Chapter 333: Chapter 332: Cold Pool
In the far south, a black line appeared. Upon closer inspection, the black line was actually a solitary island standing alone within the sea.
To the people who hadn’t seen land for days, even a solitary island was enough to excite them for half a day.
Gao Fei’s face looked unwell.
The appearance of the island could not prove that Shi Xiaole had led everyone out of the predicament, but at least it proved that his method was effective, which hit Gao Fei hard in the face.
"The wind sail and the southern compass are still useless."
After the joy, the helmsman said disappointedly.
"Regardless, let’s go and have a look first. We might find something."
Everyone looked gratefully at Shi Xiaole.
Without him, they would still be wandering aimlessly on the sea.
"My perception isn’t completely accurate, the wind direction and water flow are still changing, we just stumbled here by chance."
Shi Xiaole shook his head secretly.
At present, he could only use ten percent of his mental strength and there would inevitably be errors. Otherwise, they should have already left this strange sea area.
Of course, it wasn’t without gains.
Shi Xiaole found that after frequently activating his mental power, although he would be fatigued for a while, his mental power gradually increased after the fatigue wore off, which enhanced his combat capability slightly.
As the boats neared the island, people found the island lush with rocks stacked up and vegetation proliferated. It looked primordial, with birds and beasts occasionally appearing and looking over in their direction.
Everyone disembarked the boats in succession, while the sailors remained behind to secure the vessels.
"Let’s have a look around first. We’ll regroup here after nightfall."
Xia Yunxi started to dispatch manpower, dividing everyone into several groups for exploration.
"I want to be in your group."
Gao Fei walked over to Xia Yunxi and, not waiting for her refusal, he declared: "You are my future wife, I need to protect you."
He had had enough. Maybe others hadn’t noticed, but Gao Fei had seen Xia Yunxi covertly glancing at Shi Xiaole numerous times. He had to do something to safeguard his claim.
"Junior Brother Gao, what are you talking about?"
Xia Yunxi gave Shi Xiaole a glance, saw that he had no expression, felt an indescribable pain in her heart, gritted her teeth, turned her head and led the people in the same group away.
Gao Fei followed her regardless.
"Brother Shi."
A few young masters walked to Shi Xiaole.
"You wait here so as to avoid danger."
Shi Xiaole smiled faintly and ventured into the woods alone. Taking these men with him would not be useful, it was more freeing to be alone.
On the island, poisonous creatures often bolted here and there. Upon hearing movement, they would quickly spring towards Shi Xiaole, only to find themselves attacking a mere afterimage.
Even within the mere hundreds of meters he traversed, Shi Xiaole saw dozens of birds, crawling reptiles, and three large pythons as thick as a fist.
The deeper parts of the mountains were wilder and darker, only a martial arts master like Shi Xiaole would dare to venture into such terrain.
When it got dark, he hadn’t found anything special after the exploration.
However, at this point, Shi Xiaole realized a very important problem - he was lost!
"Since the island is within the sea area, it must move slowly with the water, but the amplitude is too small. Normally, it’s impossible to get lost."
Unless...
Shi Xiaole thought of a possibility, his heart pounded, took out the southern compass from the system space, but as expected, the needle spun wildly then snapped off.
The interference here was stronger than anywhere else.
"If this island is the center of this strange sea area and the origin of the pulling force, then its mysterious power might interfere with people’s sense of direction, causing me to get lost."
Shi Xiaole tried again and found out that the results of his two perceptions were different!
This was frightening. If one’s mental perception gets deceived and misled, wouldn’t they step into a trap without knowing it?
Shi Xiaole kept trying and found that his mental perception varied at different times, only when he used the power of the Stone Touching Qi Cyclone could he truly distinguish the truth.
The Stone Touching Qi Cyclone is after all a refinement of the spirit and intention. It’s a level higher than mental power, and it can avoid the influence of the island’s power.
Just like that, after a while, Shi Xiaole would use the Stone Touching Qi Cyclone once. He struggled to orient himself in the dense forest, moved forward slowly, and by midnight, he rested against a tree.
With Shi Xiaole’s strength, he could only travel in the dense forest for now and couldn’t get back to the shore. The situation of others was probably even worse and all he could do was pray that they were safe.
At noon the next day, Shi Xiaole arrived in front of a hill formed by a slope. Suddenly, a chilling aura surged towards him, causing the water vapour in the air to solidify into ice crystals.
Operating Brahma-I Unity, Shi Xiaole cautiously approached, only to find that there was a water pool of about three squares in the hillock behind the dense forest.
The bone-chilling cold air was precisely emanating from this water pool.
"Strange places often accompany strange opportunities, perhaps there might be something good underneath."
Embracing the concept of fortune favours the bold, after confirming that there’s no one around and perceiving the condition inside the pool with the power of Qi Cyclone to find no immediate danger, Shi Xiaole dove into the water headfirst.
The water in the pool was terrifyingly cold. Shi Xiaole maximized the use of Brahma-I Unity when he dived to ten meters deep. However, by the time he reached twenty meters, even Brahma-I Unity could not fully isolate the cold.
By thirty meters, Shi Xiaole felt as if he were swimming naked in a frozen landscape, slowly losing feeling in his limbs.
"What is that...?"
Despite the inky blackness of the pool, Shi Xiaole saw something at the bottom; more than fifty meters deep. A rectangular object sat there, emitting a ceaseless torrent of coldness that froze the surrounding waters into an irregular mass, over ten meters in length and width.
The moment he got close to this irregular mass, a cold, heart-piercing feeling chilled him to the bone; almost making Shi Xiaole lose his breath - it was ten times colder than the icy water.
But in the next moment, Shi Xiaole was shocked to find that as he engaged his power, a trace of Devil Path essence began to flow from his muscles and bones, integrating into his internal power.
It seemed the coldness had loosened the Devil Path essence within him!
"All things in the world give birth to one another and mutually restrain one another. Is the rectangular object restraining the Devil Path essence, and this is my destined opportunity?"
Shock was soon replaced by endless joy.
If one does not seize what heaven bestows, they will be plunged into chaos.
Ending up on this deserted island was chance, finding the cold pool was also a chance. But whether he could leverage this chance to improve himself depended on his own abilities.
Without any hesitation, Shi Xiaole took the Green Wave Sword from his system space, performing the Death Claiming Thirteen Strikes towards the irregular mass.
He didn’t use the Redfire Sword to avoid causing a huge disturbance and having the backlash of the coldness exceed his body’s endurance capacity.
He repeatedly swung his sword and thrust it forward.
In the beginning, Shi Xiaole had to rest for half a moment after every strike before he could continue. Gradually, he adapted and the time shortened to two hundred breaths, one hundred breaths. When it got down to fifty breaths, he completely stabilized.
At that moment, a substantial amount of Devil Path essence had blended into his internal power and he subtly showed signs of breaking through to the peak of the Xuanqi Realm.
The irregular mass was very hard. With the power of the Death Claiming Thirteen Strikes, each time he was only able to puncture a hole three inches deep — the deeper he got, the harder it became.
One and a half 2-hour periods later, Shi Xiaole had used up eighty percent of his internal power. For safety reasons, he left the cold pool.
As he was resting for half a 2-hour period, preparing to re-enter the cold pool, the ground suddenly began to tremble slightly.
Hiding in the dense forest, Shi Xiaole discovered a giant, florally-patterned snake that was several tens of meters long and a few meters thick crawling their way. Its tail easily snapped any large tree that required several people to hug it.
The floral-patterned snake raised its body and spat out a nearly meter-long red letter. Its cold eyes swept around, seemingly checking for any observers!
Shi Xiaole worked the Brahma-I Unity, hiding his breath.
Acting on instinct, the floral-patterned snake extended its gaze toward Shi Xiaole’s direction for a while, but eventually did not go over and went into the cold pool instead.
"Could it be that the irregular object at the bottom of the cold pool was bitten out by this big snake over many years?"
Shi Xiaole was terrified.
Any normal snake would freeze stiff as soon as it entered the cold pool. As for the irregular mass, if it could bear such deep bite marks, the attacking power of this snake might even be scarier than the Death Claiming Thirteen Strikes!
The floral-patterned snake obviously regarded the cold pool as its private property. But it was impossible for Shi Xiaole to give up this treasure trove.
In the following days, Shi Xiaole carefully observed the habits of the floral-patterned snake.
He found that around the time of Chen, the snake would leave the cold pool to look for food. The longest it would be gone was two 2-hour periods and at the latest it would return in half a 2-hour period.
"I will limit it to half a 2-hour period."
From that day forward, when the floral-patterned snake left, Shi Xiaole would secretly dive into the cold pool and thrust his sword against the irregular mass. When the hourglass he took from the system space was about to mark half a 2-hour period, he would immediately leave.
In fact, Shi Xiaole had thought about moving the entire irregular mass to the system space but was rejected by the system. According to the system, the energy of the irregular mass exceeded Shi Xiaole’s capacity.
In the blink of an eye, ten days passed.
Shi Xiaole’s internal power gradually deepened and his breakthrough was close.
Life was moving along smoothly until one day, for an unknown reason, the floral-patterned snake circled around and immediately headed back to the pool.
The moment Shi Xiaole felt the movement above the cold pool, his body grew cold with fear.
To avoid detection, he made sure to change the spot where he thrust his sword every time. Could it be that this beast still discovered him and was luring the enemy out?
Without room to think, Shi Xiaole rushed towards the mouth of the cold pool with his full internal power, gripping the Redfire Sword in his hand. The sharp sword aura gathered at the tip, ready to strike.
When he was still ten meters away from the opening of the cold pool, the head of the floral-patterned snake emerged.
"Now!"
His eyes narrowed, and Shi Xiaole immediately performed the Death Claiming Fifteenth Strike.
The black-and-red deathly sword aura burst forth, violently hitting the head of the floral-patterned snake. The violent sword Qi dispersed, causing the freezing water to churn violently. Numerous bubbles appeared and immediately disappeared.
"Hiss!"
The floral-patterned snake opened its mouth, giving out a harsh, piercing sound. As it looked at Shi Xiaole, its eyes were filled with endless brutality.
With his body flying out of the cold pool, Shi Xiaole immediately slipped away.
Moments later, the cold water exploded open, and the floral-patterned snake emerged right after him, opening its mouth to spray a stinky, white venom at Shi Xiaole.
Hisssss.
As the venom rained down, the tree trunks and ground corroded into numerous small holes.
Its head being injured had utterly unleashed the floral-patterned snake’s fierce nature. The snake’s body leapt forward, its speed not much slower than Shi Xiaole’s. It whipped up its tail, generating a whirlwind-like force, aiming straight at Shi Xiaole.
