The Journey of Immortal Cultivation-Chapter 886 - 487: The Lake Within the Volcano (Part 2)
We can only use the most foolish method. She divided the different search areas among the twenty or so people in front of her, and the Hidden Guards set aside their Divine Skills and plunged into the water. Recalling the constantly rising temperature of the lake water, the situation was somewhat like dumplings simmering in hot soup. But she couldn’t laugh now, because she too was a dumpling rapidly sinking to the lake bottom. The further she swam down, the greater the resistance naturally became, and the darker the light grew. By the time she reached the lake’s bottom, it was so dark that she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her.
Based on her estimate, this volcanic lake is at least two hundred zhang (over six hundred meters) deep, a depth beyond the reach of a mortal’s body.
During her Westward Journey, she often dealt with lakes—her first entry into a lake was swimming out of Rock City’s waterway, encountering a Little Canglong—so she had quite the experience in moving along the lake bottom. Just as she was about to retrieve the glow grass to tie around her waist, suddenly she heard Gongshu Zhao’s voice from the God Demon Prison: "How can you find anything in such a dark lake bottom?"
She was stunned, remembering that this guy was the Hall Master of Qianjin Hall, a renowned master of trick tools, so he wouldn’t make baseless remarks. Immediately, she joyfully said, "If you have any good treasures, hurry and use them."
In the end, Gongshu Zhao produced two things that were indeed perfectly fitting for the current predicament. One technically couldn’t even be called a trick tool, as it was shaped like a crocodile but had no sharp teeth in its mouth, measuring about two meters long. Its only ability was to move autonomously forward, backward, left, and right according to the owner’s intention, emitting dazzling bright light all over its body. Normally, people know that underwater light is hindered by water waves, and the illumination range isn’t as wide in water as it is in air. However, the brilliance of this thing was so intense, most transparent white light, that even in this dark lake bottom, it could illuminate everything within twenty meters once released.
In her view, this fellow was like a powerful high-intensity flashlight, with an inbuilt self-moving function.
"One of these is hardly enough!" she scoffed. Gongshu Zhao then calmly retrieved more than thirty of them from the Storage Ring, almost making her want to pounce on him and give him two hard kisses. Right now, she didn’t care about his identity, whether the person was an avatar of Yin Jiu You; he was called Gongshu Zhao, wasn’t he? According to him, these things were originally used for spirit ore mining, and as known, underground mines were also very dark. With these things available, it became portable lighting equipment. Naturally, considering that some ore veins were submerged, this trick tool was designed for amphibious use, unexpectedly coming in handy at the volcanic lake bottom today.
The second useful item was actually a Gold-eating Beast. This exotic beast was about the size of a rat, and its strength wasn’t much more than that of a rat either. Its teeth were tiny and white, and its biting force was even weaker than a human’s, making it hard to believe it could gnaw through metal. However, the Gold-eating Beast indeed doesn’t use its teeth but employs the acid liquid in its saliva to dissolve metal, thereby eating it bit by bit. Many high-strength metals, like Cloud Pattern Gold and Star-fallen Iron, actually succumbed to its mouth. A single drop of the Gold-eating Beast’s saliva could dissolve five pounds of Star-fallen Iron; many Artifact Refiners use the stomach acid and saliva of the Gold-eating Beast when mixing metals. They mostly live in the northern mines of the Southern Continent, feeding on various metals, and the purer the metal, the more excited and happy they get.
Gongshu Zhao provided this creature also because the Gold-eating Beast is innately skilled at seeking rare metals. As powerful as the Nanming Lihuo Sword is, it is forged from various metals. From her perspective, it was most likely forged using Special Alloy, likely unable to escape the Gold-eating Beast’s innate spiritual sense. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
The only complication is that this little thing can’t dive, as the northern mountain mines don’t have many water-filled pits to wade through. But this wasn’t a problem for Ning Xiaoxian; she had a Water-Repelling Pearl dug out from a giant clam, and holding it would automatically create a waterproof Barrier. All she had to do was hold the Gold-eating Beast, let it guide her direction. Additionally worth mentioning was that although the Gold-eating Beast’s body seemed fragile, it had strong resistance to the toxic gases here; after all, the northern mining areas are in the mountains, some near volcanoes. Without some capability, it wouldn’t have survived till now.
Don’t forget, among the Hidden Guards this time, there were also several Treasure-seeking Rat Demons; their reputation wasn’t for nothing. So if the Nanming Lihuo Sword truly was in this body of water, she’d still be quite confident in locating it.
Time trickled slowly, and as it turned out, treasure hunting was tiresome work, especially looking for things underwater, which was hardly humanly bearable. The lake bottom was originally formed by cooling lava from the volcanic crater, quite uneven, even allowing views of solidified lava shapes. In some places, it layered like terraces, winding like a maze, consuming a lot of her time.
Although the Gold-eating Beast had strong innate abilities, its brain capacity was small, in other words, it was low in intelligence, scatterbrained, often squeaking chaotically. Initially, she was thrilled thinking she’d found the Divine Sword, only to realize the volcano was rich in minerals, many being metal elements. This stupid rat would lead her on wild runs, ending up at a pile of scrap metal. At times it was somewhat reliable, capable of finding pure Xuantie chunks from volcanic eruptions, these things if sold outside, could fetch thousands of Spirit Stones. But damn, she only wanted to find the Nanming Lihuo Sword now!
Gongshu Zhao also didn’t have a good method for this. This creature was born a little pinhead, what clever trick could he have? However, struggles after two hours, Ning Xiaoxian did manage to come up with a solution: letting Tu Jin summon a soul avatar to attach to this fool, harnessing its innate abilities to continue the search tasks. Admittedly, Tu Jin had his own duties too. However, dual-tasking, even triple or quadruple, was hardly a burden for a Soul Cultivator, wasn’t it? (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)
