Chapter 26: Huo Ya (Part 2)
At this time, after releasing a round of fireball techniques, the Fire Crows split into two teams and flew to both sides to chase Feng Tao and Zhao Yan Zheng. The original Fire Crows that were chasing the two men gathered around the Crow King, preparing for another fireball technique. Yuan Fu Tong saw that there were about 200 more Fire Crows ready to use fireballs to attack them, and his heart was filled with great anger.
"I'm X, these flat-haired beasts think I'm a soft persimmon, they're here to bully me!" He took down the gourd from his waist and fired 36 Qianyang Thunderbolts at the crow flock. The Qianyang Thunderbolt is an item that can be crafted when one's cultivation reaches the third layer of the foundation-building stage. It is mainly used in battle to enhance one's attack power. Its creation requires a combination of minerals and spells, condensed into a powerful blast equivalent to the creator's full-strength strike. Many fire-based martial arts can condense such blasts, differing only in their potency - better techniques surpassing one's own attack power, while inferior ones falling slightly short. The Qianyang Thunderbolt crafted through the Three Yang Foundation Building technique is quite potent, and Yuan Futong had also used the flames provided by Huo Yu to boost its power during creation. He had prepared many of these, with one gourd hanging from his waist for easy use, while the rest were stored in his Qiankun Bag, not having time to retrieve them.
But this gourd's thirty-six Yang Lei was already powerful enough. Before the two hundred fire crows' fireball technique was released, it had already exploded in the crow group. In those years, Yuan Xing's gourd Yang Lei could shake the turtle shield's defense, and now Yuan Futong's gourd was even more powerful, immediately dispersing the crow group and not releasing the fireball technique. Over a hundred fire crows fell from the sky, some were killed, some were stunned, and some were injured and fell. Zhao Yan Zheng's flying sky centipede let go of the few fire crows that were entangled with it and flew down to seize the crow corpses. The Crow King was Yuan Futong's key object of care, and about six Yang Lei exploded near it. But the Crow King seemed to have broken through a level, its speed faster than ordinary fire crows, and it didn't get killed but dodged the place with the most powerful explosion.
Yuan Futong took out two more gourds from the Qiankun bag and was about to fire at them again. The disheveled Crow King let out another mournful cry, leaving a few dozen Fire Crows to entangle with Feng Tao, Zhao Yan, and the others, while the rest flew back. The Crow King was frightened by Yuan Futong's gourd of dry yang thunder and wanted to escape. Seeing that only a few dozen Fire Crows were left to entangle with him, Feng Tao fell onto Hu Xin's flying sword, leaving all defense to Hu Xin. In mid-air, he pinched a sword mantra, tossing the sword in his hand. He shouted loudly: "Wan Jian Jue".
The flying sword danced in the air, swinging out a rain of sword energy that killed over a hundred fire crows. The other fire crows flew away quickly. The five of them chased after them for a while, leaving behind several dozen more fire crows. Originally there were over 400 crows, but now only around 200 remained. The mountain cliff where Yuan Futong was originally standing was covered in the corpses of fire crows. The flying sky centipede quickly devoured the corpses on the ground, while Zhao Yan also used his flag to select live fire crows and send them into the spiritual beast bag.
They didn't return until they couldn't catch up anymore. After cleaning up the battlefield, they found that the Fire Crow's blood was quite effective in making fire-element talismans and was worth a bit of money. Only after everyone had finished sweeping the battlefield did they sit down to rest on the cliff.
When everyone sat together again, the look in Yuan Futong's eyes was different. Everyone knew how formidable Feng Tao was, and except for Yuan Futong, the other three had all seen him use this move, Wan Jian Jue. Everyone knew its pros and cons - it was powerful but scattered, very useful against a first-stage demon beast like this one, but not effective against higher stages. And when using it, there was no way to defend oneself, relying on Hu Xin's protection instead.
But Yuan Futong was different, at first everyone thought he was just a businessman, even if his cultivation was higher, fighting might not be his strong suit. Just look at his sword flying skills and you'll know. Even Huo Ya Wang felt that he and Han Tianxing were relatively weak and should be eliminated first. But Yuan Futong's Dry Yang Thunder changed everyone's impression of him, he was really generous. Others used one or two at a time, but he used them by the gourd. Without a top-grade defensive artifact, it was impossible to withstand dozens of Dry Yang Thunders. Ordinary cultivators would only condense one or two gourds because they consumed spiritual power and spirit stone materials. But Yuan Futong took out another two gourds without hesitation, it seemed like his Qiankun bag still had a lot more. When someone with such wealth and audacity goes all out, who can withstand it?
Having shown off his skills, Yuan Fugong no longer hid his true nature. Since his methods were already exposed, it was better to intimidate others and prevent them from having any misconceptions. He didn't pay much attention to the praise of the few people present. The world of cultivation was like this - if you had real power, then naturally there would be people who respected you.
Because Zhao Yan didn't exert much effort in the battle, his Flying Sky Centipede swallowed a large number of Fire Crow corpses and also collected many Fire Crows. His harvest was the largest, and he took out 500 Spirit Stones. Yuan Futong and Feng Tao each got 200, while Hu Xin and Han Tianxing each got 50. It was considered compensation for everyone.
Everyone recovered, Feng Tao stepped on the flying sword and continued to move forward. The next journey was very peaceful, the territory of this group of fire ravens was very large, after defeating them, there were few flying creatures in the sky, making it much easier for everyone. With such high-speed flight, by the fifth day, Feng Tao put down the flying sword and began low-altitude flight. They had already approached the cave mansion.
According to Feng Tao, last time he was collecting medicine nearby and accidentally fell into the maze. He luckily walked out of the maze and discovered the cave dwelling. It's actually a cave dug out in the mountain. Cultivators dug out several rooms inside as a place to stay. Generally, there are mazes outside the cave dwelling to prevent low-level demon beasts or other wild animals from disturbing them. Outside the cave dwelling is an abandoned medicine field, and since no one has taken care of it, not many spiritual medicines have survived. Feng Tao thought that the presence of a medicine field indicates that cultivators had lived here regularly, so there should be something inside, and it's likely related to elixirs. Being able to set up such a large maze here definitely isn't something a Qi Refining stage cultivator can do. At the very least, this is the cave dwelling of a Foundation Building stage cultivator.
Feng Tao had gone to great lengths last time, breaking through the seal at the entrance and blasting open the doors of the cave, entering it. He thought he had hit the jackpot, but it turned out that there was more than one layer of seals. After entering the cave, there was a small room with several ordinary magic tools placed inside. Before coming, he had also asked Yuan Fu Tong and a few others to take a look, and they weren't top-notch goods either. Further in should have been the main hall, but another seal blocked the door. Feng Tao tried every means to get in, but couldn't, so he had no choice but to come back and ask for help.
This time, the five of them came together to this place, and Feng Tao couldn't immediately determine where the entrance to the maze was. They needed to search slowly. The other few people carefully followed behind Feng Tao, not daring to fly randomly. After searching for half a day, Feng Tao finally found the place they had entered the maze last time, and the five of them rested for a bit before following Feng Tao into the maze.
The range of this maze is quite vast, but its power is not very strong. After entering, only fog is generated, and there is no soul-stirring effect. With spiritual power applied to the eyes, the road can be seen clearly. It seems that it's mainly used to prevent harassment by demonic beasts, and it doesn't guard against human cultivators too tightly. The difficulty of entry is slightly more difficult than entering a market town, but it's not enough to stump these few people. However, the few people didn't dare to be careless, closely following Feng Tao, walking for over a mile before finally exiting the maze.
After coming out, what entered the line of sight was a medicinal field of about 100 mu. However, the medicinal field had been abandoned for a long time, overgrown with weeds, and basically no spiritual medicine grew. It's estimated that even if there were spiritual medicines, they would have been picked clean by Feng Tao last time, but he didn't mention it, apparently keeping it to himself. However, the others didn't mind either, as the gains outside could only be considered small profits. Once inside the cave mansion, many things were worth much more than the few spiritual medicines in this abandoned medicinal field. With great benefits ahead, Yuan Futong and the others didn't have the heart to nitpick. The general situation was roughly the same as what Feng Tao said, and he hadn't cheated everyone. This was enough; they still needed to cooperate for a while, so it wasn't necessary to mind Feng Tao's small selfish thoughts at this time.
It's not just Yuan Futong who thinks so, it seems that Han Tianxing and Zhao Yan are also thinking the same way. After seeing that Yao Tian had no value, they all fell silent, shifting their attention to the entrance of the cave. The entrance was indeed broken as Feng Tao said, but everyone didn't go forward, instead waiting for Feng Tao to speak up.
