Spiritual Power Impact, Mountain Forest Anomaly

"The White Space has expanded again. This time it's... good heavens, it's expanded fivefold!"

After looking inward, Chen Yang saw that his Spirit Storage Space had swelled once more.

Taking advantage of the time Yang Linghu spent down the mountain to report, he attempted to circulate the spirit power within his body.

He first tested his Spirit Gathering ability; the range was basically the same as before, but the amount of spirit energy gathered was much greater.

Chen Yang compared it: previously, it was about three times the concentration of ordinary spirit energy, but now it had reached nearly five times that amount.

Following that, he used the sensation of withdrawal from just circulating his spirit power to see what new tricks he might have acquired.

The spirit power within his body was drawn out, flowing from the White Space and permeating outward, gradually converging onto the surface of Chen Yang's body.

Once his surface was completely enveloped, the spirit power stopped flowing outward.

Chen Yang controlled the spirit power on his skin and discovered that he could compress it.

Just like that, Chen Yang compressed it bit by bit, and soon he had concentrated the spirit power that had originally covered his entire body into a tiny dot the thickness of a finger.

"Oh~ so it can be compressed, hmm..."

"But what is the use of this?"

Chen Yang looked at the little white dot on his body, feeling somewhat confused; he couldn't understand this ability at all!

It didn't seem like it could be used for sensing or positioning, nor did it seem like it could provide illumination.

Filled with a bit of bewilderment, Chen Yang continued to try and compress this bit of spirit power.

The moment he had the thought, this small mass of spirit power, compressed to its limit, broke away from his body and shot out!

BOOM!

Don't let the fact that it was only a finger-thick Spirit Power Impact fool you; the destructive power was truly astonishing.

Chen Yang didn't know this thing could be fired, nor did he pay attention to the direction he was aiming, which resulted in an entire row of vacant rooms in the Forbidden Ground being directly destroyed by this Spirit Power Impact.

"Holy crap! Am I this badass now?"

The power of this Spirit Power Impact was already equivalent to the desperate strike of a peak Qi Gathering Mid-stage cultivator; an ordinary Qi Gathering Mid-stage cultivator would undoubtedly die if they took a hit like that!

Chen Yang was both shocked and delighted; he hadn't expected that he, a harmless little stone, could possess such powerful destructive force.

Such a massive commotion naturally attracted the attention of others.

The three children who had been at the foot of the mountain, along with Elder Yu, quickly rushed to the Forbidden Ground.

Upon seeing the rooms turned into ruins, they were all somewhat stunned.

"Did someone break into the Forbidden Ground again?" Yang Linghu asked.

Yang Lingqing immediately shook her head and said, "No, the formation is perfectly normal, the token didn't react, and besides, why would an intruder come in just to blow up a row of empty houses?"

At this moment, the gazes of all four turned toward Chen Yang in unison.

Ah... well, it was me, but it really was an accident, Chen Yang thought to himself.

Elder Yu walked forward and gently stroked Chen Yang, finding that his surface was somewhat hot.

Then, he sensed the spirit power fluctuations within the Forbidden Ground.

"Lingqing is right, no one has broken into the Forbidden Ground; this was caused by the Exotic Stone completing an advancement."

"Ah? Does this Exotic Stone blow up houses after advancing? Will we still be able to live here in the future? We won't be blown awake while we're sleeping, right?" Yang Linghu asked with a straightforward expression.

"Pfft..."

His words made Lingqing and Ling Rui laugh.

Elder Yu also smiled and shook his head: "The Exotic Stone's ability is certainly not to blow up houses; from what I just sensed, it seems to be a ray-type technique."

He picked up Chen Yang, held him in his hand, and slowly infused him with spirit power.

Maintaining a steady rhythm, Chen Yang still performed his Spirit Gathering function, and feeling the spirit energy that was even denser than before, Elder Yu nodded with satisfaction.

Afterward, he changed his method, infusing spirit power at a rapid speed.

At this moment, the strange change occurred.

They saw spirit power begin to gather on the surface of the Exotic Stone, quickly enveloping it completely.

Elder Yu was experienced; he continuously compressed the spirit power, and once the point of light had condensed to the thickness of a finger, he immediately raised his hand and aimed Chen Yang at a giant boulder on the mountain.

"Go!"

Whoosh—

Bang!

The Spirit Power Impact shot out violently at an extremely high speed, and in the blink of an eye, it blasted the boulder, which was over two zhang tall, into rubble.

This scene shocked the three children once again.

"What a powerful technique!"

"With such destructive power, even my Gale Wind couldn't achieve this."

"I feel like this is already equivalent to a strike from a Qi Gathering Mid-stage cultivator."

The three children spoke up.

Ancestor Yu also curled his lips upward, turned around, and said, "Lingqing's intuition is not bad; this truly has the level of a full-strength strike from a Qi Gathering Mid-stage cultivator. The Exotic Stone is indeed wondrous and extraordinary. Originally just an auxiliary spirit treasure, it now has a defensive use!"

Seeing the eager expressions of the three children, Ancestor Yu handed Chen Yang over to them.

After a period of guidance, all three children successfully launched a Spirit Power Impact through Chen Yang.

However, because their spirit power intensity was insufficient, the power was naturally not as great as Ancestor Yu's, just barely reaching the level of the Qi Gathering Mid-stage.

Moreover, after firing four consecutive times, Chen Yang's exterior had become extremely hot, making it impossible to hold onto.

"It seems this technique has a limit on the number of uses. Using it too much causes the spirit treasure to overheat. If one doesn't stop, it might cause damage to it."

Ancestor Yu reached this conclusion, and the three children nodded in agreement.

Chen Yang also felt this made sense, because at this moment, his consciousness was also showing signs of fatigue.

"Ancestor Yu, is the Patriarch still at the mines today?"

After testing Chen Yang's new ability, Yang Lingqing asked Ancestor Yu.

"Mm, the Patriarch is still guarding over there."

"It's truly strange. Weren't the previous wild beasts driven away? Why are there still beast infestations appearing now?"

"This situation has been going on for more than ten days. It's not just our Yang Family; the two towns have also been harassed by wild beasts. Now, the army is stationed outside the towns."

Regarding the matter of the beast infestation, Chen Yang had heard rumors before he fell into a deep sleep.

The Yang Family Forbidden Ground was located on the mountain, and he had previously sensed that long-lost aura.

During his twenty years in the Secret Realm, he had seen all kinds of Demon Beasts and was all too familiar with them.

"This matter is not as simple as a mere beast infestation."

Speaking of this, Ancestor Yu's expression became grave.

"Previously, I, the Patriarch, and the two town mayors went into the mountains to investigate together and discovered traces of Demon Beasts."

"Demon Beasts!"

Hearing this term, the three children all felt a shiver in their hearts.

Demon Beasts would feed on humans, and the relationship between the two races was like Water and Fire; they had all read about this in books.

Although they had never seen a Demon Beast with their own eyes, they already had an understanding of their ferocity.

"Ancestor Yu, if this matter is caused by Demon Beasts, then I'm afraid it won't end in a short time," Yang Lingqing said.

"Lingqing is right. We have already envisioned the worst-case scenario, which is a Beast Tide."

Ancestor Yu said in a deep voice, "This is very likely the first test we must face after our Yang Family became independent from the Dynasty's influence. You all still need to prepare in advance."

"Yes, Ancestor Yu, we understand!"

For a period of time afterward, the five cultivators of the Yang Family rarely returned to the Forbidden Ground to cultivate.

In order to cope with the increasingly intense beast infestation, they all had to go down the mountain to guard the family.

The current situation of the Yang Family was still acceptable because they had trained family soldiers in advance and had five cultivators present; although some people were injured, there had been no deaths yet.

The two towns had armies stationed there, so the situation was also fine; at least the people within the towns were not in danger.

But others, like some small villages scattered around, were not so lucky.

Under the influence of the beast infestation, many villages had become uninhabitable.

There were even cases where groups of large wild beasts directly destroyed the villagers' houses and entered them to eat people.

The villages that were still within the safe range were also in a state of panic, and many people packed their belongings, took their families, and fled the villages to seek refuge in the towns.