Chapter 175: Chapter 141: Heaven-Burning Fiend: You Were Clearly Afflicted by the Evil Qi (2)

Xiao Chen naturally agreed readily; it was just a small matter he could handle along the way.

Using the sect’s map, he identified six locations where Evil Qi might be generated.

The Lord of the Immortal Palace, to aid his successors, had specifically left behind a Qi Observation Secret Technique for finding Earth Evil Qi.

By using the Qi Observation Secret Technique, one could detect the location and approximate amount of all Earth Evil Qi within a twenty-li radius.

For the next month, he tirelessly traveled all over Li State.

Along the way, he sensed a wisp of Blood Evil Qi at a butcher’s house.

After rushing over to investigate, he surprisingly obtained a piece of Blood Jade.

Blood Jade was a rare Yin Fiend Spiritual Object, especially valuable to certain Demonic Cultivators or Cultivators with special needs.

If he were to sell it on the Black Market, he could easily get several thousand Spirit Stones for it.

But aside from the Blood Jade, he had toiled for a month with nothing to show for it.

He had scoured all of Li State but couldn’t find any suitable Five Elements Evil Qi.

Normally, earning several thousand Spirit Stones in a month would be a joyous occasion.

But now, Xiao Chen couldn’t bring himself to be happy.

As the saying goes, you can’t make bricks without straw.

Without Five Elements Evil Qi, his Mystic Sky Eating Secret Technique, no matter how profound, was useless.

’I never thought the conditions for Evil Qi to appear would be even stricter than I imagined.’

.

After searching the last location, Xiao Chen started to feel worried.

The Secret Technique had long recorded that Evil Qi was difficult to find.

But only after personally searching did he truly understand just how absurd the requirements were.

In places where Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi was scarce, Five Elements Spiritual Power was often even scarcer.

Even if a few places managed to gather some Five Elements Spiritual Power, it was all consumed by various Spirit Grasses, Spirit Ores, or Loose Cultivators.

It was impossible for it to accumulate, let alone form Evil Qi.

’This is tough. Does Li State even have any Evil Qi? Could it be that there’s none at all?’

’I wonder how those Demon Cultivators find their Evil Qi?’

Wait, Demon Cultivators?

A flash of inspiration suddenly struck Xiao Chen.

’That’s right! Li State has had so many Demonic Calamities related to Evil Qi. Where did those Demons get their Evil Qi from?’

This was an extremely important clue.

Xiao Chen immediately returned to the sect and found Mei Yong again. "Sect Leader, does the sect have detailed records of the Demonic Calamities?"

Mei Yong was a little puzzled. "We do, of course, but the most recent Demonic Calamity was nearly a thousand years ago."

"They’re all old, worn-out records, and rather disorganized."

"Junior Brother Xiao, what do you need that stuff for?"

Xiao Chen thought for a moment and made an excuse related to the Demon Extermination Hall’s affairs. "It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been investigating Demon Cultivators recently and grew interested in things related to Demonic Calamities."

A trace of doubt flickered in Mei Yong’s eyes.

As far as he knew, this junior brother didn’t seem to care much about the Demon Extermination Hall.

He’d heard from the disciples below that aside from seeing him from afar during the monthly roll call, you were guaranteed not to run into him again for the rest of the month.

However, Mei Yong was a firm believer in minding his own business.

Since Xiao Chen wanted information about Demonic Calamities and not cultivation resources, he couldn’t be bothered to dig deeper.

He directly handed over the Sect Leader Token. "That kind of old information is on the top floor of the Scripture Pavilion. I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll have to trouble you to look for it yourself, Junior Brother."

Xiao Chen hurriedly accepted the Token. "Thank you, Sect Leader."

Because the time between Demonic Calamities was relatively long, even a sect like the Li Huo Sect had only preserved a portion of the Ancient Texts left by their predecessors.

Furthermore, Demonic Calamities related to Evil Qi dated back to long before the Li Huo Sect even existed.

This naturally made finding relevant clues much more difficult.

Fortunately, Cultivators possessed the wonderful tool that was Divine Sense, so they didn’t need to flip through every single page.

Xiao Chen swept his Divine Sense across the collection on the top floor, directly filtering out over five hundred Ancient Texts that contained the two words "Evil Qi".

He then spent five days reading through all of them.

At last, in that vast sea of books, he found a relatively clear record.

"I once endeavored to explore the unknown, traveling more than ten thousand li south to a basin. There, hot springs steamed and mist lingered. And I saw faint Evil Qi existing within."

Although this passage was rather vague and didn’t specify the exact location, it pointed out a direction—south of Li State—and gave two key geographical features: a basin and hot springs.

With these three conditions, the search would be much easier.

Xiao Chen flipped to the title page to check the travelogue’s publication date. ’It seems this book was written at least twenty thousand years ago.’

’I just hope the hot springs are still there after twenty thousand years.’

In the previous month, he had discovered that the courses of many small rivers and streams had changed slightly compared to records from several hundred years ago.

Fortunately, after patiently flying south on his sword for half a month, he finally found a basin with hot springs.

Xiao Chen hurriedly descended from his Sword Light and used the Qi Observation Secret Technique to investigate.

Before his eyes, a fiery light surged and shot toward the heavens, seeming as if it would set the entire sky ablaze.

’This feeling... it’s Heaven-Burning Fiend!’

Xiao Chen instantly breathed a sigh of relief. ’Excellent! I finally found it.’

However, he soon realized something was wrong, because this fiery light only existed in the southeastern corner of the basin.

’Huh? Isn’t the amount of this Evil Qi a little too small?’

’This is a basin; it should naturally be able to gather Qi.’