Chapter 196: Encounter
When Tang Jie awoke the next morning, he was brimming with energy and understood the benefits of cultivating in this sealed ground. Last night, he had used only eight hours to complete fifteen Major Circuit Heavens—20% more than he could do in the past. While this was only 20%, over the days, this accumulated into an impressive number. Even spirit medicine used across the entire process of cultivation would normally result in only a 20 to 30% increase. This was only a small blessed land, but it was enough for many students to break through their thresholds and achieve their dreams.
By understanding this principle, one could even more understand the value of the Martial Lord’s Land of Returned Remnants.
But this thought disappeared in a flash. Tang Jie still wasn’t qualified to seek out the treasures of the Martial Lord. He focused himself and continued on his way with the little tiger.
After walking for some time, he spotted a small mountain in the distance.
Tang Jie rejoiced on seeing the mountain. “This is great!”
He just needed to get on top of the mountain and look at the terrain from above to determine where he was.
Tang Jie rushed toward the mountain.
But when he was only halfway there, he spotted three students fighting in the distance: a woman and two men. The female student was fending off the two men alone, waving around a gauze scarf that released golden particles to block the attacks of the pair.
But she was just one person and was finding it difficult to hold out, and her body was covered in wounds.
Upon seeing Tang Jie coming over, she shouted in delight, “Senior Brother, hurry and help me!”
She put away her scarf and ran toward Tang Jie.
The two male students chased after her while shouting, “Scram, or you’ll die with her!”
Tang Jie said nothing, pulling out his Heartbreak Saber and coldly staring at them.
The girl quickly ran over, and as she reached Tang Jie’s side, she frantically shouted, “Senior Brother…”
Thud!
The female student froze and then looked at her body, finding that the Heartbreak Saber had plunged into her abdomen.
“You…” She struggled to speak.
Tang Jie coldly said, “The next time you play this sort of game, remember to make your wounds more realistic… if you do get a ‘next time’.”
He stepped back and pulled out the Heartbreak Saber, dragging out the girl’s intestines with it. Tang Jie swung the saber, slicing off her head.
“Ruyu!” the two male students cried out in unison, angrily glaring at Tang Jie.
Sure enough, the three of them had been conspiring to entrap others. They hadn’t expected Tang Jie to see through their ploy with a single glance. His Dao of Insight had gradually allowed him to feel out his surroundings, and he was now able to tell whether something was real or fake at a glance. But even without the Dao of Insight, these three weren’t good enough actors to fool him.
However, this was all the students were capable of. In the end, they were just a group of youths. They weren’t capable of the more devious schemes.
The gruesome death of their schoolmate shocked and infuriated them, and they lunged at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie blinked away, shooting toward them as a violet light. The three of them instantly passed each other by.
Blood gushed out. While Tang Jie was sporting two bloody lines on his body, one of the two students swayed, and then half of his body slid away, and he collapsed into the dirt in two pieces.
Tang Jie slowly turned around, and those two barely perceptible wounds on his chest swiftly healed.
The remaining student was aghast, and he finally recognized his opponent, shouting, “Tang Jie! You’re Tang Jie! Fierce Tiger Tang Jie!”
In the battle of the Student Forest, Tang Jie had faced down five hundred students and killed Lu Fei, earning a fierce reputation for himself. The other students, even those of higher years, did not dare to provoke him. This student hadn’t expected to be so unfortunate. They had only just started to plot against others and they had run into Tang Jie. In shock, he turned and ran off.
Tang Jie didn’t chase him, but the student only ran a few steps before he suddenly froze, his head flying into the air.
HIs eyes were wide open, completely unaware of what had happened even at the moment of death.
Tang Jie casually walked over and grabbed at something, and a thin line appeared. With the Nullight spell removed, it shone with a golden radiance.
After killing the female student, Tang Jie had laid down this golden thread. He had passed those students precisely so he could have that student run in the direction he had come from.
The greatest advantage of this method was that there was no warning about it and it was difficult to guard against.
There wasn’t any need to use every trick in his arsenal to deal with this student. Tang Jie really wanted to try out new combat tactics.
He decided that it was pretty good. It just required that he force his opponent into the route he had prescribed. Besides that, the golden line couldn’t distinguish between friend or foe, so it didn’t favor melees, as one was liable to hurt the people on one’s own side.
While weighing the pros and cons, Tang Jie remembered to pick through the belongings of the trio. Alas, they were all poor, as they had only begun their life of thievery. They didn’t even have a Mustard Seed Bag on them.
They did have a single spell weapon, but it was of low grade. Since Tang Jie had limited space in his Mustard Seed Bag, he decided to simply shatter the weapon with the Weapon Mantra to save space.
Seeing that there wasn’t anything else, he continued toward the mountain.
At the summit, he saw a vast wilderness of thick trees that extended on into the horizon. He wanted to fly higher, but he had yet to learn a flying spell. The Violet Lightning Lunge was an acceleration spell that could be used on the ground and in the air, but it couldn’t let Tang Jie fly by itself.
In the middle of his melancholy, he suddenly saw a flash of light in the distance. It seemed like someone was fighting, and one of the sword lights was very familiar. It was clearly the radiance of the Pilewave Sword.
Cai Junyang?
Tang Jie was delighted, and he rushed down the mountain toward the source of the light.
From the mountain, the light hadn’t seemed very far, but when he got to running, he realized that it was really quite far and that the saying “riding toward the mountain can run a horse to death” wasn’t a lie. Tang Jie wasted nearly half of his spiritual energy sprinting before he was finally able to see that familiar sword light again.
The sword light was much dimmer now, and it was clear that Cai Junyang was running out of power.
“Junyang!” Tang Jie roared.
As he roared, the distant sword light erupted with light as if the one who had unleashed it had been stimulated. At the same time, Cai Junyang shouted, “I’m over here!”
The figure of Cai Junyang shot toward him.
He was holding his big sword, his hair was in disarray, and blood stained his body. No longer was he the energetic self of the past.
Behind him, a giant rhino with a thick horn sprouting from its head rumbled after Cai Junyang. Its body was covered in sword wounds, and it was clear that it had been rather badly hurt.
“Another heavy and clumsy type?” Tang Jie chuckled as he raised the Heartbreak Saber, the golden thread already placed on the edge. Tang Jie charged out, brushing past Cai Junyang and slashing at the giant rhino.
“Tang Jie, be careful! This is a Berserk Earth Rhino! It’s incredibly powerful, a middle-…”
Before Cai Junyang could finish, there was a bloody flash of light, and the Berserk Earth Rhino groaned as its massive body was sliced in two. Half of its body continued forward on its inertia and crashed into a bush.
“A middle… grade… fiend…” Cai Junyang was utterly flabbergasted by the sight.
Tang Jie turned his head and asked, “What were you saying just now?”
“…No-nothing.” Cai Junyang swallowed and looked at Tang Jie, saying to himself, This kid is really a monster. He had wasted half a day on this Berserk Earth Rhino and still failed to kill it, but Tang Jie had killed it with one strike.
Silently taking back the golden thread, Tang Jie went up to the rhino and dug out its horn, throwing it to Cai Junyang. “Yours.”
“Thanks.” Cai Junyang didn’t refuse. The most valuable part of the rhino was its horn, as its hide would soften after death. Although it was still useful, it was not as tough as scales.
The little tiger lunged over and began to eat.
Cai Junyang found this very interesting. “Where did you get this little tiger from?”
“Oh, I ran into a fiend tiger right after I came in. After I killed it, I saw this small one and found it rather cute, so I took it for my own.”
Hiding it forever wasn’t a solution. Tang Jie had been intending to show the tiger eventually, and this journey to the Valley of No Return was a perfect opportunity. No one would suspect anything if he said that he had found one here.
But the Heavenly Extinction Sect had seen Tang Jie once with the little tiger, which would remain a problem. They hadn’t paid any attention to this matter, and given their style, their reports probably didn’t contain much detail, so Tang Jie hadn’t cared too much. But it seemed like he would eventually have to find a chance to resolve all these loose ends.
“It’s rather obedient to you,” Cai Junyang said with a smile.
“It’s young, so it will listen if you just give it something to eat. Right, did you happen to see Shi Meng or the others on the way here?” Tang Jie said, intentionally changing the subject.
“No.” Cai Junyang shook his head. “I did run into a few other students, but most of them weren’t good sorts. Before entering the valley, everyone was a good student who followed the rules, but after entering the valley, they’ve all become lawless.”
“Then do you know where we are now?”
“Not sure. This Valley of No Return is too big, and everywhere looks the same, just mountains and trees. Moreover, since this is a sealed ground, you can’t see the sun, moon, or stars, so trying to make out what’s north or south, east or west, is… difficult. I was going to that mountain to get some higher ground, but I ran into that Berserk Earth Rhino instead.”
“There’s no need to go. I came from that summit, and I came over when I saw your sword light.”
“Did you see anything?”
Tang Jie pointed into the distance. “From the mountain, I saw a large gathering of dark clouds in the distance, lightning flashing within them. I could also make out some cliffs. I suspect that that’s Thunderbird Cliff.”
“Thunderbird Cliff?” Cai Junyang looked at his map. “If that’s the case, we should be on the western end of the Valley of No Return. If we want to get to the Ice Cave, we’ll have to go through more than half of the Valley of No Return.”
The Ice Cave was where the Iceflame Lotus was located.
Tang Jie smiled. “We should confirm our location first.”
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.” Cai Junyang waved his hand and headed off first.
Both of them were more relaxed now that they had a companion. It wasn’t easy to find a trustworthy companion in the Valley of No Return, and two people working together would be much safer.
As the pair continued forward, they ran into several other students. Some wanted to join them, but the two refused. Not everyone in the Valley of No Return was harboring ill intentions, but no one was willing to believe in another unless they were already good friends.
In truth, even good friends could attack each other. That Zhang Chengyun who had gruesomely died not long after Tang Jie had entered the valley had been been killed by that Wan’er’s machinations.
Thunderbird Cliff was very far away, and the two of them ended up traveling for more than half a day. They ran into a few fiend beasts, but most were of average strength and were easily dealt with by the two. Cai Junyang found this very strange. “Wasn’t it said that the Valley of No Return had quite a few Mind Opening fiend beasts? How have we not run into a single one?”
Tang Jie replied, “Mind Opening fiend beasts have intelligence, so they’ll be cautious in their actions and won’t recklessly make their move. The Valley of No Return is always opened for a month, and fiend beasts with intelligence won’t be in a rush and will observe the situation first.”
“I see.”
“But there’s no need for you to worry. They’ll show up eventually.”
Cai Junyang rolled his eyes. “You think I’m worried? I would prefer nothing more than for them to not show up. But I was already prepared to flee for my life in the Valley of No Return. I didn’t think that these formidable fiend beasts wouldn’t appear, so I’m somewhat unable to adapt.”
“Oh, then you can adapt now… We need to run for our lives now,” Tang Jie lightly said.
“What?” Cai Junyang was startled. He then noticed that a giant centipede had appeared in the distance.
This centipede was three meters long and as big as a person, and a silver line ran down its back. At this moment, it raised the forward part of its body and stared at the pair, wielding its two forelimbs like giant scythes.
“Shit, a Quadeye Mantipede!” Cai Junyang shouted.
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