The fight had ended.
All the cultivators had gathered beside An Ying, Pan Tao, and Zheng Rui. They were all flattering Pan Tao and praising An Ying for her courage in taking up the heavy responsibility of occupying the Black Ice Python.
It seemed that the deaths of Qin Shun and Zhu Fang hadn’t affected their moods. After all, prior to entering the Green Illusion Realm, they hadn’t known each other too well.
Upon seeing that the Earth Lizard and Black Ice Python had run away, Tong Hao, who was originally guarding Nie Tian, naturally didn’t bother about Nie Tian anymore.
Nie Tian was also very happy and stayed by himself, at his original position, not bothering with the ruckus.
“Mental consciousness exploring beneath the ground…”
He closed his eyes in deep thought, as he felt that the mysterious occurrences, that had happened, were rather strange.
Theoretically, he only had a cultivation of the sixth Lianqi level and his mental consciousness shouldn’t be strong enough to enter deep beneath the ground, much less to explore that area for a long period of time.
However, when he had calmed himself down and focused on sensing the movements of the Earth Lizard, he had actually done so.
From what he knew, only Lianqi warriors, who were a lot stronger than him, were able to let their mental consciousness leave their physical body to explore their surroundings.
He had known from a young age that he was actually different from other people.
This was because he had always been taller and stronger than kids of the same age. If no one used the spirit qi in their bodies, and only relied on their physical prowess, then no one would be qualified to be his opponent.
He knew that he was physically stronger than the other kids of the same age, but he didn’t know that even his mental consciousness would be better.
This fight had helped him to understand himself more deeply.
“Even though my mental consciousness only wandered outside my physical body once, it used up almost all my energy. I should avoid this unusual state as much as possible.”
As he was thinking, he gradually started to feel sleepy and it seemed as though he would need to sleep for a long period of time before he could regain his energy.
Since the threat of the spirit beasts had been extinguished, he was no longer tense and he started to relax, while slowly closing his eyes.
On the other side.
Pan Tao was still accepting everyone’s flattery, while stealing glances at Nie Tian, from tens of metres away.
Upon noticing that Nie Tian had taken the first opportunity to recover right after the battle, he began to view Nie Tian more favourably.
In his head, Nie Tian was already the most important character in this team, and the extent of his importance was even more than An Ying.
He even viewed Nie Tian as being more important than Zheng Rui!
“Ok, Ok.” Upon seeing that Nie Tian was already resting, he suddenly could no longer stand the noise of those people around him. “Let’s all stop now! Nobody has any idea whether those spirit beasts, which have escaped, will return.”
“Everyone is to cultivate at your positions now and recover your strength quickly!”
“We must constantly maintain sufficient battle power!”
An Ying nodded and also instructed, “Before recovering your spirit qi, stop talking and making noise. All of you talk so much, yet are unable to help when the situation is crucial.”
She also looked art Nie Tian from afar.
When everyone’s hearts were filled with fear and they didn’t know what to do, Nie Tian had been the first to stand out.
She didn’t know what had happened and was not sure why Nie Tian had suddenly helped them, but Nie Tian’s calmness and wits at that crucial moment had left a deep impression on her.
Like Pan Tao, though she didn’t say it expressly, she also now viewed Nie Tian as an important character in her heart.
After Pan Tao and she had spoken, the trial takers, who were still immersed in their excitement, finally quietened down. Each and every one of them surrounded her and Pan Tao and sat down.
All of these people grabbed for pieces of sparkling, translucent spirit stones from the cloth pouch that hung by their waist and took them out.
They clenched on tightly to the spirit stones and closed their eyes. They were absorbing the heaven and earth spirit Qi that was inside the spirit stones as quickly as possible, in order to recover the power that they had consumed.
Before they had entered the Green Illusion Realm, the seniors from their own respective families had told them that the Green Illusion Realm’s heaven and earth spirit Qi was much more infertile than that of their daily lives.
If they didn’t have any special means of recovery, their rate at which they recovered the power, that they had consumed when battling in the Green Illusion Realm, would be extremely slow.
Hence, the seniors of their own respective families had prepared spirit stones that would aid them in quickening their recovery before they had entered the Green Illusion Realm.
Nie Tian on the other hand, due to the fact that the Nie Family was poverty-stricken, didn’t bring anything at all.
When everyone closed their eyes and began silently absorbing the spiritual energy inside the spirit stones, Pan Tao stealthily left.
He arrived alone at the place where Nie Tian was sitting cross-legged. Seeing as Nie Tian seemed to be closing his eyes and sleeping, he deliberated for a moment, and didn’t disturb Nie Tian by speaking. Rather, he took out two pieces of sparkling, translucent, jade-like spirit stones from within his sleeves and gently placed them in front of Nie Tian. After that, he sat down not far away from where Nie Tian was.
An Ying, who had closed her eyes in cultivation, was actually secretly paying attention to the movements around them so that they would be guarded against the return of the spirit beasts.
She had also noticed the abnormalities with Pan Tao and slightly opened her eyes. She silently watched Pan Tao attentively and muttered to herself, “How is it that this fellow suddenly changed his personality?”
Even though she had doubts, but she didn’t think too deeply about it and closed her eyes once again, continuing in her recovery.
Time soundlessly passed.
It was unknown how much time had passed when everyone, who was currently recovering through the use of those spirit stones, suddenly heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
One by one, everyone opened their eyes and their expression started changing into one of panic, because they thought that the spirit beasts, that had fled, were returning once more to kill them.
“There is no need to panic. They aren’t from spirit beasts.” An Ying spoke. She looked towards the row of people that were heading in their direction and said, “The sound of the footsteps do not belong to that of spirit beasts. Furthermore, it didn’t come from the deepest regions of the glacier region. If I didn’t guess wrongly, those that are approaching should be the other trial takers from one of the three other sects.”
“As expected of An Ying!”
An ice-cold voice suddenly rang out and in the next moment, the Grey Valley’s Yuan Feng was the first to appear.
Once Yuan Feng revealed himself, Yun Song and the other trial takers from the Grey Valley had also very quickly showed themselves.
“Grey Valley!” Zheng Rui furrowed his eyebrows and stood up.
“Not bad.” Yuan Feng walked up to the front with a sinister gleam in his eyes that swept past each and every person there. He looked towards the corpses of the spirit beasts as well as Qin Shun and Zu Fang who had died and said, “It seems like you guys have just experienced a disastrous battle. What is it? Have you guys already ran into that Black Ice Python?”
At this moment, Nie Tian who was in a deep slumber had also been awakened by the noise made by Yuan Feng.
He knew that he must have only taken a short rest and couldn’t have slept for too long.
However, even if he had only slept for awhile, he could clearly feel that much of his energy had already recovered.
After he opened his eyes, he hadn’t looked towards Yuan Feng and instead, noticed the two pieces of spirit stones in front of him.
Soon after, he saw Pan Tao who was the closest to him.
He immediately realised that those two pieces of spirit stones were from Pan Tao and he consequently smiled at Pan Tao as he said a word of thanks.
“Since you think so highly of me, keep those two pieces of spirit stones.” Pan Tao sincerely said.
Nie Tian nodded his head and reached out, picking up the two pieces of spirit stones. He then put them into his own waist pouch.
His strength hadn’t been exhausted this time because he had consumed spiritual energy above his quota, rather it was because a large amount of his consciousness had been drained out. He actually didn’t need the spirit stones to recover.
However, since Pan Tao had put it in that way, he naturally would help himself to it.
The Green Illusion Realm’s trial was far from over. No one would know whether they would face an even more dangerous situation in the future.
With those two pieces of spirit stones, once his spiritual energy had been completely used up, as long as he was given the time to do so, he could recover even faster. That way, he could increase his odds of survival.
“Not only did we come across the Black Ice Python, we also ran into the Earth Lizard! Fuck!” Zheng Rui swore and said, “However, we were strong enough and even though we were unable to kill the Black Ice Python and the Earth Lizard, we could at least force them to retreat. If it were you people, who ran into the Earth Lizard and the Black Ice Python simultaneously, I’m afraid that not even one of you would be left alive.”
“You, hold your tongue!” An Ying breathed lightly.
“Heh!” Yun Song from the Yun Family let out a low laugh. “Elder Cousin Brother! They just battled with the Black Ice Python and the Earth Lizard and must have consumed too much spiritual energy. Look… they’re all using spirit stones to recover their strength. This just goes to prove that their current combat power isn’t sufficient.”
“Moreover, two people have died amongst them!”
Yun Song’s gaze was twinkling and he looked over with a gaze that harboured malicious intentions. His line of sight finally fell on Nie Tian’s body.
In the moment that he looked towards Nie Tian, his face was filled with sudden coldness and his eyes were filled with a malicious intent.
Zheng Rui, who had been stopped by An Yin, suddenly regained his senses in this moment and knew that he had revealed the matter of everyone’s large fall in battle due to the words that he had just spoken.
He secretly scolded himself for speaking out of turn and didn’t dare to say more than he should, and instead, he ferociously shot a glare at Yun Song.
“Yuan Feng, our main objectives for entering the Green Illusion Realm are those four grade two spirit beasts.” An Ying was still unperturbed. “The Black Ice Python battled us for a long time and it too must have consumed much of its energy. You can surpass us and slaughter it while taking advantage of the fact that it isn’t at its prime condition.”
“It isn’t urgent.” Grey Valley’s Yuan Feng said in an indifferent tone. He suddenly stretched his hand out and pointed towards Nie Tian, who was a distance away and said, “This person isn’t from your Ling Bao Court. I want you people to hand him over to me. Once we have captured him, we’ll naturally take him and leave, heading to the deepest parts of the glacier region to hunt and kill that Black Ice Python.”
“You want Nie Tian?” An Ying was stunned.
Pan Tao was also stunned, finding it totally unexpected.