Thick forests, high mountains, interweaving canyons, and the occasional roars of Magical Beasts... deep within the forest, Long Chen’s expression as he rode on Little Snow’s back was extremely unsightly.
“That old bastard, scoundrel, crook!”
Long Chen continuously cursed Tu Fang. He had definitely been conned this time! When he had looked at the map, he had almost passed out.
Within that one foot long map, Long Chen immediately saw the location of the Xuantian Monastery. But he had to look it over three times before he finally managed to see a mosquito-sized dot in the corner that represented Phoenix Cry.
Long Chen had been completely dumbstruck. He had searched for a neighboring empire and silently measured their relative distance on the map, then comparing it to the distance to the Xuantian Monastery.
He was appalled to realize that the Xuantian Monastery was more than ten thousand miles away, and it wasn’t even a direct path!
There were several mountain ranges shown on the map, and all kinds of high rank Magical Beasts appeared there. In other words, if Long Chen didn’t want to feed himself to them as dinner, he would have to detour around them!
Long Chen was absolutely livid. Tu Fang, that old bastard, had truly conned him. He wanted a Blood Condensation youth to travel this great of a distance? Wasn’t that just sending him to his death?
What Long Chen didn’t know was that the Xuantian Monastery had extremely strict rules, and their selection of disciples was also extremely stringent.
Long Chen had no Spirit Root, and so he fundamentally did not have the qualifications to be even tested. For Tu Fang to let him come like this was already an exception.
In order to explain himself to the monastery, he made Long Chen travel this ten thousand mile journey through the wastelands on his own. If he did that just to obtain the chance to take the test, others wouldn’t be able to say anything in objection.
Long Chen calculated how long it would take. He would need to travel at least four hundred miles a day in order to make it to the Xuantian Monastery within a month.
If that was just on a flat, empty road, it would be nothing with Little Snow’s speed. But within the wilderness with all kinds of crazy terrain, their journey would be much more difficult. Furthermore, they also had to be on guard against the attacks from Magical Beasts.
After only traveling for a week, Long Chen had already experienced several large battles. There were quite a few Magical Beasts blocking their way, and they had all been killed by Long Chen.
In this one week, he had traveled over fifteen hundred miles. That speed was far from meeting his requirements. That completely infuriated Long Chen, but he was completely helpless.
...
A blazing fire crackled. That fire rose over three meters into the air as it brightened the surroundings.
Beside the fire was a large snake over a dozen meters long. Its scales and skin had been peeled off and it was currently on a stick, roasting.
Long Chen and Little Snow barely waited until it was cooked before they devoured it. Long Chen didn’t eat that much normally, but by gorging himself, he felt as if he was relieving at least a bit of that suppressed anger inside of him.
Little Snow was wildly devouring his food far faster than Long Chen. Long Chen had only eaten a dozen pounds before the remaining meat all entered Little Snow’s stomach.
Generally, starting a fire and cooking food in the wilderness was an extremely dangerous action. All kinds of vicious Magical Beasts would be attracted over.
But now Long Chen no longer cared that much. His time was pressing. He needed to use the least amount of time to hurry on his way. He would rush all day and cultivate during the night.
As a Magical Beast, Little Snow’s powerful physical body meant he could travel for several days and nights without pause so he didn’t need to worry about this pace being too tiring. Furthermore, Little Snow didn’t need to cultivate as long as he had enough meat.
In any case, Magical Beasts were everywhere along their journey. They would just randomly choose one to eat. After eating, Long Chen would begin cultivating while Little Snow would curl up around Long Chen and doze.
Little Snow ate to his full every day. With each day, his body grew.
The current Little Snow had grown to become around five meters long and was now the same height as Long Chen, making him appear even more formidable than ever.
Furthermore, each day his speed and power would evolve to a new level. That definitely surprised and excited Long Chen.
As a Magical Beast that would be at the third rank once he matured, Little Snow was still growing. He grew stronger with each passing day. But with his current speed, they probably wouldn’t be able to make it.
However, as he matured, his speed increased greatly. To reach the Xuantian Monastery in a month shouldn’t pose much of a problem.
Long Chen was filled with gratefulness towards Meng Qi. Sending Little Snow to him had been an enormous help.
With Little Snow guarding him and his keen spiritual perception, no Magical Beasts could sneak on them without them knowing. That was why Long Chen could cultivate in peace.
Long Chen slowly closed his eyes, and in just a few breaths, his spirit and heart entered a state of emptiness. Even in this kind of environment he was able to enter a perfect state of meditation.
The three hundred meters divine ring appeared behind him. A huge whirlpool of spiritual qi appeared as he greedily absorbed it into his body.
The spiritual qi entered his FengFu Star, which would then slowly circulate and compress the spiritual qi that was absorbed from heaven and earth, making it even purer. It would then slowly merge into Long Chen’s body, entering his blood.
And once that spiritual qi entered his blood, that slowly flowing blood would begin circulating quicker. Loud explosive rumbling like a flash flood would ring out.
Following the permeation of the spiritual qi, his blood’s impurities were incessantly being forced out of his body. Those impurities would flow out like sweat, bringing with them an unpleasant stench.
This was blood condensation. Condense the blood into its purest form, forcing out all the impurities. With such pure blood nourishing the physical body, it was as if the body would be reborn and become even stronger.
Boom!
With a loud explosion, the veins in his body widened and Long Chen laughed. After exhaling a mouthful of turbid air, he opened his eyes.
The white color of dawn was already starting to rise from the east at this time. Rubbing the jade pendant in his robes, a trace of warmth arose in his heart.
This was the only possession his parents had left him. This piece of jade was absolutely magical and mystical, allowing him to eliminate his impurities at a shocking pace and letting him enter his meditative state almost immediately. That caused his cultivation efficiency to multiply several times.
He didn’t even sense the passing of time. He felt as if he had just closed his eyes when the sky had brightened. However, he could sense the change in his body.
He punched out, causing space to shake. The wind from his fist directly knocked down a huge tree.
“My physical body has once more strengthened. Even without using Battle Skills, I already have such power. The Blood Condensation realm truly is unfathomable.” Long Chen tightly clenched his fists, a passionate fire burning in his heart.
He had now purified the blood in his body four times, causing his physical strength to explode to a point where even he was frightened.
But the Blood Condensation realm wasn’t the same as the Qi Condensation realm. After purifying the blood once, it would require a period of time to let the body form more blood. The purified blood would be stored properly while new blood refilled the veins to their old capacity. Only then could you refine the blood again.
Ordinarily, that would require half a month’s time. But for Long Chen, he didn’t know whether it was because of the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art or not, after his first blood condensement, he had only required several hours before his blood had replenished.
The second time it had required a full day, and the third time two days. This was currently the fourth time, and Long Chen estimated it would take four days before he could do the next blood condensement.
But in any case, the current Long Chen was now already an expert at the fourth Heavenstage of Blood Condensation.
“Ao!”
Suddenly, Little Snow let out a howl and Long Chen hastily put away his smile. “Fine, fine, let’s go.”
Little Snow had seen that Long Chen was just foolishly laughing and smiling, and so he had to urge him into motion. Little Snow shot forward like a ray of white light, rushing on their way.
“Haha, Little Snow, your speed is even faster than yesterday,” praised Long Chen excitedly. Little Snow’s speed had once more advanced, and in the future, they wouldn’t have to rush as fast as they were.
“Ao!”
“What? If you continue eating enough meat, you’ll be able to keep increasing your speed? Okay, then let’s see if we can kill a third rank Magical Beast today to get a good meal for you,” laughed Long Chen.
Continuing forward, the dense forest thicket faded away, revealing a barren land that stretched for thousands of miles. There was nothing that broke the unending field of yellow dirt, and the air was filled with a desolate feeling.
Long Chen hastily checked his map and nodded. They were still on the right way. This barren land was something they had to pass through.
Carefully looking at the map and then using a piece of grass as a scale, he measured the distance of this desert and sucked in a cold breath of air.
“Little Snow, this barren land continues for fifteen hundred miles, and there’s one section of it that is a true desert without a drop of water. We won’t be able to run fast on the sand, so we’ll probably need four or five days to walk straight through it. Can you handle it?” Long Chen was a bit worried.
The desert sand was too soft and so Little Snow’s speed would sharply decline. Furthermore, it would cause even more exhaustion which was extremely disadvantageous for them.
“Ao wu!”
“No, no, just saying there shouldn’t be a problem is no good. We have to be absolutely sure that it’ll be fine. We can’t do anything we aren’t sure of.”
Little Snow said he probably could do it, but Long Chen didn’t dare risk it. Not eating for five days wasn’t much of a problem, but to rush through a desert for five days with the sun beating down upon you without a single drop of water for relief was too dangerous. Even a Magical Beast’s body would be unable to endure it.
Long Chen thought about it, and they returned to the forest. Long Chen was planning on chopping down a couple of large trees and cutting out buckets from them.
But Long Chen’s luck was pretty good and he saw a field of bamboo trees. He didn’t know what breed they were, but they were very long and as thick as a person’s waist. Each stalk was over a meter tall, and they were practically the perfect water buckets.
Long Chen cut off forty of them in a single breath. Near there, he found a clear pool of water and filled the bamboo rods to their top, then placed them in his spatial ring.
A spatial ring’s inner space was completely still and he didn’t need to worry about jolting the water out along the way.
After preparing this, Long Chen felt much more at ease. With water, even if they didn’t have food, they would still be able to support themselves for a long time.
As they traveled across that barren land, the vegetation became even sparser until there was not even a single blade of grass and everything was just yellow sand.
Waves of heat battered them, not much inferior to being within a blazing fire. In front of such heat waves, perhaps only pill cultivators, who were used to fire, could ignore them.
“Little Snow, are you alright?” asked Long Chen.
Little Snow didn’t reply to him. He roared and sped along.
As expected, Little Snow’s speed was greatly limited by the sand. His current pace was at most seventy or eighty percent of what it had been in the forest.
Furthermore, the soft sand exhausted even more of his stamina. When night fell, he had only traveled two hundred fifty miles. And that was because part of the way had still been dirt. Tomorrow it would all be sand, so they definitely wouldn’t be able to go as far as today.
The night within the desert was an icy cold that pierced the bones, a complete opposite of the day. The most helpless thing was that within the desert, Long Chen could absorb only next to no spiritual qi. He directly gave up cultivating and just lay on Little Snow’s body and slept.
“Ao!”
Late into the night, Little Snow suddenly roared, rousing Long Chen awake.
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