Chapter 76 - The Eldest Apprentice Brother

Chapter 76: Chapter 74: The Eldest Apprentice BrotherThe two opposing forces were drawn swords and bows, tension reaching a breaking point.

Just at that moment, the door of the Sky Tower creaked open.

Nobody paid any more attention to their situation; Ye Qiu and Qingling each maintained their vigilance. From the outside, the Sky Tower looked like a dark mass, and its purpose was not clear.

After a moment, some cultivator couldn’t restrain their curiosity and took the lead in flying into the Sky Tower. The rest waited for a moment and, seeing no abnormality, rushed in one after another, afraid to miss the opportunity.

Ye Qiu, Chen Qingchi, Shun Hua, Shun Ying, and the others flew in on their swords together. The group including Little Wood Spirit followed behind him, but for the moment, they did not make a move.

As soon as he entered the door of the Sky Tower, Ye Qiu felt himself being teleported out, companions no longer in sight around him.

The surroundings were foggy. There wasn’t a single cultivator here, but numerous skeletons were gathered around him. Perhaps having sensed the presence of the living, the skeletons all rushed towards him.

The skeletons lacked Spiritual Sense and acted purely on instinct. Ye Qiu found that some skeletons were grayish-white; a touch of Sword Qi would shatter them, and immediately other skeletons would devour their fluorescent green Soul Fires, causing those skeletons to become even whiter.

If he kept killing them this way, the low-level skeletons would decrease, but they might evolve into something even more powerful. Yet if he didn’t kill them, he couldn’t leave the first floor of the Sky Tower.

Ye Qiu had no other choice but to battle these skeletons.

One by one, the grayish-white skeletons fell, gradually evolving into jade-white skeletons. After killing tens of thousands of skeletons, Ye Qiu noticed that there were now two gold-streaked skeletons on the scene, their combat power comparable to the Divinity Transformation Stage.

Ye Qiu struck one of the gold-streaked skeletons with his sword, but its Soul Fire did not dissipate. Instead, it was absorbed by the other gold-streaked skeleton, which slowly began to show traces of blood-red, its power now comparable to the Body Integration Realm.

There were still tens of thousands of white skeletons on the scene. Ye Qiu did not know what kind of monster would evolve once he had killed all these skeletons.

It was not difficult to kill white skeletons, the problem was their Soul Fires did not dissipate but instead fueled even more powerful skeletons.

"Huff... Huff..." The skeleton that was red within the yellow, after devouring tens of thousands of Soul Fires, seemed to have developed Divine Sense. Emitting unpleasant sounds, at first, it absorbed surrounding Soul Fires unintentionally, but now, it began actively to hunt its kin.

There were hardly any skeletons left on the scene. The blood-red skeleton turned its hollow eye sockets towards Ye Qiu. Ye Qiu swallowed a Spirit Revitalizing Pill. This was only the first level; he couldn’t possibly stop here. Taking up the Silent Annihilation Longsword in hand, he launched an attack.

"Silent Annihilation!" Ye Qiu didn’t bother with probing, but directly unleashed his most powerful sword strike.

A single sword strike broke all spells. The blood-red skeleton was very formidable, but it, too, was only at the Mahayana Realm in cultivation. It couldn’t gain any advantage against Ye Qiu’s terrifying strike.

The blood-red skeleton split in response, with no other skeletons around. The fluorescent green Soul Fire turned into a green pearl. Just as Ye Qiu picked up the pearl, he was teleported into a desert.

The sun scorched the earth, and even though Ye Qiu was at the Mahayana Realm, he was still sweating profusely. Moreover, the desert was hiding countless dangers. Groups of Fire Scorpions appeared, treating Ye Qiu as prey.

In the scorching environment, Ye Qiu’s Spiritual Power was depleted very quickly. At the same time, he discovered he couldn’t contact Little Wood Spirit and the others, nor could he open his storage ring. The only way to restore the depleted Spiritual Energy was through meditation.

However, after killing the Fire Scorpions, he found they contained abundant Spiritual Energy, which he could use to recover by consuming them.

By nightfall, the air turned abruptly cold. Ye Qiu felt as though his blood was about to freeze. This couldn’t go on.

The corpse of the Fire Scorpion retained some warmth due to the Fire Spiritual Energy within, but as the sky grew darker, the Fire Spiritual Energy in their bodies could no longer fend off the cold.

Ye Qiu held his Spirit Sword and began to dig into the sand below. He did not know how deep he had gone when he finally felt less cold. Carefully, he used Spiritual Power to carve out a space for himself and covered himself with sand overhead. Soon, he heard a hissing sound, seeming to come from serpentine creatures moving above, devouring the remains of the Fire Scorpion he left behind.

All of this was too real, not like an illusion, and it was entirely different from his experiences in the Sky Tower in his previous life. He also had no idea how to find an exit.

By the next day, the temperature had risen within less than an hour to the point where Ye Qiu felt unbearably hot, but even so, it was more tolerable than the night. Enduring the scorching heat, Ye Qiu searched for clues.

After five days, Ye Qiu noticed the days getting shorter and the nights longer. He had a feeling that if he didn’t find a way out soon, he would probably die trapped here.

Where exactly was the problem?

Ye Qiu suddenly looked above his head. Without the sun, where did the heat in this space come from?

Fighting against the pressure, Ye Qiu felt as if his blood was about to boil and explode, but he did not hesitate and instead moved faster, soaring upwards with his sword.

What is that?

Ye Qiu saw something golden, like a chicken egg but much larger; the heat source of this space seemed to be emanating from it.

Could it be a Golden Crow or a Fire Phoenix’s egg? Ye Qiu thought to himself, though he wasn’t sure.

As Ye Qiu approached the egg-like thing, it suddenly withdrew its heat and shot straight toward him. Ye Qiu was unable to dodge in time, and after being struck, he saw stars, his vision went black, and he was no longer in that place.

This really was an egg, and it even had Spiritual Sense!

Realizing this fact, Ye Qiu held the Golden Egg and examined it closely; he did not know what species it was, but he could clearly sense that its aura was very weak.

Ye Qiu tried to infuse it with Spiritual Power, and the Golden Egg crazily absorbed it without any visible change.

Ye Qiu summoned the Little Wood Spirit, taking the Golden Egg with him into the Little Wood Spirit’s space.

Once the Golden Egg entered the space, it became active again. It broke free from Ye Qiu’s embrace and landed directly in the middle of the Enlightenment Tea Tree, the Five-colored Flower, and the plant with the blossoms shaped like Phoenix flowers. Then it began frantically absorbing Immortal Spirit Qi.

The Spiritual Energy in the Little Wood Spirit’s space was collected bit by bit through its diligent efforts, along with the growth of Spirit Plants. Given the speed at which the Golden Egg was absorbing, the Immortal Spirit Qi in Little Wood Spirit’s space likely wouldn’t sustain the growth of so many Spirit Plants.

Ye Qiu looked at the Little Wood Spirit, which was close to crying.

Even though it was the master of this space, it couldn’t get close to the area around the Golden Egg.

This couldn’t go on; Ye Qiu’s face grew stern, then he suddenly remembered that in his early years, he seemed to have seized an opportunity from Qingling, a Chaos Pearl.

Since the Golden Egg indiscriminately absorbed both the substantial and insubstantial and possessed an extraordinary origin, could the Chaos Pearl be of use to it? Ye Qiu wondered uncertainly.