The Mirage Pearl

"Mirage Pearl!"

The core of the illusion array in the Shanglin Garden secret realm is a bead.

Zhang Xuezhou and others believed that the hallucinations they experienced in the Mechanical City were likely caused by a mirage demon.

Although it was later discovered that the guess was completely wrong, the mirage demon is indeed a creature that manipulates illusions on a large scale, and can even project mirages over extremely long distances.

Rainfall is scarce in this secret place, so it is clearly not where the mirage demons live.

Zhang Xuezhou was searching for the core of the mirage demon, which was the mirage pearl that constructed this secret realm.

He reached out and grasped the mirage bead, but he couldn't see it at all when his eyes were on it. Only when he gripped it tightly to block out the light could Zhang Xuezhou see a glimpse of the mirage bead.

Mirage pearls appear transparent, but within that transparency lie countless colors, so vibrant that they seem to emanate from actively emitting colored light, creating a sense of incongruity with normal colors.

This even reminded Zhang Xuezhou of Hu Yu's Ding Kui.

Zhang Xuezhou remembered that Dingkui could emit such a bright, colorful light, while the fire in the Xulu was so red and bright that it didn't seem to be a natural color.

Zhang Xuezhou stared at the mirage bead for three to five seconds through the gap between his fingers.

In Zhang Xuezhou's perception, his sensations only lasted three to five seconds, but when his mind cleared up in a flash, he saw that the deep water area where he had previously needed Jin Wanliang Zhang Xuezhou dive had disappeared, and the ground beneath his feet had turned into a high mountain, while the fiery clouds in the sky had vanished.

Looking into the distance, Zhang Xuezhou could even clearly see the Zhongnan Mountains outside.

The concealment of this secret place has undoubtedly been broken; they only need to take one step to the edge to potentially slip out.

"How dangerous!"

Zhang Xuezhou carried the secret realm's token, the yu, but he still couldn't shake off the hallucinations, and he didn't even sense the earth-shattering changes within the secret realm.

He used a magic spell, stuffing the contents into his Lesser Heaven and Earth Bag twice before finally sending the scourge away.

After regaining his senses, Zhang Xuezhou realized that he was next to a temple on a mountaintop.

The mirage pearl he obtained came from the top of the temple.

This was a temple he had never seen before when he entered the secret realm; it only appeared after the mirage pearl was taken away.

"Taiyi?"

The temple on the mountaintop was small, only a few square meters in size, but it had all the necessary rules and regulations.

Inside the temple are ancient wooden statues whose features are still discernible, and next to the temple are ancient inscriptions on steles.

As usual, Zhang Xuezhou read a few simple words, but then he could no longer continue reading, stuttering and stammering.

His gaze swept across the temple and then swept down the mountainside.

The water level in this secret place rises very slowly, and it recedes relatively quickly as well. Apart from sweeping away the layer of decaying, dried leaves, almost nothing in the secret place changes.

The oak tree, the purple lingzhi mushroom, and the polygonatum medicinal herb, all soaked in water, were revealed together.

Trees soaked in water can survive, but medicinal herbs soaked in water are not so lucky.

Zhang Xuezhou had repeatedly tried to leave these medicinal herbs to grow in the secret place, so that he could pick one or two when needed. Little did he know that these large herbs could not escape this blow.

Perhaps some of them will be resilient and survive, but how can they judge which of the major drugs will survive?

"Liu Quji, are you still alive? Let's help pack up the medicine!"

Zhang Xuezhou shouted.

Now that the floodwaters in the secret realm had been lifted, entering and exiting the realm seemed much easier. Zhang Xuezhou couldn't help but exclaim, wondering if the new emperor wanted to salvage the powerful medicines.

"Wei Qing?"

Huo Qubing?

"Jin Wanliang?"

"Godfather, I'm here!"

He called out to three people, but no one responded. Jin Wanliang, however, responded very actively.

As Zhang Xuezhou was swept up by the whirlwind, he searched and found Jin Wanliang sandwiched between two oak trees. His swollen belly was tightly wedged by branches as thick as the oak tree's neck, making it difficult for Jin Wanliang to gain any leverage as he floated in the air, and he could only sway back and forth below.

"You've had surgery on your stomach, haven't you?"

Zhang Xuezhou glanced at Jin Wanliang's stomach and saw that there was a hole in it.

Contrary to Zhang Xuezhou's expectations of a foul stench, the clear, somewhat sticky liquid flowing from Jin Wanliang's stomach had a smell that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, a mixture of medicinal fragrance and a slightly rancid odor.

The medicinal aroma is clearly from the Grain Avoidance Pill, while the liquid is due to the medicine neutralizing water, similar to a high-grade nutrient solution, which can provide the body with vitality and energy.

"I asked that little Huo to poke a hole with a stick. Godfather, now the world seems normal again, you must save me!"

Jin Wanliang swung his limbs and shook his body vigorously. His unbalanced belly made him look like a turtle that had been flipped over, unable to turn over no matter how he swung.

It wasn't that he was out of his mind to ask someone to poke a hole in his stomach; rather, Jin Wanliang had witnessed Zhang Xuezhou's Technique Method for healing injuries.

Let alone one hole, even if there were three or five holes, Jin Wanliang felt that Zhang Xuezhou would have no problem healing them.

If it weren't for the fear that Huo Qubing might accidentally kill him, Jin Wanliang would have preferred to become a leaky sieve so that his belly could return to normal.

"With the addition of Polygonatum from the secret realm, it seems the energy in this Grain Avoidance Pill is excessively rich!"

The effects of the Grain Avoidance Pill prepared from the leftover ingredients far exceeded Zhang Xuezhou's expectations; Jin Wanliang's symptoms indicated an overdose.

In addition, Jin Wanliang was constantly drinking water from the underground ditch, which made the effects of the Grain Avoidance Pill several times faster when it was wet.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Xuezhou helped Jin Wanliang push away the ascites in his abdomen before using magic to heal the wound.

"If you can still move, look around and see where Xiao Huo and the others have ended up!"

After retrieving the Jin Wanliang from the oak tree, Zhang Xuezhou exclaimed, indicating that he needed to do something else.

He was also somewhat uneasy, unsure of the situation everyone was in.

But Zhang Xuezhou wasn't too worried. After all, who knows how much time had passed, and he couldn't bring back the dead. Moreover, the most important person, the new emperor, had cultivated the Fortune Technique, so he shouldn't drown or fall to his death when the water receded.

"Little Huo!"

Jin Wanliang shouted incoherently, and Zhang Xuezhou then marked out a search area, while Zhang Xuezhou floated into the air towards the center of the mountain.

Rapid flight has limited use in searches, as people may be hanging in trees or buried in the ground, and will inevitably be overlooked when flying past quickly.

The cleaner the dead branches and leaves on the mountain are washed away, the higher the layer of debris accumulates at the foot of the mountain.

Even Zhang Xuezhou was troubled by the layers of thick, accumulated debris, hoping that the new emperor and others were not buried inside, otherwise the search and rescue would be ridiculously difficult.

"Liu Quji? Wei Qing? Huo Qubing?"

Shouting repeatedly, Zhang Xuezhou also used his Demonic Sound Technique transmission technique.

I'm here!

A dull, weak sound came from behind him. Zhang Xuezhou pricked up his ears, and his body floated down.

Beneath the ruins of the palace in the mountainside, the new emperor's head emerged from the rotten wood. He struggled to sit up, constantly vomiting the water he had swallowed. He appeared somewhat dazed and shaken.

"Are you hallucinating or is it real?" the new emperor asked, panting after vomiting a lot of water.

"I can tell you something that you couldn't have predicted, but it will also help you judge the truth!"

"Then don't hit me!"

Zhang Xuezhou responded, but the new emperor waved his hand repeatedly, quickly abandoning the idea of verifying the truth.