Chapter 11: Blowing Up the Mountain
After saying goodbye to Senior Sister Zeng Yan, Lu You returned to his wooden hut.
Checking the time, Lu You took out a box of spiritual rice, went outside the hut, set up a pot, and started a fire to cook it.
Before long, the fragrance of the spiritual rice drifted into the air.
Picking up a Beginner Wind Talisman, Lu You carefully controlled the airflow, sending the scent of the spiritual rice toward several neighboring spiritual fields.
"The neighbors should have all smelled it."
Lu You took a simple bite, then cleaned up. This little trick was meant to create an alibi.
Activating several Divine Speed Talismans, he rushed to the back mountain of the lower district before the Hour of Hai.
Upon arriving, Lu You discovered that this back mountain was actually the graveyard of the lower district.
Within the gloomy forest, every few steps stood a low grave mound.
Occasionally, several streaks of blue will-o'-the-wisp flickered deep in the mountains.
Combined with the howling wind and the hoarse cries of crows, the back mountain looked eerie no matter how one viewed it.
"No wonder the bandit cultivators chose this place as their gathering spot. Not to mention at night, even during the day, no one would casually come here." After observing for a while, Lu You found a fallen signpost by the roadside and learned that the Bodhisattva Temple was halfway up the mountain.
Without approaching the temple, Lu You lay in ambush not far away, quietly staring at its entrance. Tombstones and trees concealed his figure, and with the poor visibility at night, it was easy for Lu You to observe the Bodhisattva Temple from the forest, while it would be extremely difficult for anyone in the temple to clearly see into the woods.
When the Hour of Hai arrived, the bandit cultivators indeed began to show up one after another. The female clerk who had tricked Lu You twice was also among them. In a mighty crowd, there were more than thirty bandit cultivators from the lower district.
After watching everyone laugh and chatter their way inside, Lu You waited for another incense stick's worth of time. Seeing that no one else was coming, he stood up from behind a tombstone.
"Golden Light Talisman, activate."
Before making his move, Lu You first activated several thousand Golden Light Talismans, firmly protecting himself.
"Thunder Technique Talisman, strike!"
After securing his defenses, Lu You took out more than ten thousand Thunder Technique Talismans at once.
Boom! Thunder roared, lightning flashed, and the gloomy valley was instantly lit up by countless streaks of purple light.
All the Thunder Technique Talismans activated simultaneously. The massive surge of spiritual energy caused a faint shadow to appear in the sky. Then, from that shadow, the heavens seemed to split open as tens of thousands of intertwined purple lightning bolts descended from above, directly piercing through the dilapidated Bodhisattva Temple.
Lightning tore through the roof tiles, and more than a dozen bandit cultivators failed to dodge in time, instantly being reduced to flying ash.
The next second, thunderclap after thunderclap continued to fall. Lightning swept across the temple, illuminating the Bodhisattva statue inside with a ferocious expression, as if the sins within this temple had truly angered the gods.
Boom!
A thick cloud of smoke rose from the temple. As bolt after bolt of thunder struck down, not a single intact object remained inside, only the acrid smell of gunpowder-like smoke spread outward.
Nearly thirty bandit cultivators in total—among them the strongest had reached the ninth level of Qi Refining—but under Lu You's overwhelming firepower, they didn't even know who had killed them before being reduced to mist.
Lu You, the mastermind behind it all, was just about to approach the Bodhisattva Temple to check for anything left behind when, before he could move, he felt it—
In the darkness, a pair of utterly emotionless eyes was staring straight at him.
'No— it's not something in the darkness. It's this mountain that's watching me!'
Lu You finally realized the source of that fear.
The desolate mountain beneath his feet seemed like a gigantic living creature, about to open its blood-soaked maw and swallow him whole.
Golden Light Talisman!
There was no time to hesitate. Lu You continuously stacked Golden Light Talismans and Divine Speed Talismans onto himself. Yet for some unknown reason, even with tens of thousands of Golden Light Talismans protecting his body, his unease only grew stronger.
'What the hell is going on with this mountain?'
From the mountainside down to the foot of the mountain—even using Divine Speed Talismans—it would still take the time of one incense stick. Sensing that the danger was about to reach him, Lu You unleashed every bit of power he possessed.
Beginner Flame Talisman!
Tens of thousands of Beginner Flame Talismans were hurled down. In an instant, the entire mountain was ignited by Lu You.
Beginner Wind Talisman!
Lu You seized control of the raging winds. The wind fed the flames, and the fire grew fiercer and fiercer. He was certain that the danger originated from the mountain itself, and he could only hope that setting the mountain ablaze would stall that unknown threat for a while.
But it wasn't over yet.
The Beginner Wind Talisman split into two streams, one half fanning the inferno, the other clearing the path ahead. Borrowing the force of the wind and the power of the Divine Speed Talismans, Lu You leaped out of the dense forest.
Crack
The earth shook and the mountain trembled. Graves across the mountainside collapsed one after another, and an even more enormous tombstone revealed a corner of itself. Upon that tombstone was a blood-red eyeball—
—and that eyeball was staring straight at Lu You.
"Thunder Technique Talisman, strike!"
With just a glance out of the corner of his eye, Lu You was scared out of his wits. Seeing that he was on the verge of escaping the back mountain, Lu You made a desperate gamble, pouring all of his spiritual energy into the small cauldron.
In that instant, the Cauldron of Cornucopia spewed forth a million Thunder Technique Talismans.
The entire back mountain was engulfed in blazing arcs of lightning. Countless bolts of thunder crashed toward the crimson eyeball. Even so, Lu You still felt his blood freeze solid and his limbs stiffen—he could no longer run.
With his last remaining strength, Lu You activated a Beginner Wind Talisman. This time, the raging wind acted upon Lu You himself, blasting him out of the mountain before his blood could completely solidify.
Rumble, rumble
A real earthquake struck. The mountain began to collapse.
But Lu You could no longer worry about any of that. He continuously used Healing Talismans to restore his body, not daring to pause for even a second. With Beginner Wind Talismans paired with Divine Speed Talismans, he fled in utter disarray back to his spiritual field.
Only after he hid inside the small wooden hut did Lu You finally let out a breath. His whole body went limp as he collapsed onto the floor, utterly drained.
"Heavens... is this really a cultivation world? What kind of lovecraftian bullshit did I just run into?"
After quite a while, Lu You finally came back to his senses. Still shaken and terrified, he suddenly felt overwhelming hunger and cold. Picking up the spiritual rice he had cooked before heading down the mountain, Lu You devoured five bowls in one go before finally feeling relieved.
"Thank goodness that thing can't leave the back mountain. Otherwise, I'd have died at the foot of the mountain."
At the time, Lu You had been wrapped in tens of thousands of Golden Light Talismans, yet that eerie eyeball had easily neutralized them. Even at the end, when Lu You had fully driven the small cauldron and unleashed a million Thunder Technique Talismans, the eyeball still had strength to spare, canceling the lightning techniques with one hand while attempting to freeze Lu You's blood with the other.
"It's a pity I'm only at the third level of Qi Refining. I can't see through that eyeball's depth at all, nor can I estimate what level of combat power those Thunder Technique Talismans I released through the cauldron actually correspond to."
Through the Verdant Cloud Sect, Lu You already knew the cultivation hierarchy. One begins with Qi Refining, and only upon reaching Foundation Establishment does one truly step onto the path of immortality. After that come Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Divine Transformation, and Void Refinement. Upon reaching the Void Refinement realm, one's lifespan can extend to five thousand years. As for realms beyond Void Refinement, those beings were either legends of the past or taboos of the present, no one dared to speak of them lightly, and Lu You knew even less.
However, Lu You only knew the realms themselves; he had no idea how combat power scaled within each stage. Since he couldn't figure it out, he simply stopped thinking about it. Tonight, Lu You decided to do nothing else, repeatedly practicing the Minor Five Elements Qi-Nourishing Technique, calming his mind over and over again.