Toxic Mist All Around! The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well?

Following the coordinates marked on the parchment map, Lan Tian traveled for another three days.

Those three days proved far more difficult than he had expected.

The deeper he went into the forest, the more frequently Soul Beasts appeared, and the higher their levels became.

On the first day, he encountered two Ironback Wolves around the thousand-year level. Relying on the burst speed of Sun and Moon Power and the binding control of Blue Silver Grass, he barely held them off for half an hour. In the end, he seized an opening and killed one with a Rasengan, while the other sensed danger and fled deep into the woods.

On the second day, he came across a thousand-year venomous python coiled beside a stream. Its body was as thick as an adult's waist, and the venom sprayed from its poisonous fangs instantly corroded large swathes of surrounding grass and trees into withered yellow husks.

It took him considerable effort to bind the snake's head with vines and sever its spine with his scalpel.

The third day was even more dangerous. A Black-Maned Bear nearing two thousand years blocked his path. Its hide was thick and its defenses astonishing; Lan Tian's Rasengan only blasted a scorched patch onto its body and failed to truly break through its defense. In the end, he barely drove it back by infusing Sun and Moon Power into his fists and repeatedly striking the same vital spot.

After every battle, he collected the most valuable parts: the Ironback Wolves' claws, fangs, and spinal bones; the venomous python's poisonous fangs and snake gallbladder; and the Black-Maned Bear's paws and gallbladder. He stored them all in his storage ring.

Whether used as medicine or sold, these items would bring in a considerable sum.

On the morning of the fourth day, he stood before the entrance to an extremely concealed valley.

If he had not possessed that parchment map, he never would have been able to find this place.

The valley entrance was completely hidden behind clusters of thick vines and dense shrubs. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary green rock wall.

Only after he pushed aside the vines and slipped in sideways did he realize there was a whole different world within.

The valley was far deeper than it appeared from outside. Sheer cliffs rose on both sides, soaring into the clouds and nearly vertical as they thrust up from the ground, enclosing the entire valley into a natural sealed space.

Ancient trees thick enough to require several people to encircle grew in a tangled mass atop the cliffs. Their enormous canopies spread outward in overlapping layers. From above, one would see only a sea of dense green, utterly unable to glimpse the valley hidden beneath the tightly interwoven canopy.

Moreover, a thin layer of pale green mist floated around the valley, rising from the valley floor and winding around the middle of the cliffs, shrouding the entire place in hazy obscurity.

Standing on the stone platform just inside the valley entrance, Lan Tian looked down, and his heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

Pale green mist curled through the air, towering cliffs surrounded the valley, and ancient trees blocked out the sunlight. These terrain features closely matched the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well from his memories of his past life.

Though the valley before him was covered in mist and he could not see the details at the bottom, there was an obvious temperature boundary. The air to his left carried a trace of warm moisture, while the air to his right gave off an icy, damp chill.

This natural phenomenon of hot and cold air currents meeting could almost only be created by a wondrous place like the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

"Found it. There's more than a ninety-five percent chance this is the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well."

Lan Tian murmured. His voice echoed once through the empty valley before fading away.

But the excitement on his face lasted only a few breaths before he reined it in.

His instincts, sharpened by constant dealings with danger, pulled him back from his wild joy. He began to calmly reassess the situation before him.

The corpses on the ground.

Scattered bones and remains could be seen everywhere on both sides of the slope leading into the valley, some human, some Soul Beast.

Some had completely weathered into gray-white fragments buried in the soil. Others still retained relatively intact skeletal structures. Yet without exception, every bone was covered in a layer of dark green deposits, as though stained by some toxin over a long period of time.

The sheer number and widespread distribution of these remains showed that this valley was poisonous—extremely poisonous. Any living creature that passed through here, whether human or Soul Beast, had failed to leave alive.

Lan Tian crouched down and casually picked up a fragment of bone half-buried in the dirt for a closer look.

The green deposits on its surface gave off an eerie fluorescence beneath the sunlight. He did not even dare touch it directly for long. He used a vine to wrap it, turned it over twice, then set it down.

His gaze followed the slope downward. That pale green mist was rising from deep within the valley floor. The farther down it went, the denser it became. At the bottom, the mist completely obscured his vision, making it impossible to see what lay beneath.

Lan Tian straightened up and rapidly searched through the memories of his past life.

If this truly was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, then the source of the green poison mist surrounding it was easy to explain: the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolute Flower.

That plant was famed for its deadly poison. It grew around the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well year-round, sustaining itself on the spring's extreme cold and extreme heat energies. At the same time, it released dense green poison mist, forming a natural protective barrier.

In his past-life memories, after Dugu Bo occupied the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, that layer of poison mist had also become a defensive measure he later reinforced and thickened. But the mist's original source had nothing to do with Dugu Bo. The Jade Phosphor Seven Absolute Flower itself was a natural guardian that came with the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

But that raised a problem.

If the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolute Flower truly existed here, then there would inevitably be something else within this poison mist: highly venomous Soul Beasts.

The Jade Phosphor Seven Absolute Flower's toxins were fatal to ordinary creatures, but for certain Soul Beasts born to feed on poison or coexist with it, such an environment was instead paradise.

Hundred-year, thousand-year, perhaps even ten-thousand-year poison-attributed Soul Beasts were highly likely to be hiding within this valley, living for years upon years nourished by the poison mist.

And the extreme cold and extreme heat energy contained within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well itself would draw nearby Soul Beasts to gather here in droves.

He remembered an important piece of information from his past life—one that was especially troublesome at this moment. Around the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, there was at least one fifty-thousand-year poison-attributed Soul Beast: the Medusa Empress.

That Soul Beast's level far exceeded the limits of his current strength.

Fifty thousand years.

The number sent a faint chill down Lan Tian's spine.

For an ordinary Soul Elder, the limit for a soul ring was only around seventeen hundred years. Only a five-ring Soul King could bear a ten-thousand-year soul ring.

A fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast was comparable to a human Soul Sage.

He was merely a level thirty-three Soul Elder. Against a fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast, the gap between them was as vast as heaven and earth.

If he rashly entered the depths of the poison mist and awakened that creature, he would not even have a chance of escaping unscathed.

He retreated several steps, returning to the stone platform at the valley entrance. Outside the safe distance from the edge of the poison mist, he found a clean boulder and sat down. He took out the parchment map and his own map, laid them across his knees, and began to carefully consider his options.

The poison mist covered a vast area, nearly blanketing the entire valley floor.

Trying to bypass it and enter the core region of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well was practically impossible.

The only route was to pass through the poison mist and directly face the dangers hidden within.

And he was nowhere near strong enough to force his way through head-on.