61: Chapter 61 Choice

The only sound left in the karst cave was the dripping of spring water.

Jiang Yan sat cross-legged on the stone platform, the beast-skin map seized from Zhao Xuancheng spread out before him.

His gaze fell beyond the map—onto the thin, long sliver of daylight leaking down from a fissure above.

That light was blue-white, as if it had been washed by cold water.

He had maintained this posture for quite a while.

There appeared to be three paths before him.

The first: disperse his cultivation and start over, then sneak onto the Jinyang Sect cloud ship.

The second: head north to Northern Yan and pass through the Taixuan Sect.

The third: rely on his own abilities to force his way through the Manghuang Mountains.

He tapped his finger lightly on his knee.

It was not hesitation. He was calculating.

The first path. The cloud ship.

The information extracted from Zhao Xuancheng's mouth was clear: the cloud ship came every two years to collect resources and select children with Spiritual Roots, and it was led by an Elder at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

What was the concept of a Cultivator's Divine Sense at the Foundation Establishment Stage? A Cultivator's Divine Sense at the Qi Refinement Stage was like a candle flame, illuminating only a few zhang around them.

A Cultivator's Divine Sense at the Foundation Establishment Stage was like a flood, overwhelming and leaving nowhere to hide within ten li.

Dispersing his cultivation meant a regression in his cultivation base and a massive reduction in combat power in the short term, and the cloud ship was a confined space.

Staying in there for ten to twenty days, living day and night with a Cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage, if he revealed even a single flaw, he would surely die without a chance of survival.

He never entrusted his life to the negligence of others.

In his three hundred years of his past life, he had seen too many people die because of those six words: "It probably won't be discovered."

The second path. Northern Yan, Taixuan Sect.

It was essentially no different from the first path; it was just changing the Sect.

Moreover, his understanding of the Taixuan Sect relied entirely on the confession of Tuoba Lie—a Martial Artist at the Innate Middle Stage from Northern Yan.

What was Tuoba Lie in the eyes of the Taixuan Sect?

Jiang Yan knew well how much of what he said was the truth and how much was rumors he had heard himself.

The third path. The Manghuang Mountains.

Jiang Yan's finger lifted from his knee and landed on the map.

The map did not have the specific layout of the Manghuang Mountains; it only had a few scribbled marks at the edges.

His finger tapped on those few characters.

The danger of the Manghuang Mountains lay in the Yao Beasts.

He didn't need to worry about first-rank Yao Beasts—given his current equipment configuration, ordinary first-rank Yao Beasts couldn't even withstand a single round of his attacks.

The Yan Jin Sword Array provided frontal suppression, the purple-veined thunder sword roamed on the side to paralyze, the top-grade Flying Sword acted as his trump card, and the god-slaying flying knife was specifically used to break Divine Sense.

Especially the god-slaying flying knife; among first-rank Yao Beasts, aside from a very few species with extraordinary talent in their Divine Soul, he could hardly find any that could withstand an attack on their Divine Sense.

As long as they were struck in their Divine Sense by the god-slaying flying knife, no matter how strong their Physical Body was, they would at least fall into a brief moment of absent-mindedness—for him, that instant was enough to kill them calmly, or to retreat calmly.

The real variable was second-rank Yao Beasts.

Great Yao at the Foundation Establishment Stage had thick skin and dense flesh, their Spell power far exceeded the first rank, and their speed was frighteningly fast.

In his past life, hunting second-rank Yao Beasts in the Southern Wasteland relied on his cultivation at the Foundation Establishment Stage, a quasi-third-rank trapping Formation Plate, and intuition honed through countless brushes with death.

But this time, he didn't need to actively hunt second-rank Yao Beasts. He only needed to pass through the gaps in their territories.

In the outer and middle regions of the Manghuang Mountains, the density of second-rank Yao Beasts was not high.

Every type of second-rank Yao Beast had a fixed territory range, and the boundaries of their territories would have residual aura markings—urine, claw marks, shed scales, and the bones of prey that had been gnawed on.

These markings were difficult for ordinary Cultivators to identify, but to him, they were road signs written in the mountains and forests.

Having spent three hundred years struggling in the Southern Wasteland—an environment ten times more dangerous than the Manghuang Mountains—in his past life, what Yao Beast territory markings had he not seen?

"As long as I'm not unlucky enough to run straight into the mouth of a second-rank Yao Beast that excels at concealing its aura..." He muttered to himself, his tone flat, as if he were discussing what to have for dinner.

He tapped his finger on his knee again. A seventy to eighty percent success rate.

He verified this number in his heart three times.

In his past life, when he first crossed the Yao Beast mountains alone in the Southern Wasteland, the success rate was less than fifty percent, yet he still went.

But the variables outside of that seventy to eighty percent did indeed exist.

Second-rank Yao Beasts that excelled at concealing their aura—such as the Shadow Python, Withered Wood Spider, and Mud Swamp Crocodile—had territory markings that were extremely obscure, even deliberately disguised as part of the natural environment.

In his past life, he had suffered a loss at the hands of a Shadow Python, almost being crushed into two pieces.

To make up for this final shortcoming, he had to use that Cultivation Technique from his past life's memories.

Jiang Yan closed his eyes and searched deep within his Sea of Consciousness.

"Great Art of Changing Heaven and Earth."

This Cultivation Technique was inherited from an ancient Demonic Path Sect in the Southern Wasteland that had already been destroyed.

It was not a smoke screen or an illusion, but an overbearing method that forcibly changed the structure of the Physical Body, the path of the Meridians, and the flow of aura from the inside out.

When cultivated to a profound level, it could even simulate the Bloodline pressure of high-rank Yao Beasts, making it indistinguishable from the real thing.

In his past life, when he was at the Golden Core Realm, he had once infiltrated the territory of the Yao Race in the form of a third-rank Thunder Roc and stole a Lightning Tribulation Grass right under the nose of the Yao Emperor.

Of course, with his current cultivation at the fourth level of Qi Refining, the introductory chapter was his limit—he could change his appearance and simulate the aura of low-rank Yao Beasts, but he could not use high-rank Spells, nor could he maintain it for long.

That was enough.

As long as he could muddle through among groups of first-rank Yao Beasts, or transform and hide in advance when he sensed the residual aura of a second-rank Yao Beast nearby without coming face-to-face with it, he could minimize the remaining twenty to thirty percent of the risk.

He opened his eyes.

His mind was made up.

In the karst cave, there was no concept of days or months.

For the first ten days, all of Jiang Yan's energy was poured into the comprehension of the "Great Art of Changing Heaven and Earth."

This Cultivation Technique was extremely painful when in operation.

It was not because of the consumption of spiritual power, but because he had to control the spiritual power to forcibly twist muscles, dislocate bones, and change the circuit of the Meridians—using a human body to simulate the physiological structure of a Yao Beast.

When he first attempted to transform, he chose a Wind Wolf.

A Medium Grade first-rank Wind Wolf, which was the most common in the outer areas of the Manghuang Mountains, traveled in packs, and was inconspicuous.

Spiritual power surged out from his Dantian and poured into his limbs and bones along his Meridians.

His body shuddered violently—not from pain, but from spasms.

Muscles began to twitch uncontrollably under the catalysis of spiritual power, and blue-gray wolf fur pierced out from beneath his skin, like countless burning red needles stabbing from the inside out.

Bones began to dislocate, shoulder blades collapsed downward, the spine arched backward, and the leg bone joints bent in the opposite direction.

The karst cave echoed with the teeth-aching sound of cracking. That was the sound of bones being forcibly reshaped.

Jiang Yan gritted his teeth tightly, and extremely fine blood threads seeped out from between his teeth, flowing down the corners of his mouth and dripping onto the stone platform.

He did not make a sound, only his knuckles made creaking noises because he was clenching them too tightly.

The first transformation failed.

The output of spiritual power deviated by half an inch at the very last moment, the wolf fur receded back into his skin, his bones snapped back into human form, and the excruciating pain of the backlash caused him to twitch several times on the stone platform.

He did not stop. After regulating his breath for half a cup of tea, he started again.

Compared to the pain of failing to Undergo Tribulation in his past life, having his Physical Body struck into charcoal by heavenly lightning, and having his Divine Soul torn to shreds, this level of pain did not even count as a drizzle.