Chapter 332: This Is My Territory
Every time Hao Ren went up to Fifth Heaven for the night, he would take the opportunity to patrol the sky over East Ocean City. He drove Little White swiftly around the boundaries of First and Second Heaven.
Second, Third, and Fourth Heavens were the middle territories between the dragon cultivators and the human cultivators. The human cultivators were allowed to leave the Fifth Heaven and patrol these territories. However, last time when the two cultivators from White Sand Sect scouted below the First Heaven, they were trespassing, and the dragon cultivators on land had the right to kill them.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and the sky had darkened. Hao Ren closed his eyes and tried to feel the nature essence fluctuations around him using his spiritual sense.
He was not very familiar with the use of spiritual sense and could barely cover an area with a diameter of a hundred meters. If he had not been in the clouds, it would have been better to watch with his eyes. However, for the masters in Qian-level and Kun-level such as Su Han, they could sense every movement in an area with a diameter of one kilometer.
He was about to end his patrol when two cultivators' presence broke into the range of his senses.
Obviously, the two cultivators had sensed Hao Ren's presence before he sensed their presence since they were fleeing. However, Little White was too fast for them.
According to their experience, the dragon cultivators patrolling the boundaries in First Heaven were usually inspectors who were the elites of the Dragon Clan. Most of the inspectors were the equivalent to Nascent Soul Realm cultivators and thus were more powerful than them.
That was why they split up and fled the moment they sensed the cultivator flying up from below First Heaven.
However, Hao Ren wouldn't let them go. Two of his fingers flicked out two sets of sword energies; each set contained a basic sword array consisted of 16 sword energies, shooting toward the two fleeing cultivators.
The sword array was simple, but its power was great.
Two sheets of light, one white and the other yellow, shot onto their backs.
Pu! Pu!
They stumbled forward about six meters and were severely wounded. Desperately, they sped up and shot up toward Third Heaven, so fearful that they didn't even glance back at their attacker.
If they had known that the attacker was only a cultivator of the Zhen-level which was equivalent to low-tier Core Formation Realm, they would have regretted their decision to flee.
Withdrawing the 32 sword energies, Hao Ren patted Little White's rump and continued to patrol. These two cultivators were stronger than those two who had been captured by him last time. If they hadn't fled in panic, Hao Ren probably would not have been their match.
But it didn't matter to Hao Ren since he could flee on Little White whose traveling speed was equivalent to that of the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, and they couldn't catch up with it. In fact, it was Little White's horrifying speed that shocked the two cultivators and convinced them that they had encountered a Dragon Tribe inspector of Qian-level or Kun-level.
Sensing the two cultivators had escaped to the territory on and above Fifth Heaven, Hao Ren patted Little White's head, and it flew up to swiftly to Fifth Heaven.
The Ethereal Summit was as peaceful as before. Little White carried Hao Ren through the thick fog into the cave abode.
In the cave abode, the table and chair were the same as he had left them.
However, he noticed some messy footprints on the ground of the cave. As a precaution, before he left the cave in the morning, he had spread a very thin layer of dust on the ground with the sucking and releasing power of the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll.
The footprints showed that someone had come in when he was not there. Since it was on Fifth Heaven, he was sure the intruders were cultivators from some nearby sect.
Hao Ren had been wondering why no cultivators had built a cave abode in this valley full of essence. Thinking it was a forbidden rear mountain of some sect, he had borrowed a set of array formations from Zhen Smart and was about to build it there.
But it seemed that someone had discovered his cave abode.
The cultivators had been cautious about the array formations in and out of the cave abode and thus had concealed their nature essence fluctuations. They didn't realize that the owner had used a simple anti-thief method of the mortal world.
From the shallow footprints, Hao Ren couldn't determine the exact number of the intruders, but he was sure there had been more than three of them.
"Little White, guard me well tonight!" Hao Ren said to Little White.
Little White looked at him and barked; Hao Ren didn't know if it had understood his order or not.
He must speed up his cultivation process and thus didn't want to desert this perfect cultivation spot or waste his time finding another mountain with abundant essence. After all, it was night time, and he would probably stumble into an array formation of some sect... Brushing the dust off the stone bed, he closed his eyes and began to cultivate.
Lying on the entrance of the cave, Little White looked around cautiously. With its acute sense of smell, it had sniffed the scents of strangers in the cave abode. Even cats and dogs didn't like strangers trespassing their territory, let alone a spirit beast.
Outside the valley, two beautiful figures flew in the night.
"Sister, Gongzi has a great figure."
"Sis... Did you peek at Gongzi when he was showering?"
"Haha! What do you think?"
"Liar! But I hope I can serve him in the shower and help him change one day..."
Swoosh! Swoosh! Two dark light beams instantly shot past.
The moon rose and then descended slowly.
When dawn came to Fifth Heaven, Hao Ren slowly exhaled a turbid breath, feeling three new openings had been unlocked in his fast spinning dragon core.
Seventy openings!
The nature essence stored in his body had increased exponentially!
For the dragon cultivators, the higher the cultivation realm, the more difficult it would be to unlock openings. That was why they would have to find a mystic crystal to help them reach Qian-level or Kun Level. The so-called mystic crystals were like transfer stations of the essence; they could store enough essence for the cultivators to achieve breakthroughs.
Hao Ren had never imagined that he would be able to unlock five openings in two days. He was convinced that this valley was his lucky place, and he would never give it up to anyone!
Kicking hard on the ground, he rushed out of the cave abode while a white energy sword appeared under his feet carrying him to patrol around the valley.
Flying on an energy sword consumed a lot of nature essence.
But Hao Ren had just gained a breakthrough, and the essence intensity in his blood was very high; thus, he didn't care about the essence he wasted on the energy sword.
The valley had an oval shape with a U-shaped vertical dissection surface. Like an eggshell with one opening, this valley would have been a perfect place for defending in ancient times.
However, in Fifth Heaven, all the cultivators could fly, and this feature of the valley was not an advantage here. The upside was that its funnel shape could accumulate essence in the fog, making the essence intensity much greater than outside.
With the features of the valley in mind, Hao Ren took out the set of array formation he got from Zhen Smart and placed the compass, that looked like a plate and was the eye of the array, in the cave abode before planting 72 array flags evenly on the edge of the valley.
The instructions for building the array formation was written on the inner side of the box lid. All Hao Ren needed to do was follow the steps in the instruction.
The 72 array flags corresponded with the number of 72 Nether Evils. If the array was properly operated, it could transform into 72 array formations such as wind, fog, rain, water, light, flow, and stones...
But what Hao Ren built was the basic application which used the original The Big Dipper Constellation of the 72 Nether Evils; it could automatically transform from time to time without his control.
Except for the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators who could break the array with pure force, ordinary cultivators, flying or walking, couldn't enter the valley.
With the last array flag planted into the soil, the fog in the valley got even thicker, and the visibility of the valley decreased by almost five times.
Hao Ren flew out of the valley and tried to enter it. However, when he rushed in on the energy sword, he looked up and found himself on the other side of the valley.
He turned around and tried again. The result was the same: he rushed into the fog and ended up on the other side of the valley.
It seemed like the valley didn't exist at all!
Hao Ren wondered about the miraculous effects of the array formation and took out a tiny star which was the 'array heart' that was made of deep ocean crystal; it had a deep blue color.
He injected some nature essence into it, and the small crystal gave off a vague blueish green light. He flew into the fog on the energy sword, and this time he entered the heart of the valley!
"Excellent!" Hao Ren exclaimed in appreciation.
Zhen Congming was an overbearing kid, but his stuff was excellent. According to him, this array formation he gave Hao Ren was just an entry-level array.
When he went back to the cave abode, Little White looked at Hao Ren with bafflement.
Sitting in the center of the array formation, it had watched Hao Ren fly around outside of the valley.
The coffee-colored compass was on the stone table in the cave abode. It looked to be made of ancient wood, but when he shifted it in his hand, he found it was heavier than metal.
The compass was made of deep ocean crystal, too, and circles of runes were engraved on the surface.
Placing the tiny blue star into the small dent in the center of the compass, Hao Ren found they fit perfectly. With the array heart in the array eye, they could automatically control the array formation in the valley.
The outer and inner edges of the compass could turn, and the different positions they turned to signified different features of the array. Right now, Hao Ren used the basic feature by rotating the rings on the compass to their original positions.
He injected a little nature essence into the compass, and the thick fog in the valley immediately vanished. By doing this, he had temporarily withdrawn the array formation!
After turning the two rings of runes to random positions, he took the array heart from the compass. Plucking a golden fur from Little White's paw, he attached the array heart to the thread of hair and made them into a simple bracelet before pulling it onto his wrist.
When its fur was plucked off, Little White whimpered and looked at Hao Ren morosely.
Hao Ren just smiled at it. He used Little White's hair because it was harder than ordinary red thread and could resist the damages of water and fire; attached on the hair of Little White, the bracelet wouldn't break.
"Let's go back to school!" Patting Little White on its rump, Hao Ren got it up from the ground and walked to the entrance of the cave.
Little White wagged its tail and moved closer to his legs before turning into a snow lion with a Boom!
No one would break into the Ethereal Summit which was under the protection of the Big Dipper Constellation Array! Relaxed, Hao Ren smiled and got up on Little White's back, patting its big round head comfortingly.