his cultivation.
Yet those places typically conveyed their energy through sight or feeling. This was the first time he’d encountered one that relied on smell.
Though the method was unusual, Chu Feng wasn’t about to pass up a chance to boost his cultivation.
Drawing closer to the egg, he found the aroma of cosmic energy even more intense. He took a deep breath.
“Holy—this smell…”
But as he inhaled, the scent morphed. It turned unbearably foul, making Chu Feng retch.
Worse, the gas sent his heart racing and muddled his thoughts.
Chu Feng felt wretched—his mind in disarray, his chest tight with panic as if a boulder weighed on his heart. The agony was unbearable, pushing him toward madness.
Yet amid this struggle, he sensed it—the Martial Path.
But that fleeting glimpse faded as the stench and his turmoil subsided.
Chu Feng quickly fought to clear his mind, forcing rationality back just in time to grasp a fragment of the Martial Path before it slipped away entirely.
Had he not gained something from it, he’d have deemed the scent toxic.
But because he did, he concluded this egg… was a cultivation treasure.
“If there’s no life in this egg, that’s fine. But if there is, it’s no ordinary being.”
“Dandan, if you were awake, would you tell me to take this egg or leave it here and keep my distance?”
Chu Feng stared at the egg, murmuring to himself, his gaze flickering as he weighed his choices.
The egg could aid his martial cultivation, but it also harbored unknown risks—potentially catastrophic ones.
“They say fortune lies in danger, and the path of martial arts doubly so. I bet, Dandan, if you were here, you’d tell me to take it.”
Abruptly, Chu Feng picked up the egg. Rather than stowing it right away, he wove a sealing formation, encasing it completely.
The invisible formation dimmed the egg’s radiant glow, reducing it to an unremarkable pale golden object—akin to a slightly oversized ostrich egg, with no hint of its former splendor.
Yet Chu Feng knew full well something extraordinary might lurk within.
“Little thing, I don’t know what you are, but I hope you’re the obedient sort. If not, don’t blame me for getting rough.”
Chu Feng grinned at the egg before slipping it into his Qiankun Bag.
He understood that if life dwelled inside, it would be no trivial entity.
Still, he was ready to tame it.
So what if it was formidable?
Chu Feng lived for such unknown challenges.
Without this courage and confidence, how could he advance?
How could he confront the mighty force imprisoning his mother?
After securing the egg, Chu Feng soared upward, exiting through the glowing portal.
He soon returned to his previous location.
Glancing back, he saw the portal conjured by the Spirit Beast Treasure Map vanish. The map itself lost its hovering vitality and floated downward.
Chu Feng caught it, only to find the cryptic patterns once adorning it replaced by a complete portrait.
The image showed a beast: dragon head, deer antlers, lion eyes, tiger back, bear waist, covered in scales—majestic, like the king of all beasts.
Chu Feng’s eyes brightened, his heart caught between elation and apprehension.
The creature on the map wasn’t just any beast—it was the legendary Qilin, a divine beast of boundless power.
Though the map now held no special aura, reduced to a mere scroll, the Qilin depicted upon it sparked a hypothesis in Chu Feng’s mind.
“Could this be a hint that the sealed egg is a divine beast?”
His joy came from the prospect that if the egg truly held a Qilin, taming it would grant him an extraordinary ally.
A divine beast’s power was unfathomable—the king of beasts, matched only by the mightiest human cultivators.
But his worry stemmed from the flip side: if it was a Qilin, subduing it would be no easy task—perhaps too daunting.
Yet his excitement outweighed his concern. If this clue held true, it would be a monumental opportunity.
Divine beasts were mythical—unseen by mortal eyes. At least in the Ancestral Martial Star Region, no such terrifying entity had ever emerged.
If word of this egg spread—even unconfirmed as a divine beast—it could unleash a tempest of blood and chaos across the region.
Seeing the Qilin on the map only deepened Chu Feng’s conviction that this journey, though perilous, was a rare stroke of luck.
He tucked the map into his Qiankun Bag, then inspected the sealing barrier around him. Finding it flawless, he nodded approvingly.
“That girl’s been good,” he muttered, noting that Wuma Shengjie hadn’t spied on him, as the barrier remained intact.
With a sweep of his sleeve, Chu Feng dispelled the barrier. Wuma Shengjie stood by the boundary gate, still sustaining it.
Unlike when he’d left, the Liangqiu sisters had moved beyond mere calls—they were now attacking the gate with martial force, not formation-breaking techniques.
“You’re finally back. I was about to lose hold of them,” Wuma Shengjie said.
“You didn’t ask what I was doing?” Chu Feng inquired.
“It’s none of my concern—why would I?” she replied.
“That attitude—I like it,” Chu Feng said with a smile.
“You like someone who wants you dead?” Wuma Shengjie eyed him like he was a fool.
Chu Feng gave an awkward shrug. “We just evened things out—you’re not about to come at me again, are you?”
“This small favor was nothing—it doesn’t cancel out you saving my life. I still owe you,” Wuma Shengjie said.
Her words caught Chu Feng off guard. A faint smile tugged at his lips as he thought, *This girl’s got some depth.*
He then dissolved the formation. When the Liangqiu sisters and the others saw both he and Wuma Shengjie safe, they sighed in relief.
Chu Feng brushed off their delay with a vague “there was a minor issue,” and the Liangqiu sisters accepted it without probing further.
Compared to their safety, the crowd was more fixated on the sealed stone tablet.
The tablet had transformed—cracks now marred its surface, faint light seeping from within, hinting at a hidden treasure. Yet its nature remained elusive.
Most telling was the impression that the formation hadn’t been fully undone.
“Chu Feng, did you fail to break the formation in time, leaving the tablet’s seal incomplete?” someone asked, a hint of reproach in their tone.
“I must not have been clear. We came out late, but we broke the formation on time,” Chu Feng replied.
“Then why isn’t the tablet fully unsealed?” the crowd asked in unison.
“Who said it isn’t?” Chu Feng shot back.
