Li Pingyi's consciousness seemed to be sucked into a high-speed rotating vortex, and then violently flung out by a massive force.
A fierce tearing sensation accompanied by the world spinning made his vision go dark, as if his soul was about to be crushed to pieces.
This pain far exceeded that of the car accident fifteen years ago.
I do not know how much time passed before the excruciating pain slowly subsided.
When he finally recovered his wits, he found himself in an unfamiliar place.
"Jingui?!" His heart tightened. He looked around, but there was no sign of that chubby figure by his side. What met his eyes was a dense jungle of towering, interlaced trees and tangled vines!
"Damn it, were we separated by the teleportation..."
"Tsk tsk tsk... Master Wang's crow mouth is really as accurate as the legends say!"
After a brief moment of thought, Li Pingyi roughly figured out where he was.
He should have arrived in a Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land unique to the Canglan Continent.
In his mind, he could not help but recall the scene from a long time ago when Master Wang spoke with flying spit as he described these secret realms:
"Remember, the color of the Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land's door is crucial! A green door is the opportunity ground for Qi Condensation juniors. Once inside, everyone runs on the ground just the same, jumping a little higher at best. If it is blue, that is a Foundation Establishment Grotto-Heaven. Little fellows like us in the Qi Condensation stage can enter, but we must be careful of Foundation Establishment seniors and Monster Beasts that can fly. As for yellow... that is reserved for Golden Core grandmasters. Absolutely do not go in to serve as a snack between the teeth of Golden Core Monster Beasts."
"The door frame and the void inside the door are both green. This should be a Qi Condensation-tier Grotto-Heaven."
He carefully recalled the details described by Master Wang and, based on what he had seen right before being sucked in, quickly reached a conclusion. His tense shoulders then relaxed: "Good, good, nobody can fly... At least, the threat is much smaller."
"Well, since we are here, we must make the best of it..." Li Pingyi sighed slightly and tried to circulate his Spiritual Qi.
In an instant, dense Spiritual Qi poured into his body, and the pores all over him suddenly opened, making him almost unable to help groaning out loud.
"Just as my parents said, the concentration of Spiritual Qi within a Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land is far beyond comparison with the outside world of the Canglan Continent!" Joy welled up in Li Pingyi's heart, but the next moment, his entire body shook violently!
"Huh? This is... the chessboard?!"
His mind suddenly sank into his Consciousness Sea, only to see that mysterious, unadorned ancient chessboard which had lain dormant for a full six years. Today, it completely swept away its past gloom, glowing with a soft, pale green fluorescence throughout, and the previously blurred patterns upon it had even become clear!
This chessboard deeply hidden in his Consciousness Sea was a secret he had told no one.
This chessboard was discovered when he was eight years old, the year he guided Qi into his body and first caught a glimpse of his Consciousness Sea.
It had always floated quietly in the center of the Consciousness Sea, its origin unknown and its function unknown, like a dust-covered ancient artifact.
Li Pingyi had tried countless methods, but could not stir it in the slightest.
Yet now, the mottled spots on its surface had completely faded, and it was actually glowing...
"Six years... a full six years!" Li Pingyi's eyes turned slightly red with excitement, his voice trembling with a hint of disbelief, "You... finally willing to wake up!"
For six years, every day before going to bed, without fail, he would enter his Consciousness Sea and chatter away at this chessboard—from the initial respectful "Senior Chessboard", to the later helpless "Brother Qi", to the final rambling to himself. He had even once thought that this was just an incomprehensible, solidified foreign object within his Consciousness Sea.
Never did he expect that, nourished by the dense Spiritual Qi of the Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land, it would actually... revive!
Before Li Pingyi could savor this joy in detail, the chessboard in his Consciousness Sea suddenly burst into an even more dazzling brilliance, shaking his mind slightly.
"Again?" Li Pingyi was so frightened by this sudden change that he took a step back on the spot. As the light gradually dissipated, he slowly recovered his wits.
He saw that astonishing changes had taken place on the surface of the chessboard: pillars of light of various colors and sizes had appeared out of thin air, scattered like stars across the grid positions of the chessboard. Some light spots were as fine as grains of rice, dim and faint; others occupied nearly half a grid, with flowing halos.
"Red, green, blue, purple, black... What do all these light pillars represent?" Li Pingyi suppressed the raging waves in his heart and observed carefully.
He found that the red light spots were the most numerous, numbering more than a dozen; the green ones were next, numbering five; the blue ones, three; the purple ones were the rarest, with only one, but it was the brightest; and there were as many as fifteen black light spots, exuding an ominous aura.
"Wait!" His gaze locked onto a faint, flickering earth-yellow light spot in the center of the chessboard, "Could this little yellow spot... be?!"
A bold idea formed in his mind.
With a thought, Li Pingyi immediately slapped a Speed-Enhancing Talisman onto both legs.
"Whoosh!"
His figure darted out like an arrow for several hundred feet.
At the same time, he happily discovered that the small earth-yellow light spot on the chessboard in his Consciousness Sea had also moved synchronously by a tiny bit!
"I get it! I completely get it!" Li Pingyi was so excited he almost jumped up, an indescribable ecstasy rushing straight to his skull, "This chessboard... it is actually a real-time dynamic panoramic map! This yellow light spot is my location!"
This was simply divine assistance! With the guidance of this chessboard, in this perilous and unfamiliar Grotto-Heaven, it was equivalent to having an extra pair of all-seeing eyes!
"Calm down, calm down!" Li Pingyi took a few deep breaths, forcing himself to calm his churning emotions.
He focused his gaze on the chessboard again and found that not far from the yellow dot representing his position, about two to three miles away, there was a red light pillar the size of a rice grain, flickering alone.
"A red light pillar... What could it be? A treasure? Or... some kind of marker?" Li Pingyi's eyes flickered, "Forget it, let's go check out this nearest red dot first!"
Li Pingyi quickly adjusted his state and no longer wasted time. While continuously slapping speed-enhancing incantations onto his legs, he sprinted wildly in the direction of the nearest red light pillar on the chessboard, all the while silently chanting in his heart:
"Brother Qi, are your surnames Baidu or Amap?"
"Brother Qi, can you set up voice navigation? You know, the kind that says 'please turn left ahead, please turn right ahead'..."
"Brother Qi, I like Lin Chi-ling's voice... Though Guo Degang wouldn't be bad either..."
The chessboard remained silent, except for the yellow light dot faithfully changing its position as he moved.
...
About half an hour later, guided by the chessboard, Li Pingyi arrived outside a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides.
The valley entrance was narrow, with only a winding path leading to the depths.
The red light pillar shown on the chessboard was roughly located in the center of the valley.
He did not rashly enter via the path, but instead carefully observed the surrounding terrain.
"Surround three sides and leave one open; it's a common military strategy. If there's an ambush, walking in from the front makes you a target." He pondered inwardly, then cast his gaze toward a relatively gentle slope nearby.
Retrieving a mountain-clearing axe from the Qiankun Pouch, Li Pingyi hunched over and cautiously climbed up the slope.
Until the exact meaning of those light pillar colors was clear, one could never be too cautious.
Although the slope was somewhat steep, it was no difficult task for him.
Soon, he reached the top of the slope, parted the dense bushes in front of him, and stared intently into the valley.
The valley was a picture of serene greenery. In the very center of the valley floor, several small plants about half a foot tall, pitch-green throughout with faint silver radiance along the edges of their leaves, were swaying gently in the breeze.
"That is... Earth Spirit Grass!" Li Pingyi's pupils suddenly constricted, and his breath hitched.
This was the main ingredient for refining various crucial Qi Condensation stage pills. In the outside Market Towns, it was always in high demand and short supply; a top-quality stalk could even fetch hundreds of Spirit Stones at auction!
He forcefully suppressed the excitement in his heart and sharply scanned the area around the Earth Spirit Grass.
As for how he was able to instantly identify the type of spiritual plant from such a distance, there was a reason for it.
When it came to the hundred arts of cultivation, Li Pingyi's aptitude and grades were mostly mediocre, and he even had failing scores in a few subjects.
In the words of his cheap father Li Youdao, it was a lack of comprehension.
He often pondered it himself: in his past life, passing advanced mathematics still depended on the weather, the terrain, the geomancy, and the teacher's mood. Alchemy, weapon crafting, talisman drawing, and formation setting—which of these didn't require massive amounts of calculation and evolution? Could he be blamed for low scores?
Yet there were exceptions to every rule.
As for the subject of spiritual plants, he could always get a top-tier score in class.
Why?
In Li Pingyi's own words, the skill of farming and tilling the land was engraved in the genes of the descendants of Yan and Huang, the kind that wouldn't change even if reduced to ashes.
At this moment, that "talent engraved in his genes" told him that those few stalks of Earth Spirit Grass in the center of the valley were absolute top-tier quality!
He was going to make a fortune! This time he was really going to make a fortune!