Beneath the Bitterwind Wasteland, the fissures in the dark, deep caverns were long and narrow, and the heat was oppressive.
Along the way, Li Chen had seen many lava caves. Like candied hawthorn berries strung on a long bamboo skewer, they seemed to have formed through tremors and collapses caused by underground volcanoes, scattered without any discernible pattern.
But the deeper he went, the fiercer the geothermal heat became. Sweat poured off Li Chen, dried, then poured off him again. Lava rivers appeared from time to time as well, forcing him to detour around them or ride the Water Spider through the air above them.
In less than twelve hours, he had already stopped more than a dozen times to drink water and twice to rest and eat. The ordeal was misery beyond words.
Later, Li Chen had no choice but to circulate his magic power and activate his Gang Essence to withstand the heat.
The underground terrain seemed to have undergone several violent upheavals, leaving it unrecognizable.
Not only had the map become far less useful, but he could not even be certain that the paths leading there still existed.
One thing, however, would never change: if a Void Gate truly existed, it had to lie deep underground.
In another enormous, hall-like cavern several dozen zhang across, Li Chen sat cross-legged on a boulder, holding the Image-Recording Jade Slip and carefully examining it.
The jade slip roughly marked the Boundary Gate's direction and depth, but the many paths that had once existed were long since buried or replaced by lava rivers.
Rather than give up on himself over a temporary setback, he came up with a solution.
Before long, Li Chen continued onward, spending more than another twenty hours searching.
The terrain here was neither an underground tomb complex