A Mortal’s Journey to Immortality: Wang Yu’s Rebirth as the Reincarnation Dao Ancestor - Chapter 193

Chapter 189 The Migrating Swarm of Fire Ants, the Underestimated Foundation of the Void Heaven Palace, and the Annoying Duo

Regaining his composure, Han Li faced the giant, about twenty feet tall, formed from the ironfire ant swarm. His smile grew even brighter.

“I’m a little unsure about dealing with a true Nascent Soul cultivator, but dealing with you…”

The next instant ,

his divine sense was unleashed with full force, released

without reservation.

Even the restrictions of the area were triggered, ripples spreading through the void.

With the arrival of this oppressive force, it suddenly acted upon the one-eyed giant formed by the queen’s hundreds of thousands of ironfire ants.

The once incredibly powerful giant suddenly showed signs of cracking.

Its once-perfect, metallic armor crumbled in patches, disintegrating back into dazed ironfire ants.

And that wasn’t all.

Han Li also took out more than a dozen soul bottles, specifically used to seal away Yin spirits and ghosts, from his storage bag. He then poured out more than a dozen magic spheres wrapped in sealing talismans.

“Let me show you another way to make the Gold-Eating Insects fail.”

He tossed the sealing spheres far away, and they quietly unsealed in mid-air. Immediately afterward, shrill screams echoed throughout the area.

More than a dozen high-level Soul-Hooking Flying Spirits all emitted soul-hooking ghostly cries.

Soul-hooking ghostly cries, soul-snatching and heart-capturing.

The Iron Fire Ants, originally only being overwhelmed by the divine sense of a Grand Cultivator, immediately fell from the sky in swarms, like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

Even the three-colored Gold-Eating Insects, whose individual strength was even greater than the Iron Fire Ants, couldn’t withstand a single soul-hooking ghostly cry; tens of thousands lost their fighting ability as a result. How could these Iron Fire Ants, which were also far from mature, be any different?

“Come back.”

That’s enough.

Several powerful magical hands materialized, and Han Li captured the high-level ghostly spirits one by one, sealing them before placing them back into individual soul bottles for preservation.

As the saying goes, every creature has its counter.

Other high-level beings could scream their lungs out without affecting the Ironfire Ants in the slightest.

But the ghostly cries of the soul-snatching spirits were different.

These cries were one of the nemesis of immature spirit insects.

For most spirit insects, including the Gold-Eating Insects and Ironfire Ants, they had a tenfold or even dozens of times greater critical strike effect on their weaknesses.

Sure enough,

hundreds of thousands of Ironfire Ants, attacked by the ghostly cries of a dozen or so soul-snatching spirits, were unharmed on the surface, but their souls were severely damaged. The vast majority were knocked to the ground by the ghostly cries, their bodies convulsing and temporarily losing their efficient physical coordination.

Others, while not severely affected, were scattered and disorganized, falling apart.

The Gold-Eating Insect swarm, isolated and protected by a wall formed by the great cultivator’s divine sense, no longer lay dormant but surged forth like a tidal wave.

In the blink of an eye, they transformed from a few defensive cloud-like insects into several torrents of attacking tentacles.

“Buzz buzz buzz…”

The high-frequency vibration of their wings was rapid.

The Gold-Eating Insects pounced, feasting once more.

Those that resisted were met with fierce blows.

And it wasn’t just the Gold-Eating Insects that moved; Han Li moved as well.

With a flash, he passed through the swarm and arrived before the stumbling queen ant, who was still trying to command the Ironfire Ant swarm. Then, a powerful magical hand reached out and snatched the queen from among the hundreds of loyal Ironfire Ants desperately protecting her.

After that, various sealing talismans rained down like a whirlwind, and various sealing techniques left afterimages.

“Take a nap. When you wake up, everything will be over.”

As he spoke, he took out a crystalline sphere the size of an egg, shimmering with a strange black light, from the queen ant’s body. He then   collected

the queen and over a thousand iron fire ants.   Just as the two were about to leave, Han Li   suddenly   stopped, as if remembering something.   ”What’s wrong, husband?”   Han Li narrowed his eyes, then pondered for a moment before explaining, “The iron fire ant colony has been thriving here for at least tens of thousands of years, so the queen must have existed for a very long time. If it took tens of thousands of years to accumulate such a small amount of refining crystals, the efficiency would be far too low.”   Yuan Yao thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up: “Does husband mean there are other precious and rare materials here?”   ”We’ll find out by searching. This area isn’t that big anyway.”   Han Li smiled.   He used his divine sense to probe again.   Finding that his divine sense couldn’t penetrate deep into the iron desert’s underground, he simply summoned over a dozen iron-armed beasts.   The physical attributes of demonic beasts were truly excellent; they were incredibly resilient, able to withstand even the extremely high temperatures for a short time.   So, he took out the refining crystal, waved it in front of the Iron-Armed Beasts, and let them smell it. Then he gave the order:   ”Go find similar things underground nearby.”   If there were still top-tier materials like refining crystals underground, as long as they weren’t too far away, he believed the Iron-Armed Beasts would be able to find something.   The big guys received the order, remembered the scent, and each chose a direction to use earth-遁 ( earth-遁 is a technique that allows one to escape   underground). Level four Iron-Armed Beasts already possessed the ability to earth-遁.   Although it wasn’t a powerful intermediate-level earth-遁 technique, it was still easy for them to dive hundreds of feet underground to investigate.   The Ironfire Ant Queen would never hide herself that deep underground.   At most, she would stay within ten feet of the Black Desert surface.   Time passed quickly.   Three hours passed in the blink of an eye.   The Iron-Armed Beasts returned one after another.   When Han Li saw as many as three refining crystals in front of him, some the size of goose eggs and others the size of peanuts, his mouth almost stretched to his ears with a grin.   He couldn’t suppress it.   ”That was close!”   He almost missed a real great opportunity!   Crystallization is a material that the queen ant consumes daily from minerals and then regurgitates to store in her abdomen.   When too much time has passed and her abdomen is full of it with no use for it, the queen ant can only excrete this poorly absorbed “waste.”   In other words, it is excrement.

Each queen ant could easily live for ten thousand years.

Over those ten thousand years, she’d leave behind dozens of droppings, hardly deserving the title of queen.

“The Black Desert’s queen ants couldn’t have been limited to just these two since the Ice Soul Fairy; there must have been others before her. The refined crystals they left behind after their deaths must have remained here.”

This was the most easily overlooked detail.

However, his time was limited.

This Black Desert was vast.

Continuing to search every inch was unrealistic.

He would have to come back again.

“This Void Heaven Palace is indeed a treasure trove of opportunities,”

Han Li couldn’t help but exclaim.

The Ice Soul Fairy had allowed this place to accumulate for sixty to seventy thousand years, greatly increasing its value. However, its potential value was still severely underestimated by all parties in the Chaotic Star Sea.

Afterward, he continued his exploration of this Black Desert, initiating a massive sweep.

He showed no mercy to the ordinary Ironfire Ants, feeding them almost entirely to the Gold-Eating Insects.

Only the queen ants were truly precious to him.

On the third day, he encountered another massive ant colony with a queen in charge.

He first imitated the colony’s strategy, taking control of the ant colony and obtaining a small piece of refining crystal, about the size of a fingernail. Then he had the Iron-Armed Beasts explore the underground, digging deep into the nearby Black Desert for any other refining crystals they might have missed.

Unsurprisingly, they found two more.

A very fruitful haul.

But just as Han Li was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something   and abruptly stopped.

“What’s wrong, husband?”

“Yuan Yao, do you think the Ironfire Ant colony might be like the cattle and sheep on the grasslands of the mortal world, not always staying in one place, but moving around?” Han Li asked, his eyes slightly shifting.   ”Husband means that the Ironfire Ant colony migrates?”   Yuan Yao’s eyes widened after understanding Han Li’s meaning.   Han Li nodded slightly:   ”Yes, they migrate.”   An Ironfire Ant colony with a queen might only stay in one area for hundreds or thousands of years.   After enough time, especially when the population has multiplied to an extremely large number, they will migrate to other places with the majority of the colony.   ”Look, those dozens of small to medium-sized iron fire ant colonies we encountered earlier, don’t they look like branches left behind by a migrating iron fire ant colony?”   ”Yes.”   Very much like!   They practically are!   Because if a colony of millions of iron fire ants had remained in one small area without migrating, over tens of thousands of years, the iron ore deposits in that area of the Black Desert would have been completely devoured.   However, neither this area nor the rest of the Black Desert has seen the iron ore completely consumed by the iron fire ant colony.   This is enough to show that iron fire ant colonies do migrate, sending most of their members to places with richer iron ore deposits to reproduce and thrive.   This is the instinct for life to reproduce.   Iron fire ants are no exception.   ”Husband, do you suspect that there are also refining crystals buried in the areas where those small Ironfire Ant colonies are located?”   ”Why don’t we try and see?”   If the large and small colonies scattered throughout the Black Desert are branches left behind by the queen during her migration, there are likely refining crystals underground.   The next Ironfire Ant colony, Han Li, has arrived.   …   Day Four.   The two arrived at a Black Desert area very close to the end of the Lava Road.   Here, they saw insect corpses everywhere.   ”The wounds on these Ironfire Ant corpses seem to have been caused by flying needle-type magic weapons or talisman treasures?”   Yuan Yao asked in surprise, picking up several dead Ironfire Ants.   ”It should be the work of the Azure Nether Needle talisman treasure,”   Han Li guessed.   ”Was it Senior Sister?”   Yuan Yao’s eyes brightened.

“Most likely.”

“Then, husband, why did my senior sister get ahead of us?”

“This road to the end doesn’t necessarily require forcing your way through the Black Desert. There are roads on both sides. Your sister must have been lucky enough to teleport to one of the less difficult sides.” Han Li smiled. “Let’s go, she should be waiting for us at the end. Let’s meet up with her.”

“Okay.”

Yuan Yao nodded excitedly.

However,

when the two arrived at the end, Han Li’s brows gradually furrowed.

There was a stone hall here.

Inside the stone hall was a teleportation array.

Activating the teleportation array would allow them to pass through to the next safe zone.

But what puzzled Han Li was that his divine sense couldn’t find Yan Li’s figure near the teleportation array.

Nor could he find the Purple Light Sensing Bead or anything like that.

It seemed that Yan Li hadn’t reached the end!

“Husband…”

“It’s alright, let’s search the surrounding area for miles. As long as she’s been here, we’ll find some clues. By the way, the three Iron Fire Ant swarms that were wiped out by the flying needle magic weapon earlier might be proof that Yan Li came back to find us…”

Han Li comforted her.

…

On the fifth day after the opening of the Ice and Fire Path.

A dozen or so people gathered in an extremely simple stone hall.

The hall was about fifty or sixty zhang in area and seven or eight zhang high.

Besides a teleportation array in the center, there were four large blue stone gates

, each several zhang high. These four gates were tightly closed, sealing the place off like a large cage . Inside,

there were dozens of stone tables and benches.

On these benches sat more than a dozen cultivators with varying expressions.

The lowest cultivation levels were Wu Chou from Ji Yin Island and a female cultivator, both at the mid-stage of Core Formation.

The rest of the cultivators were all at the late-stage of Core Formation.

At this moment, Ji Yin’s face was extremely grim. The

reason was simple.

Several of his disciples and grand-disciples had lost two mid-stage Core Formation cultivators due to the suddenly increased difficulty of the Ice and Fire Path trials.

In the past, mid-stage Core Formation cultivators he had bestowed with protective treasures would not have perished.

But this time was different; this time, things were uncertain.

And because of this, his face grew even more ashen.

Like Ji Yin, Wan Tianming and the other two righteous cultivators also looked grim.

Although they hadn’t suffered any casualties, the Star Palace’s sudden increase in the difficulty of the Xuanjing Path and the Lava Road was far too provocative. This left them bewildered and increasingly wary and displeased with the Star Palace.

In contrast, Man Hu Zi and Qing Yi Ju Shi were overjoyed to see Yan Li unharmed.

Yan Li, however, was in a state of utter anxiety because Han Li and Yuan Yao hadn’t yet appeared.

“I shouldn’t have teleported in prematurely; I should have waited longer for my husband and junior sister.”

The Lava Road she had taken didn’t pass through the Black Desert region.

Therefore, relying on her powerful treasures, she easily reached the end.

Later, after much consideration, she used the teleportation array at the end of the Lava Road to teleport here.

Before this, she had considered going back to find the two, and she had searched for them, spending a whole day doing so. But after returning and entering the Black Desert on the side, she had twice narrowly escaped death, and the spiritual power of her Qingming Needle Talisman Treasure had been largely depleted.

If she were to stubbornly venture deeper into the desert to search for someone, she feared she would perish before even finding them.

Retreating to the vicinity of the teleportation array to wait for them risked being misunderstood and attacked by other passing cultivators due to her poor condition.

Left with no other choice, she had to clear the level first.

She would teleport into this safe zone to recover her mana,

avoiding causing trouble for Han Li.

“Husband, Junior Sister, you must come out alive.”

She grew increasingly worried about their situation.

…

Several more hours passed.

The five-day trial of the second level was about to end.

At this moment, not only Yanli was anxious, but Manhuzi and Qingyi also frowned:

This shouldn’t be happening.

Even if the Ice and Fire Path had been tampered with by the two from Xinggong, it shouldn’t have stumped a Nascent Soul cultivator.

“Could it be that Xiao Cha has failed again?” Manhuzi wondered secretly.

Just as everyone in the shop was filled with conflicting thoughts and ulterior motives, the two white-robed elders from Xinggong appeared inside the teleportation array.

In an instant, they attracted all the attention of those around them.

The six Nascent Soul cultivators from both the righteous and demonic paths of the Chaotic Star Sea all wore undisguised hostility.

Several late-stage Core Formation cultivators and two mid-stage Core Formation cultivators were filled with shock, anger, and apprehension.

“Ahem, we don’t know which fellow Daoist triggered the powerful restrictions of the Ice and Fire Path, causing a drastic change in the canyon. We two searched specifically, but unfortunately found nothing, and many innocent comrades perished in the process. We two have failed in our duties this time, and after the Void Heaven Palace, we will definitely return to apologize to the two Holy Lords and spend a hundred years in seclusion…”

The kind-faced, white-robed elder ignored the chilling gazes of everyone present and sighed calmly.

He truly had a double standard.

This made the cultivators from both the righteous and demonic paths inwardly curse his shamelessness.

“Hmph.”

Several Nascent Soul elders snorted coldly and went their separate ways.

Some, like Wan Tianming and Ji Yin, were repeatedly considering the feasibility of their subsequent plans.

Others, like Man Hu Zi and Qing Yi, were preparing to change their plans.

Just as everyone was burdened with worries, and Yanli was nearly in despair, the teleportation array lit up with its white light once more.

Immediately afterward, two figures emerged—Han Li and Yuan Yao.

Han Li’s face was dark, his eyes so gloomy they seemed to drip with tears.

Yuan Yao’s eyes were red-rimmed, as if she had been crying. The

reason was simple:

they hadn’t been able to reunite with Yanli at the end of the Lava Road.

Finding no clues at the end, they turned back to search.

However, they only managed to locate traces left by flying needles or talismans near the edge of the Black Desert close to the teleportation array.

They had hoped for more clues, such as the Purple Light Sensing Bead.

Unfortunately…

Han Li and Yuan Yao searched the entire area within a thousand miles for the remaining day and a half, but to no avail. Even he felt his spiritual senses were becoming fatigued.

With the final deadline fast approaching, the two had no choice but to grit their teeth and board the teleportation array.

However,

to their mixed joy and frustration, Yan Li was safely in the safe zone, not murdered as they had suspected.

“Senior Sister!”

“Junior Sister, Husband?!”

The three reunited, their emotions rising and falling with worry.

“Husband, Junior Sister, why did you only come in so late?”

Yan Li asked anxiously.

The next moment, three soundproof barriers rose, cutting off any eavesdropping.

Seeing this, Yuan Yao relaxed considerably and explained telepathically,

“Sister, we were also searching for you, which is why we were delayed for an extra day and a half. Otherwise, my husband could have obtained even more precious refining materials…”

After understanding each other’s experiences, Han Li quickly grasped the key point:

“Yanli, are you saying that before you entered this space, you buried a purple light sensing bead near the Lava Road teleportation array?”

“Yes, husband.” Upon hearing this,

Han Li and Yuan Yao exchanged a glance, their expressions slightly changing.

“What’s wrong?”

“We didn’t find the purple light sensing bead you buried.”

“How could that be? I buried it!”

Yanli said anxiously.

Han Li thought for a moment, opened his storage bag, and took out the purple light sensing beads one by one to sense them.

Five of them could sense the five beads that matched Yuan Yao’s.

Four others showed no reaction.

This proved that Yanli had indeed used those purple light sensing beads.

Then,

one more bead reacted.

The target it pointed to was none other than Elder Ximen, one of the two elders of the Star Palace.

“Hmm?”

Han Li’s eyes narrowed upon seeing this.

The kind-faced old man from the Star Palace duo opposite him suddenly touched his storage pouch at his waist and then cast his gaze in their direction.

Their eyes met, each filled with surprise and doubt.

Han Li put away the Purple Light Sensing Bead, remaining silent.

However,

his dislike for the two of them intensified.

Wan Tianming and Tian Wuzi hadn’t touched the Purple Light Sensing Bead, a trivial item, and hadn’t interfered with the Core Formation stage’s progress; they had acted uprightly. Yet, the two referees, Ximen and his companion, had been causing trouble behind the scenes. They’d even dragged him into it, causing him to waste an extra day and a half on the Lava Road.

This resulted in a significant loss of refining crystals.

Each refining crystal was priceless; selling a Nascent Soul stage cultivator wouldn’t be enough to cover the losses.

Furthermore, the Gold-Eating Insect swarm had been repeatedly manipulated into direct combat with the Iron Fire Ant swarm due to his excessive anxiety in searching for someone, resulting in hundreds of casualties.

If the Tujue people of the grasslands knew of such a great loss, they would be heartbroken.

Han Li also felt heartbroken. He felt

even more disgusted with the two from Xinggong.

Why didn’t they dare to attack the Nascent Soul stage cultivators of both the righteous and demonic paths, but instead focused their attacks on the Core Formation cultivators from all sides?

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(End of Chapter)