[Current Deduction Points: 53] [Requirements to deduce "Answer to the Beggar Under the Mulberry" to Second Order: First Order perfection, Deduction Points ×80, high-rank fire-attribute material.]
He still needed 27 Deduction Points and a high-rank fire-attribute material. The fire spirit marrow had long since been destroyed in the explosion of Mu Li's treasury.
So when Mu Li had asked him for the fire spirit marrow back, he had not returned it because it truly was not on him.
But Lu Ze remembered the Wind Spirit Feather that the Qing Feng Eagle had left behind, as well as the slag left by the crimson flame gold-copper ore mother.
Lu Ze took the white bone fragment out of his Storage Ring. Engraved on it were a map of the depths of Cliffside Valley and the coordinates of several wind-attribute spirit treasures!
He raised his head and looked toward the gray sky beyond the waterfall!
He had only three days left. With his current strength, how could he escape their encirclement alive?
He therefore needed to grow stronger-he had to use the deduction system's abilities to grow stronger!
With that thought, Lu Ze looked at the bone fragment. Could this bone fragment really contain only this information?
Whether it was a fortuitous opportunity or a tribulation, it could not possibly contain only these things.
There had to be much more to it!
Lu Ze slowly infused Dou Qi into the bone fragment, trying to see whether anything would change!
If that failed, he could try roasting it over a fire, soaking it in water, and so on. He refused to believe he could not crack it!
Suddenly, Lu Ze discovered several crude, dark-red totems emerging on the bone fragment's surface. Their twisted lines pointed toward a marker deeper in Cliffside Valley.
Judging by the direction of the totems and the scattered information left by the Qing Feng Eagle, it was probably an "Earthfire Lava" fissure.
According to the mercenaries' illustrated guide to the Magical Beast Mountain Range, a mineral called "fire spirit crystal" often accompanied the depths of such fissures.
The conditions required for fire spirit crystals to form were extremely demanding.
They required a hundred years of tempering in underground magma, accompanied by the shedding of a third-order or higher fire-attribute magical beast's skin, and could only crystallize after absorbing the escaping essence.
This ore contained incredibly violent fire poison. Ordinary people would burn to ash upon touching it, yet it was a sacred treasure for fire-attribute Dou Zhe seeking to break through a bottleneck.
Moreover, he needed it to deduce his cultivation method. It was precisely what the deduction panel required.
At that thought, Lu Ze glanced again at the ground that the third-order Earth Dragon had just shattered, instantly piecing all the information together.
"So that's it! So that's it!"
Whoever had left this information might have meant well or might have had some other scheme, but regardless, Lu Ze had now benefited greatly.
The third-order magical beast required for the fire spirit crystals recorded on the bone fragment had to be that Earth Dragon.
With that thought, Lu Ze rose.
"I need to go back there. Stay here and don't wander off."
Xiao Yi Xian was washing the stone mortar in a corner. At his words, her eyes could not help glistening, growing misty.
"You... where are you going?"
Seeing Xiao Yi Xian react this way, Lu Ze slowly approached and embraced her. Her delicate fragrance wafted around him.
"I came to Cliffside Valley for a fortuitous opportunity in the first place. Otherwise, how could we outrun those people from the Wolf Head Mercenary Group?"
"Don't worry! Nothing will happen to me. I'll come back," Lu Ze murmured softly.
"I still haven't compensated you with an apothecary."
At his words, Xiao Yi Xian burst out laughing.
Then she walked over to the herb basket nearby, pulled out several medicinal herbs marked with icy-blue patterns, and quickly crushed them in the stone mortar.
"The temperature in that earthfire fissure must be very high. Your meridians have only just recovered, so you should spare them some strain."
She packed the crushed medicinal paste into a porcelain bottle and handed it to Lu Ze.
"This paste is made from frost marrow grass and snow lotus seeds. Applying it to your skin can keep out fire poison, but it won't last very long."
Lu Ze took the porcelain bottle, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed it. A pungent chill shot straight into his head.
"You must be extra careful!" Watching Lu Ze's receding figure in the distance, Xiao Yi Xian murmured to herself.
Deep within Cliffside Valley, the air warped and twisted.
The deeper he went, the more the surrounding blackish-green miasma evaporated under the intense heat, replaced by the pungent smell of sulfur.
The rock walls were dark red from being baked by the high temperatures. Even through the soles of his feet, he could feel the scorching heat of the rock beneath him.
Lu Ze evenly spread the medicinal paste Xiao Yi Xian had given him over his arms and neck. Its medicinal potency formed a thin layer of white frost, keeping the heat at bay.
After passing through a narrow fissure in the rock, his view suddenly opened up.
It was an enormous underground cavern, with a pool of dark-red magma churning in its center.
Waves of heat struck him in the face. Even with the protection of Xiao Yi Xian's medicinal paste, Lu Ze's breathing still grew labored.
On a protruding piece of ink-black rock at the edge of the magma pool grew three fist-sized pieces of ore, scarlet throughout and covered in cracks.
Fire flame crystals.
But in the rocky crevice beneath the fire flame crystals lurked a huge dark shape.
It was a spider nearly ten feet long.
Its entire body was covered in thick, dark-red armor, and its eight barbed legs clung tightly to the rock wall.
Its abdomen was a translucent dark red, with viscous liquid faintly visible churning inside.
This was a Flame Demon Spider. Judging by its appearance, it was probably a peak second-order fire-type magical beast.
There was actually a Flame Demon Spider here as well. It seemed that the Earth Dragon had been suppressed by fire poison for a very long time.
So much so that other magical beasts had actually appeared in its territory.
Lu Ze crouched in the shadows at the entrance to the fissure, his gaze fixed on the magical beast.
A frontal assault was the worst option.
The Flame Demon Spider's armor could withstand a full-force slash from a Yellow Tier high-rank weapon.
Once a fight broke out, the commotion would definitely awaken the Crimson Flame Earth Dragon beneath the ground, which was in the middle of a breakthrough. He needed to kill the spider instantly without taking any damage.
He carefully observed the Flame Demon Spider's movements. A grayish-white film clouded its compound eyes.
It seemed its vision had deteriorated severely. Its head kept turning.
The breathing pores on its abdomen opened and closed, as though detecting some kind of fluctuation in the air.
Heat sensing!
The Flame Demon Spider relied entirely on changes in the surrounding heat to lock onto its prey.
The semitransparent pouch on its abdomen was a venom sac storing highly concentrated fire poison. Once pierced, the fire poison would turn on the spider itself.
Lu Ze closed his eyes and pressed his left palm against the scorching rock wall.
[Earth Shaman]
His consciousness seeped downward through the rock layers. Fifty yards directly beneath the Flame Demon Spider, he located a dried-up underground cold spring channel baked by geothermal heat.
A layer of rock less than three feet thick was all that separated the cold spring channel from the magma pool above.
Lu Ze opened his eyes and gripped the refined-steel greatsword's hilt with both hands. The Mysterious Tier low-rank greatsword weighed heavily against his shoulder.
He moved into the blind spot diagonally behind the Flame Demon Spider.
Taking aim at that patch of darkened rock, he exerted force with both hands. With a dull rush of air, the greatsword slashed down hard.
Bang!
Sparks flew everywhere. A sharp pain shot through the webbing between his thumbs and forefingers as the greatsword cut a half-foot-deep crack into the rock.
Lu Ze gritted his teeth and delivered three more slashes in succession.
Crack!
The rock layer shattered.
A torrent of underground cold water, pent up for who knew how many years, erupted from beneath the ground like a fountain, mingled with bone-piercing cold.
It shot straight at the Flame Demon Spider's abdomen.
"Hiss!"
The cold water splashed onto the Flame Demon Spider's scorching shell, instantly unleashing a violent cloud of steam.
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