Ophidian of the Immortal World - Chapter 48

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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈

Chapter 48: Territory

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As he drew closer, Jegyeong quickly gauged the strength of the slightly more than twenty water bandits.

‘Six at the early Qi Refining Stage. Fifteen at the middle stage. Two at the late stage?’

While Jegyeong considered what to do, several of them jumped into the water.

The Auras he sensed suggested they had learned cultivation methods.

They could not move as skillfully underwater as the Water Demons, but they were still quite adept. Perhaps because of the Water Demons nearby, they did not stray far from the boat. They searched the water for short periods, then immediately returned to the boat whenever a Water Demon seemed to approach.

“Dragon Lord?”

Jegyeong, who had been moving so quickly that the scenery blurred, suddenly stopped. The turtle sounded puzzled.

“There are members of the Human Race.”

“Pardon? Ah, they must be those water bandits.”

The turtle did not doubt Jegyeong's words.

To the turtle, a Jiao Dragon was not all-powerful, but it was still a being with abilities beyond the turtle's imagination. It was only natural that Jegyeong could see what the turtle could not and sense what it could not.

“Dragon Lord, are you going to wipe out those Human Race cultivators?”

The turtle tried to hide its anticipation as it spoke.

Beneath those words was a small hope that, if the Dragon Lord wiped out the water bandits, the turtle might receive a few of them. A handful of poorly cultivated Human Race cultivators would not even be worth the Dragon Lord's attention.

‘What should I do?’

Jegyeong considered it.

Those who appeared to be water bandits did not seem to have any powerful backing, but one could never be sure.

Besides, his original goal was to find the treasure that might lie in the depths of the lake, not to hunt members of the Human Race. He had no intention of refusing extra gains, but if he stirred up trouble for no reason...

“Forget it.”

“Yes.”

The turtle tried to hide its disappointment.

It was a master at knowing its place. Instinctively, it knew when to open its mouth and when to keep it shut.

“Dragon Lord. This way.”

Jegyeong moved without pause in the direction the turtle pointed.

Nothing blocked their path. Not only Water Demons, but even mindless aquatic creatures instinctively sensed the danger and moved away from them.

Seeing this, the turtle made a great fuss, repeatedly praising the Dragon Lord's majesty. Jegyeong had found the words embarrassing at first, but after hearing them again and again, they did not seem so bad. He let the turtle chatter to its heart's content.

“That is the place, Dragon Lord.”

Where the turtle pointed, there was an enormous vortex.

Even from afar, it seemed sharp. Blade-like currents churned without pause, preventing anyone from approaching.

The area covered by the vortex was so vast that, from a distance, it looked as though a boundary had been drawn.

A boundary meant to warn and stop those seeking to descend further.

‘I can see why no one can approach it easily.’

Not only members of the Human Race who lived on land, even Water Demons that dwelled underwater would not dare force their way through such a terrifying vortex.

‘It certainly isn't ordinary.’

The vortex itself was one thing, but Jegyeong saw beyond it the moment he looked at it.

Though it was far away, he could see clearly.

The area up to what seemed to be the center of the vortex was no different from where they were now. Beyond it, though, was different. Above all, even the water was bluer and more vibrant. At a glance, it could easily be mistaken for a Spiritual Land.

“Do you know what's beyond that vortex?”

“Forgive me, Dragon Lord. I've heard various stories, but none of them are reliable. Some say it bears the traces of enormous Heavenly Lightning that once covered all of Yangseo Lake. Others say the Remnant Water Whale King's father is sleeping deeply beneath it, and that the vortex is formed by his breathing in his sleep... Ah, and there was also...”

“That is enough.”

Jegyeong cautiously approached the vortex.

After descending a certain distance, he began to feel its pull. It was still too weak to trouble him, but it would likely grow quite powerful if he went deeper.

‘Still, this won't be a problem.’

Having roughly measured the vortex's strength, Jegyeong made up his mind and closed his mouth.

“Huh? Dragon Lord?”

“Stay inside for a moment.”

Ignoring the turtle's flustered voice, Jegyeong clamped his mouth shut and charged straight at the vortex.

Kwarrrr!

The pull became strong enough to demand his attention, and blade-like currents battered Jegyeong's body.

‘This is quite something.’

It only stung a little, but the impacts came in an unbroken barrage. Any ordinary Water Demon caught in this vortex would likely be torn apart.

“Urgh.”

The vortex was enormous. It was vast enough to nearly divide the waters along the lakebed into upper and lower sections. Even as Jegyeong cut through the current at full speed, it took quite some time to escape.

That also meant he had no choice but to endure being battered the entire time. By the time he nearly emerged from the vortex, a groan he could no longer suppress slipped from his mouth.

‘Tch. It's worse than I thought.’

Until just now, he had thought an ordinary Water Demon would be torn apart. He took that back. Even a Water Demon that was far from ordinary would be reduced to scraps of flesh.

Even a Great Demon Beast would surely cry out in pain unless it belonged to a particularly tough kind.

The vortex was that dangerous. Beyond the currents themselves, it spread wider and deeper than it had appeared from above, making it difficult to escape.

Only because Jegyeong's body was so sturdy had he gotten away with nothing more than a few pained groans.

“Ugh... Dragon Lord, what happened to me? My head is spinning.”

When Jegyeong opened his mouth and spat out the turtle, it grabbed its head and spun in circles.

“You were tossed around by the vortex. You'll be fine after a little while.”

The vortex was terrifying, but the turtle was not an ordinary turtle. As a Demon Beast, it soon recovered.

“Dragon Lord. Could this place be...?”

“Beyond the vortex.”

Without even telling the turtle to wait, Jegyeong descended further.

The turtle hurried after him, but when it saw Jegyeong concentrating, it wisely kept its mouth shut.

‘There is definitely something below. I can sense it faintly. But what kind of Aura is this? Water qi?’

Perhaps because of the vortex's influence, the surrounding terrain had been hollowed into a rounded shape.

The water qi Jegyeong sensed came from the deepest part of this enormous pit.

Could the vortex have formed because of the water qi within? But if that were the case, was the Aura not far too faint?

‘I’ll know when I see it.’

Surely some enormous whale, the Remnant Water Whale King's father, was not actually snoring beneath them. Jegyeong briefly entertained the unamusing thought as he pushed the Qi Concealment Technique to its limit.

Then he spoke to the turtle, which could not use the Qi Concealment Technique.

“You stay here.”

“Yes.”

The turtle stopped without a word.

Jegyeong glanced at the relieved creature, then quickly descended.

As he moved closer to the bottom, the light faded and thick darkness greeted him. If not for the unchanged water temperature, he might have thought he had entered the deep sea.

‘That is...’

Jegyeong's eyes easily pierced the darkness, while his Spirit Awareness read the Aura of what he saw.

It would not be wrong to call Divine Sense a superior version of Spirit Awareness, but at this close range, Spirit Awareness was more accurate for closely reading an Aura.

He had trained it countless times, and his Spirit Awareness had become even more sensitive after he reached the Great Demon Realm.

It told him that the glittering lakebed spread before him was all ore infused with water qi.

‘It isn't a Spirit Stone. It's similar to crystal, but... no, it isn't that either.’

Jegyeong could be certain because he had personally seen and eaten Fire Crystal.

Those ores fell short of being crystals. They felt like crystals that had failed to fully form.

‘They're not even worth mining.’

The difference between complete Spirit Stones and incomplete ores lay in whether they could stably retain the Spiritual Energy within them.

The moment such incomplete ores were separated from their vein, their Spiritual Energy would immediately begin to dissipate. There was no point in mining them.

The best option was to remain here and absorb the Spiritual Energy, but Jegyeong currently had no way to do that. Worse, it was water qi.

His Spiritual Essence carried a fire nature. Absorbing water qi would be extremely inefficient, or in the worst case, could even harm his Spiritual Essence.

‘This is valuable, but useless to me.’

Jegyeong swallowed his disappointment and looked around for anything else.

Yet he had already confirmed through Spirit Awareness that there was nothing special here apart from the ore vein. Even so, he kept shifting his gaze, merely giving form to his regret.

‘The turtle said there are several more places like this, so I'll have to hope for gains elsewhere.’

Just as he was about to turn away with a bitter taste in his mouth, something caught Jegyeong's eye.

‘Hm?’

It was not actually anything special.

It was only a somewhat thick patch of soil in the middle of the ore vein.

For some reason, though, that ordinary soil, or rather the ores around it, caught Jegyeong's attention.

If he wasn't mistaken, the ores around the soil contained noticeably less water qi than the ores elsewhere. Their Aura was so faint that he had nearly mistaken them for ordinary stones.

‘What is this?’

Intrigued, Jegyeong approached the soil and examined it.

‘Earth qi? It's faint, but... it isn't dispersing.’

It was not dispersing. That was a property of Spirit Stones.

Yet the Aura in this soil was extremely faint, so faint that it could not be sensed without examining it up close.

‘Hm?’

As Jegyeong observed the soil from so close that his head was nearly pressed against it, he felt its earth qi grow slightly stronger before immediately dispersing.

The soil's earth qi had tried to suppress the ore vein's water qi, only to be suppressed in return.

It had not been suppressed without effect, though. In the process, the water qi in the ore vein had also diminished, if only slightly.

‘Could this be...’

Jegyeong clearly watched earth qi and water qi collide and cancel each other out.

He thought he now understood why this ore vein was in such a state.

‘The five elements restrain one another. The earth qi contained in this soil has been constantly depleting the water qi in the ore vein for a long time.’

He would not have believed it if he had not seen it himself. But he had seen it, so he had no choice but to believe.

This was no ordinary soil.

It could be considered a kind of Spirit Crystal in the shape of soil. One that even possessed some ability to recover Spiritual Energy.

Had this soil not interfered here, perhaps a Spiritual Vein would have been too much to hope for, but a Spiritual Land rich in water qi might have formed.

‘This is definitely a spiritual treasure. It may even be quite valuable.’

The ores that had failed to become Spirit Crystals no longer caught his eye. All Jegyeong could see now was the soil scattered across the wide area.

He had to take all of it with him.

‘But... how do I carry it?’

If it were ore, he could somehow grab it with his tail and carry it away. But how was he supposed to carry soil? Hold it in his mouth?

He could do that if it were ordinary soil, but this was a spiritual treasure. What if it dissolved in his mouth or slipped into his stomach? This was a spiritual treasure, so what if it ended up being digested inside him?

A spiritual treasure would be good for his body, of course, but he was not trying to nourish himself. He was looking for capital to use as payment in a trade.

It would be a problem if his capital was digested.

“Hm.”

He thought hard, but no good idea came to him. Then he suddenly remembered the turtle waiting above.

If he chose to carry the soil in his mouth, the turtle would have no choice but to stay here for a while.

‘Maybe it has a good idea?’

He did not expect much.

The turtle simply seemed to know many things, so perhaps it knew something useful.

“Turtle. I need to take something with me, but I have no suitable way to carry it. Do you know a good method?”

“Uh... What sort of thing do you mean?”

“Soil. Spiritual Soil.”

“Spiritual Soil?”

Yet in response to a question he had asked without much expectation, the turtle blinked, then cautiously looked upward.

Then it carefully opened its mouth.

“Um... Dragon Lord. I once heard that some members of the Human Race possess treasures that can store a great many things.”

Jegyeong's eyes snapped wide open at those words.

Storage bags!

As the turtle had just said, they were items that could conveniently store many things, the equivalent of an inventory in the Cultivation World.

‘Right. There are Storage bags.’

Thinking back to what the senior cultivators at the Full-Wing Gathering had said, Storage bags seemed to be quite commonly used in the Human Race's Cultivation World.

If so... wouldn't those Human Race cultivators who appeared to be water bandits above possess at least one Storage bag between them?

‘This turtle is growing on me.’

Jegyeong looked with satisfaction at the turtle, which had its flippers together and maintained a respectful posture.

The turtle, which had lowered its head, trembled uneasily under Jegyeong's fixed gaze, but Jegyeong paid it no mind.

“Turtle.”

“Yes, Dragon Lord!”

Jegyeong opened his mouth wide.

“Get in.”

“Yes...”

The turtle climbed onto Jegyeong's large tongue with a miserable expression.

“You'd better hold on tight.”

“Hold onto what?”