Chapter 982: Dangerous Water~

Ignoring the bloodline that had appeared in his status, Xuan Hao also noticed that the awakening of his physique had gone up from 40% to 65%. Meaning that absorbing the starlight essence had allowed his physique to progress by an entire 25%, as long as he could get another two crystals filled with starlight essence, he would be able to fully awaken his physique!

Understanding this, Xuan Hao could not help looking forward to the next quest that the system was going to issue, as he hoped that it would give him more starlight essence.

"Hm? When did the rabbit get there?" Suddenly feeling the small rabbit moving around inside his robe, Xuan Hao could not help showing a surprised expression on his face. After all, he hadn't even noticed when the rabbit demon beast had crawled inside of his robe in the first place. Even if his attention was focused on absorbing the starlight essence, he should still have noticed the rabbit demon beast approaching him, let alone crawling inside his robe and finding a hidden pocket to sleep inside of.

Maybe its because I was too absorbed on making sure to absorb all of the starlight essence and disregarded the presence of the rabbit demon beast due to the fact that it's not an enemy...

Shaking his head as he thought about this, Xuan Hao decided not to think too much about it. Deciding to just blame it on his own lack of attention to his surroundings during the absorption process of the starlight essence.

"Well... It's about time to leave this place." Muttering this to himself as he glanced down at the foundation beneath his feet, Xuan Hao understood that it would be impossible for him to get anything more from trying to investigate what might be hidden inside of the foundation. Even the terrifying dragon from the past had only barely managed to leave behind a single scratch on the foundation and in the end, the single scratch had resulted in the defensive formation in place on the formation activating before killing said dragon...

Swish~

Jumping off the side of the foundation, Xuan Hao was about to fly in the direction of the mountains a few kilometers away from his current location, when suddenly-

"Huh!?"

Splash!

He found himself falling straight down into the crystal-clear water around the foundation.

Splash~ Splash~

Splashing around in the water as he attempted to use his dao domain to lift himself out of the water, Xuan Hao was shocked to discover that his dao domain didn't help him get out of the water. Instead, it felt like the water was forcefully drawing away the energy that he was using in an attempt to lift himself out of the water. The more energy he put into his dao domain, the more energy the water absorbed.

Realizing that it was useless to use his dao domain to lift himself back out of the water and that it was instead rapidly decreasing the qi inside his dantian, Xuan Hao immediately stopped using his dao domain and instead remained floating in the water without trying to lift himself out of the water into the air.

Wait... Is this perhaps the reason why the rabbit demon beast jumped into the water and decided to slowly swim across to the edge where the tree is located!? But how did it know about this? Does it perhaps have some kind of special ability that allows it to notice things like this?

Remembering how the rabbit demon beast had just jumped into the water without even trying to fly over it, Xuan Hao could not help suspecting that the rabbit demon beast might have some kind of hidden ability that allowed it to see through the weird abilities of the crystal-clear water.

Now that I think about it, the rabbit demon beast didn't seem to have any problems when swimming through the water normally...

Feeling like this might work as he felt the drain on his energy decrease the moment, he stopped trying to escape from the water with his dao domain, Xuan Hao began to slowly swim through the water only using his physical strength.

Given that his physical strength was far superior to that of an ordinary mortal, he should have been able to cross the distance of a few hundred meters of where the edge of the terraced pool of water was located, but he found out that traveling this short distance seemed to take far longer than what a normal mortal would have needed to travel this short distance. Not only that, but he also noticed that the drain on his energy seemed to increase the longer he stayed inside the water.

"Haaa... That was far harder than I expected it to be..." Feeling a wave of exhaustion washing over him as he dragged himself out of the water and on to the edge where the small thin tree was located, Xuan Hao could not help wondering how the rabbit demon beast had managed to reach the tree at a speed far faster than him. Back then, he had not even seen the slightest sign of exhaustion on the face of the rabbit demon beast!

Maybe it gets more difficult to swim through the water the higher one's cultivation is? Or maybe its because there is some kind of special way to travel through the water...

Thinking this to himself as he glanced towards the location where the rabbit demon beast was sleeping inside his robe completely isolated from the water by a thin energy barrier created by the robe to prevent it from getting wet, Xuan Hao could not help wondering if he should throw the rabbit out from his robe and try to see if the rabbit demon beast really was using some kind of special ability to swim through the water.

Squeak?

Having somehow sensed the danger that it was in, the rabbit demon beast suddenly woke up before it crawled out of Xuan Hao's sleeve before turning to look at him with a cute expression filled with confusion.