Mortal: Traveling Between Two Realms with Mei Ning to Pick Up Trash

Three days later, before dawn, Zhou Yu got up.

He placed a bottle of calming pills at Mei Ning's door and left a note: "Mei Ning, I'm going with Brother Mei Feng to explore a cultivator's cave. I'll be back in a few days. Don't worry about me."

Then he flew up on his sword and headed towards Qingyufang.

The morning breeze rushed towards him, carrying a salty, fishy smell. He flew low, skimming the surface of the sea.

Half an hour later, the outline of Qingyufang came into view.

Zhou Yu put away his flying sword and landed on the dock.

Mei Feng was already waiting there, with two other people standing beside him, a man and a woman.

The man was a middle-aged man with the cultivation level of the early Foundation Establishment stage. He was burly, with a full beard, and a large knife hanging at his waist. He looked like a rugged fellow.

The woman was young, also at the early stage of Foundation Establishment. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black outfit, her hair tied in a neat ponytail. She was playing with a short dagger in her hand, and her gaze swept over Zhou Yu.

"Zhou Yu!" Mei Feng waved from afar. When Zhou Yu approached, he patted him on the shoulder and introduced him to the two men, "This is Zhou Yu, my brother, mid-Foundation Establishment stage."

He then turned to Zhou Yu, "This is Brother Hu Biao, and this is Miss Liu. They are both seasoned veterans who have been at sea for many years."

Hu Biao cupped his hands in greeting to Zhou Yu, grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and said, "It's an honor to meet you."

Miss Liu didn't say anything, but simply nodded, her gaze lingering on Zhou Yu for a moment longer.

Zhou Yu returned the greeting without saying anything more.

Mei Feng took out the jade slip from his pocket and waved it in front of everyone. "Everyone's here. Shall we set off?"

Hu Biao nodded. "Let's go."

Four streaks of light rose into the sky one after another, flying towards the southeast.

Mei Feng flew at the front, with Hu Biao and Miss Liu on either side, and Zhou Yu at the back. The sea breeze was blowing in from the front, and he squinted at the distant, hazy horizon.

After flying for about an hour, the scenery on the sea gradually changed.

The seawater turned from azure to dark green, the color growing deeper and darker. An indescribable aura began to permeate the air, neither spiritual nor malevolent, but a dull, oppressive force that made one's chest feel heavy.

"We're here," Mei Feng called out from ahead, his voice carried away by the wind.

Zhou Yu looked ahead and saw an island appear on the sea. It wasn't big, even smaller than Suihan Island. The island was bare, with no trees or grass, only gray-black rocks, layered upon layer, as if they had been haphazardly piled together by someone.

A thin layer of mist, grayish-white, hung over the island. It wasn't thick, but it was hard to see clearly, as if an invisible veil was covering the entire island.

"Why is the spiritual energy in this place so strange?" Miss Liu finally spoke, her voice clear and crisp.

Hu Biao chuckled, touching the hilt of the knife at his waist. "That's strange, isn't it? If it weren't strange, would it be our turn?"

As he spoke, he withdrew his escape light and landed first on the beach by the island. Mei Feng and Miss Liu followed, and Zhou Yu was the last to land.

The moment his feet touched the sand, Zhou Yu felt a faint spiritual pressure emanating from the soles of his feet. He glanced around discreetly. The rocks on the island were etched with some blurry patterns, almost invisible due to the sea breeze, but upon closer inspection, traces of some formations could still be discerned.

It's been a long time, so long that even the array patterns have weathered away.

"Brother Hu, what level is this cave dwelling?" Zhou Yu asked.

Hu Biao scratched his head, took out the jade slip from his pocket, and looked at it again. "When I first discovered it, I explored the outside and said that although the restriction was loose, the foundation was not weak. I guessed it was the remains of a Golden Core cultivator. You know, Golden Core cultivators' cave dwellings are not common in our sea area. Any one of the things inside would be enough for us to eat for several years."

Zhou Yu squatted down and gently drew a line on the sand with his finger. Underneath the sand was hard rock, grayish-black, with a layer of fine cracks on the surface.

He tapped it, and it made a dull sound, not the sound of an ordinary stone, but the sound of a stone that had been repeatedly tempered by some force and whose texture had changed.

He had read a book about materials that mentioned something called "fire-refined rock." Ordinary rocks would turn into this by being eroded by fire-attribute spiritual energy over many years. But how many years would it take to turn all the rocks on an entire island into fire-refined rock? Hundreds? Thousands? It was hard to say.

Standing beside Zhou Yu, Miss Liu's gaze fell on the mark his finger had traced. "What are you looking at?"

"Look how old this island is," Zhou Yu said, standing up and patting the sand off his hands.

Miss Liu didn't ask any more questions and turned to follow Mei Feng.

Zhou Yu walked at the back, his hand on his storage bag, ready to draw his sword at any moment.

Ahead was a narrow gravel path, only wide enough for one person to pass at a time. The rocks on both sides grew higher and higher, and the indistinct patterns on the rocks became more and more dense.

After walking for a quarter of an hour, Xiao Jing reached the end. In front of him was a relatively open space with a solid piece of fire-refined rock on the ground. In the center of the open space stood a stone tablet, which was not tall, only reaching Zhou Yu's waist, and was grayish-black.

Mei Feng had already walked over and reached out to touch the stone tablet.

"Don't touch it," Zhou Yu said.

late.

The moment Mei Feng's fingers touched the stone tablet, the patterns on it suddenly lit up. It wasn't the same kind of radiant light as before; it was a dim, reddish glow, like a dying ember.

The red light spread from the stone tablet to the ground, and from the ground to the rocks on both sides. As soon as the blurry lines came into contact with the red light, they lit up one by one, extending into the depths of the island along the texture of the rocks.

Zhou Yu felt the ground beneath his feet tremble slightly.

"What did you touch!" Hu Biao's voice rose half an octave.

"I...I just touched it," Mei Feng's hand was still on the stone tablet, and the expression on his face changed from curiosity to a stiff, bewildered smile.

Zhou Yu walked over and pulled Mei Feng's hand off the stone tablet. "Don't move, don't move either."

The four people stood still, none of them daring to move. The red light flowed slowly through the patterns on the rocks, from the edge of the island to its depths, and then back again, one wave after another.

Zhou Yu closed his eyes and used his divine sense to sense the trajectory of the flowing red light. He had studied formations, and although he was not an expert, he understood the basic principles of formations. Every formation has a core, which is the core of the formation and also its weakness. As long as the core can be found, there is a way to break the formation.

The trajectory of the flowing red light gradually became clear in Zhou Yu's mind, like a river flowing from the outer perimeter of the island to the center, then branching out into various tributaries, and finally converging at a single point.

Zhou Yu opened his eyes and looked at the three people with different expressions.

"The formation on this island," he said, "is quite large."

"Can a Golden Core cultivator set up such a large array?" Miss Liu asked.

Zhou Yu did not answer the question.

"Come on," Zhou Yu said, "stay close to me and don't touch anything."

He started walking, following the direction of the flowing red light, deeper into the island.

Mei Feng, Hu Biao, and Miss Liu followed behind him, the four of them standing in a row, their steps very light, and none of them spoke.

After walking less than a hundred steps, Zhou Yu suddenly stopped. His path was blocked by a dark red light curtain.

The light screen was thin, like a veil, but when you looked through it, the scenery behind it was distorted, and there were fiery red lines flowing on the light screen.

"What is this?" Mei Feng leaned closer, peering inside.

"The Misty Fire Fiend Array," Zhou Yu said. He had read about this array in a book. "It is a combination of the Misty Array and the Fire Fiend Array. Divine senses will be suppressed, and one's sense of direction will be lost. Intruders will trigger the condensation of fiendish energy into fire beasts to attack. The fire beasts are equivalent to the late Foundation Establishment stage, and their numbers will increase, making them impossible to kill. However, this array has been around for too long, so it can probably only condense fire beasts at the early Foundation Establishment stage."

Hu Biao's face turned pale instantly. "Can't kill them all?"

"We can kill them all," Zhou Yu said, "but we need to find the core of the formation."

He gripped the sword in his hand. "Stay close to me, don't get separated, or you'll never find your way back."

He stepped into the light curtain, the dark red light curtain sliding over him like a film of water, without resistance, but the scorching heat became even stronger.

The light screen behind them rippled, and Mei Feng, Hu Biao, and Miss Liu followed them in.

The fog was so thick that even people standing close by couldn't see each other's faces.

Zhou Yu could only determine the location of others by sound and spiritual pressure perception; his divine sense could not probe outwards.

"Don't scatter, everyone!" Mei Feng's voice came from the left, muffled.

"Don't break up, don't break up," Hu Biao's voice came from the right, carrying a hint of barely suppressed panic.

Miss Liu didn't speak, but Zhou Yu could sense that she was right behind him.

Within the Misty Fire Array, dark red mist surged like a tide.

The four people stood back to back, forming a tight circle, facing four directions.

Zhou Yu gripped his sword, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding mist. The mist was moving, not by the wind, but by something alive, as if something was swimming inside.

coming.

The first fire python silently emerged from the mist, its entire body crimson, its scales distinct, and even its eyes glowing with two orbs of eerie green light.

It opened its mouth wide and bit straight at Mei Feng's nape. Before Mei Feng could react, Zhou Yu's knife had already arrived. The silver-white blade light exploded in the dark red mist, cleaving the fire python in two with a single stroke.

The upper half of the fire python was still rushing forward, while the lower half had turned into a sky full of sparks. But those sparks did not go out; instead, they spun in the air and then reformed into two smaller fire snakes, one on the left and one on the right, rushing towards Mei Feng.

"Can't be killed?" Mei Feng finally reacted, sweeping his spear horizontally. In a flash of inspiration, he shattered the two small snakes. The sparks from the shattered pieces coalesced into four even smaller lines of fire, which clung to him like leeches.

Mei Feng frantically slashed several times, the slashes becoming more numerous and denser with each strike, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.

"Don't use brute force," Zhou Yu whispered, turning the tip of his blade. Aquamarine spiritual energy spread from the blade, enveloping the lines of fire.

When water and fire come into contact, they sizzle and white steam rises from the contact surface, while the fire line quickly dims under the erosion of the water.

"The core of the fire beast is fire evil, which can be weakened by water elemental power. If you don't have enough elemental power, use this."

He took out a few ice crystals from his storage bag. He had bought them casually at Qingyufang to preserve the pills, but they unexpectedly came in handy here. As soon as the ice crystals came into contact with the fire beast, they exploded and turned into a cloud of cold mist, which diluted the fire mist several feet around them.

Seeing this, Hu Biao also rummaged through his storage bag and took out several ice-attribute talismans, sticking them haphazardly around him. The talismans exploded, releasing a chilling aura that created a temporary ice mist barrier around the four of them.

The fire beast pounced, crashing into the icy mist with a mournful hiss. Its movements slowed noticeably, and its color changed from crimson to dark red, like a frozen snake.

"It works!" Hu Biao was overjoyed and took out a few more talismans, but Zhou Yu stopped him.

"Use it sparingly," Zhou Yu's eyes scanned quickly through the mist, "We need to find the array's core."

Deeper into the mist, even more fire beasts were gathering: fire pythons, fire wolves, fire birds, and fire scorpions, densely packed together like a swarm of disturbed wasps, surging towards the four from all directions. Each one possessed a weak spiritual pressure, but their sheer number was enough to send chills down one's spine.