“So, now that all four of us are here, we can leave?” Ji Tongzhou, having finally understood the situation, was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. He couldn’t stand still and was about to fly out on his sword. Li Fei quickly grabbed him, “This is just a guess. Don’t rush. We need to be more cautious in times like these.”
As they spoke, Bai Gelin had already flown up on her sword. When she reached the cave entrance, she cautiously reached out to touch it. Her expression changed, “There’s still a barrier. We can’t get out.”
“What’s going on?!” Ji Tongzhou was furious. “Let’s all go together and break through the barrier!”
If they could have broken through, they would have done so earlier. Li Fei watched speechlessly as he and Bai Gelin took turns using the five elemental immortal techniques, wave after wave hitting the barrier, only consuming spiritual energy without making any progress.
After all the commotion, the barrier remained unmoved. Ji Tongzhou was panting heavily, wanting to find a place to sit, but seeing the muddy ground, he feared dirtying his clothes. Remembering that there was also a barrier on the pond, he simply sat down on it, saying, “Can’t go up, can’t go down, why make things so difficult…”
Before he could finish speaking, he felt himself sitting on nothing. Unable to stop his momentum, he fell into the pond with a splash, swallowing several mouthfuls of water before struggling to grab the vines at the edge. He was incredulous, “Wasn’t there supposed to be a barrier on the pond?”
Li Fei was both surprised and delighted. The pond’s barrier had suddenly disappeared after all four of them gathered, which meant there must be a waterway leading outside below! She didn’t waste time talking and stepped into the pond. The pond was very shallow; given her short stature, the water only reached her waist. However, as she walked towards the center, the water got deeper. Li Fei covered herself with an earth-element defense, took a deep breath, and plunged in.
The emerald water was murky, making it impossible to see the bottom. She groped around in the silt for a while and felt a hole in the center of the pool, neither wide nor narrow, probably just big enough for them to squeeze through.
“We can dive down from here,” she surfaced, taking a big breath. “But we don’t know how far we need to swim. Does anyone not know how to swim?”
Ji Tongzhou looked a bit embarrassed. After hemming and hawing for a while, he finally admitted, “I… can’t swim.”
The water-avoidance technique hadn’t been taught to them yet, so they could only rely on holding their breath to dive down. Using spiritual energy circulation, they could hold their breath longer than ordinary people, but it wasn’t endless.
Lei Xiuyuan, who had been quiet all this time, drew his stone sword and examined it for a moment. He suddenly said, “Since we can fly on swords, we should also be able to infuse spiritual energy into the swords underwater. Wouldn’t that be much faster than relying on physical strength to move forward?”
The three children all had a sudden realization. Indeed, they hadn’t thought of this method before! Ji Tongzhou gripped the sword hilt, infused spiritual energy, and the sword body moved slightly, carrying him in a circle in the air, quite steadily.
“Let’s do it this way!” Ji Tongzhou was eager to try. With this method, it didn’t matter whether one could swim or not.
“The water is murky, and our vision will be obstructed. We don’t know what’s hiding in there, so we must be careful,” Li Fei cast an earth-element defense on each of them. “Don’t stray too far from each other. If anything happens, don’t run off alone.”
These words were directed at Ji Tongzhou. This young prince always considered himself the leader of the group, and he probably didn’t understand the concept of teamwork at all.
The four children entered the pond. Indeed, there was a hole at the bottom. When they reached into it, they felt the water temperature was much colder than in the pond. It was pitch black inside the hole, and they couldn’t see anything. Ji Tongzhou concentrated and made a hand sign. The next moment, a thin layer of bright fire suddenly surrounded his entire body, making him look like a fire person.
This was another fire-element immortal technique that the other three non-fire attribute disciples hadn’t learned yet – the Floating Charm Fire. Unlike ordinary fire, this fire wasn’t afraid of water and could still burn fiercely underwater.
With the light, the scene at the bottom of the pond became much clearer than before. Li Fei made a gesture and was the first to enter the hole. This hole was narrow and dark, barely allowing the not-yet-fully-grown children to pass through. An adult would probably get stuck here.
Fortunately, holding the sword hilt and circulating spiritual energy underwater was much faster than swimming. The waterway was winding with many turns. After swimming for a while, the tunnel walls gradually became less close to their bodies. As they moved forward, it became more spacious, and they could see some scenery even without Ji Tongzhou’s Floating Charm Fire. The light was faintly coming from ahead.
The three children behind suddenly stopped. They couldn’t speak underwater, so they could only use eye contact and expressions to convey what they wanted to say. Li Fei saw them making faces, seemingly with a frightened look, which made her very curious. Lei Xiuyuan swam to her side and wrote something on her palm with his fingertip.
“Strong demonic aura ahead, be careful and alert.”
Demonic aura again? Li Fei felt a bit conflicted. Why could they all sense the demonic aura, but she couldn’t?
Slowing down the speed of her stone sword, they moved forward a bit more. Suddenly, it opened up, and they had come out of the waterway. This body of water was vast and very clear, with tangled water plants growing all around. It seemed to be a lake.
Bai Gelin suddenly came forward and grabbed Li Fei’s sleeve, looking terrified, pointing ahead. Li Fei squinted and looked for a long time but saw nothing except water plants. Just as she was confused, she suddenly felt that the previously calm lake water seemed to be stirred by a pair of giant hands. The silt at the bottom of the lake rolled up, and the clear water instantly became turbid.
Lei Xiuyuan hurriedly pointed upwards. The four children panicked and desperately swam toward the surface of the lake. However, the water in the lake seemed to have turned into a huge whirlpool. An irresistible pulling force made them tumble up and down like leaves in the wind.
A terrifying roar, unlike anything they had ever heard, came from the bottom of the lake. Li Fei felt goosebumps all over her body and suddenly had an ominous premonition. She tried her best to control the flow of spiritual energy in her stone sword, attempting to stabilize her body. However, the pull of the whirlpool became stronger and stronger. Along with that terrifyingly low roar, countless small whirlpools emerged, as if they were about to tear everything in the lake apart.
Li Fei didn’t even remember how she managed to get out of the lake. She was the first to fly out, falling into a pile of grass by the lakeside, gasping for air. In her panic, she realized that this was indeed a lake. At this moment, the water was churning like it was boiling, rolling up and down with continuous huge waves. Soon after, Lei Xiuyuan, carrying Ji Tongzhou, also flew out of the lake. Because he couldn’t swim, the young prince had swallowed water in his panic and was now coughing violently on the ground, unable to move.
“Where’s Gelin?!” Li Fei panicked. There must be some ferocious monster hiding in the lake. If she didn’t come out soon, it would be very dangerous!
Lei Xiuyuan wrung the water out of his hair, shaking his head breathlessly, “I didn’t see her.”
Just as he finished speaking, they saw Bai Gelin frantically surface. In her panic, she had dropped her stone sword, but fortunately, she seemed to be very proficient in swimming. She swam quickly and was on shore in the blink of an eye. She said with a trembling voice, “Did you see just now?! There’s a door at the bottom of the lake! It’s being pressed down by that big monster!”
Ji Tongzhou, having finally caught his breath, weakly mumbled, “Don’t… don’t tell me we have to defeat this monster to pass the test?”
None of the four children dared to approach the lake. They waited for a while at a distance, and the churning of the lake water gradually calmed down. Lei Xiuyuan said, “Living in water, it’s probably a fish or turtle demon. It won’t come out, and we can’t go down. The water puts us at a disadvantage.”
Ji Tongzhou anxiously asked, “Then what do we do? We can’t just not fight, right? How do we pass the test?”
Lei Xiuyuan pondered, “Let’s try to force it to come up.”
Seeing that Bai Gelin had lost her stone sword, he added, “Li Fei, give your sword to Bai Gelin. Ji Tongzhou, the three of us will fly over the lake and see if we can use immortal techniques to force it out.”
Li Fei’s primary water and secondary earth spiritual root attributes were mostly used for support. Although they had all learned the five basic immortal techniques, healing, and defense were more important. She needed to keep her spiritual energy for crucial moments later.
Everyone understood his arrangement after a moment’s thought and had no objections. The three of them flew on their swords towards the now calm lake. Due to the previous violent disturbance, the originally clear lake water was still murky. Bai Gelin concentrated and circulated her spiritual energy. In an instant, countless small green leaves shot towards the lake. As soon as they touched the water, the leaves instantly transformed into numerous towering trees, rooting at the bottom of the lake – this was the Giant Tree Technique that only Bai Gelin, with her primary wood spiritual root, could learn. This move was intended to restrict the movement of the monster in the lake, leaving it nowhere to hide.
The next moment, a dense rain of golden arrows fell among the green foliage, followed by a majestic, all-consuming fire that seemed to burn to the sky. This fire wasn’t afraid of ordinary water and continued to burn fiercely in the lake. The countless towering trees in the lake were devoured by the fierce flames. Amidst the rolling smoke, that terrifying and shrill howl sounded once again.
Huge waves rose to the sky, sweeping towards the three children flying on swords in the air. They all dodged, but unexpectedly, an extremely thick and long thing suddenly emerged from the bottom of the lake, like a snake’s tail. This thick, long tail violently slapped at the burning towering trees. In an instant, the fiercely burning trees were flung away like withered branches and broken grass, bringing up a sky full of fire rain, falling all over the shore.
Lei Xiuyuan, quick-eyed and quick-handed, immediately sent countless beams of golden light toward that long tail. A gloomy and terrifying wail exploded, and the lake’s surface began to churn. The monster seemed unable to endure such torment any longer and shot out from the bottom of the water.
Bai Gelin, suddenly seeing a huge creature leap out of the water, screamed in fright. This monster was unimaginably large and had a bizarre shape – a bird’s head, a fish’s body, and a snake’s tail. Its two huge eyes were blood-red as if blood was about to drip out, glaring fiercely at these children.
Suddenly, its long snake-like tail stood straight up like a pole. Then it opened its mouth and let out a sharp cry. Everyone felt a hurricane sweeping across the lake water toward their faces. They all hurriedly dodged. The originally straight snake tail instantly became as soft as boneless, silently coiling towards Lei Xiuyuan. It remembered that Lei Xiuyuan had injured its tail with the Tai’a Technique and hated him to the bone.
Lei Xiuyuan’s stone sword under his feet suddenly stopped, narrowly avoiding this coil. However, the gale brought by the giant tail blew him far away like a leaf in the wind. Everyone didn’t dare to stay long and hurriedly moved away. Bai Gelin’s legs had gone soft, and she spoke incoherently, “Is this a snake spirit? Or a fish spirit? We… are we supposed to fight this thing? Can we not fight?”
Ji Tongzhou angrily said, “How can we pass the test if we don’t fight?!”
Lei Xiuyuan’s face was still a bit pale. He had avoided it very cleverly just now. If he had been even a little off, he would have been caught by the snake’s tail. Without even thinking about it, they knew what it would feel like to be wrapped by that tail – their bodies would probably be instantly crushed into meat paste. He wasn’t sure if he could successfully avoid it if it happened again. He said softly, “This thing doesn’t look like an ordinary monster.”
Except for those naturally born demon beasts, divine beasts, and spirit beasts, most monsters in the world came from birds, beasts, fish, and insects that had been cultivated to gain spiritual awareness. Their appearance was easy to recognize at a glance. They had never seen such a strange-looking thing before. Even among demon beasts, there weren’t any this bizarre and ferocious.
Ji Tongzhou lowered his head and thought for a long time. Suddenly, he exclaimed, “I remember now! I thought it looked familiar! I’ve seen it in the Fierce Beast Records! Bird head, fish body, snake tail – this is the fierce beast Hu Jiao!”