Chapter 37: The Person in the Cave

  After a long time, Lin Feng had searched more than half of the mountain slope. Suddenly, when his hand stretched towards a shrub that was over two meters tall, it actually passed through directly. It turned out to be an illusion array. Lin Feng's heart suddenly became excited. Since there was an illusion array set up here, the entrance to the cave must be here.

  This illusion array is used to conceal the cave entrance, so its level isn't high and its range isn't large. Although Lin Feng can't find the array eye like he normally would when breaking an array, then take out the array device, he can use brute force - digging.

  The range of the illusion array is not large, Lin Feng can rush into the array without fear of getting lost in it. As long as he digs out the eye of the formation, the illusion array will naturally break. Lin Feng took out his fine steel sword and tried it out. Although it was a simple illusion array, the ground surface still received protection from the formation method, and its texture became much harder than ordinary soil. The fine steel sword hit it as if it had hit rock.

  Fortunately, he still had a medium-grade artifact, the Fish Dragon Sword. Lin Feng took out the Fish Dragon Sword and inserted it into the ground, which instantly split open like tofu. The medium-grade artifact was indeed extraordinary, and Lin Feng's heart was filled with joy as he prepared to exert his strength. Suddenly, a voice echoed in his mind: "Go back, even if you break through the illusion array, you won't be able to enter the cave mansion."

  "Who!" Lin Feng looked around, but there was no one in sight. The voice was clear and evident that someone with a high level of cultivation had used their divine sense to communicate with him. After being startled for a moment, he quickly calmed down and asked: "I'm being rude, are you from the cave?"

  "A person? I'm barely a human being. I didn't want to say much, but I didn't expect that you, a fourth-level Qi Refining cultivator, would have a magic tool. However, your magic tool can only break the outer illusion array and cannot enter the cave, so it's better for you to keep the illusion array for now and hide the entrance, lest someone comes to bother me." The person in the cave seemed to have seen something and exclaimed, then quickly returned to their normal tone: "Wait until you reach the Foundation Establishment stage before coming back. I will naturally guide you in at that time."

  Lin Feng listened more clearly this time, and he was certain that it was the person in the cave transmitting sound. After thinking about it, the seal he had dug up on the mountain top earlier was far stronger than the current illusion array. Lin Feng already had some faith in the words of the senior in the cave. With his current strength, wanting to break through the seal at the entrance of the cave indeed didn't have half a chance of success. Rather than doing so, it would be better to leave the illusion array behind and wait until he had gained more power before coming back for the treasure.

  Lin Feng said loudly, "Thank you for your guidance, senior. I'm bold enough to ask, which sect's master are you? Are you trapped here and need me to pass on a message?"

  Lin Feng's words fell silent for half a moment without getting any response, and just as he felt strange, the voice in his mind sounded again: "I am not from this place, let alone the sect you mentioned, hurry up, the early stage of the Five Elements Spiritual Root is very slow, you must seize the time to cultivate, be sure to enter the foundation building period, don't make me wait in vain."

  Lin Feng was greatly shocked. The senior in the cave could transmit sound with his divine sense, which had already surprised him greatly. Moreover, he could even detect Lin Feng's spiritual root attribute through the cave and the formation, which made Lin Feng feel unfathomable. To know that from five years ago when he took the test at the Yang family to a few days ago when he took the test at the Qingyang Gate, all the seniors who were in charge of the foundation period used magical instruments, but Lin Feng had never seen anyone who could see someone's spiritual root attribute with just one glance.

  The seniors in this cave, although not using their naked eye to see their own spiritual root attributes, can know their own spiritual root attributes by isolating the cave and the law array with their divine consciousness. It is obviously more powerful than using the naked eye. From this, it can be seen that the cultivation of the seniors in the cave must be much higher than that of the foundation-building period masters, and they are absolutely a great master.

  Is he a great master of the Golden Elixir stage? Lin Feng thought for a moment, but still felt that it was an understatement. He was probably a senior who was even more powerful than a Golden Elixir stage master. Lin Feng suddenly felt a bit suffocated with fear. Could he be a master of the Nascent Soul stage? In his understanding, although the cultivation of the True Way was divided into nine stages: Qi Refining, Foundation Building, Golden Elixir, Nascent Soul, Spirit Severing, Void Breaking, Body Tempering, Tribulation Transcending, and Great Vehicle, the highest level of cultivation that the masters in the entire True Way realm had achieved so far was only the Golden Elixir stage. As for the Nascent Soul stage masters who were one level higher, they were just rumors spread by a few major sects to intimidate their opponents. So far, no outsiders had seen the Nascent Soul stage masters of these major sects, and it seemed that each major sect had deliberately spread such rumors to deter others.

  It can be seen that when Lin Feng inferred that the person in the cave might be a great master of the Yuan Ying period, his heart was shocked. After the tension passed, Lin Feng slowly recalled the words of the person in the cave just now, which seemed to be waiting for him specially. Moreover, what he said earlier, "Lao Fu is also barely considered a person", suddenly made Lin Feng shiver again, could it be an evil cultivator or a demon cultivator? Lin Feng's heart felt a bit hairy.

  "Yes, I will remember your words, sir. I bid you farewell." Lin Feng said after bowing and quickly left the small hill, he was not in the mood to explore the cave for treasure now, the other party's strength was too intimidating, it was better not to provoke him until he understood the situation.

  After walking for a few miles, Lin Feng finally calmed down and thought about the tone and language of the person in the cave. It seemed that they didn't seem to be bad people after all. Lin Feng felt a bit regretful, thinking that he might have been too timid. But soon he overturned his own idea, maybe the other party was deliberately pretending to be like this to lure him into a trap. Thinking of this, Lin Feng again felt lucky for having wisely escaped. However, when he thought about the fiery red dot on Bao Yu's forehead, Lin Feng felt that he should believe what the person in the cave said.

  After repeating this for several times, Lin Feng's head became a bit bigger and his chest started to feel stuffy again. Not good, the phenomenon of walking into madness a few days ago suddenly made him vigilant, Lin Feng immediately made up his mind, no matter what the situation was, anyway, he couldn't enter the cave now, so let's wait until the foundation period to see how things go. With this idea, Lin Feng immediately put the strange encounter in the cave behind his mind for the time being.

  At this time, the old man in the cave also murmured softly: "Little guy, you're quite clever, but I like it hehe!"

  Lin Feng was already far away, of course, he couldn't hear the old man's soft and low voice in the cave. If he knew that even at such a distance, the old man could still sense his skin pores changing through his divine consciousness, and thus understand his emotional changes, I don't know if he would be scared to the point of going crazy again.

  At this time, Lin Feng's mind was preoccupied with hurrying on the road. He had picked too many spiritual herbs and if he didn't process them soon, they would go to waste. These were all worth money! Even though he was already quite wealthy now, people who were used to living in poverty were always more frugal, and Lin Feng was no exception.

  After rushing for less than half a day, Lin Feng felt that he should not be far from the distant light city. Although he was still walking in the mountains and forests, the traces of human activity were already very obvious. From time to time, he could see sections of mountain roads trampled by people and some hunting traps.

  "Boom! Clang! Crash!" Lin Feng, who was carefully searching for footprints on the mountain road, suddenly heard a fierce fighting sound. The sound didn't seem to be the clash of weapons, nor did it sound like beasts fighting. Just as Lin Feng was hesitating about whether to go and take a look, another beast howled, followed by a person's "Ah!" of surprise. He immediately understood that someone had been injured by a wild animal, so he changed direction and ran towards the source of the sound.

  As he rounded a hill, a scene of fierce fighting between man and beast unfolded before Lin Feng's eyes. He took one glance and charged forward with his steel sword in hand. The young man, who looked to be only in his early twenties, was already covered in bloodstains, clutching a steel sword as he desperately faced off against a massive and agile leopard. Judging from his reaction speed, it was clear that he had reached the end of his rope and could fall prey to the ferocious beast at any moment.

  Lin Feng naturally wouldn't just watch him die, so he let out a loud shout to attract the leopard's attention and then charged forward. The leopard saw Lin Feng charging over and couldn't take down the injured man for the time being, so it gave up its attack on the man and instead pounced on Lin Feng with a loud roar, like a fierce tiger descending from the mountain.

  "Be careful, senior brother. This leopard is a top-grade demonic beast and is extremely ferocious." The man was very weak but still insisted on holding his sword to sweep the surroundings.

  Lin Feng had thought that the leopard was just an ordinary wild beast, but after hearing the man's words, his heart suddenly became highly alert. The term "Shixiong" (brother), Lin Feng immediately knew that the man was also a cultivator, and cultivators would not have any pressure when facing ordinary wild beasts, let alone using swords, even with bare hands they could easily kill them, but this man as a cultivator was almost beaten to death by this leopard, which meant that this leopard was no ordinary beast.

  As expected, the man was afraid that Lin Feng would be careless and hastily reminded him that this beast was actually a quasi-demonic beast with demonic blood. A quasi-demonic beast refers to a wild animal that has demonic blood in its body, or it can also be said that it is a demonic beast that has not yet awakened. Cultivators all know that most demonic beasts are born as demonic beasts from the moment they come into this world, but there are also some that are the offspring of ordinary wild animals combined with demonic beasts. They are not demonic beasts when they are born, but because of the demonic blood in their veins, they have the opportunity to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth or encounter other catalysts to evolve into demonic beasts. This type of demonic beast is called a quasi-demonic beast before it evolves into a demonic beast.

  The master divides the demon beasts into one to nine levels, equivalent to the strength of human masters from foundation establishment period to golden core period. It can be seen how powerful the demon beasts are. Therefore, the quasi-demon beast with the bloodline of the demon tribe, although it cannot be compared with the demon beast, its strength is far stronger than that of ordinary wild beasts, otherwise it would not have been able to beat this master so badly.

  Lin Feng encountered only wild beasts in the Cui Shi Mountains, and had never met a quasi-demonic beast with demonic blood before. So at first, he mistakenly thought it was just an ordinary wild beast, and charged forward with his refined steel sword. If he had known earlier that this leopard was a quasi-demonic beast far stronger than ordinary wild beasts, for safety's sake, he might have taken out the Fish Dragon Sword instead. However, now it was too late to switch swords.