Chapter 2134: Chapter 2171: Where Are We
Thousands of people had already died on the island, more than a thousand, and the rest were still in the middle of evacuating. However, safety was far from guaranteed, and Ding Fan didn’t dare walk away from this mess, afraid some new accident might happen.
Half an hour later, the volcano stopped spouting water, and the water level in the crater was dropping rapidly. Ding Fan and Heavenly Tree Elder Gao climbed up to the crater and looked down at the bottomless pit below; for a long while, neither of them spoke.
"Do you want to go down and take a look?" After a while, Chi Fan said to Heavenly Tree Elder Gao, "What if there really is Treasure down there?"
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao’s heart was already itching a bit, but after he glanced at the Tigertooth Apes standing beside Ding Fan, he said, "This old man wouldn’t dare go down alone. If we’re going, you and your Tigertooth Apes are coming with me."
If the Tigertooth Apes went down with him, then even in front of a powerful beast, Heavenly Tree Elder Gao would still have a chance to escape. Otherwise, if he went down alone, once he ran into a Fourth Grade spiritual beast, he wouldn’t even have a single chance to keep his own life.
Ding Fan stared at the deep pit, finding it hard to decide for a moment. In the end he gritted his teeth and said, "Fine, I’ll have people go find some ropes."
If they had ropes, and the people above were pulling him, then Ding Fan wouldn’t be in much danger. On top of that, there was Heavenly Tree Elder Gao and these Tigertooth Apes.
No one knew why this volcano suddenly started spewing water. Not knowing the cause left a constant bad taste in his heart. Now that the Second Elder and the others were all gone, as Island Master he couldn’t just shrug it off.
He ordered his men to go down into the ravines to a nearby tribe and gather a batch of ropes, leaving some people waiting at the crater. He tied a rope around his waist, waved his hand and said, "Let’s go, we’re going down!"
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao’s strength was extremely powerful; he didn’t need a rope. The Tigertooth Apes’ claws were incredibly fierce, actually able to pierce into the Stone Wall, so they didn’t need ropes either. Ding Fan agreed on a set of signals with the few guards at the crater, then slowly began climbing down.
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao was the strongest, so he naturally went first. Drawing on his Inner Strength, he leapt straight into the crater. While he was falling, he stabbed his Golden Sword into the Stone Wall, slowing his descent. The Tigertooth Apes did the same thing; the only difference was that Heavenly Tree Elder Gao used a Golden Sword, while the Tigertooth Apes only used their claws.
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao released his Inner Strength, letting it shine out and illuminate the situation below. The water in the volcano was dropping very quickly, and they descended nearly a thousand meters like this without seeing any water at all.
Inside the volcano it was quiet and pitch black, giving off a hair-raising feeling. But with eight Tigertooth Apes and Heavenly Tree Elder Gao by his side, and with Ding Fan having been bold since childhood, he didn’t feel afraid.
The two of them finally reached the ground after dropping more than a thousand meters. There was no water below, no Magma, only wet ground covered in algae and similar things.
"This is a cave!"
The bottom of the volcano wasn’t large, only a little over a thousand meters across. Heavenly Tree Elder Gao walked a circuit around it and, in a corner, spotted a very deep hole slanting down into the earth.
"Could this be in the direction of the Underground River?"
Ding Fan unfastened the rope on his body, walked up to the edge and looked down a few times, then said, "Let’s go! We’ll go check it out."
Since they were already down here, he had to find the cause of that flooding. If it was just that the Underground River had changed course and sealed off the passage, then there wouldn’t be a second tragedy like this, with so many people dying.
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao walked in front, the Tigertooth Apes behind him, and Ding Fan followed behind the Tigertooth Apes. The group advanced through the somewhat damp and slippery passage. The passage seemed endless, slanting ever downward into the earth, and they had no idea where it would ultimately lead.
An hour!
Ding Fan and Heavenly Tree Elder Gao walked for a full hour before reaching the end of the passage. When they arrived, the two of them looked from a distance into the space ahead, and their eyes both filled with shock.
They discovered there really was an Underground Lake here. If it had been an ordinary Underground Lake, they wouldn’t have been so surprised. But this Underground Lake was anything but ordinary—it glowed. A bright light shone up from the bottom, illuminating the whole Underground Lake as bright as day.
"Looks like there really is some Treasure here?"
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao and Ding Fan both looked at each other, their expressions changing. If there wasn’t some unique Treasure here, how could there possibly be such a bright light?
"Hey, kid!"
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao glanced at the Underground Lake a few times, then said to Ding Fan, "If there really is Treasure down there, we’ll split it thirty–seventy. I take seventy, you take thirty. You don’t have any objections to that, right?"
"Get lost!"
Ding Fan snapped at Heavenly Tree Elder Gao, "Sounds to me like you don’t want to break through to the Fourth Level of the Divine Realm anymore. Just one attempt at breaking through to the Fourth Level of the Divine Realm costs nearly four million Black Obsidian. If you try ten times, that’s close to forty million. You’re that sure there’s Treasure down there? And even if there is, you think it’ll definitely be something you can use for cultivation later? Either we split any Treasure fifty–fifty, or I turn around and leave right now, and from today on you can get the hell off Skull Island!"
When Ding Fan blew up like that, Heavenly Tree Elder Gao was so scared he couldn’t say a word. Ding Fan waved his hand at him and said, "Enough with the useless talk. We don’t even know what’s down there yet. We’ll go down, see what it is, then talk."
Heavenly Tree Elder Gao nodded. He crouched in the cave and closed his eyes to sense, and couldn’t help being a little shocked. He opened his eyes quickly and said in surprise, "There actually isn’t a single spiritual beast in this lake. Could it be they were all blasted out just now?"
"You’re sure there isn’t even one powerful spiritual beast?" Ding Fan asked Heavenly Tree Elder Gao in puzzlement. Heavenly Tree Elder Gao sensed again, then said to Ding Fan with absolute certainty, "There definitely isn’t a single one!"
"Let’s go."
Ding Fan waved his hand. Heavenly Tree Elder Gao led the way, the Tigertooth Apes followed him, and Ding Fan still walked at the back. The group headed toward the lake.
After they went down into the water, Ding Fan probed around and felt it too—there really wasn’t a single powerful spiritual beast. Heavenly Tree Elder Gao was the first to swim deeper into the lake; the spot where the light was shining from the surface was at the bottom of the lake.
The lake wasn’t large, and the two of them swam quickly. After sensing again and confirming there were no powerful beasts, Heavenly Tree Elder Gao said to Ding Fan, "Island Master, I’ll dive down and take a look. See what exactly is glowing."
"Go on then."
Ding Fan wasn’t afraid that Mu Gaosou would keep the Treasure for himself after finding it. If he really wanted to swallow it alone, Ding Fan would definitely kick him off Skull Island. With Crimson Flame backing him, Mu Gaosou wouldn’t dare mess around.
Mu Gaosou jumped into the lake and dived to the bottom. Ding Fan’s gaze pierced through the clear water, watching Mu Gaosou move toward the point of light.
The Underground Lake wasn’t deep. By estimation it was only a little over a thousand meters, and in less than a quarter of an hour Mu Gaosou came back up. After surfacing, he took a deep breath and said in disappointment, "This isn’t a Treasure, just a glowing rock. The rock is too big, this old man can’t move it. There’s no fluctuation from it. It shouldn’t be a Treasure."
"Oh?"
Ding Fan blinked, thought for a moment, then said to Mu Gaosou, "How do you breathe in the water? I’m going down to take a look."
"You really are stupid enough!"
After mocking Ding Fan, Mu Gaosou said to him, "If you circulate your True Qi in the water, you’ll naturally stop needing to breathe. You can easily last half an hour."
"Fine, we’ll do that! Going down."
Ding Fan held his breath, circulated his True Qi and swam underwater. Mu Gaosou followed him, and the Tigertooth Apes also went down. They didn’t have the Power of True Qi, but felt no discomfort in the water; it was very easy for them.
Even so, it took Ding Fan five or six minutes to cover the thousand-plus meters and reach the end. Mu Gaosou hadn’t lied to him: below was a gigantic Qing Shi. The greenish stone was over ten zhang tall, half-buried in the lakebed. Aside from its glow, nothing else could be seen.
Ding Fan pondered, stirred up the sand around the stone, then raised the Heaven Measuring Ruler and easily stabbed it in. He swept the sand aside to see how deep the stone was buried.
Only...
He dug down nearly two meters, yet the stone was still deeply embedded. He thought for a moment, slung the Heaven Measuring Ruler onto his back, then winked at Mu Gaosou. The two of them each used one left hand and one right hand to grab a corner of the stone, trying to forcibly yank it out.
But that green stone didn’t budge at all. With Ding Fan’s strength this powerful, and Mu Gaosou even stronger, the two of them together still couldn’t make the stone shift even a hair. They looked at each other speechlessly. If even the two of them couldn’t pull it, getting more people would be pointless.
Ding Fan swam around the stone a few times, a bit disappointed, a sense of empty joy echoing in his heart. He pulled the Heaven Measuring Ruler from his back and hacked toward the giant green stone, wanting to see if he could chip off a small piece and take it back to see what kind of ore it was.
"Buzz buzz!"
When the Heaven Measuring Ruler struck the white stone, the stone suddenly flared with light, blinding Ding Fan and Mu Gaosou so they couldn’t see a thing.
The green dwarves who had followed Ding Fan were likewise blocked by the light and couldn’t see anything.
"Mm."
Mu Gaosou suddenly felt a tremor in his heart, and sensed a strong Prohibition fluctuation above his head. He instinctively felt danger and wanted to reach out to grab Ding Fan and take him away, but in that instant he felt a pressure like heaven and earth themselves. Forget moving his body, even his fingers couldn’t move.
"Crap!"
Ding Fan also realized he couldn’t move. His heart sank as he silently cursed that this was bad, secretly blaming himself for his impulsiveness. Such a powerful Prohibition had been triggered by him; if things went wrong, he, Mu Gaosou, and the eight Tigertooth Apes might all get crushed flat.
The Tigertooth Apes couldn’t see clearly, but at this moment their eyes were full of panic. The stone’s powerful fluctuation was too intense, making them instinctively feel fear and unease.
"Is this Prohibition man-made or natural?"
A thought flashed through Mu Gaosou’s mind. If it was artificial, they might still have a chance to live. If it was a natural Prohibition, then the two of them were dead for sure.
"Oh, fuck, this is a Teleportation Array!"
The mysterious Power enveloping them suddenly became so strong that Mu Gaosou and the others could clearly feel it pulling them toward the stone. What was even more terrifying was that after sending them into this otherworldly layer, they might never be able to come back.
"Buzz buzz."
The light grew brighter and brighter, eventually swallowing everyone. Ding Fan, Mu Gaosou, and the eight Tigertooth Apes all vanished above the green stone.
The stone’s white light slowly converged and finally withdrew completely. The entire Underground Lake was swallowed by darkness.
"Dogshit, dogshit."
No one knew how much time had passed before Ding Fan was jolted awake by a roar. He blinked and saw a dense forest. Mu Gaosou was nearby, roaring and cursing.
"Why are we here? Where did we go?"
Ding Fan looked around. He saw thick foliage and discovered that the sun and moon were actually hanging in the sky at the same time. He suddenly sat up, rubbed his eyes, and muttered in confusion, "I’m not dreaming, right? How can the sun and moon be in the sky at the same time?"
The eight Tigertooth Apes were already awake, their green eyes scanning their surroundings, somewhat uneasy. When Heavenly Tree Elder Gao saw that Ding Fan and the others were all awake, he immediately turned and roared at Ding Fan, "Brat, this old man’s been screwed to death by you, totally screwed by you! Why the hell did you smash that stone? Why?"
Ding Fan felt a bad premonition in his heart. He looked around again, then finally said, "Mu Gaosou, what are you yelling for? Can roaring solve anything? First tell me, where are we right now?"
