84: Chapter 84 Entering the Forest of Beasts

Three hours had passed since Chen Moxuan left Luanshi Slope.

This Spirit Gathering Secret Realm was truly vast and boundless; despite his constant travel, he had only just barely reached the edge of the Strange Beast Forest at this moment.

And this was only because the Immortal Heaven-Devouring Art allowed him to not worry about the consumption of True Qi while traveling.

If it were any other Martial Artist, the consumption of True Qi alone would have been enough to exhaust them, and they would likely have needed a full day to reach the edge of this Strange Beast Forest.

However, it is worth mentioning that during this journey, his cultivation had quietly achieved a Breakthrough.

After a series of intense battles, the True Qi within his body had constantly oscillated between the states of near-depletion and overflowing fullness.

Coupled with the fact that the energy of heaven and earth in this Secret Realm was far higher than in the outside world.

During his journey, his Immortal Heaven-Devouring Art had remained in a fully automatic cultivation state, constantly absorbing the energy of heaven and earth to strengthen his own True Qi.

Without even realizing it, his cultivation had broken through, successfully entering the Perfection of the Qi Control Realm.

One more step forward, and it would be the Tiangang Realm.

"Strange Beast Forest... Poyun Peak..." Chen Moxuan murmured to himself.

Looking up, before him was a lush forest, where the trees blocked out the sky, and no end could be seen.

In the center of the forest, a towering mountain peak rose from the ground, piercing straight into the clouds with a majestic presence.

With just one look, Chen Moxuan was certain he had come to the right place.

The Spirit Gathering Pool was hidden at the foot of a mountain behind Poyun Peak.

Although he was somewhat interested in the Land of Inheritance, he had no clues regarding the third bone fragment.

It was better to act according to the itinerary he had already planned.

Chen Moxuan stepped steadily into the Strange Beast Forest, and immediately, a prompt from the Secret Realm's rules appeared before his eyes.

[Current area is Strange Beast Forest; kill Strange Beasts to obtain points.]

The rule was extremely brief, yet it did not mention the countless dangers and opportunities hidden within the forest; everything had to be experienced by the Martial Artist personally.

According to the intelligence recorded by Ding Run, after stepping into the Strange Beast Forest, the top priority was to carefully search for Spirit Medicine resources in the surrounding area.

The characteristic of this Strange Beast Forest was that the deeper one went, the higher the danger coefficient.

Once a battle was encountered during the process of venturing deeper, if one did not have sufficient restorative Spirit Medicine on hand, the Martial Artist would likely be unable to recover from injuries during the intense battle, unable to replenish True Qi, and fall into an extremely dangerous predicament.

Moreover, the Strange Beast Forest hid many opportunities carefully set up by Martial Arts Grandmasters or even Martial Dao Profound Saints.

Among them were no shortage of precious weapons and inherited Martial Skills.

Because of this, many people chose to explore the outer areas carefully.

However, endurance was not an issue for Chen Moxuan, and as for opportunities, they were not what he was urgently seeking at the moment.

His plan was to first head to the Spirit Gathering Pool and awaken that so-called Heart-Phase Dao Seed.

As he had expected, the Heart-Phase Dao Seed might bring significant changes to his Special Ability.

As for other things, he felt they could completely be left for after he finished soaking in the Spirit Gathering Pool.

After all, once he finished soaking in the Spirit Gathering Pool, he could choose to leave the Secret Realm at any time; if he still had the interest to explore then, it wouldn't be too late to venture deeper.

After traveling for some distance, suddenly, Chen Moxuan sensed no less than ten Auras filled with bestiality and Killing Intent.

Clearly, those Strange Beasts hidden in the shadows had already regarded him as prey, just waiting for the right moment to pounce and kill him.

Chen Moxuan directly ignored these Killing Intents, his expression indifferent as he continued to stride straight toward the center of the forest.

Judging solely by his cultivation Aura, he was indeed very easily mistaken for an easy target.

At the moment, although he had no need to actively hunt Strange Beasts to accumulate points, if any blind Strange Beast blocked his path, he naturally wouldn't mind giving it a Thousand Birds Absolute.

The stronger the scent of Strange Beast blood on his hands, the more these Strange Beasts would instinctively avoid him.

Sure enough, before long, a huge lizard entered Chen Moxuan's field of vision.

The lizard's back was covered in metallic-textured armor that shimmered with a cold luster, and its tail resembled a giant hammer, thick and powerful, carving sharp arcs through the air as it moved.

The moment the Strange Beast lizard caught sight of Chen Moxuan, it let out a deafening roar, the sound waves rolling like thunder exploding on flat ground.

It exerted force with all four limbs, rushing straight towards Chen Moxuan and kicking up a cloud of dust.

The moment Chen Moxuan saw the appearance of the Strange Beast, information corresponding to it quickly surfaced in his mind.

This type of Strange Beast was detailed in the intelligence provided by Ding Run; it was called a Steel-Armored Lizard.

The hardness of its back shell was comparable to refined steel, and a full-force strike from its hammer-tail could easily severely injure a Tiangang Realm Early Stage Martial Artist.

An adult Steel-Armored Lizard was a Rank 3 Elementary Strange Beast.

Based on its superior body structure and special abilities, at the same Rank, Strange Beasts often had more advantages than Martial Artists.

Generally speaking, to successfully deal with a Rank 3 Elementary Strange Beast, it usually required two to three Tiangang Realm Early Stage Martial Artists working together to have full confidence.

Of course, the trial-takers in this Spirit Gathering Secret Realm were all Geniuses selected from various places, each with extraordinary combat power, so defeating a Strange Beast of the same Rank was not difficult.

As for Chen Moxuan, this group of extraordinary Geniuses was just the masses among the extraordinary to him.

The moment they were about to make contact, the Steel-Armored Lizard's thick tail was raised high, carrying the sound of whistling wind as it swung fiercely towards Chen Moxuan.

Lightning flashed, and in just an instant, Chen Moxuan, who had been several steps away from the Steel-Armored Lizard, had already appeared behind it.

The long blade in his hand sheathed onto his wrist like surging ink, as if it had never been drawn.

In contrast, the Steel-Armored Lizard's tail, which had been raised high, was now flying alone in mid-air, and several knife marks deep enough to see bone had instantly appeared on its body.

Its massive body collapsed to the ground with a bang, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Chen Moxuan didn't even look back, preparing to continue forward.

However, just at this moment, he felt the consciousness of Xiao Bo in the black god bracelet suddenly become unusually active.

It seemed as if it had a thousand words eager to pour out, but the babbling sounds it made were unclear, leaving Chen Moxuan confused for a moment.

Chen Moxuan calmed his mind, carefully analyzing the emotions transmitted from Xiao Bo's consciousness, and recalling the battle just now, a guess couldn't help but rise in his heart.

He slowly turned around, his gaze falling on the lifeless Steel-Armored Lizard behind him:

"You want this?"

In an instant, the consciousness fluctuations transmitted by Xiao Bo became even more intense, as if eagerly responding to Chen Moxuan's guess.

Although its intelligence had not yet fully developed, it instinctively felt that the hard, metallic armor plates on the Steel-Armored Lizard's back were very good nutrients for it.

It was extremely eager to improve its own configuration.