Where Immortals Once Walked-Chapter 388: Forcefully Breaking Through

The black-clad youth skidded to a sudden stop.

This was the end of the road.

At that moment, the sun rose in the east. The first light broke over the water, and the imperial nectar still clinging to leaves and needles instantly vaporized. It vanished without so much as a hiss, dissolving back into heaven and earth.

The night of twists and danger was finally over.

And with daylight came the clear verdict that his pursuit had failed.

The black-clad youth stood on the shore for a long while, staring blankly. Then he stretched, like someone shaking off an annoyance.

“Fine, fine.”

It seems that I must admit that this prey was simply too slippery. He threw his ragged outer clothes into the burrow of two boar monsters to mislead the chase, buying him the most precious several deciding minutes.

Hah, he even had the leisure to dig a pit and plant an explosive trap on the one obvious path through.

He Lingchuan still had a few jars of black powder in his storage ring, and he had rigged a quick little trap. He also had small hand-tossed firecrackers that exploded when you slammed them on the ground, and these made perfect makeshift fuses.

The moment the black-clad youth stepped on one, the trap set off.

Once He Lingchuan dove into the lake, the youth truly had no answer. Now the sun was up, and the imperial nectar scent disappeared right along with it. The lake itself was enormous, so who knew where the prey might come ashore?

He could only let it go.

When his men finally came panting up, they found their young master strolling out of the bamboo grove with his hands clasped behind his back.

“It’s over. We’re heading to Fufeng City.” 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

They stared at him in disbelief. “Y-Young Master, e-even you failed to catch him?”

The black-clad youth dusted at his sleeves, calm as could be. “Mm, I lost him.”

They did not dare ask, but the question sat on every face.

Then why don’t you seem angry at all?

“What I have gained is a blessing, what I have lost is fated.” The black-clad youth wore resignation like composure. “Besides, last night’s haul was already excellent.”

They had harvested imperial nectar all night, then at dawn looted more from other monsters and martial artists. They were loaded. Getting the chunk of imperial nectar paste would have been icing on the cake, and missing it could not really be said to be that much of a loss.

“The mission comes first.”

* * *

He Lingchuan dove into the water. The imperial nectar in his hair dissolved into the lake at once, drawing schools of fish that chased him in a frenzy.

He threw one of the stink bombs he had prepared.

The moment the stench bloomed, the fish scattered.

He used the opening to swim farther out, then surfaced and climbed ashore in a concealed patch of tall grass about three and a third kilometers away.

A few large lake beasts tried to attack along the way, but he drove them off with more stink bombs. It was tense, but he made it through without disaster.

After he climbed out, he did not rush to leave. First, he made sure nothing nearby was paying attention. Only then did he pull out Mountain Monarch Bo’s camouflage snakeskin and drape it over himself. He settled his breathing, entered meditation, sealed his pores, and kept every trace of his aura from leaking out.

The roar of the forest, the wind through a sea of leaves, covered even the faintest sound of breath.

And the clean water had washed away his tracks.

Even if something bounded past him, it likely would not sense a thing. He even watched two squirrels fighting over territory on a branch to his left. Not long after, a shrike arrived with prey in its beak and impaled insects on a twig like skewers.

Seeing that even such a bird failed to notice him, he finally relaxed.

He sat there, regulating his breath and meditating, for half the day.

During that time, plenty of humans and monsters passed beneath the tree. He did not move so much as a finger.

Anyone who dared to catch imperial nectar out in the wilderness and still managed to walk away afterward was guaranteed to have real skill.

When the sun finally began to slant, the tiger returned and rubbed against the tree. A moment later, something small scurried up the trunk, hustling right to He Lingchuan’s side.

“Good work,” he murmured, stroking the eyeball spider that had just returned.

Before leaving the chaos, he had planted an “eye” there so that he could watch the whole show remotely. If he had not sent the tiger to fetch it, it would have taken the little spider’s eight stubby legs forever to reach him.

Now that his scout was safely back, it was time to find a place to refine pills. Imperial nectar did not keep long. The safest place for it was inside him.

Still, He Lingchuan had no intention of charging out of the forest carelessly.

Earlier, he had clearly seen the crows circling his way before flying northeast. Those petty, vindictive creatures would not rest until they got their revenge.

However, that was not today’s main problem. He hopped down from the tree and told the heart-protecting mirror, “I’m looking for a nearby cave to refine pills.”

The heart-protecting mirror fell silent for a few breaths, as if checking with something, then replied, “That should be fairly easy to do. The tiger monster knows of a nearby cave that bears tend to take over. Over many of the past winters, he and his late wife checked whether or not a bear was hibernating inside.”

The tiger led the way, heading southwest for about four kilometers.

The terrain here was steep and jagged, full of cracks and ravines, making it hard to traverse. The slopes were crowded with small-leaf scrub trees, and almost no monsters or humans would choose a place like this to catch imperial nectar.

The tiger took He Lingchuan down into the bottom of a dry gully, where it seemed like the path ended. Then it pushed into a stand of wild grass taller than a person.

He followed, and behind the grass and a few scrub trees, he found an irregular little opening that looked more like a fissure than a cave. At its widest, it was only about one and a half meters across.

A person could get in, but only by crouch-walking or wriggling.

He Lingchuan checked it first. Inside was a water-worn tunnel several meters long, with no second exit.

The interior widened as it went deeper. In the back, there was a pile of grass and a thick mat of moss like bedding, pressed flat as if something heavy had slept there. Various wild mushrooms had sprouted in the damp.

The air was all mildew, with a faint lingering animal musk that seemed to come from a bear or boar long ago.

“This place is not bad. It will do.” He Lingchuan was pleased. He stationed the tiger outside as a guard, had the eyeball spider spin silk to seal the entrance, and then draped cloud brocade over it for extra cover.

After that, he pulled out his pill furnace, his auxiliary ingredients, and the imperial nectar from his storage ring.

Time to refine.

He started with the imperial nectar paste.

He Lingchuan rubbed his hands together. A lump this perfect would be wasted if he did not turn it into a Godslayer Pill.

His haul last night had been huge. Nearly all the spirit rain that hit his web had been collected with minimal loss, and four small wine jars lay inside his ring, each filled about eighty percent.

Back at Fengling Port, the imperial nectar he had gotten had only been a thin layer at the bottom of a bottle. That was nothing compared to what he got this time.

There was no question that the rest would be refined into Hundred Virtues Pills to support his cultivation in the future.

It really was a good thing that he had stocked up on materials. Out here in the wilderness, where would he find herbs at the last minute?

He did not waste any more time. He summoned a true flame, fired the furnace, and began.

He had watched Ling Guang refine pills countless times. He might not have “seen the pig run,” but he had eaten plenty of pork, so he should be able to somewhat manage.

More importantly, he had already pre-practiced the entire process in the dreamscape no fewer than fifteen times, with Sun Fuling holding the formulas and correcting him step by step.

With Instructor Sun overseeing him, every tiny mistake got dragged into the light, explained, and corrected mercilessly!

So now, even though He Lingchuan was tense, his hands moved steadily. He was busy, but not chaotic; and methodical, but not rushed.

The pills themselves were not especially difficult to refine. The real difficulty was controlling the effects after swallowing them. As long as he followed the heat and steps precisely, there was actually a pretty low chance of failure.

This time, heaven showed mercy. For eight straight hours, nothing outside disturbed him.

Or maybe last night’s imperial nectar rumble had simply worn everyone out, and those who had won anything were now busy refining it for themselves.

The Godslayer Pill was complete. The Hundred Virtues Pills were complete too, at least mostly.

After so much repetitive work, he still ruined one batch by accident. He could only console himself that a ten percent defect rate was not that bad.

Actually, even the ruined batch was still edible. It just would not be nearly as potent.

The heart-protecting mirror had helped during the struggle for the imperial nectar paste, and He Lingchuan rewarded merit. He tossed the mirror the small leftover chunk of paste.

The mirror went nearly mad with joy.

The piece that had awakened it months ago had not even been half this size. In a world where heaven and earth spirit qi was scarce, and everyone else was basically eating dirt, it was getting imperial nectar paste.

The mirror felt pure bliss.

Happiness and misery were always relative.

This master is worth following, very much worth following.

He Lingchuan did not know of its inner monologue, nor would he have cared even if he did know. He held the freshly refined Godslayer Pill and debated for a long moment before deciding to take it while it was “hot.”

Something this precious felt dangerous just sitting in his hand. The longer he held it, the more likely trouble would find him. It was better to swallow it now than to risk losing it.

He sent the eyeball spider to scout the area again, hung the mirror such that it faced the entrance, and even checked the night sky to be sure it would not rain and flood the cave. Only then did he exhale, sit cross-legged, and enter deep stillness.

He did not notice that deep in the cave, two fresh white mushrooms had quietly sprouted from the dry moss, and their caps were angled toward him.

He ran his true energy through a few cycles first, warming his body, smoothing his breathing, and preparing his channels. And then, he took out the Godslayer Pill and chucked it into his mouth.

The imperial nectar paste had originally been the size of a goose egg. After ninefold brewing... Er, refinement process, the finished Godslayer Pill was actually just a little smaller than a jujube date. When he chucked it into his mouth, it did not immediately melt after landing on his tongue.

He chewed it a few times like it was a date before swallowing. It was sweet, fragrant, and a bit dry. It stuck in his throat.

...Honestly, it’s exactly like a date.

Helian Chen never told me what a Godslayer Pill is supposed to taste like. But this doesn’t seem like a failure, I think?

Only a dozen or so breaths later, an intense heat surged up from his dantian.

The sensation was like a tidal flood breaking loose on a celestial high-tide day, or like a sealed chamber suddenly detonating, blasting out a pressure wave.

No matter how prepared he had been, it hit him too fast.

This is insane. Helian Chen hadn’t described it like this.

In the split second he had, He Lingchuan did the only thing he could. He forced that terrifying power to rush toward the Danzhong acupoint at his chest, keeping it from veering off-course or bursting through his meridians.

A deviation meant qi deviation.

A burst meant every meridian bursting apart.

It felt like a natural disaster detonating inside his body, and it was easily the greatest crisis he had faced since beginning cultivation.

Helian Chen had not accounted for He Lingchuan’s ridiculous luck; he would never have expected the other party to ever get a chunk of imperial nectar paste this large. This meant that the Godslayer Pill that He Lingchuan had refined contained at least twice the potency Helian Chen had assumed.

Imperial nectar rain could carry impurities and had to be refined after collection. Natural paste skipped that step entirely, and its power could not be measured by simple multiplication, especially because He Lingchuan’s chunk contained streaks of red marrow within it.

He felt like a doomed man sprinting in front of a hundred maddened bulls. If he could not guide the stampede fast and correctly, he would be gored, trampled, and flattened into mush.