The figure was unmistakably a young man clad in a green robe, with a pair of crystalline wings sprouting from his back. His features were ordinary, but his face was twisted with an expression of deep resentment.
The one-armed scholar’s heart stirred as he swept his divine sense toward the figure.
After a brief moment of surprise, his face lit up with joy, and he hastily shouted, “Senior, be careful! The Stone Yuan Tortoise below has gained sentience and is extremely dangerous!”
“Stone Yuan Tortoise!”
Upon hearing this, the young man seemed to notice the four humans and the beast below for the first time. However, after a quick glance, he burst into laughter. “You’re humans! Good, very good. Is this place far from Tianyuan City?”
The young man didn’t even spare the giant tortoise a second glance, completely ignoring it.
The ancient tortoise, sensing the threat from the man in the air, displayed its considerable intelligence by rolling its eyes warily, refraining from any rash attacks.
“This place is still some distance from Tianyuan City. If you don’t mind, the four of us would be honored to guide you,” the red-armored man, realizing the unfathomable depth of the young man’s cultivation—his divine sense unable to gauge it—shouted as if grasping at a lifeline.
The scholar and the two women nodded eagerly in agreement.
“Guide me? Hmm, fine. But wait a moment. This Stone Yuan Tortoise has some potential. Let me retrieve its inner core before we set off.” The young man smiled faintly before finally turning his gaze to the ancient beast below.
Though the tortoise couldn’t understand their conversation, the moment the young man’s eyes fell upon it, an inexplicable chill ran down its spine. Without hesitation, it let out a low roar, spewing a thick azure beam of light toward the sky while dozens of tentacles on its back lashed out, transforming into countless shadowy tendrils that enveloped the young man.
Faced with an inexplicable premonition of mortal danger, the beast had gone berserk.
Witnessing the tortoise’s terrifying assault, the four below paled and hastily activated their protective treasures, surrounding themselves in radiant halos as they stealthily retreated a few steps.
The winged youth in the air, however, merely let out a long laugh.
With a flick of his sleeve, a layer of grayish light materialized before him.
The azure beam struck the barrier, only to dissipate soundlessly in a flash of light. The seemingly devastating attack had no effect whatsoever.
As the shadowy net descended upon him, the young man didn’t even blink. Instead, his wings flapped once, producing a thunderous roar as countless arcs of green-white lightning crackled across his feathers, lashing out violently into the sky.
Simultaneously, his arm moved, and a pitch-black hand emerged from his sleeve, reaching out to grasp the net.
A thunderclap echoed through the clear sky, and an astonishing sight unfolded.
The moment his hand shot forward, the arcs of lightning in the air converged into a single point, instantly forming a massive green-white hand composed entirely of intertwined lightning bolts, spanning over ten feet in size.
With a mere flex of its fingers, the hand tore through the shadowy net as if it were paper, then vanished in a flash.
The next instant, a massive arc of lightning reappeared above the tortoise’s head, instantly reforming into the giant hand and striking down with lightning speed.
The attack was so swift that the tortoise had no time to react. Its protective cyan aura shattered instantly as the electrified hand clamped down on its body.
A deafening thunderclap resounded as green-white light erupted, countless arcs of lightning dancing across the tortoise’s form.
The power of these arcs was unfathomable—within moments, the Stone Yuan Tortoise’s body flickered several times before disintegrating into ashes, not even able to let out a single cry.
As the lightning vanished, only an egg-sized demon core remained, floating silently in mid-air.
The young man’s eyes gleamed as he reached out and summoned the core with a flick of his wrist.
After examining it briefly, he stored it away with a flash of light before turning to the scholar and the others. “Alright, let’s go.”
The four of them, however, were utterly dumbfounded.
They had just experienced firsthand the terrifying power of this Stone Yuan Tortoise, which had nearly claimed their lives. Yet, in front of this unfamiliar young man, the beast had been effortlessly annihilated in a single encounter.
It was beyond belief. Could his cultivation level be even higher than they had imagined?
“May I ask for your esteemed name, Senior? Are you perhaps a Saint-stage cultivator at the Body Integration realm?” the scholar asked with a deep bow, his voice filled with reverence.
“Body Integration? I haven’t reached that stage yet. As for my name, my surname is Han,” the young man replied calmly, glancing at the scholar.
This young man was none other than Han Li, and over a century had passed since his teleportation back to the Wind Yuan Continent.
When he had first returned from the Thunder Continent, he had arrived in an extremely remote area of the Wind Yuan Continent. Apart from the guardian cultivators stationed by the Tianyun people near the teleportation array, no other foreign races were present.
After presenting his identity jade slip, he departed without incident.
However, Han Li had never anticipated that his journey back to human territory would prove so long and treacherous.
With his current abilities, even Body Integration cultivators held little threat for him. But the Wind Yuan Continent was vast beyond measure, and the path was fraught with countless dangers, including territories inhabited by foreign races.
Despite exercising extreme caution, Han Li still found himself in life-threatening situations on multiple occasions.
Once, he was pursued for months by a pack of seven or eight Body Integration-level ancient beasts, only escaping thanks to his ample supply of spirit pills and spirit stones.
Another time, he accidentally wandered into a land of extreme cold, where he was engulfed by a bizarre glacial current. Had it not been for the unexpected advancement of the five-colored cold flames within his body—which absorbed the frigid energy—he might have been frozen into an eternal ice sculpture.
Even so, it took him over a year to finally escape that deadly place.
On yet another occasion, he encountered a group of high-ranking foreign beings who, upon seeing him alone, sought to kill him and seize his treasures.
In the ensuing battle, despite unleashing his full power—even deploying his Gold Devouring Beetles and the Profound Heavenly Blade fragment—he managed to slay seven or eight Void Refinement cultivators and severely wound two Body Integration experts. However, he himself suffered grievous injuries and was poisoned, forcing him to flee in desperation.
This injury required over a decade of secluded recovery before he fully regained his strength and neutralized the toxin. From then on, he proceeded with even greater caution, yet dangers continued to arise, much to his frustration.
Now he understood why even Body Integration cultivators paled at the mention of traversing the continent.
With his current abilities, he had nearly perished multiple times. Ordinary Body Integration cultivators would likely have met their end on such a journey.
That said, such perilous travels were a rite of passage for top-tier cultivators of all races. Only by enduring such trials could they temper their minds and potentially stumble upon new opportunities.
Similarly, despite the countless dangers Han Li faced on his journey back to human lands, his gains were equally unimaginable.
Not only did he acquire numerous rare materials deep in the wilderness, but he also infiltrated settlements of foreign races, secretly learning many esoteric techniques vastly different from human cultivation methods.
To avoid detection, he always operated on the fringes of these territories, entering only small towns devoid of high-ranking beings.
Even so, not every venture went smoothly. Once, while entering a small town of the “Ming” race, he unexpectedly encountered a foreigner who called himself “Lei Yunzi.”
Despite being only at the mid-Void Refinement stage, this individual immediately recognized Han Li as an outsider.
A fierce battle ensued, and to Han Li’s astonishment, he found himself unable to defeat this seemingly ordinary mid-Void Refinement cultivator.
Lei Yunzi possessed the legendary “Five Thunder Physique,” allowing him to wield five distinct types of lightning. Moreover, he practiced a long-lost ancient thunder technique that enabled him to shift between physical and lightning forms at will. Though limited by his cultivation, this ability rendered Han Li’s attacks ineffective.
Even more astonishingly, Lei Yunzi was a formation master of the Ming race, having developed a unique lightning formation technique that allowed him to transform his innate lightning into various formations for offense, defense, or trapping enemies.
Naturally, with Han Li’s formidable abilities, Lei Yunzi couldn’t gain the upper hand either. After a month-long battle, the two developed a grudging respect for each other.
Intrigued by Lei Yunzi’s lightning formations, Han Li struck a deal with him. The two settled in a secluded spot to exchange insights.
Han Li learned several practical lightning formation techniques, while Lei Yunzi absorbed some of Han Li’s Evil-Suppressing Divine Lightning and mastered the Thunder Rune Condensation Technique. Both left satisfied.
However, whether due to the inherent difficulty of the lightning formations or Lei Yunzi’s deliberate omissions, Han Li later found himself unable to master them fully, often encountering minor issues during use.
As he delved deeper into the formations, he became increasingly convinced that Lei Yunzi had withheld crucial details.
This left Han Li inwardly cursing the man—though he himself had tweaked the Thunder Rune Technique, ensuring Lei Yunzi’s success rate in condensing thunder pearls was abysmal.
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