Fishing

Bai Qiuran groped her way forward in complete darkness.

After entering the cave entrance in the rock wall, he felt that the path he was walking on was becoming narrower and narrower.

What was originally a width that two people could barely pass side by side has, after a while, become a width that even one person can barely pass.

Further ahead, the road narrowed again, becoming a dark slit. Here, Bai Qiuran felt she could only move forward sideways.

He squeezed sideways into the crevice, moving slowly forward. The rock walls on both sides pressed against him, seemingly carrying an unnatural sense of oppression, as if trying to crush him.

Perhaps those with particular interests might enjoy this feeling of tightness and compression, but Bai Qiuran definitely didn't. In fact, he had been enduring it for a long time. If he weren't worried about the impact of damaging this cave on the entire Cave Abode, he would have started clearing a path long ago.

After walking along this constricted path for a while, Bai Qiuran finally saw light ahead, and he also saw the exit, which was simply a vertical crack in the stone. If one had not cultivated special Cultivation Technique, even Cultivators would suffer immense pain trying to squeeze out of it.

"..."

Bai Qiuran sighed.

You forced me to do this.

He gathered his True Qi and forcefully turned his body in this space where there was no room for maneuver. His shoulders forcefully pushed open the stone walls on both sides, crushing the surrounding stone walls, which fell to his feet.

Then he faced the crevice in the stone and stepped out. He forcefully pushed open the stone walls on both sides, creating a wide path that could accommodate one person.

With a loud bang, a large, human-shaped hole appeared at the exit of the crevice in the stone wall. Bai Qiuran walked out of it leisurely, dusted off the dust on her shoulders, and looked ahead.

Before him lay a scorched earth, the ground cracked and fiery, with pillars of fire occasionally erupting from the cracks. High temperatures, smoke, and flames dominated the land.

This fire was no ordinary flame. At least, the Fire Avoidance Art commonly used by Cultivators, which could directly immunize them against ordinary fire, were completely ineffective against these flames. Moreover, after he stepped onto this scorched earth, meteors burning with billowing flames would occasionally fall from the sky, landing on the ground and causing strong earthquakes and eruptions of subterranean fires.

Halfway there, the scenery suddenly changed abruptly. The fire disappeared, the scorched earth was covered with frost and snow, and the surrounding temperature suddenly cooled down, as if you had gone directly from the scorching Sun of midsummer into an air-conditioned room with the temperature set to the lowest setting.

Snowflakes drifted down from the sky, with hail and ice crystals falling intermittently. Like the flames before, this snow and ice were no ordinary matter; even cultivators would suffer severe frostbite if they walked on it without sufficient Cultivators.

"So that's how it is. Is this what they call the Suffering of Birth?"

Of course, neither cold nor heat, nor the intense temperature changes caused by all of this, could affect Bai Qiuran in the slightest. Instead, he walked along, thoughtfully observing the surrounding scenery, as if he were on a picnic.

"This is the Suffering of Cold and Heat, so that ghostly passage we saw earlier was a simulation of the narrow birth canal that babies endure during childbirth... I remember there was also the Suffering of the Giant Hand’s Grasp later on?"

After walking several miles further, Bai Qiuran encountered the painful gripping sensation he had anticipated from the "giant hand."

A colossal Behemoths covered in long white fur, resembling some kind of ape, and possessing a pair of large hands, stood in the middle of the road. It was several tens of feet tall and, from a distance, resembled a small white hill.

Upon seeing Bai Qiuran on the road, the Behemoths roared excitedly. As it took a step that could shake the earth, it stretched out its massive hand and reached out to grab Bai Qiuran.

The giant hand covered Bai Qiuran like a curtain, but the next moment, the Behemoths let out a painful howl.

Its arm was torn apart inch by inch, like a piece of candy smashed by a hammer, and huge amounts of blue blood flowed out from the broken wounds.

Because the force it used to grab Bai Qiuran clearly exceeded what an ordinary Qi Refining Stage Cultivators could withstand, Bai Qiuran did not hesitate to retaliate.

"Don't touch me with your filthy hands that you usually use as your wife, you beast."

Bai Qiuran frowned slightly in disgust, then pulled an Iron Sword from her Storage Bag.

After the first strike, he discarded the bladeless hilt, dodged the Behemoths's corpse that had been split in two, and continued along the road.

After he killed the Behemoths, its corpse fell to the ground for a moment, then suddenly decomposed into light and dissipated into the air.

"Interesting. I initially thought it was some kind of native monster from this space, but it turns out to be Creation of Life form."

Turning his head to glance at the Behemoths's corpse that had dissipated into specks of light, Bai Qiuran continued forward, his heart filled with anticipation.

If it were Earth Immortal who had mastered so many wondrous secret techniques, perhaps they really could have a cultivation method that matched his strange physique, enabling him to successfully Foundation Establishment and truly step into the Immortal Sects.

Having passed through the three painful trials described in Buddhism scriptures regarding the Suffering of Birth, Bai Qiuran finally saw the end of this path.

A few miles ahead of him, a road stretched out, leaving the snow and entering a thick fog.

But at the same time, Bai Qiuran also heard a faint cry for help.

"Fellow Daoist? Fellow Daoist!"

He looked in the direction the sound came from and saw a Cultivators dressed in the robes of another sect, frozen in a cluster of ice crystals beside the road, with only his head showing.

"Fellow Daoist, it is fate that we meet here. Would you be so kind as to lend a helping hand?"

Upon seeing Bai Qiuran looking at him, the Cultivators revealed a longing expression.

"I was captured by that Behemoths and frozen here. Fellow Daoist, you are incredibly brave and killed that Behemoths. Could you please rescue me? If I can get out, we, the White Dragon Sect, guarantee a generous reward."

"White Dragon Sect? That second-rank Righteous Path sect in Yongzhou?"

As Bai Qiuran spoke, she moved closer to the location of the ice crystal cluster.

"The Righteous Path Alliance told you not to come in without permission, but you didn't listen. Now look what's happened... Wait here, I'll let you out right now."

The trapped Cultivators looked at Bai Qiuran walked to the ice crystal cluster. Suddenly, his expression changed, and a blue light suddenly flew out from the ice crystal cluster beneath him, secretly entering Bai Qiuran's Spiritual Platform.

Bai Qiuran froze on the spot. Seeing this, the "Cultivators" from the White Dragon Sect struggled lightly, shattering the ice crystal cluster that trapped him, and then jumped out and came to Bai Qiuran's side.

"Is this a good idea?"

The "Cultivators" said to Bai Qiuran, "I already said, this kind of fishing method will always catch one or two fools. Now that we've found a body for you, we still need to find bodies for our fellow countrymen."

"Entrapment tactics work, brilliant!"

Bai Qiuran nodded to him, then suddenly threw a punch, shattering the "Cultivators's " head before he could react.

The headless corpse lay on the ground, and a faint light of Nascent Soul flew out from the corpse, but Bai Qiuran caught it with his Divine Ability and sent it, along with the Earth Immortal Soul that he had previously trapped with his unparalleled Spiritual Sense, into a jade pendant that was temporarily used as a "Souls prison".

Putting the jade pendant away, Bai Qiuran glanced at the headless corpse on the ground and muttered, "The White Dragon Sect is a sect Demonic Sect Alliance. At least try to make your bait look convincing, you idiot."