As for Xing Ming's proposal, let alone five breaths, if Li Yan were willing to go all out, even Jiang Baibi might not gain any advantage against him.
However, the opponent possessed an incredibly powerful Magical Treasure, the "Seven-Colored Glazed Lamp." Xing Ming had mentioned that a vein of Earth Fire had been refined into this treasure.
One didn't need to think twice to know it would be a formidable foe. Li Yan had no desire to reveal his full strength, so he could only play it by ear when the time came.
Seeing Zhang Ming agree so readily, a wave of curiosity washed over Xuan Caijun and Feng Moru. They truly wanted to know just how powerful this Zhang Ming really was.
On the other side, the female cultivator surnamed Yang did not take the medicinal pills offered by Song Rongdao, stating that she had her own, superior ones.
The level of trust between them had not yet reached such a point. After her polite refusal, Song Rongdao did not insist; he had merely been making a gesture to show his attitude.
The female cultivator surnamed Yang once again sat cross-legged and entered a state of meditative recovery. In just this one short day, she had already had to recover twice.
'Are formation masters always this easily injured?'
The cultivator surnamed Yan's gaze swept greedily over the female cultivator's body as he grumbled inwardly with dissatisfaction.
They had done nothing all day but act as her guard.
But then he considered that they hadn't contributed at all to breaking the restrictions here; she had been the one to breach them all along the way. Thus, he could only scoff inwardly.
Song Rongdao and the youth surnamed Bai, standing to the side, were unconcerned. As long as the restrictions could be broken, what was a little wasted time?
Let alone a few hours, even a few days or dozens of days would be fine. No one was willing to confront a formation by force.
However, they had not detected the slightest issue with the female cultivator's recent actions.
Aside from the female cultivator herself, everyone present had been deceived by her.
In order to avoid exposing the "Connected Mountains Changing Formation" art she cultivated, as well as the power of her formation compass, she had planned her actions carefully.
The female cultivator had first taken out her compass and cast the "Connected Mountains Changing Formation", genuinely attempting to break the restriction.
During this process, she had already spotted two blurry, constantly moving points of light.
From one of these points, she sensed an extremely faint trace of life force. The other point yielded no such discovery.
From this, she deduced that the first point of light must be the entrance to the Gate of Life. However, the female cultivator deliberately pretended not to have discerned this.
After putting away her compass, she suppressed the feeling of weakness brought on by casting the art, doing her best to appear normal.
Afterward, she summoned a dozen or so bamboo slips and deliberately performed another technique. She knew she couldn't let these slips touch the grotto entrance, or the restriction would be triggered immediately.
Therefore, after the dozen bamboo slips were summoned, they erupted in a blinding light, making it impossible for others to look directly at them, while in reality, they maintained a certain distance from the cave residence's main gate.
While she was casting the technique, no one dared to probe with their Divine Sense, lest they inadvertently cause the formation master's art to fail, which would be a misstep.
So, the female cultivator acted with confidence. All she needed to do at the end was force herself to spit out a mouthful of blood.
On one hand, this would lead the others to believe she had only figured out the method to break the restriction by using the dozen bamboo slips, making them think the compass was only useful for "suiting the remedy to the case."
It would not be seen as some extraordinarily rare treasure.
On the other hand, although she could break the restriction and enter the cave residence right now, she had truly consumed too much Spirit Power when using the "Connected Mountains Changing Formation."
This art was her strongest formation-breaking technique, but the magic power it consumed with each use was also the greatest.
She had no desire to open the cave residence's gate immediately after having consumed more than half of her Spirit Power.
Under those circumstances, what good would it do her?
She would have lost most of her ability to protect herself. If any valuable treasures appeared in the cave residence...
...the others could certainly cast her aside without a second thought.
Although this might not necessarily happen, the female cultivator surnamed Yang would only ever trust herself.
Therefore, she needed an excuse to stall for time, to allow herself to fully recover her cultivation before proceeding.
And here, who among them wasn't harboring their own careful schemes?
When Mu Guyue was only ten zhang from the mountain cave, the Crescent Moon Handguard Sabers in her hands had already transformed into two streaks of light, entering the cave a step ahead of her.
Mu Guyue heard the sound of the crescent sabers clashing against rock several times before they flashed back into her hands. She no longer had the luxury of carefully investigating the situation and practically stumbled into the mountain cave.
The moment her feet touched the ground, her body went limp. She felt an ever-increasing heat raging within her.
At this moment, her formidable cultivation played a crucial role, allowing her to keep her spiritual energy from scattering.
With a wave of her jade-like hand, six beast bones radiating a blue glow were summoned from her Storage Ring. The moment the six bones appeared, they immediately spread out.
Forming three pairs, they instantly arranged themselves into a triangular pattern in the air.
The instant the triangular pattern formed, a deep blue light traced a path through the three points, swiftly outlining them with three connected lines of light.
Immediately, the triangular pattern shot backward, and in the next moment, it imprinted itself upon the cave entrance behind her.
The originally empty entrance, in that instant, looked like a picture being violently pulled from several directions, twisting and distorting irregularly.
Following this, the dim scenery outside the cave became even blurrier. In just half a breath, it had vanished completely, and the view of the abyss could no longer be seen.
And now, looking from the outside, the original cave entrance had long since disappeared, leaving only a continuous stretch of the mountain's hard, dark-brown rock.
Although this all took just over a breath of time to complete, Mu Guyue felt as if she had expended all her strength.
Seeing the formation take shape, she finally breathed a small sigh of relief. Only then did she have a moment to turn her head and scan the cave's interior.
Although the timing and sequence were all wrong, she still had to confirm whether this place was safe. Then, she had to immediately circulate her cultivation to expel the poison.
The cave was not very large, but what struck Mu Guyue as odd was that just moments ago, when she was about thirty li away, her Divine Sense had been unable to clearly probe the situation inside the cave from the outside.
She naturally suspected her own consciousness was already becoming blurred, so she had no choice but to first use her Crescent Moon Handguard Sabers to forcibly enter and execute a killing sweep.
If there was an enemy inside, they would surely defend against her attack, or even counterattack.
Now, forcing herself to focus her gaze, she saw the cave could accommodate only four or five adults and was just over a zhang high.
The surrounding cave walls were rough and dry. The sides were the same dark-brown color as the mountain peak outside, but the stone wall facing the entrance was covered in a dense layer of fine, gray mossy leaves.
At this moment, Mu Guyue had only enough strength left to move her body bit by bit. Seeing no enemies here, she could no longer be bothered with the cave's appearance and immediately, though with some difficulty, managed to cross her long legs.
These legs were slender yet filled with the power of a leopardess, seemingly possessing boundless strength.
But now, even the slightest movement sent waves of intense dizziness through Mu Guyue's mind.
Furthermore, within her consciousness, the images of men she had seen began to appear—old and young, handsome and ugly, robust and slender...
As she looked at these men, the heat in her body intensified, accompanied by unbearable waves of a tingling itch.
Mu Guyue bit down hard on her lower lip, preventing herself from making those humiliating sounds.
In a brief moment of clarity, she bit through the tip of her tongue. Amidst the sharp pain, the illusions before her eyes seemed to recede.
Seizing the opportunity, Mu Guyue immediately forced herself to focus and began to directly draw upon the Demonic Origin Power within her Demonic Core, circulating it throughout her body.
To quickly expel the aphrodisiac poison now, she had no choice but to use the purest Demonic Origin Power from her Demonic Core, regardless of the cost.
Circulating the Demonic Origin Power through her body once was equivalent to circulating the magic power from her Dantian for four or five major heavenly cycles.
As the Demonic Origin Power was mobilized, beads of pink sweat trickled down the surface of Mu Guyue's delicate, silk-smooth skin.
At her lower abdomen, several rounded blocks of muscle trembled even more violently, causing her entire body to shake with a strange rhythm.
During this process, her body would occasionally twitch lightly, causing Mu Guyue to unconsciously let out a moan that would make a man lose all self-control.
But at this moment, she was in a state interwoven with meditation and strange illusions, sometimes lucid, sometimes sinking into delirium, completely unaware of this.
The gold-robed middle-aged man stared at the seamless mountain wall before him. His gaze finally settled on a particular spot. If he remembered correctly, there should have been a small cave entrance here before.
"A rather brilliant Illusion Formation. If I hadn't seen you come this way with my own eyes, even my Divine Sense might have been fooled!"
He muttered to himself, a lewd smile spreading across his face.
"The poison should be taking effect by now. Even if you are a Nascent Soul cultivator and have some time to expel the poison, how much can you possibly force out?
"By then, your magic power will be greatly depleted. Even if you regain some clarity, you will no longer have the ability to resist me.
"A lucid you, hehehe... I'm looking forward to it even more!!!"
As he spoke, the golden long spear was already in his hand. He thrust it fiercely at the mountain wall before him.
With a chi sound, the mountain wall did not produce the expected sound of metal striking stone. Instead, it sucked his spear tip in by half an inch.
At that moment, the mountain wall rippled like the surface of a lake, sending circles of ripples expanding outward.
"Hehehe..." Seeing this, the gold-robed middle-aged man let out another string of strange laughter.
Channeling magic power through his hands, he shook the long spear.
Pa! With a crisp crack, the spear tip embedded in the mountain wall erupted in a brilliant golden light.
As the golden light exploded, the mountain wall also emitted a series of "weng weng weng..." sounds.
Along with it, twisted faces appeared on the mountain wall—some old, some young, some male, some female.
They let out shrill roars. For a time, a sinister wind howled, and coupled with the abyss that was already perennially devoid of sunlight, the gloomy darkness made one feel as if they had arrived in the Asura underworld.
Gazing at the blood-streaked, venomous faces, the gold-robed middle-aged man snorted coldly.
"This is the 'Resentful Grudge Heaven-Locking Net,' which requires the sacrifice of at least a thousand Golden Core cultivators to refine. This woman's methods are indeed ruthless and vicious.
"It is truly a decent defensive formation, but it's not enough to deal with me. Let's see how long you can last!"
As these thoughts crossed his mind, the golden long spear inserted into the stone wall once again transformed into a long dragon, its entire body plunging into the "lake surface."
In the next moment, the dragon's body coiled and let out a piercing shriek at the ferocious faces that swarmed madly toward it to bite and tear.
As the dragon's body thrashed, it grabbed, bit, and slapped with its tail, instantly engaging in a fierce battle with the ferocious faces.
At the same time, the gold-robed middle-aged man was not idle. His hands quickly traced a strange sigil in the air.
The sigil was emerald green, resembling an ancient copper coin. The moment it formed in the air, the gold-robed middle-aged man, with a pull and a guide of his hands, sent the coin-sized sigil flying into the space between his eyebrows.
The moment this strange sigil entered his brow, the gold-robed middle-aged man's body trembled slightly. In an instant, his eyes turned emerald green. As his pupils spun, they immediately shot out two beams of green light.
The beams of light struck the stone wall in front with extreme speed. The originally dark-brown stone wall immediately began to change.
(End of Chapter)