Jiang Li isolated a space without yin qi in the coffin and let these new friends use the dense spiritual qi in the coffin to recover first.
In the outside world, he and Shenshan Qiuhua encountered a ten-meter-tall mud monster that was as powerful as a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
However, at this moment, the mud monster was firmly tied to the spot by some force. It could not move, and it could only throw mud at Jiang Li and Yan Hong from afar.
This was clearly the work of the combined competition authorities. They believed that this monster was too excessive. If they did not restrict it, the Qi Refinement realm cultivators might not even have a chance to escape.
If one did not consider a certain cheater, this was indeed the case.
Shenshan Qiuhua could already be considered an extremely excellent first-tier Qi Refinement realm cultivator in this competition.
However, her Fire Water Sword Technique that specialized in both offense and defense had completely lost its effect here.
The thickness of the mud monster’s body was unknown, but it was at least a few meters thick.
Under the effect of the monster’s power, the seemingly ordinary mud became abnormally defensive. It was very difficult to deal with.
When the explosive fire sword qi struck it, it was unable to penetrate the mud layer. Instead, the mud layer was like a swamp that directly swallowed the sword qi and disappeared.
Even if she did not use sword qi and instead used fire-attribute spell techniques to roast the mud on its surface piece by piece, it could still be replenished using the mud that was everywhere!
Shenshan Qiuhua, who was known as the Water-Fire Dual Absolute Divine Mountain Sword, attacked her opponent for a long time but it was still standing there perfectly fine. In fact, she got exhausted first.
Even the Shu Mountain sword cultivators could not casually cross realms in battle. Their true strength came only after they had awakened their Sword Heart talent.
The Sword Heart that could ignore defenses and the terrifying might of the sword technique were the powers that awed the Great Mountain Region. However, in the initial stages, they were only slightly stronger than others.
Seeing that Shenshan Qiuhua could not be defeated after a long time, Jiang Li also joined the battle.
As usual, he used his Demon Awakening Technique.
Almost endless dark green light blossomed. A forty-meter-long wooden dragon landed in the mud, stirring up a vicious wind.
The mud monster and Qiuhua were dumbfounded. What was wrong with this guy? Why did he use such a powerful technique immediately?
Was he not going to probe the enemy first? Did he not want to check if there were other monsters around?
Looking at the huge wooden dragon, Shenshan Qiuhua felt a sense of familiarity from Jiang Li.
One of her senior brothers from the Fire Element Peak was like this. He attacked with flashy moves that had astonishing power, and the output was continuous.
This kind of fighting style where one did not need to consider the expenditure of spiritual qi was really enviable.
The mud monster was restricted by the runes and could only watch as the wooden dragon approached.
The ten-meter-tall mud monster was entangled immediately.
Through the wooden dragon, Jiang Li could sense that the mud monster was sliding down. It was probably trying to escape by abandoning the mud outer shell.
However, how could Jiang Li let this guy escape?
The four claws of the wooden dragon dug deep into the mud, firmly grabbing its body. Then, it pulled and tore it apart. Finally, it retrieved an ugly head from within.
The huge body collapsed weakly. A large amount of mud flowed out after losing its support, revealing a headless, long-haired demon.
After this demon grew larger, it seemed to have become even more ugly.
Huh?
“What’s this?”
As the mud peeled off, a square wooden chest appeared beside the revealed corpse.
However, this wooden chest was also covered in layers of mud. It did not look like a treasure chest but trash instead.
“Junior Sister Qiuhua.”
Jiang Li controlled the wooden dragon and grabbed the wooden chest with its claws, then handed the wooden chest to the other party.
Without needing Jiang Li to say anything, Shenshan Qiuhua already understood. With a raise of her hand, a stream of water landed on the wooden chest, and it quickly washed away the dirt on it.
However, to Jiang Li’s disappointment, this wooden chest was not some extremely precious treasure of the ancestors, and it was only a treasure chest that the sect’s combined competition authority had placed here in advance.
With a wave of his hand, he used his spiritual qi to open the lid. Inside were two tokens shimmering with spiritual light.
After all, they had defeated the Foundation Establishment demon, so it was not too much to give them some spoils of war.
The two tokens did not look any different. The spiritual qi on them was not very strong either. It looked like they were only two ordinary tokens and not any special artifacts.
Jiang Li took one and observed it carefully before passing the other to Qiuhua.
He looked at the patterns on the token and felt that it was a little familiar. He was thinking about where he had seen it before.
However, he realized that no one took the token he handed over after a long time. Shenshan Qiuhua, who was standing beside him, did not have any intention of taking it.
“Junior Sister, what are you waiting for?”
Jiang Li asked curiously.
“That demon was killed by Senior Brother alone. The things in this box should naturally be Senior Brother’s spoils of war.”
Shenshan Qiuhua’s values were really very rigid. She felt that she had not done anything in the battle just now, so she did not plan to share the spoils of war.
In the future, if someone wanted to pursue her as their Dao Companion, it would be difficult to even give her a gift.
Jiang Li was somewhat used to her personality. He reached out and stuffed another token into her arms.
“Junior Sister, don’t say such things. We were working together just now. Without your distraction, I wouldn’t have been able to kill it directly.”
“This token is the entry ticket for this maze formation. As long as you hold it, you won’t be affected by the fog anymore. However, the effect of holding one token is exactly the same as holding two.”
“If you don’t take this, it’s useless for me to keep a second one. Thus, junior sister, you should take it.”
Looking at the introduction of another piece of paper in the wooden box, he finally understood the use of this thing.
It seemed that the wooden sign at the entrance of the swamp did not only refer to the literal “nearest path” but also the use of the two tokens.
Jiang Li held the token. He finally recalled where he had seen the patterns on it.
This was very similar to the patterns on the array foundation stone that he had dug out back then.
However, many of the runes on the formation foundation stone were very ancient. The patterns on this token were filled with the style of the Great Mountain Cultivation Realm that Jiang Li was familiar with.
Clearly, this was an array formation expert from the various large sects. After breaking through the illusionary realm of this Misty Mountain Range, they had created the authority token based on the array foundation runes.
It was equivalent to opening the lock and matching the key according to the lock core.
Jiang Li, who was also a Runic Array Master, knew that the difficulty here was extremely high. At the very least, he was far from reaching this level.
Even if he could barely reach the standard, this was a job that required a considerable amount of time and effort. Generally speaking, it was not something that an array master could do.
Otherwise, he would have gone to test it out himself when he dug out the array foundation stone.
Jiang Li took the token and walked into a fog. Although his vision was still blocked, the strange feeling of him moving up and down did not appear again.
He turned around and steadily walked out of the fog. As expected, the effect of the maze was blocked.
The young lady from the Shenshan Clan was also shocked when she saw this. The effects of this maze formation were tormenting all the cultivators.
With this token, it meant that they could directly fly to the end point. Didn’t that mean that they had passed the first test?
She hesitated for a moment before accepting the token upon Jiang Li’s insistence.
After all, it was a shame to waste it.
In any case, she had to repay him for saving her life. She would repay him more later on.
As if thinking of something, Shenshan Qiuhua’s face flushed red.
There were still many traps and poisonous miasma on the two large mountains ahead. However, they no longer needed to undergo those trials. They only needed to take the tokens and fly to the end.
Shenshan Qiuhua stepped on the flying sword and rose into the sky. Jiang Li also stepped on the air and rose up step by step, disappearing into the clouds.
He originally wanted to stay a little longer and try to carve a copy of the token himself, but he discovered that the rune on this token had been done with a rather brilliant secret precaution. With his standards, he could only give up.
The speed of flying was naturally much faster than walking on complicated paths.
After breaking through the second mountain, the third and fourth mountains appeared before them.
The competition authorities deliberately used the fog to form a huge maze, covering the last two mountains and linking them together.
The competitors had to move through the maze and face all kinds of dangerous traps.
However, in this maze, besides danger, there were also many good things, such as artifacts, medicinal pills, tokens similar to those in Jiang Li’s hands, and many special Miasma Removal Pills.
These were pills prepared to deal with the poisonous miasma on the fourth mountain.
In this aspect, those rich cultivators were at an advantage.
This was because as long as it was a higher quality detoxification pill, eating a few more would be able to deal with the poisonous miasma. They did not need to spend much effort to specially search for the Miasma Removal Pills.
Buzz~ Buzz~
Right at this moment, the small white whistle that Jiang Li wore suddenly vibrated slightly.
He had long forgotten about this small prop and did not expect it to react at this moment.
He silently counted the time when the whistle sounded and used the Bodhisattva Heart Sutra to increase his hearing to search for the direction of the sound.
This was a cry for help from a fellow disciple!
“I saw the two of you. Hand that thing over obediently. If you wait for me to act, it won’t be so easy for you.”
In the maze below, a young man held two large dark red walnuts the size of a child’s fist in his hand and skillfully rotated them in his palm.
Opposite him were two disciples of the Scripture Storage Valley.
This person had an unfamiliar face and wore gorgeous clothes. He did not seem to be a local cultivator of the Great Mountain Region. He seemed to be quite relaxed against two people.
“Impossible. This is what we obtained by painstakingly killing the demon. Why should we give it to you?”
Jiang Li knew the person who spoke. She was a female disciple of the Scripture Storage Valley’s Demon Vanquishing Hall. He did not remember her name.
However, her nickname was “Lady Iron Thorn”, which suited her very well. With the Iron Thorn Whip in one hand, she was very valiant, and her entire person was like a hedgehog that could not be easily approached.
Although she was ranked at the bottom among the ten Qi Refinement realm cultivators, it was already quite rare.
However, at this moment, her Iron Thorn Whip was broken into two and tossed to the side. The right hand holding the whip also hung weakly, she was clearly injured badly.
“Why? Hmph! Because of this!”
The dark red walnuts in the youth’s hand suddenly erupted with spiritual qi. They carried an abnormally terrifying might as they suddenly struck towards her.
“Be careful!”
Another disciple beside her hurriedly rushed out, holding a flying sword as he blocked in front of the walnuts.
With a clang, the flexible sword was almost bent and was about to touch his chest.
This person was precisely the close combat sword cultivator from the Internal Affairs Hall that had fought Jiang Li, Mu Luo who used the Wind Chant Sword!
Relying on the effect of the whistle, he and Lady Iron Thorn finally gathered together.
After that, they relied on their cooperation to successfully kill a wolf demon that had been weakened greatly and obtained a token that was inferior to Jiang Li’s.
This token could allow them to ignore the maze fog on the ground and pass through it, but it could not be used in the air. However, this was already powerful enough.
However, this scene was discovered by the young man who happened to pass by.
The two people from the Scripture Storage Valley were already exhausted to begin with. Furthermore, the other party launched a sneak attack first, injuring them in an instant. Lady Iron Thorn’s artifact, the Iron Thorn Whip, was also directly snapped into two, and her combat strength was reduced by 70 to 80 percent.
Seeing the other party’s weapon flying at him again, Mu Luo could only raise his sword and step forward. He gritted his teeth and used all his strength to block the walnut.
Then, in the next moment, the other walnut in the other party’s hand shot out again, sending Mu Luo flying far away. He vomited a few mouthfuls of blood in succession, and the Wind Chant Sword and the token were also flung away, landing in the dust.
“Hmph! I gave you a way out, but you didn’t leave. You insisted on seeking your own death. Don’t blame me for this.”
The two walnuts in his hand floated up automatically, spinning faster and faster around each other. Then, they turned into two blackish-red rays of light that shot towards the two people on the ground.
Boom!
Dust rose high into the air, and large cracks spread on the ground. It could be seen how powerful the collision was.
The two people who were hit by this attack definitely had no chance of surviving.
The youth shook his head in disdain, then picked up the token and turned around to leave. He waved his hand with his back facing the dust and smoke, intending to summon the two walnuts back.
However, a second, two seconds, and three seconds passed.
The young man had already taken several steps, but the two walnut artifacts that he had been carrying for many years still did not fly back.
He turned his head in puzzlement and looked at the spot where the dust was slowly dissipating. His artifacts were clearly there, but no matter how he summoned them, they did not fly back.
Creak! Creak! Creak! Creak!
At this moment, an ear-piercing sound came from the dust. The dust finally slowly dispersed, and it was a burly youth standing in front of the two people from the Scripture Storage Valley. The sound came from his hand.
The two dark red walnuts were locked in his left palm. Not only were they unable to escape, but they were also squeezed by a tremendous force and twisted in his palm, almost grinding into a different shape.
“That’s how you play with this thing, right? Don’t you think I’m pretty good at it?”
Jiang Li took out two bottles of healing pills and threw them to his fellow disciples behind him. He then continued to hold on to the two walnuts and walked towards the other party.
Earlier, he had rushed down from the clouds in time and used his palm to forcefully shield the two fellow disciples before they could be hit.
The enormous impact was not caused by the artifact hitting its target, but by Jiang Li falling from the sky and crashing into the ground.
“Who are you! Quickly return my Redwood Beads! Otherwise, you will definitely regret it!”
The young man was not afraid, and he continued to threaten Jiang Li with extreme confidence. He took out a short stick from his pocket, and it was obviously an artifact of high quality!
“So this thing is yours. Friend, you’re wrong. How can you throw things around casually? Even if you don’t hit anyone, it’s not good to hurt the flowers and grass.”
Both sides clearly harbored ill intentions. They approached each other step by step, and the spiritual qi in their bodies surged endlessly, ready to attack at any time.
The youth hid the short staff behind him. It quickly grew several times longer at an angle that Jiang Li could not see.
The distance between the two of them was already close to three meters. The young man was the first to move out, and he waved the wooden stick that had grown in length before striking directly at Jiang Li’s head. Judging from the imposing aura, it had to be a Profound-rank artifact at the very least!
Tiger Staff! Crushing Strike!
The long, green tiger staff smashed over. This cultivator had a wood attribute spiritual root. This was the first time Jiang Li had fought against an opponent of the wood attribute.
Swoosh!
Jiang Li did not raise his head to look at the staff that smashed over, and his footsteps did not stop at all. The Dragon Imprisoning Lock on his waist arrived first and firmly bound the staff.
When his opponent’s attack was blocked, Jiang Li took three steps forward, and then his left hand grabbed the two walnuts and smashed them fiercely at his opponent’s temple.
Boom! Boom!
The youth was sent flying to the side by the huge force. After colliding with the ground several times, he finally stopped after deflecting the exaggerated force.
However, in less than two seconds, the other party got up from the ground again.
Other than the right side of his face swelling up and his right eye unable to open, he looked fine.
Jiang Li had not held back in his attack just now. A slap from him could have easily blasted the other party’s head apart, but now, it only had this effect.
He looked at his left hand and recalled the blow just now. It was indeed not right. It was as if there was a layer between his fist and the other party’s head.
Jiang Li observed the other party again and discovered that there was a small sapphire earring on both of his ears.
He vaguely remembered that the other party’s right earring had lit up. It was that explosion of spiritual qi that had saved his life under Jiang Li’s fist.
Now, the earring on the other party’s left ear lit up again. A gentle light emitted, causing the injuries on his face to quickly recover.
“Who are you exactly? Tell me!”
Jiang Li’s figure vanished, and then he fiercely kicked his opponent on the waist, causing his entire body to transform into a V-shape before plowing forward for a long distance.
This time, Jiang Li saw it clearly. A thin water screen appeared automatically and blocked his feet, absorbing most of his strength.
To be able to achieve this extent, the defensive artifact had to be at least at the low-grade Profound-rank.
The artifacts on this guy covered the aspects of ranged, melee, defense, healing, and all of them were of high-quality. It could be said that he was fully armed and could crush people to death with just his artifacts.
Even the Shu Mountain Five Elements Peak had never given their disciples such luxurious treatment.
“Cough cough cough, you dare hurt me? Good! You actually dare to hurt me! I’ll make you regret it!”
“Tiger Staff! Slaughter Forest!”
The healing earring on the left ear was also quite effective. That guy was not at the Foundation Establishment realm so his body was still weak. Even if he had artifacts to defend himself, his kidneys would have definitely been shattered by his kick. However, he could move so quickly after the impact.
He roared angrily at Jiang Li as if the latter had done something horrible to him.
Jiang Li was just about to step forward and give his opponent a vicious combination punch to see just how hard the tortoise shell was when he saw his opponent plunge the tiger staff into the ground.
“Damn it!”
A strand of wood attribute spiritual qi flowed swiftly underground. Jiang Li immediately realized something, and his figure instantly vanished.
In the blink of an eye, he grabbed two of his fellow disciples and jumped into the air.
The moment his feet left the ground, a dozen emerald green tiger staffs pierced out. They grew to a height of five meters before coming to a halt. They were just a step away from killing Mu Luo and Lady Iron Thorn.
“Senior Brother Jiang, do you need help?”
At this moment, Shenshan Qiuhua also rushed over. She stepped on her flying sword and looked down solemnly. That guy had too many artifacts.
“Help me look after them.”
Jiang Li did not stand on ceremony. After saying that, he threw the two of them even higher and got Shenshan Qiuhua to receive them.
The bones in his body started to crackle. Those who were familiar with him knew that Jiang Li was going to get serious.
“You really made me a little angry!”
He took out a handful of seeds and casually threw them down.
Demon Awakening! Plant Army!
A vast amount of wood attribute spiritual light spread out, and the seeds turned into more than a hundred demon beasts that pounced on the other party.
When the young man saw this scene, he was shocked as well. After that, the tiger staff stabbed into the ground again, and more and more copies stabbed out from the ground, piercing through the little demons that were charging forward from bottom to top.
This tiger staff might be the strongest artifact in the opponent’s hands. Its power was truly shocking.
Jiang Li’s Demon Awakening Technique that had always been successful was forcefully resisted by him.
Over a hundred Wood Demons had at least three tiger staffs pierced through their bodies. They were pinned to the ground and could not move.
However, the other party was not completely fine. His face was pale, and his figure swayed as if his body was exhausted. He could not stand steadily.
However, the expenditure just now should have drained ten late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators dry. The reason why the other party could still stand was because of the jade token hanging around his neck.
That artifact had helped to supplement at least 90% of the spiritual qi needed.
Jiang Li was really curious now. Who exactly was this fellow? He was covered in practical high-grade artifacts, and it was almost as if he was an inferior version of Jiang Li himself.
However, the Qi Refinement realm was still just the Qi Refinement realm in the end. He could not even unleash the full might of this set of artifacts, so it ended here.
Jiang Li’s figure vanished from the sky, and he kicked out once more!
His opponent’s combat experience could only be said to be slightly better than an idiot, so how could he react to Jiang Li’s attack? He was kicked into the distant mist, and then he vanished.
The coffin that had been waiting in the fog caught the person. Then, it shrunk to the size of a palm and flew away from the spot.