Cultivation Begins From The Desert-Chapter 775 - 758: Lure and Kill [Gold-eating Beast]

A trade yields information about one Spiritual Object and another Spiritual Object, Zhouyang couldn't be more satisfied.

The news "Master Celestial Serpent" Xu Hanwen shared with him concerns a Tier Six Gold-eating Beast.

The Beast Taming Sect is renowned for driving various Demon Beasts, and the distribution information of the various Demon Beasts they collect is naturally much more detailed than other forces.

According to Xu Hanwen, a Tier Six Gold-eating Beast is hiding in a massive Refined Gold Vein within the Wilderness Jungle. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The Beast Taming Sect once had designs on that Gold-eating Beast, but unfortunately, that Gold-eating Beast is very cunning and will never leave the underground ore vein no matter what.

Even in the densely Golden Qi-rich underground ore vein, it is difficult for a Late-Stage Nascent Soul Cultivator to capture this Exotic Beast innately proficient in the Gold Escape Technique.

Xu Hanwen telling Zhouyang this information about the Gold-eating Beast actually harmed the interests of the Beast Taming Sect's sect.

However, as he is a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, as long as he doesn't commit the great crime of betrayal, no one in the Beast Taming Sect could judge him, so he doesn't care about these things.

Upon learning about the Gold-eating Beast, Zhouyang immediately began preparations for his journey into the Wilderness.

He spent three years gathering materials and requested Lan Daoist to help refine a Qimen Array, the Eight Gates Sealing Gold Array, designed specifically to inhibit the Gold Escape Technique of that Gold-eating Beast.

Once the array was ready, he took Lan Daoist to the Wilderness Jungle to find the Gold-eating Beast's hiding place.

With the map guidance provided by Xu Hanwen, Zhouyang found the target without much effort.

However, just like the Beast Taming Sect could not do anything about the Gold-eating Beast hiding in the ore vein, Zhouyang also couldn't go into the underground ore vein to slay the demon.

So, to slay the demon and seize the pill, he must first lure the Gold-eating Beast out of the underground ore vein.

Xu Hanwen said the Gold-eating Beast wouldn't leave the underground ore vein because the Beast Taming Sect didn't find the right method, or their bait wasn't tempting enough.

The Tier Six Gold-eating Beast already has an awakened spiritual intelligence, with instincts for seeking benefit and avoiding harm greatly enhanced, clearly aware of its advantages, so it wouldn't leave the underground ore vein without a compelling reason.

But even highly cultivated cultivators sometimes take risks to seek breakthroughs and further progress, knowingly venturing into perilous places with slim chances of survival to seize opportunities.

Sometimes, intelligent beings are even harder to resist certain temptations than ordinary beasts.

The Tier Six Gold-eating Beast is hiding within this massive Refined Gold Vein primarily because the thick Golden Qi here is greatly beneficial for its growth and evolution; here, it doesn't need to worry about food.

However, merely absorbing the vein's Golden Qi for growth is pathetically slow for the Tier Six Demon Beast Gold-eating Beast.

It's possible that even when its lifespan reaches its end, it might not see any opportunity to advance to Tier Seven.

The simplest and quickest way for such an Exotic Beast like the Gold-eating Beast to grow rapidly is by devouring rare High-Grade Spiritual Gold.

Zhouyang happens to have a piece of Celestial Meteorite Gold that significantly aids in the growth and evolution of the Tier Six Gold-eating Beast.

He originally intended to use this large piece of Celestial Meteorite Gold to refine a set of Tier Six Flying Swords, but since he had only recently broken through to Tier Six in Artifact Refining skill and wasn't confident of succeeding on the first try, he didn't rush to use it.

Unexpectedly, this unused Celestial Meteorite Gold found another purpose today.

At this point, Zhouyang and Lan Daoist flew around the massive Refined Gold Vein before stopping above a basin valley.

"This is the place," Lan Daoist said after flying around the valley and using some small spells to investigate the ground's situation, "This valley has rich earth energy, mixed with Golden Qi, balanced with water and wood energy, but lacks fire energy. Setting up the Eight Gates Sealing Gold Array here can minimize the risk of being discovered by the Gold-eating Beast, and the presence of Golden Qi won't make it too cautious, deterring it from advancing."

"Then, I'll trouble Fellow Daoist Lan," Zhouyang nodded slightly and agreed immediately.

Next, Lan Daoist took out the refined array stage, array plate, and other array deployment tools to arrange the array, centered on the basin valley spanning less than a hundred miles, while Zhouyang patrolled outside to provide protection and lookout.

Once Lan Daoist completed the array setup, Zhouyang released Demoness Huan Qianqian from the Dongxuan Pearl, giving her the massive piece of Celestial Meteorite Gold and instructing her to carry out the plan.

According to the plan, Zhouyang and Lan Daoist would hide in the Dongxuan Pearl, while an External Incarnation adept at concealing breath and invisibility would carry the pearl and hide in the basin's forest. Once the Gold-eating Beast was lured by the Celestial Meteorite Gold into the basin, they would swiftly activate the array to trap and kill it.

At this point, seeing Huan Qianqian carrying the Celestial Meteorite Gold up into the Cyan Nether sky as planned, Zhouyang and Lan Daoist also proceeded according to the plan.

It wasn't long before Huan Qianqian reached a height close to nine thousand zhang above in the Cyan Nether sky, aimed, and directly threw the piece of Celestial Meteorite Gold down.

Rumble!

The ear-piercing roar echoed through the clouds, and a silver-gray stone resembling a meteor burst into intense flames as it frictioned through the air, swiftly plummeting toward the ground.

This scenario of a meteor streaking through the sky in broad daylight was visible to any creature within a radius of thousands of miles who happened to look up.

Before long, as the meteor hit the ground, a powerful shockwave caused the earth for thousands of miles to tremble violently, instantly exploding the hearts of countless birds and beasts with its impact, while the fortunate survivors screamed and fled outward in terror.

This enormous commotion instantly awakened an entity slumbering underground, thousands of miles away.

That was a gold-colored giant beast, twenty to thirty zhang long, resembling a pangolin.

Awakened by the tremor, its eyes flashed with rage as it stood up in its dwelling cave, letting out a series of sharp shrieks from its mouth.

Shortly after, a hedgehog-like Demon Beast, covered all over with golden thorns, appeared in the cave, hissing softly in explanation to it.

Clearly, as the gold-colored giant beast listened to the subordinate Demon Beast's report, an interested look appeared in its eyes.

After a moment of contemplation while looking at the hedgehog-like Demon Beast, it suddenly grabbed this subordinate's short leg from beneath with one claw, lifting it to leave the cave and head towards the source of the earth-shaking disturbance.

The golden giant beast moved with incredible escape speed, reaching the mountains and valleys outside the basin where the celestial meteor had fallen in a very short time.

At this moment, the basin valley had undergone massive collapses and landslides around the surrounding mountains due to the impact of the celestial meteor, with a huge crater of over a hundred feet in diameter appearing at the center, now filled with spring water erupting from deep within the earth.

And within the senses of the golden beast, at the bottom of the crater, concealed by the spring water, a pure and powerful golden qi shone brightly like a lamp in the dark, capturing its attention with a deep desire stemming from its bloodline, making it unable to resist the urge to dive into the water pit to explore.

However, having grown to a Tier Six Demon Beast, it could naturally restrain such basic instincts.

After watching from afar for a while, it relaxed its beast claw and threw the hedgehog demon beast it had brought down into the water pit to retrieve the item that attracted it.

The hedgehog demon beast was itself a Tier Five Middle-Grade Demon Beast capable of flying using demon clouds.

It dared not defy its master's order and quickly maneuvered the demon cloud to fly into the basin and plunged into the water pit.

A short while later, the hedgehog demon beast emerged from the water pit, holding a silver-gray mineral deeply buried underground, and happily flew towards its master.

Being an equally gold-attributed demon beast, it could also sense the pure golden qi contained within the silver-gray mineral stone in its hand and knew it would surely receive great rewards from its master if it presented this item.

In the sky outside the basin, when the golden beast saw from afar the silver-gray mineral brought out by the hedgehog demon beast, its eyes widened with excitement as it emitted urgent cries, urging its subordinate to deliver the item quickly.

But at this moment, a white figure suddenly shot over from the other side of the valley basin and in the blink of an eye caught up with the hedgehog demon beast. Before the golden beast's eyes, she used a black long-cone magical artifact to pin the hedgehog demon beast in mid-air and seized the silver-gray mineral.

Seeing the treasure about to be in hand suddenly snatched away, one can imagine how strong the rage was within the golden beast.

If it hadn't seen the silver-gray mineral, perhaps it wouldn't be so angry.

But now that it had seen the silver-gray mineral and understood its importance to itself, how could it tolerate such a precious treasure being taken away right in front of its eyes?

With a flash of golden light, the golden beast [Gold-eating Beast]'s figure vanished from the air, reappearing behind the Demoness Huan Qianqian a mere ten feet away.

Then, with a smack of its beast claw, the witch in the sky burst like a bubble, revealing that it was merely an illusion clone.

This realization made the [Gold-eating Beast] even more furious.

It roared, golden light flashing in its eyes, scanning around quickly. It soon located the true presence of the witch, and without hesitation, transformed into a stream of golden escape light darting towards her.

At this moment, the [Gold-eating Beast] had long abandoned its prior caution, solely intent on tearing the human female cultivator who seized its evolutionary opportunity to shreds.

Just then, Zhouyang's external incarnation hiding in the shadows directly triggered the prearranged [Eight Gates Sealing Gold Array].

Rumbling! Roaring!

The earth shook with rumbling tremors as a strong white light quickly rose from beneath the basin and the surrounding mountain peaks, promptly covering the entire basin.

This unexpected and drastic change frightened the [Gold-eating Beast] charging into the basin.

It suddenly realized something, disregarding any further trouble with the Demoness Huan Qianqian, and roared as it prepared to utilize its innate Gold Escape Technique to flee the basin.

Yet, after its escape technique was unleashed, it didn't manage to race thousands of miles away as usual, only barely escaping less than a hundred feet before being forcibly expelled from the escape light state.

This situation left it both shocked and terrified, its eyes filled with frantic fury as it roared, stepping through the void attempting to rush out of the basin.

But just tens of miles out, it was repelled by a bright yellow seal.

Emerging from the [Dongxuan Pearl], Zhouyang and Lan Daoist appeared, joining forces with the external incarnation and Demoness Huan Qianqian to fiercely attack the [Gold-eating Beast] together.

This battle, completely unequal in both strength and numbers, naturally left no suspense.

Once the [Gold-eating Beast] was lured into the valley basin, its fate was already sealed.

The entire battle lasted less than a quarter-hour, as Zhouyang swiftly executed an [Azure Dragon Sky Splitting Slash] which severed the [Gold-eating Beast]'s head, killing it beyond recovery.

After slaying the [Gold-eating Beast], Zhouyang promptly extracted its demon pill.

By now, out of the five substitute spiritual objects given by Lan Daoist, he had acquired three, with only the wood and fire-attributed spiritual objects remaining.

Of course, the valuable possessions on the [Gold-eating Beast] were not limited to its demon pill; its corpse was also a priceless spiritual object.

This exotic beast's nature of feeding on spiritual gold had long metalized its body. When alive, it exhibited features of blood, flesh, and skeletons akin to a biological creature; upon death, these signs of life dissipated, leaving only pure golden qi condensed objects.

After retrieving the demon pill, Zhouyang set up a furnace on the spot and threw all the blood, flesh, and skeleton of the [Gold-eating Beast] into the cauldron, using [Qianyang True Flame] for refinement to eliminate impurities, finally obtaining a heavy block of Tier Six Spiritual Gold [Blood Patterned Refined Gold] weighing a thousand pounds.

Such a large piece of Tier Six Spiritual Gold is extremely rare in the cultivation realm.

In fact, it's precisely because this exotic beast could be utilized in such a manner that cultivators in the past drove wide-scale hunts for this beast, rendering it difficult to encounter even a low-tier [Gold-eating Beast], let alone a Tier Six [Gold-eating Beast] nowadays.

Having acquired such a substantial piece of Tier Six Spiritual Gold, coupled with the [Celestial Meteorite Gold] he already possessed, Zhouyang felt he could start implementing his refining sword plan upon returning.

However, before returning, he still wanted to attempt searching for the [Gold-eating Beast]'s lair.

Typically, the lairs of high-tier demon beasts contain considerable spiritual objects, and many high-tier demon beasts tend to store rare treasures they've gathered within their lairs as a collection.

Unfortunately, he did not succeed this time.

The [Gold-eating Beast]'s lair was located deep within an ore vein, where the rich golden qi not only masked the [Gold-eating Beast]'s aura but also repelled all non-gold-attributed magical techniques.

Although Zhouyang possessed gold-attribute spiritual roots, he hadn't mastered the Gold Escape Technique, making it immensely challenging to locate the [Gold-eating Beast]'s lair in such an environment.

And he did not have much time to waste on this matter.

Thus, he could only note the location of the massive gold vein and plan to hand the map to the Zhou Family upon his return. If future Zhou Family disciples manage to master the Gold Escape Technique, they might try their luck here.