Chapter 152: Spirit-Swallowing Divine Ability

After leaving the mountain gate of the Elixir Sect, Qing Xi darted into a dense forest and immediately used the Earth Escape technique to plunge underground.

The Tianling Mountain Range, where the Elixir Sect was located, spanned over a hundred miles and was a majestic region of soaring peaks and spiritual energy. In Qing Xi's view, even if he failed to find any stellar stones, he wouldn't lose out if he managed to uncover other treasures.

Instead of rushing in blindly, he repeatedly used the "Fortune and Misfortune Relate" technique to divine his current prospects.

Learning that he was currently in a state of "Minor Fortune," he relaxed, sniffed the scent of a stellar stone, and gradually sank deeper into the earth.

With the stellar stone given by Xia Dang as a source of scent, Qing Xi only needed to descend a few hundred meters before successfully unearthing a stellar stone from a subterranean boulder.

"Hahaha, this is simply marvelous."

After storing the stellar stone into his system space, Qing Xi wore a beaming smile.

While searching for stellar stones, Qing Xi employed his canine-like sniffing divine ability. Anything he encountered along the way, as long as its value was decent, was swept away by him.

In less than an hour, he had found three stellar stones.

As the saying goes, many littles make a mickle; Qing Xi was not discouraged in the least and continued his search.

Along the way, he also discovered quite a few micro ley lines hidden deep underground, some of which had already been occupied by subterranean demonic beasts.

However, other ley lines were completely undeveloped, and the spiritual stones and spirit milk within them were casually pocketed by Qing Xi.

"Once the system space expands further, I must dig up a few micro ley lines and place them inside the Spirit Origin Sect... No, that lacks ambition. I should head out to the outer realms, dig up massive ley lines, and nurture the Qingling Mountains into a sacred ground for cultivation."

Qing Xi constantly made plans for the future.

A short while later, half a day had passed.

He had roamed the area around the Tianling Mountain Range, successively discovering over a dozen micro ley lines. The total value of the spiritual stones and spirit milk he obtained exceeded two thousand low-grade spiritual stones.

As for stellar stones, he now had over ten pieces.

Although this quantity was sufficient to condense a low-grade heavenly stellar imprint, Qing Xi was not satisfied.

Condensing a heavenly stellar imprint was quite simple; as long as one had enough stellar stones, it could be smoothly achieved without any difficulty.

The problem, however, was that a heavenly stellar imprint could only be formed once in a lifetime.

This meant that once the imprint was condensed, even if more stellar stones were found later, it would be impossible to transform it into a higher-tier imprint.

Therefore, Qing Xi decided to find at least one hundred stellar stones before condensing a supreme-grade heavenly stellar imprint.

After casting another divination on his fortune and misfortune, Qing Xi stealthily headed toward the deep underground at the center of the Tianling Mountain Range.

Half an hour later.

He pushed aside the soil and found a thick, translucent protective shield appearing before him.

This was the Elixir Sect's ley line grand array.

Once fully formed, this array created a hollow sphere with a radius of a full five thousand meters, thus encompassing a portion of the underground terrain as well.

With the ley line grand array in the way, Qing Xi could not pass straight through and had to skirt along its edge deeper underground.

Soon, he reached the very bottom of the ley line grand array.

The location was a full five thousand meters deep, and the surrounding pressure was immense, nearly causing even the supreme Earth Escape technique to fail.

Right at that moment, Qing Xi noticed he had entered a state of "Minor Misfortune," and he quickly cast a cautious glance around his surroundings.

Yet, within the system's scanning range, no dangerous entities appeared.

"Could there be terrifying subterranean demonic beasts like the Bloodthirsty Black Demon here?"

To be safe, Qing Xi immediately condensed spatial energy into a hollow sphere to protect himself in the center.

Before long, he discovered an underground tunnel piercing through the soil ahead.

He cautiously entered the tunnel and found that one end seemed to have been dug slantingly from the surface, while the other direction extended toward the ley line grand array.

"Could someone be trying to tunnel through the grand array? But that's clearly unrealistic. The ley line grand array can even withstand a First-Revolution Heavenly Mystery Earth Giant..."

Qing Xi's voice cut off abruptly as a sudden thought struck him.

"Could there be evil demons capable of breaking formations?"

At this thought, he drew in a sharp breath of cold air and advanced cautiously along the tunnel.

Before long, rustling sounds echoed from ahead.

Within the system's scanning range, twelve evil demons had appeared.

The demon leader possessed the cultivation of the Spirit Stellar Realm, while the rest were all at the Innate Realm.

That Spirit Stellar Realm demon appeared to be a guard, keeping watch to prevent any accidents.

As for the other demons, ten were soil-eating demons, digging and consuming soil at the tunnel's end, their auras continuously growing stronger.

With a muffled boom, one soil-eating demon's body trembled as it broke through from the mid-Innate Realm to the late-Innate Realm.

Not long after, this group of demons dug right up to the protective barrier of the ley line grand array.

"Kuku jiifa..."

The leading Spirit Stellar Realm demon uttered a non-human language that Qing Xi could not understand at all. He hurriedly used the system translation and learned the general meaning was: "Hurry up, it's your turn."

Following that, an Innate Realm early-stage demon with a humanoid body but a shark head opened its jaws and bit down on the array's protective shield.

The shield, which should have been indestructible, was actually bitten off a chunk by the shark-head demon, who swallowed it down as its aura steadily grew stronger.

It continued to gnaw, biting out a gap half a person in size from the protective shield.

Qing Xi's breathing quickened, and he secretly thought his guess had been right.

Among this group of demons, there truly existed a special entity capable of devouring array shields.

Looking at the shield, which was a full three meters thick, Qing Xi let out a slight breath of relief.

Judging by this shark-head demon's eating speed, it would probably take three minutes to completely bite through, leaving him with plenty of time.

However, Qing Xi did not make a rash move.

There was a Spirit Stellar Realm demon here, and killing it would be no easy feat.

If he failed to achieve a swift victory, it was very likely to attract a horde of demons.

By then, he might end up burying his bones right here.

Qing Xi cautiously released spatial energy, condensing it around the Spirit Stellar Realm demon to form five rings that silently slipped around its limbs and neck.

Then, using the Earth Escape supreme technique, he soundlessly appeared directly behind the Spirit Stellar Realm demon.

"I'll slap you to death!"

Qing Xi abruptly burst out from the earth, tightly gripping the Wordless Heavenly Book. Bursting forth with his full strength of one hundred and fifty thousand catties, he smashed it fiercely down onto the top of the Spirit Stellar Realm demon's head.

With a sharp crack, the demon's skull fractured, but the Wordless Heavenly Book also dented inward.

Qing Xi was immediately startled: "What breed is this? Why is its head so iron-hard?"

"Human... You're courting death!"

The Spirit Stellar Realm demon roared in fury, wanting to wave its hand and crush Qing Xi, only to find its body bound by something, rendering it unable to move.

It struggled fiercely a few times, but it was all to no avail.

Seeing this, Qing Xi hurriedly brandished the Wordless Heavenly Book, smashing it down with the fastest speed and greatest force of his life. After a dozen consecutive strikes, the Spirit Stellar Realm demon's head exploded, and it perished on the spot.

However, a corner of the Wordless Heavenly Book had also chipped off.

Qing Xi had no time to feel heartache. With a flash of his body, he appeared before the terrified group of demons and swung the ancient book, swatting them all to their deaths.

Multi-colored lights flowed from the bodies of the fallen demons, transforming into divine abilities that were recorded into the Wordless Heavenly Book.

"Phew... That scared me to death!"

Looking at the scattered corpses of the demons and confirming that all of them had perished, Qing Xi let out a long breath, then opened the Wordless Heavenly Book with a heart full of anticipation.

"Devouring Spirit Divine Ability!"

Looking at the shark-head pattern that had appeared on one of the pages of the Wordless Heavenly Book, and reading its description, he learned that this divine ability originating from the shark-head demon indeed possessed the capability to break formations.

"Hahaha..."

Arrogant laughter echoed recklessly through the tunnel.