Li Mo put away the Spiritual Herbs.
According to the Book of Fortune, the Spiritual Herbs formed from the heart were called Cracked Rock. Under normal circumstances, they could only be produced high in the mountains.
Who would have thought that Bizarre Beast Corpses could nurture similar Spiritual Herbs in batches?
Li Mo had suspected that the excavated visceral artifacts might be Corpse Spirit Roots, but from every angle, they showed no trace of Spiritual Root Transformation.
As he pondered, his hands touched the surrounding rock wall, and the Blank Pages once again produced phantom images of visceral artifacts.
Li Mo deftly dug open the rock wall and soon found a fatty liver, which he directly tore from the flesh and blood rock wall.
He did not rush to strip away its blood vessels, instead counting silently.
Then crisp footsteps came from deep within the mine cave. They seemed to be heading toward the liver, growing faster and faster, as though unable to wait.
Pat, pat...
Li Mo licked his lips. "Could the rumors really be true?"
Once he completely removed the liver, the disturbance vanished without a trace. Whether the source of the sound had been a Pseudo Bizarre Beast was difficult to verify.
Li Mo shook his head slightly and focused most of his attention on collecting Spiritual Herbs.
While exploring the mine cave, he had already prepared to use Contain Toxin and Digest Poison to return to the Black Market.
Following the reactions of the Book of Fortune's Blank Pages, Li Mo continuously dug out one visceral artifact after another.
Even though Low-grade Spirit Materials were not particularly valuable, they could at least be used to refine Magic Tools. He could maximize the value of the Spiritual Herbs.
Li Mo noticed something.
After the visceral artifacts within the rock wall were excavated, the vitality within a dozen meters around them gradually faded, accelerating the Corpse Mountain's decay.
Once the Corpse Mountain completely decomposed, it would signify the end of the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm.
"No wonder the managers and Shopkeepers of Smelting Town have no interest in the Secret Realm. They would never become maggots feeding on a corpse."
Though the Ziqi Sect had never shown itself from beginning to end, its traces remained everywhere. The gap between the two factions was like a chasm.
Li Mo searched through his memories concerning the Ziqi Sect, trying to uncover clues.
At the same time, his hands never stopped moving. His Magic Finger became an excavation tool, sending flesh and blood gravel flying through the mine cave.
After spending more than ten days in the mine cave, he finally obtained a fairly good Low-grade Spirit Material called Great Research Jade Marrow. When fused into a Magic Tool, it could grant it the ability to heal damage on its own.
As he went deeper, the quality of the Spiritual Herbs was indeed rising. It seemed likely that Mid-grade Spirit Materials existed in the heart of the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm.
The mine cave was also exceptionally complicated. Almost every hundred meters, several branching paths appeared, making it difficult to guarantee that no other cultivators were present.
Li Mo placed the Great Research Jade Marrow into the Storage Bag against his body.
"Just in time for the Desert Diagram's Third Refinement."
He casually fed the salamanders in the Bird in a Cage some worm-like food.
Although the Bird in a Cage had already formed a simple ecological cycle, it was certainly not enough to sustain a salamander population. They still needed to be fed from time to time.
Only Mid-grade Magic Tools could be stored in the Dantian. The Bird in a Cage had no choice but to be carried around.
Fortunately, the ecosystem inside the Bird in a Cage was unaffected by the jostling outside. Li Mo merely looked a little strange carrying it with the Desert Diagram.
He did not intend to go any deeper. He considered having the Ghost Tiger explore the mine cave while he opened up a temporary cave dwelling and prepared to cultivate the Primordial Acquired Dao Body.
At that moment, the Ghost Tiger abruptly sounded a warning.
"Woo woo woo..."
The Ghost Tiger caught the scent of blood. The source should have been a cultivator at the second or third layer of the Childhood Stage, staggering over from deeper within.
Yet the cultivator did not hold on for long before losing all life.
Li Mo frowned.
He poured Miasma Spiritual Power into the Desert Diagram, and dense yellow sand immediately spread out, concealing his body in the darkness.
The salamander was summoned out and landed on Li Mo's right shoulder, looking around curiously.
The Crimson Fox was for the open, the Ghost Tiger for the shadows, the salamander for defense, and the Kun Whale for escape.
Though the four Tattooed Beasts had yet to fully take shape, the system around Li Mo had already been established. It was enough for him to protect himself during the Childhood Stage.
Using the Leakless Body, Li Mo completely restrained his aura. He stood in a secluded corner of the mine cave like a dead thing, meeting ten thousand changes with one unchanging response.
He knew he would eventually encounter the mine cave's strangeness, yet he was not panicked. Since Black Market Rogue Cultivators had managed to leave unharmed, there was no reason he, who possessed Contain Toxin and Digest Poison, would meet his end in the Secret Realm.
The Ghost Tiger slowly approached the corpse.
Yet when it reached the target's location, let alone a corpse, not even a drop of blood remained, as if nothing had ever happened.
The Ghost Tiger anxiously paced around the spot, repeatedly lowering itself to search for clues.
Li Mo's thoughts stirred. He used Paint Green Clothes to communicate with the Ghost Tiger, attempting to split off part of his consciousness and attach it to the latter, sharing its vision.
Unexpectedly, it went extraordinarily smoothly. Through the Ghost Tiger, he observed the nearby surroundings.
The pitch-black mine cave was empty, with no blood left on the ground.
Li Mo's brow furrowed slightly. He soon noticed something different: a strange human-shaped indentation had appeared on the rock wall's surface.
The human-shaped indentation was roughly two meters tall and posed in a bow, but its back was twisted and deformed, as though it had once been crushed beneath a heavy object.
If nothing unexpected had happened, the corpse had likely already been swallowed by the rock wall.
"How absurd. A Childhood Stage cultivator crushed to death by a heavy object..."
A chill rose within Li Mo. As he retreated toward the mine cave entrance, he examined the human-shaped indentation and realized that its back was just right for carrying a Clay Sculpture.
The temple mentioned in the rumors, and the Clay Sculpture one could not turn back from.
Li Mo murmured, "Cannot turn back... does that mean that once the Clay Sculpture leaves one's sight, it appears behind them and crushes them to death alive?"
Pseudo Bizarre Beasts alone would have been manageable, but why did the Corpse Mountain seem to possess some inexplicable threat?
He only stopped after retreating several hundred meters. The Ghost Tiger automatically returned to his right arm because of the distance, then burrowed back out through his skin.
The stench wafting from the Corpse Mountain's surface grew increasingly pungent, indicating that as cultivators excavated it, the flesh and blood was decaying faster and faster.
Li Mo found a nearby rock wall and began digging out a temporary cave dwelling.
It was not that he had abandoned his exploration of the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm. Even for Bizarre Beast Blood and the Blank Pages, he had to take the risk. There was simply no need to hurry at this stage.
He could simply wait for the Corpse Mountain to gradually turn into pus, and its secrets would naturally reveal themselves bit by bit.
Besides, he needed to prepare for cultivating the Primordial Acquired Dao Body. This Spell required much experimentation and would likely consume considerable time.
"By the way... could I refine some kind of Magic Tool that senses its refiner's condition in real time, indirectly gathering information about the Corpse Mountain?"
Li Mo felt that venturing deep into the mine cave alone was truly unwise. He should make use of his own strengths and use the many cultivators to achieve his goal.
For a time, he sank into deep thought, leaving the work of opening the cave dwelling entirely to the Ghost Tiger.
The Ghost Tiger dared to rage but not speak. It bit fiercely at the rock wall before snapping several teeth. Fearing that it would recklessly squander Flesh and Blood Spiritual Power, Li Mo forcibly decreed that it could only use its claws.
Ignoring the Ghost Tiger, Li Mo suddenly recalled that among his current Magic Tool Catalogue was a very strange Low-grade Magic Tool that seemed particularly suitable.
This showed the importance of collecting Magic Tool Catalogues in ordinary times. Even if most Low-grade Magic Tools were useless chicken ribs, they still had their value.
The Magic Tool was called the Mother-Child Ghost Head.
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