123: I'm worried you might not be able to handle it, so why don't you practice first?
Su Yang only felt a warmth emanate from his Dantian, and then nothing else.
A small reaction doesn't mean the danger is small.
Su Yang immediately knew he had been cursed by her; after all, this wasn't the first time he had experienced such a thing.
His mouth twitched, "Sect Master, what is the meaning of this?"
Bai Lingxi said lightly, "Since I'm helping you achieve a Breakthrough first, even if I'm stronger than you, I still need to guard against you running off after it's done. After all, I'm from the Demonic Path, and the probability of you not helping me is quite high! Furthermore..."
"Even if you help me complete the current Breakthrough, how can I ensure you'll obediently stay in the Hehuan Sect for 2000 years? It's perfectly normal for a Righteous Path Disciple like you to try and escape during this period. I'm placing a curse on you for no other reason than to ensure you stay here with peace of mind."
"You don't need to worry; this Sea Drying Curse has no effect on your Cultivation. Its only purpose is to ensure you remain in the Hehuan Sect. As long as you consistently keep yourself within a hundred-li radius of me, it won't affect you at all; you won't even feel its presence."
"If you leave this range, the Sea Drying Curse will immediately drain your true Qi, causing your Dantian to wither and you to die. Do not try any tricks; no one can break this Sea Drying Curse except for me! Once you are more than a hundred li away from me, the Sea Drying Curse will automatically activate, and you will surely die!"
Su Yang: ...Damn it!
The Demonic Path is the Demonic Path!
No matter how pure and flawless, it is still the Demonic Path!
To keep him in the Hehuan Sect, she even resorted to such a ruthless move!
Su Yang was utterly speechless.
But since things had come to this, impotent rage was meaningless.
He would solve one problem at a time.
First, he would resolve the Breakthrough, then find a way to deal with this dangerous Sea Drying Curse.
Su Yang took a deep breath, adjusting his emotions.
He shrugged at Bai Lingxi, "Since Sect Master has personally placed a curse on me, can you rest assured now?"
Bai Lingxi quite admired Su Yang's attitude at this moment. To be able to remain calm when at someone else's mercy, he was a man capable of great things.
No wonder those three old fellows from Profound Heaven Dao Sect took him as a Disciple.
Bai Lingxi said, "In that case, prepare yourself. After I give some instructions, I will go with you to Yellow Springs Country."
"Wait."
Su Yang frowned, "Go directly to Yellow Springs Country? When I Breakthrough, I need to Dual Cultivate with you, and you are still a virgin. Before that, don't we need to adapt and practice? If we go straight to the Breakthrough, I'm afraid you won't be able to handle it, Sect Master Bai."
A delicate blush spread across Bai Lingxi's face. She looked at Su Yang with an almost eye-rolling expression and said, "I am the Sect Master of the Hehuan Sect, at the Peak of Late-stage Soul Transformation Cultivation. Do you think I would be unable to handle a woman's first time? Since I said I would help you Breakthrough, I will naturally help you Breakthrough. There's no need to worry about me going back on my word."
Su Yang said, "I'm not worried about Sect Master going back on her word. After all, you're keeping me in the Hehuan Sect to aid your Cultivation, which also needs to be done through Dual Cultivation, so your virginity will be mine sooner or later. My main concern is that Sect Master Bai might not be able to handle her first time, which could affect my Breakthrough."
Bai Lingxi's face grew even redder. She spat, "I'm not as fragile as you think!"
Su Yang said, "My 'strike' is no ordinary strike; it's a deep critical hit you've never experienced before! Are you sure you don't need to practice beforehand?"
The more Bai Lingxi spoke, the redder her face became. She huffed and said, "Who wants to practice with you beforehand! I will assist you when the time comes!"
With that, she waved her hand, not giving Su Yang another chance to speak, and directly teleported him outside the Palace of Ultimate Bliss.
Subsequently, the eight Peak masters of the Hehuan Sect arrived at the Palace of Ultimate Bliss at her summons.
After Bai Lingxi gave some instructions, she walked out of the Palace of Ultimate Bliss.
The moment she stepped out of the Palace of Ultimate Bliss, hundreds of large and small palaces across the nine Peaks and forty-eight mountains of the Hehuan Sect suddenly erupted with a strong light. Then, to Su Yang's astonishment, all these palaces vanished.
The nine Peaks and forty-eight mountains were still there.
But the hundred or so large and small palaces upon them disappeared as if they had never existed, along with the tens of thousands of Disciples of the entire Hehuan Sect, vanishing among the mountains.
Su Yang witnessed such a shocking scene for the first time.
A Sect of such a scale disappearing just like that—this Demonic Path truly is bizarre, holy crap.
"Sect Master Bai, has your Hehuan Sect broken up into smaller parts, or have you carried it with you using some special Spell?"
Su Yang couldn't help but ask curiously.
How could Bai Lingxi tell him this secret? She simply said, "This is the survival wisdom of the Hehuan Sect!"
With that, she formed hand seals, and a complex teleportation array appeared beneath their feet.
The array glowed, and the two of them vanished among the mountains.
The last trace of the Hehuan Sect here also disappeared... When the scene reappeared before Su Yang's eyes, he was already in the middle of a vast lake.
The ripples on the lake surface shimmered with unique array patterns.
Before Su Yang could discern the structure of these array patterns, a gust of wind blew, and the ripples spread outwards.
The complete array runes thus disappeared, and the water ripples became orderly but meaningless again.
Su Yang glanced at Bai Lingxi beside him.
Using water as a medium to create a teleportation array not only indicated that this woman's strength was even greater than he had anticipated but also showed that her cautious mindset was deeply ingrained.
Thinking again about how the Hehuan Sect could disappear at will, Su Yang now understood why the Hehuan Sect, as the bottom-ranked of the Eight Sects of the Demonic Path, had been able to endure for so long.
Truly formidable!
Su Yang took a deep breath, recollecting himself, and at the same time, looked at the boundless lake surface around them.
"Sect Master Bai, where are we?"
"Yellow Springs Country!"
Bai Lingxi said, lightly stepping onto the water. Ripples spread, and as the water surface expanded, the originally boundless lake seemed to contract, gathering towards them.
By the time she took her next step, she had already reached the shore.
Su Yang was also brought ashore.
"Is this the power of Late Soul Transformation...?"
Su Yang was filled with awe.
His determination to Breakthrough grew even stronger.
Whether it was Grand Elder Xuan Yan's single normal attack that annihilated the entire Hehuan Sect Chen Kingdom branch, or Bai Lingxi's effortless shrinking of distances with her Spell at this moment, both told him that only the strong could live carefree in this world.
The weak could only be at the mercy of others.
Thinking of the Sea Drying Curse within him, which he couldn't even feel, Su Yang's resolve intensified by a few points amidst his helplessness.
As Su Yang was still marveling, Bai Lingxi had already walked forward, "The activity range of the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring is basically confined within the Yellow Springs Desert, but the Yellow Springs Desert is vast, spanning two thousand three hundred li from east to west and three thousand six hundred li from north to south. Rashly entering the Yellow Springs Desert is a dead end. So, we must first go to the cities around the Yellow Springs Desert to gather information, and once we generally know the location of the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring, we will set out to find it."
Su Yang followed her.
It was evident that Bai Lingxi was very familiar with the Yellow Springs Desert and might have even encountered the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring before.
She should be a good guide.
But he had a question, "The Yellow Springs Desert is quite large for ordinary people, but for us Cultivators, it doesn't seem that exaggerated, does it? Flying over the Yellow Springs Desert and using Divine Sense to probe the situation below, with your Cultivation level, you should be able to find the location of the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring very quickly, right?"
Inquiring city by city, that was too un-Cultivator like.
Bai Lingxi turned to look at Su Yang, but she didn't mock him, a Cultivator who knew nothing about the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring. She said lightly, "The Yellow Springs Desert is a place of extreme heat, and the Heavenly Extreme Cold Spring is a spring of extreme cold. The Fusion of the two causes the Spiritual Qi within the entire Yellow Springs Desert to be completely depleted. Whether in the sky or underground, any creature with Spiritual Qi that enters will have its internal Spiritual Qi or true Qi continuously drained until it is completely sucked dry and dies."
"What if we fly a bit higher?"
Su Yang asked.
Bai Lingxi said with extreme certainty, "The higher you fly, the more miserable your death; the faster you fly, the faster your death!"
Su Yang: ...Since Bai Lingxi, a native, said so, Su Yang no longer held anywishful thinking.
He silently followed beside her.
Su Yang glanced at her, thinking to himself, now that they were in Yellow Springs Country, if Gu Yue and the two Grand Elders Xuan Yan and Xuan Jian had also arrived, they should be able to provide support by now, right!?
With that thought, Su Yang immediately sensed Gu Yue's location...