I'm determined to become an immortal!

A few days later.

He Sheng stood quietly in the reed marsh where He Yiyang had died.

The place hasn't changed much from two years ago, except that the spot where He Yiyang died has long been covered by newly grown reeds, leaving no trace.

He flipped his palm and took out the Beast Taming Ring, channeling spiritual energy from his fingertips into it.

A dark, precious light flashed, and the giant python, its scales gleaming with a metallic sheen, emerged from the beast-taming ring and coiled itself in the muddy water of the reeds. It was over two zhang long and as thick as a water bucket, and its vertical pupils were watching He Sheng warily.

"Follow my divine guidance and search carefully along the way. Once you find the storage bag, I will let you leave with the white snake."

He Sheng didn't waste any words and got straight to the point.

After nodding, the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent swung its massive body and disappeared into the reeds, beginning its search along the route guided by He Sheng's divine sense.

He Sheng stood on the water, hands behind his back, in mid-air, his divine sense spreading out like mercury spilling onto the ground.

The route he provided was the vague movement trajectory extracted from Ji Yunlai's remnant soul two years ago using the method of memory reversal, and then deduced in reverse by combining it with the terrain along the way.

However, the route is dozens of miles long, and the terrain along the way is different. Even with He Sheng's current divine sense, it is extremely difficult to find the storage bag that Ji Yunlai has hidden.

But with the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent present, the situation is quite different.

As its name suggests, the Treasure-Devouring Serpent is born with an extremely keen sense of spiritual energy. Searching for spiritual treasures is an instinct etched into its bloodline, and even if a storage bag is buried deep underground, it cannot escape its perception.

The demon and the human searched along the route for about thirty or forty miles. The reed marshes were gradually left behind, and the surrounding terrain became undulating. Scattered shrubs replaced the reeds, and a few low hills could be vaguely seen in the distance.

They traveled for an unknown distance.

Suddenly, the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent stopped, its body coiled at the entrance of a mountain ravine, its flat head held high, its tongue flicking in and out frequently, and two beams of light flashing from its vertical pupils.

"A discovery has been made."

He Sheng flashed and arrived beside the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent.

The valley in front of us was very desolate, with weathered shale on both sides, barren of vegetation, and soft yellow soil at the bottom.

His divine sense swept across the area and, sure enough, he found a pit three feet deep beneath the loess.

The crater was about an arm's length deep, and at the bottom lay a storage bag with a hole in it.

He Sheng frowned slightly, summoned the Blood Poison Mother-Child Blade to cut through the yellow soil, and pulled out the tattered storage bag.

The storage bag felt light in my hand, and the gold and silver threads on it had long lost their luster. The hole didn't look big, but the edges were jagged, clearly indicating that it had been torn open from the outside in by some sharp object.

"What kind of thing found it, bit through the storage bag, and took everything inside?"

He Sheng's gaze darkened, and he probed downwards along the pit with his divine sense, discovering a narrow tunnel deep at the bottom of the pit.

The tunnel was only about half the size of a fist, with smooth and tight walls, as if it had been repeatedly traversed by some kind of monster skilled at digging.

"The size of this tunnel suggests it belongs to some kind of rodent-like monster..."

He Sheng quickly sifted through several possible monsters in his mind, but for a moment he couldn't make up his mind.

"Continue the search," he ordered the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent, then leaped up and landed above the ravine.

The Devouring Serpent obeyed the order, and its massive body suddenly shrank, disappearing into the ground.

He Sheng then enhanced his consciousness with the imagery of gentle ripples, spreading it outwards from the mountain hollow in all directions.

"The fact that such a hidden place could be found could not have been the work of a passing monster."

The monster's lair should be nearby.

Upon realizing this, He Sheng activated the Qi and Blood Sensing Technique from the Soul Imprint Manual.

This method's perception of the life force of living beings far surpasses that of ordinary divine sense. As long as there are demonic beasts lurking nearby, they will find it extremely difficult to escape its detection.

as predicted.

He Sheng had only extended his divine sense for five or six miles when he detected an extremely dense cluster of qi and blood fluctuations.

It felt like a handful of millet scattered on a chessboard, small and messy, with dozens of lines, all concentrated in a certain hole in the ground.

A thought struck him, and he immediately used telepathy to summon back the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent, which transformed into a streak of light blue and sped towards the cave.

When they were still a mile away from the cave, He Sheng slowed down his escape and lowered his breathing.

The entrance to the cave was small, but the interior was a completely different world.

The cave walls were gnawed into a very neat shape, and the interconnected passageways stretched deep into the mountain like a spider web, with faint fluctuations of qi and blood in each passageway.

Deep within the cave, a particularly striking mass of blood and energy pulsed like a flame, its intensity far surpassing that of its surroundings, clearly approaching the level of a second-tier demon beast.

He Sheng's gaze narrowed slightly as he carefully discerned the patterns of those qi and blood fluctuations.

These monsters were not large; the largest one was no more than the length of an adult's arm. Their bodies were covered with a layer of short, grayish-brown fur, with faint dark gold patterns flowing across their backs. Their front claws were exceptionally thick, with sharp, hook-like toes.

Air mouse.

He Sheng recalled the description of this beast in the "Ten Thousand Demons' Joint Transformation Technique".

This is a first-order demon beast that lives in groups, but its bloodline is not low. At the very least, it is a Xuan-level bloodline, and the pure bloodline can even reach the Di-level.

According to the book, this Void-Piercing Rat has the ability to break through the void and escape into the air, hence the name "Void-Piercing Rat".

Furthermore, if one's bloodline reaches the Earth level, a second innate talent will be born—[Breaking Barriers]!

The so-called "breaking the barrier" means being able to tear and bite the barrier patterns with claws and teeth, thus destroying the array and barrier.

This talent is considered heaven-defying for demonic beasts, meaning that ordinary protective formations and trapping restrictions are useless in front of the Sky-Piercing Rat, which has the ability to break restrictions.

This is why this beast is extremely difficult to capture, and it is almost never seen on the market.

No wonder it could bite through the storage bag.

He Sheng understood.

The storage bag itself is a universal magic tool made of spiritual materials and forbidden patterns, which is extremely difficult for ordinary demonic beasts to destroy. However, if it is a Void Rat that has awakened the ability to break the forbidden pattern, then that is another matter.

He Sheng carefully searched the nest of the Sky-piercing Rats with his divine sense, but found no trace of spirit stones or magical artifacts.

"It's possible that the spirit stones were all devoured by these Sky-Piercing Rats, but where did the magical artifacts go?"

Could it be...?

He Sheng's divine sense immediately locked onto the largest, strongest, and suspected to be the King of Rats, the Sky-Piercing Rats.

Then, he transmitted his voice to the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent:

"You rush in from the front and carefully search these air-piercing rats to see if they have any other nests."

The Devouring Treasure Serpent was already getting restless; it hadn't had any meat in a long time, and these Sky-Piercing Rats were a delicacy in its eyes.

Whoosh!

With a flick of its massive body, it lunged toward the burrow.

How could such a commotion be kept secret?

Before the Treasure-Swallowing Serpent even approached the entrance to the cave, a series of rapid, screeching screams echoed from the depths of the cave.

Dozens of grayish-brown shadows suddenly surged out from all directions, scattering and fleeing like a hornet's nest disturbed.

These air-piercing rats varied in size, with the smallest being no bigger than a fingertip and not yet fully grown in fur. They were being carried in the mouths of several slightly larger adult rats as they desperately burrowed into the ground.

The largest one was nearly half a foot long, with striking dark gold markings on its back. Its crimson eyes were filled with terror. With a twist of its body, it darted into the deepest tunnel and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

He Sheng had anticipated this.

He completely ignored the scattered mice, locked his divine sense on the air-piercing mouse that seemed to be the king of mice, and followed it along the tunnel.

The rat king escaped extremely fast, flying through the air all the way. After escaping for several miles, it suddenly burrowed into an underground cave and then vanished into thin air!

He Sheng was greatly surprised and hurriedly chased after it, only to find that the underground cavern actually had a spatial barrier, and the Sky-Piercing Rat King must have used its [Breaking Barrier] ability to enter it.

This spatial barrier doesn't appear to be naturally formed.

He Sheng opened his divine sense and quickly discovered one or two marks of chisel and axe carving on the edge of the barrier, with array patterns faintly visible.

"Is it a spatial barrier created by an array?"

He Sheng had an idea and immediately used the same trick again, shifting all of the weapon refiner's training time to the array master's training.

Once the formation master reached the second level, he looked up and saw through the illusion at a glance.

"It really is a formation!"

He immediately enhanced his divine sense with the Mind of Ripples, carefully sensing the spatial barrier in front of him, and quickly found several points where the spiritual energy fluctuations were weakest.

"go!"

He Sheng summoned the Blood Poison Mother-Child Blade.

A dark blue blade flew out from the sleeve, its wings fluttering slightly, emitting a chilling aura of poison.

follow closely,

Then the Blood Poison Mother-Child Blade transformed into a streak of dark blue lightning, precisely piercing those key points.

The scales dispersed the moment they touched the array, turning into countless tiny scales that embedded themselves into the gaps in the patterns. The potent poison contained within the blade surged into the forbidden patterns like a flood bursting its banks.

Poison is inherently highly corrosive against forbidden attacks, not to mention that the toxicity of the Blood Poison Mother-Child Blade has reached the pinnacle of the Foundation Establishment stage.

In just a few breaths, the spiritual light at the node flickered, and then the invisible spatial barrier cracked open in front of He Sheng, creating a gap about half a zhang in size.

He Sheng first used his divine sense to probe into the formation, and only after confirming that there was no danger did he pass through it.

But as soon as he entered, the scene inside stunned him.

Inside the array space was an extremely spacious underground cave, with a huge gray-white stone platform standing in the very center.

He Sheng was astonished because the shape of this stone platform was exactly the same as the stone platform in Black Vine Ridge!

Could this place also conceal a secret realm related to the "Northern Garden" medicinal herb garden?!

A thought flashed through my mind.

He Sheng immediately looked up and saw a bluish-green vortex quietly floating above the cave ceiling.