Black Box

"What is this thing?"

Li Jun felt his way over and pulled a black box straight out of the mire.

"Skree!"

Before Li Jun could examine it closely, the Mystic Swan's sharp claws came at him again.

"You damned bird! You're going too far!"

Clutching the black box, Li Jun once again used the "Shadow-Folding Wandering Dragon Step" and retreated.

"Take one finger from me!"

His feet suddenly drove hard against the ground, and in the next instant, his body shot forward explosively.

At the same time, on his right hand, silver spiritual power gathered madly around his thumb and index finger, and an astonishingly sharp aura appeared out of thin air.

"Star-Shattering Finger!"

Li Jun shouted, using the spell that came with the Myriad Apertures Universe Art for the first time.

Every feather on the Mystic Swan's body stood on end, as if it were facing a mortal enemy.

It held both wings in front of itself, taking up a defensive stance.

One breath, two breaths...

After five breaths, the Mystic Swan sensed that something was wrong.

It spread its wings, only then discovering that the human had actually run away!

Even his shadow was almost out of sight!

"Skree!"

The Mystic Swan roared. A creature as noble as itself had actually been toyed with by a human!

This could be endured, but a bird could not endure it!

It wanted to give chase, but looking at the mire before it, it ultimately gave up.

Compared with finding that human to vent its anger, the mire before it was more important right now. This was a treasure that could help it advance.

In the dense forest, Li Jun ran for his life.

He glanced behind him, and after making sure that the Mystic Swan had not chased after him, he let out a breath of relief in his heart.

The Mystic Swan's strength was comparable to that of a mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator, but its speed could press straight toward that of a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator.

Therefore, in that moment just now, Li Jun had not been confident he could land a hit with one strike, and had instead chosen to flee.

"The power of 'Star-Shattering Finger' really is impressive. Just now, I only used two fingers, and that level of pressure actually frightened that damned bird."

Li Jun recalled everything that had just happened. If he used all three fingers at once, that level of power could probably heavily injure a cultivator at the fifth level of Qi Refining!

"The only flaw is that once I use this thing, there probably won't be much spiritual energy left in my body."

After identifying the direction and looking at the map again, Li Jun chose to go to the wild mountains near the Azure Cloud Sect to avoid danger.

The terrain here was complicated, with many natural chasms, making it the most suitable place to hide.

On top of that, with the Azure Cloud Sect there, ordinary second-tier demon beasts did not quite dare cause trouble in these wild mountains either.

After sprinting wildly for several hours, Li Jun finally arrived at the wild mountains.

After that, he found a cave, scattered some powder that concealed auras at the entrance, and hid straight inside.

"Phew! Finally safe!"

Li Jun leaned against the stone wall, gasping for breath.

Along the way, he had not dared to stop for even an instant, especially after hearing the Ghost-Faced Crab's roars.

Zhao Wenjie and the others were probably in grave danger.

"What exactly is this thing?"

He picked up the black box beside him and began studying it carefully.

"Interesting. It's even a mortise-and-tenon structure?"

Li Jun's interest was piqued. It had been a long time since he had seen something like this.

Fortunately, the black box's structure was not that complicated. After he spent an hour on it, it was opened.

"This is a storage pouch?!"

Li Jun looked at the black box.

The items inside were very simple: a black storage pouch and a letter.

He first opened the letter and skimmed through it briefly.

"He was actually a geomancer from the Fire Kingdom. Why did he run into the Hundred Thousand Mountains?"

Li Jun was surprised.

The owner of the letter was a geomancer from the Fire Kingdom.

The general meaning was that he had found a very special kind of ore, one that ordinary spiritual power could not flow into.

After that, he had forged the ore into a magic flying sword, intending to send it back to the Fire Kingdom's capital as part of his collection.

But for reasons unknown, it had appeared in that mire instead.

Li Jun opened the storage pouch. Inside the ten cubic meters of space, an ink-black flying sword lay quietly.

He took it in one grab. The three-foot blade shone with flowing splendor, and a line of tiny characters was written on the hilt.

[Aquamarine Awakening]

"Awakening is a good name. Aquamarine is also a good name."

Li Jun toyed with the sword, unable to put it down.

Putting everything else aside, the geomancer who had made this sword was absolutely a talent.

"Ordinary spiritual power can't flow into it. I wonder if my spiritual power will work."

He tried mobilizing the spiritual power within his body.

To his surprise, his spiritual power entered it with exceptional ease!

"This... could it be because of my spiritual root?"

Li Jun looked at the flying sword. An aura of Baleful Intent flowed across the ink-black blade. He gently swiped it across the stone in front of him, and the rock split into two halves with a sound.

At the cut, white smoke even rose—the mark of his unique, corrosive spiritual power!

"It cuts stone like mud. A good sword!"

Li Jun laid the Awakening sword across his knees, his fingertips slowly brushing over the aquamarine inscription on the hilt.

The ink-black blade reflected the faint light of the cave, unexpectedly carrying a few traces of waterlike warmth and smoothness.

Yet when it had just swept across the stone, that Baleful Intent had been utterly unambiguous; cutting through metal and severing jade would be nothing out of the ordinary.

A material ordinary spiritual power could not flow into had, of all things, accepted his spiritual power without refusal.

Fate was truly wonderful beyond words.

"I suppose I finally have a magic artifact of my own!"

In truth, the outer disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect had their own issued magic artifacts, but those things were fine for chopping at low-rank demon beasts.

If they really ran into a tough nut, they probably could not even break through the other party's protective spiritual light.

Li Jun put the Awakening sword into the storage pouch, then took out his original belongings one by one and counted them.

These things had originally been stuffed in his clothes and tied at his waist, extremely inconvenient.

Now he threw them all into the storage pouch in one go, and they occupied only a palm-sized corner of the ten cubic meters of space.

With his waist suddenly lighter, his whole body felt relaxed.

Li Jun tied the storage pouch inside his lapel, patted it, then patted it again.

"No wonder those inner disciples walk as if they're carrying the wind." He grinned. "If it were me, I'd carry the wind too."

He knew the rules of the Azure Cloud Sect. Outer disciples had to save up Spirit Stones themselves to buy one, and even the most basic storage pouch cost five hundred low-grade Spirit Stones.

Inner disciples could receive one, but only if they had made a great contribution and caught an elder's eye.

Li Jun shook his head and stopped thinking about it.

He took a few Spirit Stones out of the storage pouch and began to recover.

The circulation route of the Myriad Apertures Universe Art slowly revolved within his body. The spiritual energy inside the Spirit Stones was drawn out strand by strand, flowing along the apertures throughout his body and gathering into his dantian.

Baleful Intent spiritual power flowed through his meridians, bringing a faint stinging pain wherever it passed.

Domineering as this cultivation method was, the feeling of cultivating it was truly unpleasant.

But the corrosive quality attached to his spiritual power was also his advantage. For that alone, suffering this bit of pain was worth it.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

The five Spirit Stones had already turned into five piles of gray-white fragments, and the spiritual power in Li Jun's body had recovered by about seventy to eighty percent.

He had also swallowed two fasting pills, so his stamina had more or less returned.

He was just planning to regulate his breathing for another round when movement suddenly came from outside the cave.

Footsteps.

There was more than one person. The footsteps were unsteady and chaotic, mixed with heavy panting and the occasional curse.

Li Jun's eyes snapped open, and his right hand was already pressed against the storage pouch.

"Damn it, we finally found a place where we can get our feet under us."

A male voice rang out, carrying the relief of having survived a disaster.

"Cut the chatter. Go in and take a look first."

Li Jun recognized this voice. It was Zhao Wenjie.

His heart skipped a beat, then returned to normal.

These people were actually still alive.

A rustling came from the mouth of the cave as someone pushed aside the vines blocking the entrance.

Li Jun moved soundlessly deeper into the cave, his back against a protruding rock, his whole body melting into the shadows.

Three people came in altogether.

Zhao Wenjie walked at the very front. On his left arm was a wound so deep the bone could be seen, hastily wrapped with strips torn from clothing, and blood was still seeping out.

His face was sallow, his lips cracked; clearly, these past few days had not treated him well.