Chapter 142: The Unlucky Zhou Youth Eliminated

"Sister Chu, I had no idea you were an array master!"

Watching Chu Xiner skillfully plant the array flags and array talismans, then place spiritual stones into the array bases to activate the formation, Lu Yin could not help but exclaim in admiration.

"You flatter me, Sister. I am hardly an array master; I merely possess a superficial understanding of how to manipulate them."

Chu Xiner was not just being modest. She had encountered very few formations and certainly did not know how to craft array flags or array disks. She had once thought of dabbling in the path of array formations, but alas, she had never found the time nor any foundational texts on the subject for reference.

Crackling softly, a campfire burned on the hillside under the night sky. Above the flames sat a roasting rack, upon which Lu Fang was continuously turning a piece of meat as it began to sizzle with oil, sprinkling various spices over it.

Although both of the Lu siblings could already subsist on vital breath, they still indulged their mortal appetites, cooking up a feast every few days to satisfy their cravings. Judging by how practiced his roasting technique was, it was clearly something he did often.

Chu Xiner glanced sideways at Lu Yin, whose gaze was fixed longingly on the roasting meat with saliva practically pooling in her mouth, before closing her eyes once more to meditate. She remained that way until the young woman handed a fragrant rabbit leg right in front of her.

The formation Chu Xiner had set up possessed the functions of early-warning alerts and concealment. Both the firelight and the aroma of the roasted meat were thoroughly masked by the array. Though there were various wild beasts roaming the vicinity of the peak, none of them detected the anomaly here.

Thus, a peaceful night passed without incident. By the following morning, the trio, fully rested and full of vigor, resumed their journey.

"Sister Chu, do you plan to head straight in search of the Asking Heart Path?"

After another full day of high-speed flight—during which Chu Xiner did not stop to compete for spiritual herbs, even when they encountered one or two hidden valleys containing them—Lu Yin finally could not contain her doubts as they settled down for the evening.

Chu Xiner offered a noncommittal smile, neither confirming nor denying the speculation. She simply retrieved her meditation mat and once again sat cross-legged to cultivate, leaving both Lu Yin and Lu Fang utterly bewildered.

Fortunately, they firmly believed she meant them no harm, so they pressed her no further and continued to follow her lead the next morning.

On the third day, Chu Xiner, who had already traveled several thousand miles using her escape art, finally slowed her pace. On occasion, she would pause to slay a few fierce beasts to earn points.

Yet, neither Lu Yin nor Lu Fang noticed that as night fell, a large mosquito lurking just outside the boundary of the array light barrier was heading straight toward a camp located several dozen miles away.

Situated by the side of a stream, the camp was home to a small team of twenty-odd people.

There were no Foundation Establishment stage cultivators among them, though four members possessed cultivation at the twelfth heavenly layer. This was the exact team Chu Xiner had encountered shortly before, which harbored the highest number of individuals suitable for Xiao Wenzi to feed upon, prompting her to choose this vicinity to spend the night.

In truth, after several days of trial and tempering, very few testers remaining within Lingtian Canyon chose to act alone. Even rogue cultivators who were entirely unacquainted with one another mostly gathered together to keep warm against the dangers.

The distance was not particularly great, and Xiao Wenzi's current flight speed was by no means slow. He quickly flew across the forest and approached the camp, where a bonfire blazed brightly.

The camp was built against the mountain and beside the water, completely devoid of defensive formations. Clearly, these young men and women, whose cultivation at most reached the half-step Foundation Establishment stage, had never dabbled in the path of array formations.

However, despite the lack of a defensive formation, at least three people in the camp were keeping watch. Lacking the reinforcement of invisibility talismans or beast-concealing talismans, Xiao Wenzi did not dare to approach too closely.

He could only rein in his aura as much as possible, hiding off to the side to wait for an opportunity.

Dammit, go relieve yourself already!

As time slowly dragged on and the deep hours of the night approached, Xiao Wenzi, still unable to find an opening to strike, could not help cursing inwardly.

With around twenty opponents, the majority of whom were at the thirteenth layer of Qi Condensation or higher, resorting to brute force would be deeply unwise. Xiao Wenzi had no wish to startle the snake in the grass.

His initial plan had been to wait until someone left the camp alone on some errand, then quietly tail and ambush them. After all, among the youths on watch, one happened to be at the peak of the twelfth heavenly layer.

As long as he could feed to exchange for invisibility and concealment talismans, he could then sneak into the tents to ambush the remaining two, allowing him to acquire a massive amount of system currency without a sound.

Yet fate did not cooperate; the fellow showed no inclination whatsoever to leave for a toilet break.

After waiting a while longer, just as Xiao Wenzi grew impatient and contemplated taking action directly, another youth with a flushed face suddenly stood up and lowered his voice in a slightly embarrassed manner:

"I drank a bit too much wine tonight. This Zhou needs to step away for a moment. I must trouble you two fellow Daoists to keep a sharp lookout."

"No problem, Brother Zhou, go ahead. We've got everything covered!"

Prompted by the acknowledgment of the twelfth-layer youth and another companion, the youth who called himself Zhou stepped out of the camp and headed toward the nearby woods.

As luck would have it, the very edge of the woods he walked toward happened to be Xiao Wenzi's hiding spot.

You'll do! That Brother Zhou had already reached the Great Circle of Qi Condensation. While not ideally suited for Xiao Wenzi to feed upon for system currency, using him to lure the tiger away from the mountain was undeniably a sound strategy.

Therefore, the moment the fellow walked into the forest and began to relieve himself, Xiao Wenzi suddenly transformed into a streak of gray shadow and lunged straight at the youth.

"Eh? What is that? Oh, no!"

Realizing that fierce demonic energy fluctuations had suddenly appeared to his side and front, the youth surnamed Zhou had no time to react before he felt a sharp pain in his waist, followed immediately by a fierce wave of teleportation light enveloping him.

At the very last second, he only managed to clearly see that the thing ambushing him looked like a giant mosquito, and then his entire person vanished from the spot without a trace.

He was truly unfortunate. To make it convenient for tallying the points allocated by his team, he had kept his jade token tied directly to his waist. Struck by the razor-sharp edge of the wings, the jade token was triggered instantly, inexplicably leading to his elimination.

With a spinning motion of heaven and earth, the youth surnamed Zhou reappeared upon a thousand-foot-wide stone platform.

This stone platform was flat and smooth, surrounded by forests of steep mountains. It was currently nighttime, and the crescent moon and starlight high above shone brilliantly.

What the youth surnamed Zhou did not know was that the moment he materialized, three powerful divine senses swept across him, thoroughly searching him—including the storage bag at his waist—as if no defenses existed at all.

"Where is this? Have I been teleported out? Damn that mosquito, to be so utterly sinister..."

Those divine senses came and went as swiftly as lightning. Just as the youth surnamed Zhou snapped out of his dizziness, clutching his wound and cursing in pain, an elderly man draped in a Daoist robe, exuding an immortal and transcendent aura, was chatting leisurely inside a mountain pavilion a thousand feet away.

"Senior Brother Wu, although this little fellow is not the one we are looking for, he seemed to mention something about a mosquito? Could this so-called demonic mosquito become a variable in our plan?"

Seated on a meditation mat opposite the old man, a middle-aged man with a black beard spoke in precisely this manner.

Although Lingtian Canyon only permitted cultivators below the Core Formation stage to enter, over the years they had dispatched numerous disciples to explore it, and they had never once heard of any demonic mosquito existing within.

After obtaining this clue a few days ago from the memories of that heavily injured and unconscious kid, the black-bearded man had not paid it much attention at first.

Because Xiao Wenzi had already self-detonated at the time, even if he possessed some bizarre traits, the matter had reached its end. Yet, hearing the youth surnamed Zhou suddenly bring up some mosquito made the situation rather unusual.