269: Chapter 269 Purple Gold Insect?!

Chen Changqing walked straight in. The cave entrance was not large, somewhat cramped, just enough to fit one person passing through.

He walked about a dozen zhang, and the surrounding area suddenly opened up.

Chen Changqing observed for a moment and found that this was just an ordinary secret room dug out by human hands.

Aside from a woven mat that had been stored there for who knows how long—and this mat had already lost its spirituality, seeming as though a casual flick would turn it into flying ash—

His Divine Sense constantly probed and infiltrated the entire secret room, attempting to find other things.

After a bout of probing, however, he did not find anything strange, leaving him somewhat puzzled.

"Strange, how could a Golden Core Master only carve out this single secret room?"

Chen Changqing continued to contemplate. Logically speaking, no matter how destitute a Golden Core Master was, it wouldn't be to the extent of failing to build even a slightly better secret room.

Moreover, the other party still had the spare energy to pass down the location of their passing; it couldn't possibly be just to toy with them.

Right, underground!

Since it was not above ground, could it be underground? Thinking of this, he immediately extended his Divine Sense toward the underground.

Sure enough, there really was another world hidden beneath the ground.

With a casual wave of Chen Changqing's hand, the ground cracked open to reveal a large hole.

He took a look and retrieved a Tier 2 top-grade Talisman, a Puppet Talisman, from his Storage Pouch.

As soon as the Puppet Talisman was cast, it transformed into a figure identical to him. Following that, under his control, this Puppet went down into the underground.

After a while, that Puppet did not encounter any accidents, but instead stayed obediently below.

Seeing that nothing was wrong below, Chen Changqing went down as well. The space down here was far more vast than above; just by floor area alone, it reached a radius of over a thousand zhang.

Not only that, this underground area was divided into several zones: one was living quarters, one was a spiritual garden, and there were also places like a Pill Refining Room and a Spirit Beast Garden.

He first headed toward the living quarters to begin his search.

It was a pity that after searching several rooms, there was nothing, only a skeleton sitting quietly inside one of the rooms.

Chen Changqing respectfully bowed and said, "Although Senior has not left anything behind, since Junior has come to this place, Junior will naturally bury Senior."

Chen Changqing lifted the skeleton, dug a deep pit on the ground, and then buried the skeleton inside, casually setting up a tombstone as well. Having finished these tasks, he proceeded to other places to search.

He also patrolled the Pill Refining Room, but there was nothing at all. He felt somewhat strange about it, mainly because it was too clean—clean to the point as if someone had visited before.

Fortunately, he did discover several stalks of Spirit Medicine in the spiritual garden. He picked them one by one and stored the fire spirit grass into a jade box.

It was unknown how many years these stalks of fire spirit grass had been nurtured here, but merely sensing the aura within the fire spirit grass, it was no lower than those Spirit Medicines of over a thousand years. According to market prices, each stalk might sell for around ten thousand Spirit Stones.

And there were a total of six stalks here.

Bringing in over sixty thousand Spirit Stones wasn't actually considered much to him.

"Brother." Li Qingling had also come down.

Just now, when Chen Changqing didn't find any problems, he had sent a voice transmission to her.

"Someone should have already come in here. I have already buried that Master Jiuyan's remains in the dirt, but no treasures were seen beside him," Chen Changqing explained.

"Master Jiuyan has been dead for so many years, so it's not surprising that someone found this place. It's just that we didn't gain anything this time!" Li Qingling smiled bitterly.

The two of them had risked their lives, yet upon arriving here, there were only six stalks of fire spirit grass, and the medicinal efficacy was only around a thousand years.

Although over sixty thousand Spirit Stones were already quite a lot, for the two of them, this harvest fell far short of their expectations, because this bit of harvest could not yet make up for the loss of the Shuiyuan Pill.

"There is still the Spirit Beast Garden we haven't checked. Let's first see if there are any good things," Chen Changqing said.

"Alright," Li Qingling responded.

The two of them headed toward the Spirit Beast Garden together.

The Spirit Beast Garden was not large; at a glance, it was clearly not built for large Spirit Beasts.

Therefore, the two of them were very curious why a Golden Core Master would build such a small Spirit Beast Garden.

In the Immortal Cultivation world, generally the higher the Realm, the larger the size of the Spirit Beast.

Therefore, for one that could reach Tier 4 cultivation, no matter how small its form was, it wouldn't be small enough to fit in a place only a few zhang wide as a Spirit Beast Garden.

When they walked to the Spirit Beast Garden, they did not find any abnormalities, save for mounds of soil protruding from the ground at most.

Chen Changqing and the other scraped open these soil mounds, and lying inside were insects with purple-gold appearances. The vast majority of these insects had already lost their breath, and the very few that still had breath were not far from death.

Chen Changqing and the other were somewhat stunned.

At this moment, Bai Yuqing's voice suddenly appeared, and it carried a tone of extreme shock.

"These are Purple Gold Insects! I didn't expect that Purple Gold Insects actually exist here. This is an existence ranked seventeenth on the spirit insect ranking!"

"What?" Chen Changqing was surprised.

He had also heard of the spirit insect ranking; this was a ranking list passed down from the ancient era.

As for who created it, no one knew; they only knew that the rankings on this list were indeed very convincing.

"Ranked seventeenth?!" Chen Changqing was somewhat puzzled.

He did not know what this ranking implied.

"Master, let me put it this way: on the spirit insect ranking, over a hundred kinds of spiritual insects are recorded, and in the Immortal Cultivation world, not a single spiritual insect that can enter the spirit insect ranking is simple."

"Take the hundredth-ranked fluorescent worm as an example. As long as it is cultivated normally, entering the Tier 3 level is not a problem at all."

"Moreover, if tens of thousands or even one hundred thousand fluorescent worms can be cultivated, combined with their unique innate Divine Ability, Fluorescent Art, they can even deal with Golden Core Masters."

Bai Yuqing explained carefully.

"As for the spiritual insects ranked in the top fifty, they all have a considerable chance of being cultivated to Tier 4. If they are in the top thirty, they can even enter Tier 5, which is equivalent to the strength of a Nascent Soul True Monarch."

The more Chen Changqing listened, the more shocked he became. The top thirty had a chance to enter Tier 5, which meant that as long as he was willing to spend resources to cultivate these seventeenth-ranked Purple Gold Insects, sooner or later they could enter Tier 5!

"So, Master, do you now know how terrifying the potential of these Purple Gold Insects is? According to what the Seniors of the Wanta Sect once said, if one can cultivate one hundred thousand Purple Gold Insects, they are almost invincible at the same Realm."

She knew Chen Changqing's strength very well, but she also knew the terror of the Purple Gold Insects.

Although they had never been intuitively compared, she believed that even Chen Changqing was probably no match for them.

One hundred thousand Purple Gold Insects—cultivating them out was not that easy, and moreover, they were at the Tier 5 level.

One must ask, who could deal with one hundred thousand enemies at the same Realm?

Of course, this statement was actually somewhat alarmist.

To be precise, even if the Purple Gold Insects reached Tier 5, their individual combat power was not necessarily stronger than a Golden Core Master, let alone compared to a Nascent Soul True Monarch.

It was just that when Purple Gold Insects generally attacked, it was a joint attack in the unit of a tribe. Such a situation was actually quite common for spiritual insect types.

Chen Changqing nodded, indicating that he understood.

He immediately explained it to Li Qingling. Li Qingling listened attentively on the side, and the more she listened, the more shocked she became as well, just like Chen Changqing earlier.

"Then let's quickly put them away," Li Qingling urged.