The river current is very fast and the river channel is rugged with rocks. Ordinary people simply do not dare to swim in such a river current. However, such a river flow was nothing to worry about for Ning Tao and Qing Zhui. The two of them plunged into the fast river and when they emerged again, they were already at the small island in the middle of the river.
Ning Tao and Qing caught up with a small beach a few meters wide. Ning Tao opened the small medicine box to check if there was any water leakage. It turned out that the medicine box was very dry. There was no water vapor at all, let alone water.
Qing Zhui rolled up the hem of her skirt and squeezed it out, exposing her long, snow-white legs to the air again. The fabric on the upper body is close to the skin, and when the sun shines on it, it is a little bit tempting, and it is especially sultry.
Ning Tao seemed to be "accustomed" to this situation. He poured thirty milliliters of ink into the Xuntu inkstone again, and then followed the direction indicated by the scale where the ink ripples gathered.
There are no roads in the forest, and there are weeds and rocks everywhere. Above your head is the canopy of trees that blocks the sky and the sun, and there are vines hanging down from the branches. Some vines are thicker than a human arm and have grown for who knows how many years. Along the way, Ning Tao also discovered a lot of medicinal materials, such as Ganoderma lucidum, Coptis chinensis, Eucommia ulmoides, etc., which are all wild and different from the artificially grown medicinal materials in the medicinal materials market.
Ning Tao only picked the large wild Ganoderma lucidum he saw and did not ask for other wild medicinal materials. Wild Ganoderma lucidum is one of the medicinal materials for refining primary prescription pills. It is useful for him to pick it, but it is useless for him to pick Coptis chinensis, Chonglou, Eucommia and so on, so he is too lazy to pick it.
After trudging for two hours through the primeval forest on the island, Ning Tao and Qing Zhui arrived at a crack on the back of "Steamed Bun Mountain".
This crack seemed to have been cut by a god with a giant axe. It appeared on the mountain for no reason. It was dozens of meters deep and extended down the hillside. It was wide and narrow and the end could not be seen at a glance. Ning Tao stood on the edge of the crack and looked down. The vertical cliff was covered with weeds and vines. The bottom of the crack was filled with a white mist, making it impossible to see clearly.
At this point, the ripples of ink in the Xuntu inkstone no longer point to any scale, but converge towards the center from all directions. This sight gives people the illusion that there is a hole in the center of the Xuntu inkstone, and all the ink flows into the hole.
Ning Tao carried the small medicine box on his back with a vine, and then used the gaps in the rocks, weeds and vines to climb to the bottom of the crack. In the process, he activated the sight and smell states of his eyes and nose. He saw a vast white mist, but it was not just water mist, there was spiritual energy hidden in it, and the content was quite considerable, much thicker than the water pool occupied by Bai Jing and Qing Zhui next to Black Mountain Village in Beidu.
Qing Zhui soon discovered this, and she said excitedly: "Brother Ning, can you draw a blood lock here? I will come here often to play, um, and practice."
Ning Tao said: "Okay, let's find the spiritual soil first and then talk about it."
"Yeah!" Qing Zhui responded happily.
Ten minutes later, Ning Tao and Qing Zhui arrived at the bottom of the crack.
The fog at the bottom of the crack was even heavier, and the visibility was only a few meters. There is a muddy swamp under your feet, with shade-loving moss growing in thick clumps in some places, like stepping stones in a depression. Some places are mire, and a few bubbles pop up from the black mud from time to time, but there is no smell of gas or rotting animals and plants. Some of them actually have the unique "clear spring" smell of spiritual energy.
The ink in the Xuntu inkstone pointed to another scale. Ning Tao followed the direction of the scale and carefully stepped on the "stepping stone" to move forward.
After walking about a few tens of meters further, the Xuntu inkstone suddenly vibrated, and all the ink gathered towards the center of the inkstone again.
In front of me is a quagmire with an area of two or three thirds of a field, and the spiritual soil is in the quagmire! "What is that?" Ning Tao's eyes suddenly moved to a plant in the middle of the quagmire, and his eyes suddenly became unable to move.
It was a rice seedling, already heading.
Although Ning Tao is not from the countryside, he knows what the rice seedlings look like. He also knew that it was definitely not an ordinary rice seedling. The rice seedling was only one-third as tall as an ordinary rice seedling, and its ears were also very short, with only a few dozen grains, but they were full. It is completely golden, without a trace of green, and glows slightly, like a work of art carved from gold. It stands in the dark mire, shining with golden light, and is so extraordinary.
Qing Zhui also saw it. She was stunned for a moment, and then blurted out: "That's... Linggu! The legendary Linggu!"
Ning Tao couldn't wait to say: "Linggu? What Linggu?"
Qing Zhui said: "I heard from my sister that Ling Gu is a kind of spiritual material from the ancient Ling Dynasty. Only those great cultivators and even immortals in the immortal world have it. It is cultivated by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and only grows on spiritual soil. The environmental requirements are very strict, and it must be in a dense fog and swamp to grow in a place with only a beam of light.”
The place of the only light
Ning Tao subconsciously looked up, and sure enough, in this quagmire of the mountain col shrouded in thick fog, there was a beam of light falling from the sky above his head, which happened to shine on the spiritual valley.
"For ordinary people, Linggu is just a tonic that prolongs life, but for cultivators, it is an extremely precious alchemy material. It is also one of the important spiritual materials that are indispensable for many high-level elixirs. If you have Linggu, There must be spiritual soil, and the spiritual grain is already mature and it is time to harvest. What are you waiting for?" Qing Zhui was even more anxious than Ning Tao.
How could Ning Tao not be tempted? He wanted both spiritual soil and spiritual valley, but the quagmire in front of him had become a big trouble for him. He thought of laying wooden boards, but there wasn't even a tree at the bottom of the col. There were just fallen branches, which simply couldn't provide enough buoyancy for him to walk to the spiritual valley. But what gave him the biggest headache was the spiritual soil. It was under the quagmire. He couldn't possibly dive under the quagmire and pick up a few pieces of mud, right
"How about I do it for you?" Qing Zhui said, as if she could see what Ning Tao was thinking.
Ning Tao shook his head, "No, this is too dangerous. Let's find another way."
As soon as he finished speaking, Qing Zhui's long green skirt slipped and fell on the moss-covered "stepping stone" under her feet. This eerie place suddenly had a beautiful statue of Venus, and the next second, it turned into a complete statue of Venus.
Ning Tao was stunned for a moment and became emotional, "What are you going to do?"
Suddenly, Qing Zhui's jade feet lifted up from the ground with his perfect nine-headed body, flipped over, and plunged into the quagmire with a pop.
Only then did Ning Tao come to his senses and hurriedly reached out to grab her feet, but he was still a step too late. His hands only touched the soles of her feet. Before he could catch her, she sank into the mire.
Ning Tao became anxious. He lay down on the edge of the quagmire and reached into the quagmire to fish it out. He grabbed a hard object and pulled it up in desperation. Qing Zhui failed to pull it up, but instead pulled up a mutilated skeleton, including ribs, arms, and a skull with half of it missing.
Ning Tao was horrified and threw the skeleton away with a wave of his hand.
Wow! A blue shadow jumped up from the mire, with long blue hair, blue cheeks, and skin covered with blue scales. Her legs joined together and mutated into a snake tail covered with blue scales that could not be stained by mud.
Ning Tao was stunned on the spot.
If you have demon bones, you will have the form of a demon. This half-human, half-snake form is Qing Zhui’s snake-demon form. It is as beautiful as a mermaid, but more domineering than a mermaid!
While Ning Tao was stunned, Qing Zhui had already swam to the side of the spiritual valley, then plunged in again and disappeared.
Ning Tao picked up Qing Zhui's blue dress, embroidered shoes and other things and walked quickly around the quagmire. He wanted to find a place closer to the spiritual valley and watch Qing Zhui dig the spiritual soil and collect the spiritual valley with his own eyes.
He quickly went around to the other side of the quagmire, but did not find a place closer to the Spiritual Valley, but unexpectedly found a stone tablet shrouded in thick fog. He walked over and took a closer look. Goosebumps suddenly appeared on his back.
The stone stele is a tortoise-backed stele. The stone stele plus the turtle base are three meters high. However, such a huge stele only has one big character and one sentence engraved on it.
That big character is the character "Tang".
That sentence is: In the forbidden area of Tangmen, anyone who trespasses will die!
Behind the Turtle Tuo Monument is a pile of bones that look like a hill. Some of the bones still hold cold weapons such as swords in their hands. Some of the bones are covered with moss. Some of the bones still have uncorroded bones. Complete clothing, ancient, modern, modern, and even explorer's backpack and detection tools! The explorer's body has not yet completely decomposed. There is still some meat left on the skeleton, and internal organs can still be seen vaguely in the chest. It is obvious that he died no more than a year ago.
If the Turtle Tuo Monument is regarded as a tombstone, then the pile of bones behind it is a huge tomb!
This is not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster.
Ning Tao was furious, "There is no poisonous gas in this crack, and it is easy to get down. If someone hadn't killed them, they would have died. Tang Sect, you have killed so many people and you still dare to blatantly erect a monument here. The earth is king, this place was created by God, not your Tang family. Do you think that if you put up a monument, this place will be yours? Do you think you will not get retribution for killing so many people? Retribution, I have to act wild here today!”
Wow!
Qing Zhui suddenly emerged from the mire, holding a piece of blue clay in his hand, the size of a basin. There was a rice seedling standing on the piece of green clay. The roots of the rice seedling were twisted and layered, extending for several meters like a waterfall of roots, and then penetrated into the spiritual soil.
Qing Zhui grinned, "Brother Ning, it's done!"
Suddenly a deafening voice came from the sky above, "Where do these beasts dare to run wild here!"
The sound was so mighty that it seemed like thousands of people were shouting at the same time!
Whoosh whoosh!
Hissssssssssssss…
Suddenly there was the sound of a sharp weapon tearing through the air in the thick fog.
Ning Tao suddenly realized something, and rushed towards the concave rock wall in the mountain, shouting: "Come here quickly!"
With just these three words, he was hit by at least dozens of poisonous flying needles and several darts.
When Qing Zhui heard the sound of the hidden weapon tearing the air, he quickly dived into the quagmire. When he emerged again, he was already under the cliff next to the quagmire.
Ning Tao bit his right index finger, drew a blood lock on the rock wall as quickly as possible, and then used the key to open the door.
Qing Zhui also climbed up from the quagmire, holding the spiritual soil and spiritual valley in his arms. Her legs were back, but they were more eye-catching than the snake tail.
Not caring about avoiding suspicion, Ning Tao grabbed her waist and ran into the door of convenience with her.
As soon as the door of convenience was closed, an old man in white clothes came out of the thick fog. His white clothes were fluttering and he fell to the ground silently.
The next second.
"Ah—" the old man in white screamed.
He was so immortal a second ago.
A second later, he fell into the mortal world and stepped on shit.