Real and Fake

After Qin Ming entered the Earth Fissure, all his fatigue vanished. It had not been an illusion outside—this place that had once nearly killed him had now changed completely.

He looked up. The exit was only about four meters away. Near him, Silver Light spread and connected underground like spider silk, bringing a faint warmth whenever it touched his body.

Qin Ming held a short sword in one hand and the Long-handled Black Gold Hammer in the other as he walked ahead. After accidentally falling in last time, he had not ventured deeper. Now, he wanted to explore.

The ground was uneven, with rocks of all sizes scattered about. It was damp, and droplets clung to the stone walls on either side of him, dripping down from time to time.

The path ahead was rugged and gradually narrowed until he was nearly brushing the stone walls on both sides. Soon, he arrived before a narrow crack that could only accommodate one person.

Though underground, it was not particularly dark. Silver threads crisscrossed in disorder, weaving together and providing a little light. Qin Ming suffered no harm when he touched the Silver Light.

His body lightly scraped against the stone walls, picking up some moisture, before he entered an open area. Even the gravel on the ground had grown sparse, and the floor was much flatter.

In this area, the silver threads had become thicker, densely filling the entire space, as though countless giant spiders had once spun webs here and entwined them together.

More than that, some threads piercing out from the stone walls carried specks of pale gold, while white mist billowed through the area.

Once Qin Ming stood here, the sensation became clearer. His body felt light and nimble, its tautness relaxing on its own. He was warm all over, as if soaking in a hot spring.

He frowned. Was this caused by the drastic transformation of the mountain's Special Nodes? Or had he adapted to this place after enduring that torment once before?

Qin Ming still remembered that terrifying experience vividly. At the time, his heart had pounded like furious war drums, so loudly that his chest had nearly burst apart. His blood had raced at a terrifying speed, and he had vaguely heard the roar of a waterfall.

He considered all the changes since leaving this place. The strangest of all was the Wild Style he practiced. It had shown no movement for years, yet after he had clawed his way back from death, it unexpectedly produced a special reaction when he practiced it again.

Now he knew that the Wild Style was not wild at all. It was recorded in the Silk Scripture, and he had practiced it obsessively ever since childhood.

"Someone told me the Silk Scripture could not be practiced. More than half of it was torn away and burned..."

The remaining dozen or twenty pages of the Silk Scripture could still be practiced, but one needed guidance from someone who had learned it before to get started. Those people should all have died long ago.

"If I could not find such a person and had no one to help me, yet still ultimately mastered it, could it be related to this place?" Qin Ming pondered, all kinds of associations surfacing in his mind.

"Could it be that, to practice the methods recorded in the Silk Scripture, one initially needed the protection of predecessors to enter these extremely dangerous Special Nodes..." Qin Ming fell into deep thought.

Then he walked onward, observing this special place as he began cautiously touching the thick threads that carried a faint golden sheen.

Before long, as he went deeper, he saw glowing threads wreathed in purple qi piercing through the stone walls. The sight was extraordinary, yet they did not harm the flesh.

In the dense forest outside the mountains, the Purple-Eyed Crow was flying when a vast cloud of Black Mist suddenly rose ahead, blocking its path.

"Who?" It immediately became alert. Mysterious symbols flowed through its violet eyes, gradually allowing it to see through the thick mist.

A huge Owl, more than a person's height tall, stood on a great tree. Its two wings were as nimble as human hands, and it was leafing through a book made of beast hide.

"It's been a long time. Care for a few drinks together?" the Owl asked. The thick mist did not disperse as it tucked the book beneath one wing.

"I'm patrolling the mountain. I don't have time." The crow refused, somewhat wary of it.

"What status do you have now? This isn't even your territory. You've really made something of yourself—standing guard for some old geezer?"

The Owl blocked its way, seemingly deeply dissatisfied with its conduct and intending to lecture it here. The Black Mist grew even denser, swallowing the forest.

The Purple-Eyed Crow said, "Old Cat, I have business to attend to. Recently, I found a somewhat passable prospect and am going to take a look. Don't block my way."

If Qi Huaien had known, cold sweat would surely have broken out on his back. Like You Liangyun, he had yet to gain recognition and was still being tested and observed.

The Owl said, "You truly aren't going back to the Black Mist World in the wilderness? You are from a distinguished lineage, a great aristocratic clan among birds. You carry the bloodline of a Higher Lifeform and have deep foundations. How can you willingly sink so low? Do you want to contemplate your True Form anew, turn into a two-legged beast, and live in cities forever?"

The Purple-Eyed Crow nodded. "Mm, that would not necessarily be bad. I have the talent to change my True Form. Aren't there people wandering near the deathlands amid deep mountains and vast marshes who turned into Aberrants? Why can't we go against the current and find a path suited to ourselves?"

The Owl rebuked it, "What kind of behavior is this? Neither human nor beast! You are clearly a crow from an aristocratic clan, yet you want to become human? I'm telling Lord Crow—he'll pluck every feather off your body and personally turn you into a bald two-legged beast!"

The two began arguing.

"Mind your own business and stop blocking the road. You might delay my important affairs. If they assess that boy ahead of time and something goes wrong, it will be ruined. If that boy proves moldable, I will need his help in the future to retrieve something for me amid the ten thousand zhang of human worldly dust. It concerns my future path. You know what is at stake, so get out of my way!" the crow said.

You Liangyun had told it that he would make a move to test Qin Ming in roughly two days, though he might act sooner if a suitable opportunity arose.

"Crow Master, have you returned from the depths of the mountains? Something terrible has happened! It's awful—those people are all dead!" The mutated Talking Finch cried out while flapping its wings.

The Purple-Eyed Crow broke free of the Black Mist and appeared outside. "What happened?"

"Crow Master, I earnestly handled the matter you assigned me. But during it, a three-meter-tall bear led a large pack of two-legged beasts in chasing me down. I was frightened away for only a moment, yet a group of people on your side were all lying dead. When I returned, I smelled the blood they left behind, but I don't know how they died."

The Purple-Eyed Crow followed it to search near the site of the incident. It carefully sensed the surroundings. It was especially sensitive to the aura of life and death. After closing its eyes briefly, it opened them again and muttered, "Qi Huaien is dead. There is no death aura from that youth here. Interesting. Was Qi Huaien killed by an outsider, or did he die after making a move against that youth?"

It waved a wing and sent the Talking Finch away.

"If that youth is truly so formidable and reached this point on his own, then it is fine even if he does not go to Flowing Haze City. There is no need for me to get involved now." The Purple-Eyed Crow flew away.

You Liangyun was reporting to a woman amid the snow. "Qi Huaien assessed Qin Ming and said he was ultimately still short by a hair. The mountains are extremely chaotic. Before I left, a fierce conflict erupted in that forest..."

The Purple-Eyed Crow flew back and landed on a short tree. "Qi Huaien rushed over to save people, only to die himself. What a pity."

"You stay," the woman clad in a black fur cloak said to You Liangyun.

"Ah?" You Liangyun froze, then immediately Performed a Grand Ceremony, his expression filled with boundless excitement.

Deep in the mountains, Chongxiao's Five-Colored Haze gradually dimmed.

Ling Xu and Wei Mo both rose to their feet, each tossing aside the wine cup and wine jar in his hand.

Ling Xu lightly shook his long saber against his foot. Part of his beast-hide boot immediately tore, exposing the tips of his toes. Then he patted his chest once, shattering his white robes. His tall, slender body did not look particularly muscular, but under the distant haze, the rising and falling lines of his muscles were smooth, edged in gold by the glow.

He made himself look tattered and worn, then brushed his fingers across his body. Bloodstains immediately appeared on his flesh. His skill at faking was superb.

Wei Mo said, "Ling City Lord, who cares most about being clean and immaculate and pays such attention to his appearance, can actually make himself look like this. If outsiders saw it, they would surely be talking about it."

Though he said that, he was also moving. He removed several red scales from his armor and tucked them into his robes, making himself look utterly miserable as well.

In another stretch of mountain terrain, the Civet Cat had captured a massive black mountain cat. With evident disgust, it smeared some Black Cat blood over itself, then scattered glowing Spiritual Matter around.

Not far away, the Mantis Beast was doing the same thing.

Without question, the higher-ups of Red Haze City and the Aberrants in the mountains were unwilling to let other powerful figures come and compete with them for the rare products within the Special Nodes. The two sides had joined hands again.

Simply and brutally ambushing those experts would not do. That would provoke public outrage, and the major organizations would seek revenge against them.

When they had earlier joined forces to drive away that batch of Higher Lifeforms migrating here to seize the nest from its rightful owner, they had slain an exceptionally powerful Aberrant. They extracted the dense spirituality from its entire body and used it to detonate a Special Node, artificially arranging the Five-Colored Haze Land and drawing every side into a scramble.

Ling Xu, the Civet Cat, and the other Higher Aberrants in the mountains would then intercept and kill one another, staging a false battle and holding each other back outside the battlefield.

Of course, they could not make every fight fake. For instance, the Old Weasel had been intercepted by a genuine opponent, while that mysterious Mountain Lord had rushed into the center of the battlefield to participate in the battle.

The results were fairly good. Experts had already died near the Five-Colored Haze Land, while some foreign Higher Aberrants and powerful figures from major organizations had suffered severe injuries.

Deep within the Earth Fissure, Qin Ming began practicing the methods from the Silk Scripture. He increasingly felt transparent and at ease from head to toe, as though mysterious currents of heat were washing over his entire body.

All kinds of glowing threads intertwined here. Even people like Wang Nianzhu, who had undergone Second New Life, would suffer great harm from them and urgently needed Spiritual Creature Blood Snake to nourish themselves.

Yet Qin Ming had remained here for a long time without harm. He even felt that his constitution was faintly improving.

"Could the methods recorded in the Silk Scripture be more suitable for practicing in a place like this?" He was somewhat doubtful.

However, no one could answer him now. Those people from back then were dead, crippled, or vanished. Even the Silk Scripture had yellowed with age. No one knew how many years ago this relic had been left behind.

The underground suddenly shook violently, and Qin Ming nearly fell to the ground.

Outside, at the center of the incident where the Five-Colored Haze was gradually dimming, Higher Aberrants and experts from mysterious organizations faced off. All of them were in terrible condition, and none had entered that Node.

At that moment, all the radiance within the Node suddenly dispersed. Then, in the distance, an entirely new Five-Colored Haze erupted violently, even more astonishing than the earlier display here.

"Why is there another one?"

"No, the rare products that were being born have moved along the Spiritual Veins. They changed locations!"

Ling Xu, the Old Weasel, and the others had originally planned further acts, but now they stood stunned alongside everyone else. They did not even need to conceal anything—the true Five-Colored Haze Land had emerged!

Rumble!

Suddenly, the entire mountain range shook violently. It was even more astonishing than before, accompanied by dazzling radiance. The pitch-black night sky was torn apart and fully illuminated as an even more magnificent abnormal spectacle appeared.

"What am I seeing? Ten colors! Those beams of light are like colossal pillars holding up the night sky. This is an unprecedented wonder. What kind of peerless rare product is about to emerge?"

Even the Higher Lifeforms were dumbfounded. This far exceeded their imagination.

In an instant, no matter how gravely injured they were, every powerful figure vanished from where they stood. They did not even look at the Five-Colored Haze Land that had truly emerged, instead rushing directly toward the place with the more magnificent abnormal spectacle. Endless rain of light surged and fell there, drawing every gaze.