179: Chapter 179 The Spirit Rats Stir, the Altar Changes (2)

"What is the target for this trip?" Lu Changyuan walked over from beside the stone wall of the Formation Affairs Room.

He had been watching Su Qingli draw the waveform diagram—without making a sound.

"The altar."

Leng Feng continued to move his finger down—moving it to two thousand zhang.

His finger pressed on the marked line at the mouth of the Dragon Burial Trench.

"Three months ago, I stopped directly above the altar for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense—I counted the number of patrol members and the rhythm of the shift changes clearly."

"I said it before—it was asleep at that time."

"This time—" He moved his finger away from the sea chart.

His finger dragged a very faint mark across the surface of the sea chart.

"I want to see how much it has awakened after three months."

"How many people are you taking?"

"The personal guard—Deng Yue, Ma Yuan, and Tian Qi."

Leng Feng straightened the Grand Commander seal at his waist.

The sea-patterned stone on the face of the seal reflected a very faint, deep blue light under the lights of the Formation Affairs Room.

"The three of them have all recovered from their injuries."

"The spot on Deng Yue's left shoulder that was bitten through has formed a scab—the new flesh under the scab is strong enough."

"Ma Yuan's scratch on his right arm is already invisible."

"Tian Qi's bruised calf no longer makes him limp when he walks."

"During the last abyss exploration—they were too far apart from each other when forming the formation underwater, and the signal was delayed by nearly half a breath."

"In these three months, I had them practice underwater at least a hundred times—now the distance between them when forming the formation can be compressed to within half a zhang."

He walked to the door of the Formation Affairs Room—and glanced towards the Outer Port Pier.

The personal guard's small sampan was docked at the Pier—the sampan's cabin was already loaded with Water-avoiding Talismans, Bone-Repelling Paste, rubbing Jade Slips, and the stakes for the underwater traction formation.

The formation stakes had been newly modified by Su Qingli—the bodies of the stakes were half as thin as they were three months ago, but the spiritual power anchoring patterns at the bottom of the stakes had been doubled.

The thinner stake bodies had less water resistance in the deep water layer—the diving speed could be increased by nearly twenty percent.

"Last time you went—" Lu Changyuan walked to his side.

His gaze moved from the Pier eastward—to the sea surface in the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench.

The tide had receded on the sea surface—after the ebb tide, the outermost row of reefs on the Ring Reef was exposed above the water under the afternoon sunlight.

The induction formation plates embedded on the reef wall were completely invisible in the sunlight—but the sealed Array Patterns beneath the plates left a circle of very faint marks on the reef surface.

"What you saw was asleep."

"This time—" Leng Feng picked up the Water-avoiding Talisman from the cabin—and hung it at his waist.

The surface of the Water-avoiding Talisman reflected a very faint light-blue glow under the sunlight.

He untied the mooring rope on the gunwale—as the rope slid off the post, it made a very fine friction sound against the wooden post.

"Let's see if it has awakened."

He climbed over the gunwale.

His motion of entering the water was nearly half as light as it was three months ago—his feet entered the water first, and after his soles pressed against the water surface, his knees bent to absorb the impact; there was almost no splash when his body entered the water.

A circle of very fine ripples spread out on the water surface where he entered—the ripples were shattered by the sea breeze before they could spread outward even three feet.

Deng Yue, Ma Yuan, and Tian Qi followed him into the water—the three of them entered the water in almost perfect synchronization.

After entering the water, the four of them formed a diamond formation underwater—Leng Feng in the front, Deng Yue on the left, Ma Yuan on the right, and Tian Qi bringing up the rear.

The four individuals' Water-avoiding Talismans activated simultaneously—the light-blue light on the surface of the talismans shone for an instant underwater before dimming.

After the spiritual light dimmed, their silhouettes underwater were distorted by the seawater—the four figures sank toward the deep water.

Su Qingli stood on the Pier—clutching the real-time monitoring Jade Slip of the Receiving Formation in her hand.

The waveform on the Jade Slip did not change after Leng Feng entered the water—that forty-breath cycle fluctuation continued at a stable frequency.

But she noticed—the small fluctuation source closest to Blue Moon Island, at the very moment Leng Feng entered the water, its amplitude jumped up by an extremely fine margin.

She gripped the Jade Slip tighter.

Leng Feng's diving speed this time was nearly twice as fast as it was three months ago.

Three months ago, he had to stop every time he dived one hundred zhang—using his Divine Sense to scan the surroundings to confirm a safe distance.

Now, his speed in judging safe gaps within the water layer containing schools of Bone Fish had been compressed from over ten breaths to less than five breaths—his Divine Sense scanned outward in three layers simultaneously in the underwater darkness: the upper layer scanned for water pressure changes to perceive the movement direction of large living creatures, the middle layer scanned for the swimming trajectories and density of the straggling Bone Fish schools, and the lower layer scanned the seabed terrain to determine if there were any undercurrent shears ahead.

The three layers of Divine Sense overlapped—he did not need to stop.

The diamond formation plunged downward with him as the conical tip—the angle between the four people's bodies and the direction of the water flow was maintained at approximately forty degrees, minimizing resistance.

Four hundred zhang—passing through the Outer Port cold water layer.

The temperature of the cold water layer had dropped by nearly one degree since three months ago—the cold light from the Starlight Coral mother branches spread out across the bottom of the water layer like a light-blue carpet.

The Silver-Scaled Moon Fish school dispersed in the cold light—the moon-white vertical stripes on the sides of the fish flickered once under the cold light.

Eight hundred zhang—passing through the Cold Dragon Abyss Mouth.

The Abyss Mouth's Sea-Covering Xuan Turtle egg was still in the stone grotto—the cracks on the outer layer of the eggshell had been completely blocked by sludge.

The spiritual breath pulsation was extremely stable—the interval between each was about ten breaths.

Leng Feng did not stop—he adjusted his direction above the black turtle egg, veering about five degrees to the southeast, and continued downward along the safe passage marked last time.

One thousand two hundred zhang—the black fish school had almost completely dispersed.

Three months ago, the black fish school was packed densely together in this water layer—after the fish bodies were injured by the squeezing, there were bruises on their sides.

Now, there were less than two hundred black fish left in the water layer—scattered throughout the layer, swimming at a very slow speed.

After the giant beast re-entered deep slumber (ch109)—the bottom-layer biological chain recovered to normal level by level from the bottom up.

The black fish had returned to the water layer where they were supposed to be—below two thousand zhang.

One thousand five hundred zhang—the ice grotto.

Leng Feng stopped at the location of the ice grotto marked by the Old Formation Master three months ago.

The ice layer of the ice grotto had cracked.

When Leng Feng first came three months ago—the ice layer was sealed extremely thick.

The Ice-Armored Beast had used ice-attribute spells to seal over a dozen layers of ice—his Divine Sense could not penetrate it; he could only see blurry white-blue light spots behind the ice.

Now, there were three cracks on the ice layer—the cracks penetrated from the ice surface down to the bottom of the ice.

The width of the cracks varied—the widest part was about half a finger, and the narrowest part was only as thick as a strand of hair.

The ice at the edges of the cracks was not shattered by external force—the broken edges had no radial cracks.

The ice had cracked from the inside out—the two walls of the cracks were smooth, and the ice crystals had recrystallized on the surface of the cracks.

The direction of the crystallization was from inside the ice layer outward—meaning the temperature inside the ice layer had risen over the past three months.