With one glance, Ye Qingyu recognized this crafty-looking youth to be none other than Jin Ling’er.
As for the other young boys and girls, they were undoubtedly the talents originally chosen from the Heaven Wasteland Domain.
The only thing he was uncertain about was why he had not seen Bai Yuanxing.
Could...
A bad feeling formed in his heart.
After he nodded at Song Xiaojun, the two figures descended and appeared in front of Jin Ling’er and the others.
“Who are you?”
“Be careful...”
Seeing the two figures suddenly appearing in front of them, the youths were greatly shocked and immediately put up a reactionary defense out of instinct.
“Everyone, get back now… Huh… isn’t it… Ttt... teacher?” Jin Ling’er shouted and came to his senses. Upon seeing Ye Qingyu’s face clearly, he was taken aback and revealed a disbelieving expression on his face at once. Wiping his eyes incessantly, he could confirm that he was neither dreaming nor mistaken, and he thus became overjoyed.
At this time, the other youths also came to their senses.
The rounds after rounds of selection they had gone through back then could be said to be highly selective, such that they were all personally chosen by Ye Qingyu himself, and thus they had all seen him before. To them, the Ye Qingyu of that time was their supreme martial idol. In particular, when they reached the Immortal God Emperor Sect and heard more of his legends, being warriors of the Heaven Wasteland Domain themselves, their admiration of him grew and hence they naturally kept his face firmly in their minds.
“Lord Ye Qingyu!”
“Lord Ye Qingyu!”
“Goodness, was it Lord Ye Qingyu who killed those ferocious beasts from earlier? That must be the case.”
“Surely I’m not dreaming, Lord Ye Qingyu has arrived to rescue us… Little Four, pinch me… Ouch, that hurts, you didn’t have to use so much force.”
“I’d also like to know if I’m dreaming.”
The young boys and girls jabbered among themselves. Having come to their senses, they could not be any more excited as they hurriedly saluted Ye Qingyu.
“No need to stand on ceremony… Seeing that all of you are safe, I can now rest easy. By the way, Jin Ling’er, where’s your Brother Bai Yuanxing? Why isn’t he here?” Seeing that the youths were mostly unscathed, Ye Qingyu’s heart felt a lot lighter. He had previously chastised himself for choosing them yet not taking good care of them, causing these elite talents of the Heaven Wasteland Domain to fall into trouble. Now, seeing that they were alright, his inner self-reproach dissipated considerably.
Hearing this, Jin Ling’er’s expression became odd. “Teacher, Brother Bai Yuanxing was captured by demons.”
“Huh? How did that happen?” Ye Qingyuwas taken aback.
Demons?
What demons?
Demon Race experts?
“It was an old demon from another ancient castle, a scarecrow spirit who was too powerful for us to defeat. This old demon would capture one person from our [Heroes’ Castle] every day to accompany him in cultivation...” Jin Ling’er replied, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
“That’s right. That scarecrow spirit was terrifyingly powerful. Even the two hundred of us fighting together were no match for him.”
“That old fellows perverted as hell. He demanded that we follow him in cultivating a few bizarre techniques, and even threw us into an illusory realm where we fought against demonic beasts for his viewing pleasure...”
“However, some of the techniques he imparted are quite interesting.”
“He knows many martial techniques, as if he’s a walking martial library.”
The youths competed among themselves to report to Ye Qingyu.
Although Ye Qingyu could not understand them clearly, he could basically confirm that the scarecrow spirit whom these youths mentioned was not a villain but instead seemed to be their guardian with no apparent malice. He took them one by one from the castle called the [Heroes’ Castle] and forced them into cultivation, and coincidentally, it was Bai Yuanxing’s turn today. As for Li Ying and Li Qi, they seemed to have been thrown into the illusory realm to toughen up by this scarecrow spirit.
However…
A scarecrow spirit?
Sounds weird. Why do I get the feeling that I’ve seen it somewhere before?
A figure formed in Ye Qingyu’s mind.
With the youths clustering round them, Ye Qingyu and Song Xiaojun entered the ancient castle.
The interior space of the ancient castle was far greater than what it seemed from the outside. Clearly, the place was enchanted with some kind of spatial formation, and seemed to be a small world of its own. Inside, there were thousands of houses of various sizes, large halls, a back garden, and more. In particular, the back garden, while called a garden, was actually a huge ancient battlefield whose boundaries could not be seen and on which rested closely-packed skeletons in armor, with clusters of ghostfire hopping about among them. Aside from this, there were also a few herbs growing among them. Perhaps it was because the herbs had been watered with the essence and blood of these battle-fallen experts that they grew at an astonishing rate while diffusing a faint medicinal aroma.
The clothes that the youths originally brought along had long become rotten and tattered. The weapons and armor they were now carrying and wearing were apparently taken from the skeletons on this old battlefield. With the armor barely covering their bodies, they could pass for barbarians.
“Back then, when we were being pursued by the Greater One Sect’s army, Swordsman Liu Shaji led us to escape from the Immortal God Emperor Sect using the [Sky Deceiving Jade Box]. Later, when the Greater One Immortal caught up with us, he sacrificed himself in order to protect us, allowing Brother Bai Yuanxing to leave with the real [Sky Deceiving Jade Box]...” As Jin Ling’er and the other youths recounted what happened back then, their eyes turned red. In particular, Liu Shaji’s sacrificial actions were permanently inscribed in their memories and could never be forgotten. Jin Ling’er continued, “All of the space leading toward the perimeter of the Immortal God Mountain Range was sealed. Caught in an impasse, Brother Bai Yuanxing reversed course and led us into the Reincarnation Hall of the Chaos Demon Emperor. Eventually, guided by a mysterious force, we arrived in this ancient castle. Later, when the Reincarnation Hall collapsed, the ancient castle automatically flew through the air and brought us into this domain.”
With each of them offering a sentence here and there, the youths provided a rough outline of what happened.
“So, you lot have been here for the past few years?” Ye Qingyu nodded, beginning to understand why he was unable to deduce their location and tracks despite using the Emperor Detection Technique multiple times. It turned out that they had been in the Chaos Domain, which, shrouded by chaotic ashes, could indeed be cut off from the probing of the Emperor Detection Technique.
“We’ve basically been in this domain all this time. However, the ancient castle would occasionally change its location on its own, albeit within a circumference of ten thousand kilometers,” Jin Ling’er said.
Hearing this, Ye Qingyu nodded his head. There were many things in the Reincarnation Hall of the Chaos Demon Emperor that were mysterious like no other, possessing unimaginable power, such as the Tusita Palace. Perhaps, during the collapse of the Reincarnation Hall back then, the [Tusita Palace] also flew through the air and left on its own.
Doing a head count, Ye Qingyu found out that there was actually not a single youth less than the number of youths sent to the Immortal God Emperor Sect in the Clear River Domain back then. Since there were no injuries or deaths, he could feel completely at ease.
The days that the youths spent here could be said to be miserable and tough.
They had tidied up a few rooms in the ancient castle to serve as practice rooms and bedrooms, while several large halls became their discussion areas.
Because they had been incessantly troubled by fierce beasts, they were perennially in mortal danger and had to be prepared for battle at all times. This was why they trained hard day and night. Moreover, they had a scarecrow spirit on one side guiding and coaching them by using those peculiar methods, and so their prowess increased like crazy. At present, the weakest among the more than two hundred of them also possessed Saint realm cultivation already. It must be known that when they were sent to the Immortal God Emperor Sect, their average strength was not even at the Spirit Spring stage, while a few had not even cultivated the martial way before. Had it not only been a few years?
This rate of growth was considerably terrifying, and was virtually comparable to Ye Qingyu’s cultivation path.
Their regular sources of food were basically picked from the back garden of the castle, consisting only of herbs that could fill their stomachs. Although two hundred people was not a small number, the fortunate thing was that the back garden was large enough to provide an endless supply of herbs, which could not be considered delicious but nevertheless satisfied the energy requirements of every warrior. Over the past few years, these youths had eaten these herbs until they became brimming with spiritual qi, nearly becoming human deities.
“There are still many rooms in the castle that we cannot open and don’t know what’s inside.” Jin Ling’er pointed at hundreds of rooms in the depths of the castle, each of them possessing inhibitions. When the youths were reclaiming this castle initially, they only opened about three hundred rooms or so. Later, as their strengths increased, they opened another three hundred rooms or so in succession. However, there were still more than three hundred rooms that they could not open and did not know what was inside.
“We’ve discovered many things stored in the rooms that we opened, consisting mainly of weapons and a few cultivation techniques. These are all ancient objects from ages far back, but none of them are ordinary things. We’ve held private discussions and decided to let Brother Bai Yuanxing distribute them,” another old head on young shoulders reported.
Ye Qingyu nodded.
This castle was named as the [Heroes’ Castle] by the youths so as to serve as self-motivation in this dire situation. However, it was obvious that there were many secrets in the castle, probably no less than those in the [Tusita Palace] and other palaces in the Reincarnation Hall of the Chaos Demon Emperor.
“This room is the passage that leads to the scarecrow spirit.” Arriving at a specially-marked doorway, Jin Ling’er opened the door and pointed at a jet-black time-space vortex inside.
With one look, Ye Qingyu knew that the vortex was an extremely-ingenious fiendgod teleportation formation.
This kind of formation had an uncommon formation teleportation array. Any divine-level teleportation array that was created based on fiendgod script could not be broken, and could basically last forever.
“This seems like a good time to pay a visit to that expert anyway. Let’s see if he’s indeed the being I know.” Ye Qingyu had an idea.
While Song Xiaojun and the other youths stayed back to guard the ancient castle so as to prevent other changes from occurring, Ye Qingyu entered the vortex in the air above, bringing Jin Ling’er with him.
A splendor flickered.
A feeling of losing weight was felt.
The next moment, he heard the sound of flowing water.
Ye Qingyu inwardly calculated that this teleportation was approximately one hundred thousand kilometers in distance. Looking around him, he realized that they had been teleported to a sea. Great yellow waves surged furiously, while a faint, deathly qi pervaded the world.
Uttering a cry of alarm, Jin Ling’er fell into the water.
Despite his Quasi-emperor-level cultivation, he could not stand on these yellow waves.
“It’s water from the Netherworld Yellow Springs.”
Ye Qingyu grabbed hold of Jin Ling’er and tread both feet on the water’s surface. Faint layers of ripples undulated as the surrounding waves subsided. In little time, all of the waves and billows in the entire sea disappeared, and the surface abruptly became as glossy as a mirror. After feeling himself being enwrapped by a powerful force, Jin Ling’er realized that he could stand steadily on the water’s surface.
He knew at this instant that Teacher’s cultivation and strength had long reached an unimaginable level.
“It’s him.” Jin Ling’er pointed ahead.
A battered boat was drifting in the distance.
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