A figure bounded swiftly through the dense forest.
It was none other than Ji Wuchang!
Without his second senior brother beside him, Ji Wuchang no longer needed to hold anything back. He used the Eight Trigrams Wandering Dragon Steps to travel directly.
As he executed the footwork, his body flickered rapidly, repeatedly disappearing and even leaving trails of afterimages.
Before he knew it, the sky had darkened. Ji Wuchang found a cave and decided to rest there for the night!
The cave Ji Wuchang found belonged to a second-tier black bear. After a friendly discussion with Ji Wuchang, the bear reluctantly agreed.
Only, as the black bear moved away, it bared its teeth in pain!
But the black bear did not leave the cave, because there were two cubs inside. It merely yielded a spot to Ji Wuchang reluctantly.
In truth, a black bear's dwelling did not smell pleasant, but Ji Wuchang still chose this place.
The reason was that Ji Wuchang knew full well that the mountain behind the sect was not a single mountain, but an enormous mountain range stretching for thousands of li.
All kinds of ferocious beasts lived here, and the deeper one went, the higher their tiers became.
By choosing an inhabited cave to rest in, he would not have to worry about being disturbed at night, because this was the black bear's territory!
This was experience Ji Wuchang had gathered in his previous life, and it worked every time.
Sure enough, Ji Wuchang cultivated in peace throughout the night without suffering any disturbance.
Watching Ji Wuchang's departing figure, the black bear could not help breathing a sigh of relief.
Had it not needed to care for its two little cubs, the big black bear would have fled last night!
Ji Wuchang took out the silk cloth and examined it carefully, then immediately chose a direction and raced into the distance.
At noon, a small valley appeared before Ji Wuchang!
Ji Wuchang checked it against the silk cloth and could not help breathing a sigh of relief. He had reached his destination!
At that moment, Ji Wuchang put away the silk cloth and carefully surveyed the valley before him.
But a moment later, his brows creased slightly.
Although he had found the right place, the entrance to the secret realm had not been marked. He would have to find it himself!
Ji Wuchang walked slowly into the valley. Hearing hissing from a patch of grass nearby, he raised the longsword in his hand and slashed straight down.
After the sword light passed, several snakes as thick as an arm were severed in two.
Ji Wuchang did not spare them a glance. He walked slowly through the valley, extending his divine soul to search every spot carefully.
An hour passed in the blink of an eye. He had examined the entire valley, yet had found nothing at all.
Ji Wuchang frowned, his gaze fixed on a dry well nearby. It was the only place he had not searched.
Ji Wuchang approached the dry well, cleared its surroundings, then leaned over to look inside.
Below was pitch darkness, its bottom hidden from view.
Ji Wuchang probed with his divine soul and discovered that it was actually dozens of meters deep.
Ji Wuchang did not hurry down. Instead, his body blurred as he dashed into the distance.
Before long, Ji Wuchang appeared again, now holding a gray rabbit with large ears!
This was no ordinary rabbit, but a first-tier demonic beast. Its teeth were incomparably sharp, capable of biting through hard bamboo in an instant.
Ji Wuchang attached a trace of his divine soul imprint to the rabbit, then tossed it into the dry well below!
After being thrown into the dry well, the rabbit immediately scurried about inside, but mere moments later, it ran off in one direction.
Ji Wuchang sensed the rabbit's movements below with his divine soul. An incense stick's worth of time later, the rabbit ran back again. Clearly, it had made a round trip somewhere.
Seeing that the rabbit was unharmed, Ji Wuchang relaxed, then leaped straight into the dry well.
Although the dry well was pitch-black, Ji Wuchang was no ordinary person, but a Qi cultivator at the Qi Refining Seventh Layer!
His eyes could clearly make out things ten meters away, so this little darkness posed no difficulty for him.
Sure enough, on the left side of the dry well was a passage leading into the distance!
Holding a Teleportation Talisman in his left hand and his longsword in his right, Ji Wuchang advanced slowly.
The passage was very long. Ji Wuchang walked for a full half an incense stick's worth of time before the space ahead suddenly opened up into a cave spanning dozens of square meters!
At the center of the cave, a skeleton sat cross-legged, with a wooden box beside it.
Ji Wuchang did not rush forward. He first surveyed his surroundings and discovered that the entire cave contained nothing besides the skeleton and the wooden box!
Ji Wuchang slowly approached the skeleton and could not help frowning. Before it was a line of small characters!
"Bury my bones, receive my secret art, inherit my karma!"
Though these twelve characters were brief, they revealed certain issues, making Ji Wuchang's brows crease slightly.
But a moment later, Ji Wuchang could not help chuckling.
Since I've been reborn, why keep looking fearfully over my shoulder? Just do it! What does it matter if countless strands of karma fall upon me!
At this thought, a trace of boldness rose in Ji Wuchang's heart.
"Senior, since you've asked me to bury your bones, I'll fulfill that request!"
After speaking, Ji Wuchang swung the longsword in his right hand, thrusting dozens of times into the ground before the remains.
In an instant, earth flew everywhere, and a deep pit appeared.
With a wave of his hand, Ji Wuchang enveloped the bones, which were about to fall apart, in a current of force, then slowly lowered them into the pit below!
"Hm!"
Ji Wuchang discovered, to his surprise, that a box had appeared where the skeleton had been sitting.
The skeleton had been sitting on top of this box. He had probed the spot with his divine soul earlier, yet had discovered nothing!
Now that the box had appeared, Ji Wuchang swept his divine soul over it, yet still could not sense it.
At that moment, Ji Wuchang's expression grew a little more solemn.
He did not hurry to take the box. Only after burying the remains properly did he slowly approach.
Looking at the two boxes, Ji Wuchang gently flicked his longsword, opening the box that had originally rested beside the skeleton and revealing a yellowed scroll inside.
The scroll bore many unusual runes, and an ancient presence emanated from it!
"Hundredfold Sublimation Instant Kill Technique!"
Seeing the name on the scroll, Ji Wuchang was greatly excited. This was something he had yearned for for so long!
Ji Wuchang reached out with his left hand, took the scroll, and unfurled it.
Although the cave was pitch-black, that posed no difficulty for Ji Wuchang. He could see the words on the scroll with perfect clarity.
Word after word entered Ji Wuchang's eyes, and his eyes grew ever brighter.
This secret technique was terrifying. It could actually reverse spiritual power, making it surge explosively in an instant to several times, dozens of times, or even a hundred times its original strength.
Thus, it achieved sublimation in a split second, granting utterly terrifying strength and speed!
Of course, the prerequisite was that one's meridians could withstand this power!
After reading the entire secret art, Ji Wuchang's body trembled slightly.
Although using this secret art would leave him instantly drained, it could absolutely allow him to kill enemies across cultivation realms. It was a top-tier means of staking one's life in battle!
No wonder Xiao Fan had repeatedly turned peril into safety when facing life-and-death crises in his previous life. Such a technique was truly terrifying!