Cliffside Valley

A vast, cold Dou Qi pressure swept through the mountain forest on the night wind like a tangible tide.

Wherever the pressure passed, rainwater shook loose from the leaves, pattering down, and even the air grew thick.

Lu Ze held his breath, allowing that pressure to penetrate the cave and sweep over his body.

A grayish-white sheen matching the surrounding rock walls spread across his skin. Even his pores closed completely, his blood flow was forcibly slowed, and his heart gave only a faint beat every dozen or so breaths.

The price of forcibly assimilating with the earth veins was wave after wave of tearing pain inside his body. His organs felt as though they were submerged in ice water, enduring the corrosion of extreme cold every second.

Half an incense stick later, the pressure slowly withdrew.

The glow of the torches continued toward another mountain.

Lu Ze released his hand seal and gasped for breath, his upper body drenched in cold sweat.

Seeing Xiao Yi Xian in the same state as him, he could not help breathing a sigh of relief.

"Come on. He went in the opposite direction."

Morning came, shrouded in mist.

By the time the first ray of sunlight barely pierced the dense canopy, the two of them were already standing on the outskirts of Cliffside Valley.

The vegetation here was entirely different from that farther out. The trees' branches were twisted in a sickly fashion, their leaves broad and purple.

A faint gray-green mist filled the dim air, carrying a sweet, rotten smell as it entered their nostrils.

Xiao Yi Xian walked ahead with a long wooden branch in hand, pushing aside as much of the poisonous vegetation as possible. Her movements were light as she tried to avoid snapping dry twigs underfoot.

Every few steps, she stopped to examine the growth of the surrounding plants.

Lu Ze followed behind, his right hand resting on the hilt of the Vajra Heavy Sword all the while. The deeper they went, the thicker the surrounding gray-green miasma became.

Xiao Yi Xian gradually slowed her steps.

She crouched and parted a clump of dark purple ferns, exposing the rock beneath.

An extremely fine layer of ice-blue moss grew across its surface.

"Ice Marrow Moss." Xiao Yi Xian scraped a little off with her finger and held it beneath her nose, sniffing it with a slight frown.

"This moss only grows in places of extreme cold, or where something extremely cold underground gives off cold Qi that seeps through cracks in the rock to the surface."

Lu Ze raised his head and surveyed the twisted trees around them.

"Something like this shouldn't be on the outskirts of Cliffside Valley. And look at these trees' roots."

Lu Ze looked in the direction he pointed. The twisted trees' roots avoided the surrounding soil, all reaching in one direction.

Toward the depths of Cliffside Valley, they stretched and coiled wildly, drawing something from underground.

Lu Ze stood and approached a nearby rock wall. Taking off his glove, he pressed his palm against the cold stone, sensing it purely through his body's most primitive sense of touch.

The wall was very cold, yet deeper beneath where his palm rested came an extremely faint warmth, entirely different from the surrounding chill.

That warmth carried an extremely slow, almost imperceptible rhythm. Thump, thump.

The rhythm was not a sound, but a physical vibration transmitted through the rock.

Lu Ze lifted his hand slightly, his gaze growing grave.

"There's something underground."

He lowered his voice.

"It's huge, and it seems to be some kind of magical beast."

Xiao Yi Xian stood and brushed the dirt from her hands, her cool, clear eyes narrowing slightly.

An extremely cold surface, an extremely hot underground.

Looking at the churning gray-green miasma ahead, she recalled the alchemy knowledge she had previously learned from books.

"There may be a huge furnace hidden beneath Cliffside Valley!"

The gray-green miasma churned endlessly before them. The entrance at the cliff looked like a giant beast, quietly awaiting their arrival.

They continued deeper into Cliffside Valley, but midway through, the gray-green miasma changed color.

Two currents of hot and cold air converged deep in the gorge, boiling the poisonous substances into a seething, milky-white fog.

White fog surged out of the gorge, and the air was thick with the pungent smell of sulfur and the raw tang of shattering ice shards.

Lu Ze had barely taken two steps when the exposed skin on his arm came into contact with the white fog, instantly breaking out in large purplish-red patches.

His flesh curled back at a speed visible to the naked eye, giving off a sizzling sound as it burned.

Xiao Yi Xian seized his arm and pulled him back behind a boulder.

She quickly scanned their surroundings for cover, her gaze fixing on two utterly different plants in a crack in the rock: Ice-Crack Vines with frost-covered leaves on the left, and Fire Hemp Mushrooms radiating intense heat on the right.

Xiao Yi Xian drew her dagger, swiftly cut several sections of Ice-Crack Vine and two Fire Hemp Mushrooms, placed them on a flat stone, and furiously crushed them with the back of her bag.

The icy green juice mixed with the scalding crimson juice, causing a violent reaction.

Thick white smoke billowed up.

"Hold out your arm."

She scooped up a handful of medicinal paste mixed with crushed leaves and slapped it directly onto the festering wound on Lu Ze's arm.

Ice and water burst across his flesh at the same time. Lu Ze clenched his teeth, veins bulging across his forehead as he forcibly swallowed the muffled groan in his throat.

The paste quickly solidified on his skin, forming a rough, grayish-brown shell. Xiao Yi Xian repeated the process, spreading the paste over both their faces and necks.

"The old saying is right: the antidote grows beside the poison. This medicinal coating can help us withstand the fog."

Xiao Yi Xian brushed the residue from her hands, her voice sounding somewhat muffled through the grayish-brown shell.

"Let's go."

Once they passed through the white fog, the view before them suddenly opened up.

A peculiar plant half a person's height grew in a sheltered crack in the rock wall.

A thick shell of ice encased the left half of its stem and roots, while faint crimson flames danced over the branches and leaves on its right.

It was actually a Twofold Flower!

But on the rocks beneath the plant lay more than a dozen magical beasts covered in crimson scales: Flame Lizards.

They were roughly ten feet long, flicking their forked tongues as they greedily absorbed the ice and fire emanating from the Twofold Flower.

Lu Ze crouched and pressed his left palm to the ground.

[Earth Shaman]

His consciousness seeped down through the rock strata, thirty feet, sixty feet.

Forty-five feet directly beneath the Flame Lizards' nest, he found the bluish, extremely cold rock vein he had expected.

He circled around behind the crack and gripped the Vajra Heavy Sword's hilt with both hands.

The low-level Mysterious Tier heavy sword weighed heavily on his shoulder as Dou Qi poured into its blade.

Lu Ze aimed at that bluish layer of rock and brought the sword down with all his might.

Boom!

The rock layer shattered, and a deep-blue current of extremely cold air erupted from underground like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

The hot and cold currents collided instantly, unleashing a deafening hiss.

Dense white fog mixed with ice crystals completely engulfed the Flame Lizards.

The Fire Attribute Dou Qi within the Flame Lizards clashed violently with the extremely cold Qi, and their crimson scales rapidly dulled.

A layer of white frost formed over their surfaces, and their movements grew stiff.

Several of the larger Flame Lizards rolled about in agony, biting one another as they tried to warm themselves with their own kind's body heat.

Lu Ze pressed his left hand toward the air. The gentle pull of Suction Palm penetrated the white fog and precisely wrapped around the Twofold Flower's stem and roots.

Uprooted whole, it flew into his hand.