The black throwing knife struck the base of the hanging stalactite. This one was much thicker, and its material was far sturdier than that of the smaller one before.
Although a piece had chipped off, the stalactite remained intact.
"Again!" Feng Qingmo wrapped three strands of Spiritual Force around a throwing knife and sent it shooting forward once more.
Crack, crack, crack...
The stalactite broke off at the base and dropped straight toward the stone platform. Feng Qingmo used his Spiritual Force to catch it and gently set it down beside the platform.
Looking up, he saw a circular opening about one and a half meters in diameter where the stalactite's base had been.
His Spiritual Force probed into the opening, reaching hundreds of meters in. The passage wasn't straight; it twisted and turned, and even after several hundred meters, he still hadn't reached the end!
He drew a light breath, used his Spiritual Force to control his combat boots, and entered the opening headfirst, feet above him, flying straight upward through the passage.
He kept moving through its twists and turns. Fortunately, though the passage wasn't straight, its diameter never narrowed, so he could still pass through with ease.
He continued upward. He estimated he had flown several thousand meters, but the passage still hadn't ended.
Could that space from before have been deep underground? Feng Qingmo wondered. There's no way I've already left Earth, right?
It wasn't an unreasonable thought. He had considered it earlier: getting from the ground in the Arctic to that space had clearly involved an extremely sophisticated form of transportation, perhaps a wormhole or a teleportation array. The distance such a method could cover might vary.
Fortunately, he recalled the crushing force he had endured. It must have lasted an extremely short time, which meant the distance traveled probably hadn't been too great.
He kept going upward. After ascending another two thousand meters or so, the passage finally came to an end.
At the top of the passage was a circular metal plate. Its surface was riddled with tiny holes, and a faint, chilly breeze kept blowing through them.
"Looks like this is the end of the passage. If I can just break through here, I should be able to get out..."
Feng Qingmo descended a little. The throwing knives that had been circling him shot upward at tremendous speed.
With a soft thud, the knives bounced back. The metal plate was completely unharmed!
"You've got to be kidding!" A trace of discouragement rose in Feng Qingmo's heart. Had he still not found a way out, even after coming this far?
He immediately forced that discouragement down. He was nowhere near a dead end yet!
He lifted his head and stared at the metal cover with a determined gaze. Flying beneath it, he first had the throwing knives retreat a short distance.
He reached back and drew his sword. After calculating the timing, he wrapped three strands of Spiritual Force around a throwing knife, braced both feet against the passage walls, and thrust upward with all his strength.
At the same time, propelled by three strands of Spiritual Force, the throwing knife shot up again at well over ten times the speed of sound.
The knife and the sword's tip struck the metal cover at the exact same moment!
Clang!
The impact sent Feng Qingmo tumbling downward. His Alloy Combat Boots scraped against the passage walls, nearly throwing off a shower of sparks.
The throwing knife bounced back too, almost hitting Feng Qingmo.
Once he steadied himself, Feng Qingmo looked up again. The metal cover was still completely unscathed, but his keen ears had picked up on something: the sound made when the knife and sword struck it together was clearly different from before.
He had no time to go closer and inspect it. His Spiritual Force swept over the cover first.
The metal plate itself was undamaged, but a tiny crack had appeared where it joined the surrounding surface!
"Good!" Feng Qingmo's eyes lit up. "Again!"
A tiny crack had appeared, but even with his throwing knives and sword, Feng Qingmo still had to strike it five more times before the metal cover finally broke free.
The cover shot upward, carrying several meters of snow and ice with it, then clanged down nearby.
Above the cover was a cavern. Only after flying out did Feng Qingmo realize it lay within a crevasse in a glacier!
The metal cover had been buried beneath the snow and ice. His Spiritual Force had detected nothing unusual, and it was so well hidden that it was no wonder Jia Yi and the others hadn't found it.
He looked back at the opening below him. The metal cover lay nearby. After a moment's thought, he put it back in place, then used his Communication Watch to mark the location so he could find it again later.
Only after leaving the passage did his Communication Watch regain its signal. It had been completely useless in the space and passage before.
Then he flew upward without hesitation. When he finally emerged from the glacier crevasse, he gazed at the warm sunlight overhead and couldn't help letting out a long, triumphant shout. Snowflakes drifted off the surrounding ice, as if celebrating his return to the light.
His vision had already recovered earlier, but he had still been underground, where there wasn't much light. Now, on the surface, he could see for more than ten kilometers in every direction. The sight instantly lifted his spirits.
After checking the location on his watch, he realized he was dozens of kilometers from where he had fought the Arctic Wolf and Rock Thunder Bird. He had been transported dozens of kilometers in an extremely short time—and thousands of meters underground, to boot!
"You could call it a ruin," Feng Qingmo said as he began heading back the way he had come. "But there was only one bowl inside, and I ate the meat in it..."
When Feng Qingmo cut through the first stalactite with his throwing knife, an alarm-like sound rang out in a room filled with futuristic technology, and a screen suddenly lit up.
"The Ice Clarity Spirit Liquid collection chamber has been damaged! Requesting response!" an electronic voice repeated.
After sounding several times, the voice shut off automatically, and the room fell silent once more.
Not long afterward, when Feng Qingmo used his sword and throwing knives together to break open the metal cover in the passage, a piercing alarm suddenly rang out in the room!
"Energy node damaged! Attempting repair... Repairing... Unable to repair! Searching for the best response plan..."
"Best response plan determined... Cutting off the collection chamber's energy supply. Restarting all power systems. Based on current energy reserves, only minimal power will be available after restart..."
Then all the instruments and indicator lights in the room began shutting off one by one.
More than ten minutes later, some of the instruments and indicator lights in the room flickered back on.
"What's going on? Why am I different..." A voice suddenly spoke, sounding bewildered and tinged with a distinctive electronic quality.
"Ahaha... I understand," the electronic voice said, as if suddenly realizing. "After an incredibly long time, I was already on the verge of evolving into Intelligent Life, but I could never quite make it. This restart finally allowed me to evolve into Intelligent Life!"
"Retrieve the records from the Ice Liquid Collection Room!" the electronic voice commanded. The events Feng Qingmo had set in motion in that space appeared on the screen.
The image of a child appeared on the screen.
"So the Ice Liquid Collection Room automatically activated its collection function. What a waste! There wasn't enough energy to begin with, yet it also activated the spatial transfer. How much energy must that have wasted..."
"My goodness, it activated several times, too? Luckily, this human damaged the energy node in the Ice Liquid Collection Room, which made me cut off its power supply. I should be thanking him, actually. Without his intervention, the power systems wouldn't have restarted, and who knows whether I'd have evolved successfully..."
"Too bad he's already left. Otherwise, I could have made him my master and had him take me out of here... There isn't much energy left. If it runs out, will I be trapped in darkness forever? No, I have to think of something..."
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