What's wrong with a snake that just wants to cultivate and transform?

Xu Nian’s mind was in a heavy fog, uncertain how long she had been unconscious. As she started to come back to her senses, the first thing she noticed was an intense pain all over her body, affecting every limb and bone. She tried to coil her tail around the storage bag nearby, but she just didn’t have the strength. Even a small movement of her tail caused her so much pain that it felt like an electric shock spreading through her entire body. Her snake form tensed up from the pain and then collapsed to the ground, her mouth filling with mud.

Xu Nian had used all her spiritual energy in a desperate attempt to protect her head and heart during a massive explosion. The serious injuries she suffered, along with her broken dantian, meant she lost all her spiritual power. Now, she was so drained that she couldn’t even gather the small amount of spiritual energy usually needed to keep herself in human form.

Xu Nian’s eyes, due to the previous explosion, were still blurry and couldn’t see clearly. She could only vaguely see darkness around her. She could smell the earth and some unknown plants, guessing that she and Ji Yuebai hadn’t managed to return to Tian Yuan Sect through the Great escape talisman and had accidentally teleported to a strange, deep forest.

Above her, she could sometimes hear the rough cries of crows and the sound of their wings beating. When she used her spiritual sense to check the surroundings, she realized these were low-level demonic birds, around the second or third rank, too scared to come near because of the powerful aura she gave off. However, they were drawn to the strong smell of blood on her, much like scavengers that wait to eat the dead. They were waiting for her to die so they could feed.

Unfortunately, Xu Nian didn’t even have the strength to exert pressure to drive them away.

Fortunately, the area was rich in spiritual energy, allowing Xu Nian to slowly absorb it to heal her damaged meridians, despite being too weak to open her storage bag.

But, despite many attempts, her weak spiritual sense couldn’t find any trace of Ji Yuebai nearby.

She had learned about the Great Escape Talisman from Ji Yuebai. It involved using a large amount of spiritual energy and nearby spiritual power to create a spatial rift to escape through. However, the technique had a high failure rate. Even a small mistake in trying to compress space could result in ending up far from the intended target. And in a risky, urgent situation, it’s even more difficult to make sure you get to where you’re trying to go.

Ji Yuebai had used a lot of her spiritual energy to use the talisman, so she might not have had enough energy left to shield her vital parts. Before Xu Nian passed out, Ji Yuebai was already seriously hurt, and her condition could have been even more critical than Xu Nian’s own.

Xu Nian was safe for the moment, but she didn’t know how Ji Yuebai was doing. If Ji Yuebai ran into more trouble with her serious injuries, it could be very bad. Xu Nian didn’t want her to be in danger again, especially not because of her.

With intense pain that felt like her flesh and bones were being torn apart, Xu Nian somehow managed to lift her tail and open her storage bag. Since her tail had lost most of its sensation due to injury, she had to try to use her spiritual sense to search the bag for healing medicine. Mu Yanyu had given her some healing pills from her master when they were on the flying boat, which could be used by both human and demonic cultivators.

Even though human cultivators and demonic cultivators have their differences, in a crisis, those differences aren’t important. Xu Nian managed to find some porcelain bottles, but because her vision was blurry, she couldn’t tell which one was meant for healing internal and external injuries. Determined, she bit her lip and used her tail to bring the bottles close to her nose to identify them by scent.

Just then, something rolled out of the storage bag, which she hadn’t managed to close properly, and fell onto the muddy ground with a dull thud.

Xu Nian barely paid attention to the need to pick up the scattered items. She had exhausted almost all her strength just to retrieve a few bottles of medicinal pills. Opening her mouth, she swallowed the identified healing pills in one gulp.

As the medicinal pills gradually began to take effect, a warm current slowly filled her entire body. It mended her damaged meridians and dantian. Her previously blurry vision also started to clear, and her body slowly regained some spiritual energy.

Squinting, Xu Nian looked up at the three-eyed crows circling above her. She released a slight oppressive aura, and in the next instant, they scattered in fear, their black feathers fluttering down into the forest.

Although her internal injuries could not be healed instantly, after about an hour of absorbing and circulating energy, Xu Nian was barely able to stand up, though pain still accompanied her.

By this time, her dantian had regained some ability to store spiritual energy. She thought about entering the black box to recuperate, but her peripheral vision caught sight of the items that had fallen from her storage bag.

It was the Seven Passages Exquisite Lock that she had bought at an auction for a hefty price.

Xu Nian sighed. The broken lock had rolled a good ten meters away. It was expensive and useless and only added to her troubles. It seemed like a good idea to just leave it.

She was about to enter the black box, but then she thought again. Even if it was a waste, it was a waste bought for 450,000 spirit stones. She couldn’t bear to discard it so casually.

At this moment, her spiritual power was weak, and it was difficult to summon Liu Liu and Yi Yi to help her retrieve it. She painfully twisted her body towards the Kongming lock-shaped black lock.

With a lot of effort, Xu Nian finally moved close to the broken lock. Just as she was about to wrap her tail around its wavering form to place it into her storage bag, she heard a “click.”

The Seven Passages Exquisite Lock, which had seemed solid and unbreakable, now fell apart like a pile of blocks with a light touch of her tail.

A stream of red light suddenly burst out and shot into Xu Nian’s forehead.

Xu Nian suddenly felt a sharp pain in her head. In the next second, the world around her began to spin wildly, the scenery changing in the blink of an eye as if the stars were shifting.

After the intense dizziness passed, the scene in front of her had changed dramatically.

What had seemed like a faint white mist that had previously shimmered translucently in the light, now, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be a deadly poisonous miasma.

And the lush, dense forest she had seen before was not made up of ordinary tall trees but rather a dark, ancient forest resembling a terrifying maze, with gnarled roots and trunks continuously oozing an unknown dark red liquid, emitting a foul, fishy smell.

Xu Nian hesitated, thinking of turning back, but then she heard a cracking sound behind her. Turning her head, she was almost scared out of her skin. A flower as big as a washbasin, with an ugly human-like face, was constantly opening and closing its huge mouth, split to the ears and filled with dense teeth, bending its “flower stem” in an attempt to bite her flesh.

If Xu Nian had retreated a bit more just then, the human-faced flower would have bitten her tail. Given its horrifying appearance, it was almost certain to be poisonous.

Xu Nian suspected that the black lock, similar to the black box she encountered earlier, had activated something like a “Evil Eye” from a cliché comic, allowing her to see through illusions and perceive the real world.

With this thought, Xu Nian strangely felt a bit relieved.

Indeed, with her luck of encountering a demonic cultivator at the Immortalization Stage self-destructing during a disciples’ tournament, it seemed like a routine twist of fate for her to end up in such a strange place. After all, nothing this crazy had ever happened in the history of the past hundred years of the tournament.

Deep down, Xu Nian truly hoped that Ji Yuebai was having better luck than she was. If it were possible, she would give all her good luck to Ji Yuebai, hoping she could safely get back to the Tian Yuan Sect to recover, instead of ending up in a strange and dangerous place like she did.

Thinking this, she found a relatively safe and hidden spot and quickly entered the black box.

No matter what, she had to restore her strength as soon as possible. Otherwise, even if she found Ji Yuebai, she would only be a burden to her.

Xu Nian quickly took care of her visible injuries, using some spiritual herbs she had collected from Xiao Cang Mountain. She wasn’t sure if they were still effective, but these cool herbs did help reduce the pain from her serious wounds a bit.

She then shook out hundreds of thousands of spirit stones from her storage bag, creating a small mountain inside the black box. With such a vast amount of spirit stones as a foundation, she didn’t need to exert effort to set up a high-level spirit gathering formation.

Coiled atop the mountain of spirit stones, she began to crazily absorb the spiritual energy, intensifying the circulation of spiritual power within her body.

Her fractured dantian also gradually healed with the repeated circulation of the medicinal pill’s power and the spiritual energy, smoothing and filling the gaps until it was whole again, as an abundance of spiritual power filled her restored dantian.

At this time, only about an hour had passed in the outside world since she had woken up.

To save time, she quickly changed into tight, combat-friendly clothes and simply tied up her hair in a high ponytail.

Taking a deep breath, Xu Nian stepped out of the black box to face the strange world outside.

She landed lightly and released a faint, concealed spiritual sense to scout her surroundings, assessing any unknown risks.

Footsteps approached from afar, and a somewhat childish voice was heard saying, “That human cultivator was just here, how could someone so seriously injured suddenly disappear?”

Then, another voice, old yet tinged with childishness, grumbled, “Human cultivators are always full of tricks, possessing all sorts of strange and peculiar items. Maybe they’ve used some method to hide themselves now.”

Human cultivator…

Could it be Ji Yuebai?

Xu Nian thought. Since the owner of the voice referred to a “human cultivator,” it must certainly belong to a non-human species, like a demon beast.

Indeed, as the footsteps drew closer, the unmistakable pressure of a ninth-rank demonic beast spread without any attempt to conceal it.

Hiding in the shadows, Xu Nian quickly retracted her spiritual sense and concealed her presence using her innate racial abilities. Facing more than three ninth-rank demon beasts, she stood no chance, especially with her injuries not yet fully healed.

Moreover, the footsteps of these beasts were strange – light at first, then heavy, unlike the gait of humans or other quadrupedal carnivorous demon beasts. The sound was strangely familiar to Xu Nian, yet she couldn’t quite place it.

The footsteps, uneven and erratic, circled the spot where she had been lying, showing no sign of leaving.

Xu Nian dared not enter the black box. These were ninth-rank demon beasts, and even a momentary fluctuation of spiritual energy as she entered could attract their attention. Besides, demon beasts were often stubborn and fixated. If her black box was unfortunately taken back to their den, it would be awkward to find herself emerging directly into their lair, potentially trapped.

Finally, after several rounds of fruitless searching, it seemed the demon beasts were preparing to leave.

Xu Nian’s tensed heart began to relax, planning to quietly leave once they were gone.

Suddenly, a chill crept up behind her, and that eerie, youthful voice sounded right behind her.

“Ah, so you were hiding here. We’ve been looking for you for quite a while.”