111: Millennium Elixir

"Tell me, how much do you know about this gui water spirit pearl and this Immortal Cave?" Gao De asked, fiddling with the spirit pearl.

Through the jumbled accounts of Green Edge and Iron Pincer, Gao De learned that they had discovered this secret Immortal Cave by chance long ago. It was suspected to be an outer Secret Realm of some ancient cultivator's Water Mansion, where the Restriction weakened periodically, forming a whirlpool passage.

It turned out that over three hundred years ago, when Green Edge and Iron Pincer were still just second-rank minor demons, they had accidentally fled into Ghost Cry Gorge together to escape a powerful enemy. By chance, they encountered the opening of this whirlpool passage and stumbled into this place.

They discovered this underground lake and the miraculous nature of the stone platform in its center.

They observed that every ten years, on a specific night of the full moon, this Secret Realm would automatically open the whirlpool passage for about an hour.

And every time it opened, a gui water spirit pearl would condense out of thin air on that stone platform!

This spirit pearl was born from the combination of the essence of the local water vein and some ancient Restriction. Its core effect was to purify and enhance one's Bloodline! For the Yao Race, it could be called a priceless treasure.

In addition, it also came with powerful healing effects and the function of improving cultivation.

For hundreds of years, Green Edge and Iron Pincer had reached a tacit agreement: every time the passage opened, they would come together and compete for the produced spirit pearl based on their own abilities, with the winner taking the treasure.

At the same time, they also joined forces to keep the secret of this place, expelling or killing any outsiders who accidentally discovered it to prevent the news from leaking out.

Precisely because they had been taking the gui water spirit pearl for a long time, their Bloodlines had been significantly enhanced; otherwise, with their ordinary backgrounds, it would have been difficult for them to advance to the third rank, and even their own recovery abilities had become extremely formidable.

The ferocious-looking cracks on Iron Pincer's shell and even its broken appendages could slowly regenerate as long as it was given enough time and energy. As for Green Edge, even if it didn't get the spirit pearl this time, it only needed to return and undergo a deep shedding to heal most of its injuries, and its scales might even become tougher.

The injuries from the battle just now were indeed only "flesh wounds" to them.

Upon hearing this, Gao De understood in his heart, while also feeling a hint of surprise at the "cooperative-competitive" relationship between these Two Demons for hundreds of years.

He put away the gui water spirit pearl and did not leave immediately. Instead, he ordered the Two Demons to carefully search this underground lake together to see if anything had been missed.

At the edge of the "Suppressing Prison" Domain, near an underwater area by the cliff wall, Gao De's powerful Divine Thought keenly captured a hint of an extremely obscure Formation fluctuation. It shared the same source as the entire cave's Restriction but was more restrained.

He waved his hand to brush away the silt and water weeds accumulated at the bottom of the lake, revealing the outline of a stone door that almost completely blended with the color and texture of the surrounding rocks, with only a slight energy difference!

"This is...?" Green Edge and Iron Pincer leaned over and looked at each other in dismay. They had fought here for hundreds of years and had never discovered such a secret door hidden at the bottom of the lake!

"You two never noticed this before?" Gao De asked.

"Master, please understand. Every time we came, our minds were entirely on competing for the spirit pearl. Additionally, the Restriction here has the effect of interfering with Divine Thought, so we indeed... indeed never discovered that there was another mystery here," Green Edge said somewhat ashamed. Iron Pincer also shook its giant pincers, indicating it was equally unaware.

Gao De carefully observed the secret door. The runes on it were ancient and bore some resemblance to what he had seen in the altar ruins. It was clearly very old, and the arrangement technique was sophisticated. If his Divine Thought hadn't far exceeded those of the same rank and he wasn't sensitive to the aura of the Dragon Clan's Restriction, it would have been difficult to find.

Not knowing what kind of risks were hidden behind the secret door, Gao De, who always acted steadily, naturally would not open it rashly.

He ordered Green Edge and Iron Pincer: "You two hurry up and recover from your injuries here. Once your condition is restored, you will explore this door with this King."

"Yes, Master!" The Two Demons took the order and immediately lay at the bottom of the lake, absorbing the dense Spiritual Qi here and circulating their Demonic Power to heal.

Their powerful recovery ability manifested now. The wounds stopped bleeding and healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the broken muscle fibers began to squirm and connect.

As for the problem of leaving, Gao De had already asked clearly. It turned out that this Secret Realm was not a place one could only enter but not leave.

The whirlpool passage outside was a fixed entrance that opened once every ten years, but deep in the heart of this underground lake, a stable one-way exit vortex was hidden. As long as one dove into it, they could be transported to a safe water area outside Ghost Cry Gorge.

This was also the reliance that allowed them to come and go as they pleased.

Gao De waited patiently, studying the runes on the secret door while guarding the Two Demons' recovery.

He vaguely felt that this Secret Realm on the periphery of the ancient cultivator's Immortal Cave was probably far more than just a place that produced spirit pearls.

This newly discovered secret door might be the real key leading to the core area or hiding an even greater secret.

Having Green Edge and Iron Pincer—two subordinates who were familiar with the environment, possessed decent strength, and had strong recovery abilities—undoubtedly greatly increased his gains and confidence for this trip to Yunmeng Marsh.

Several hours later, Green Edge and Iron Pincer's injuries stabilized.

Gao De waited no longer and activated the secret door's runes with Dragon Qi. The door slid open silently, revealing a deep, downward-sloping white jade passage behind it.

A pure and ancient water spirit aura rushed toward them.

"Lead the way." Gao De drove the crab demon to walk in front, while he walked in the middle of the team, and the snake demon stayed at the back.

The passage was not long. After walking no more than dozens of yards, the scene before them changed. It was actually a huge underground void, with countless shimmering stalactites on the ceiling, like a starry sky.

Below it was an almost dried-up underwater herb garden!

The herb garden was divided into several areas by neat jade plots. It should have been full of exotic flowers and rare herbs, but now most areas only showed a scene of withered decay. Spiritual-less broken branches and fallen leaves were submerged in a thin layer of spiritual liquid that could barely cover the bottom of the plots, emitting a decaying aura.

Clearly, the long years of being sealed off made it difficult for the Spiritual Vein here to maintain itself. Most of the Spirit Medicine ultimately failed to survive the wash of time and turned into soil.

A hint of regret flashed in Gao De's eyes as his Divine Thought carefully swept across the entire herb garden.

Suddenly, his gaze froze and landed on a few jade plots in the corner of the herb garden.

There was still a faint spiritual light flickering there!

He stepped forward quickly and saw that in that almost dried-up puddle of spiritual liquid, several aquatic spiritual plants of different forms were growing tenaciously.

One was shaped like an orchid, but its leaves were ice-blue, emitting wisps of cold air—an "Ice Heart Water Orchid." Looking at its age, it was likely over fifteen hundred years old!

A cluster like purple coral, with spots of light flowing between the branches—the "Astral Coral," its medicinal age was also over a thousand years.

There were also several "Jade Water Lotuses" that were green all over, with leaves like carved emeralds. Although they only had eight or nine hundred years of maturity, they were full of vitality and clearly could continue to grow.

"A pity, not a single ten-thousand-year-old plant to be seen. I suppose even if there were some originally, they perished due to environmental changes or because their species wasn't rare enough.

It is already not easy for these few thousand-year Spirit Medicines to have survived through natural selection," Gao De lamented in his heart after a careful inspection.

Although these Spirit Medicines were not the top-tier treasures of heaven and earth, a thousand-year medicinal age was also extremely rare. Whether used for Alchemy or consumed directly, they would be of great benefit to him and his forces.

He carefully dug out these few surviving Spirit Medicines along with the spiritual soil wrapping their roots, placed them into specially made jade boxes for sealing, and put them into his storage Magical Artifact.

Green Edge and Iron Pincer watched from the side. Although their interest in Spirit Medicine was not as great as in the gui water spirit pearl, they also knew these were good things and felt a sense of pride in their master's harvest.

"Master, it seems this herb garden has reached its limit; there is nothing else," Green Edge said, flicking its tongue.

Gao De shook his head and cast his gaze toward the end of the herb garden.

It looked like a solid rock wall, but his Divine Thought sensed an extremely faint spatial fluctuation, vaguely connected to the Restriction aura on the previous secret door.

"Not necessarily. Since this is an important place on the periphery of an ancient cultivator's Immortal Cave, how could there be only one herb garden?" He walked to the rock wall and once again activated his Dragon Qi to investigate carefully.

Sure enough, in an inconspicuous depression on the rock wall, he found another more hidden Restriction node.

As the Dragon Qi was injected, the rock wall rippled like water and slowly parted to both sides, revealing a deeper passage with even stronger Spiritual Pressure behind it!

"Let's go!" Gao De's spirits rose, and leading his two trusted generals, he stepped into this second gateway.