Drawing on his previous bloody lesson, Li Pingyi silently swore never to let those dead snakes get within ten feet of him.
He drew out a stack of fire-ball Spirit Talismans, clearing away the green bamboo pythons he discovered one by one.
Even though his Spiritual Power was exhausted after just a few talismans, forcing him to sit in meditation to recover it, he felt no regret whatsoever.
Only when he saw that all the black threads on the red pillar of light had been completely cleared did he set his mind at ease, sit down cross-legged on the ground, and begin taking stock of his harvest.
"Six intact snake fangs, and six snake gallbladders as well. Just now, one of my fire-ball talismans went off course and hit a snake, roasting its gallbladder right through—that's one lost."
"Wait, why does the number feel off? There were seven snakes in total. I'm short one gallbladder, but the fangs aren't missing... yet logically there should be seven fangs, too..."
As if recalling something, Li Pingyi instinctively lowered his head, only to see the snake head that had stubbornly bitten onto him as if mocking him.
He gave his own head a slap, thinking to himself that he must have been bitten stupid by this snake, and then he went back to attentively cleaning the snake gallbladders.
Having finished tallying his spoils, Li Pingyi approached the vicinity of the red pillar of light.
In fact, he had already passed by this spot during the earlier battle, but at the time, he and the half-snake monster along with two green bamboo pythons had been locked in a fierce struggle, leaving him with zero spare attention for his surroundings.
Now, he searched the area thoroughly from top to bottom, yet still came away empty-handed.
"The yellow dot clearly overlapped completely with the pillar of light, so how can I not find it? Don't tell me it really expects me to dig three feet into the ground?"
Frowning deeply, Li Pingyi refused to give up and searched the ground meticulously once more, leaving not even the cracks in the stones unchecked, but still he found nothing.
He irritably ruffled his hair, his gaze sweeping absentmindedly over the tall, straight green bamboos around him.
*Wait!* A flash of inspiration struck his mind. *This is a bamboo grove. Could the pillar of light on the chessboard not be pointing to the ground, but rather... to the bamboo itself?!*
He jerked his head up, carefully inspecting the surrounding bamboo stalks one by one, until suddenly, he sprinted wildly in a certain direction, drew his axe, and began hacking away frantically.
As that stalk of bamboo crashed down with a resounding thud, Li Pingyi rushed over to the tip of the bamboo. Sure enough, the color of the bamboo joints starting from the tip downward seemed different, displaying a faint purple hue.
"Spirit Bamboo!" Li Pingyi was so excited he nearly jumped for joy.
"And it's a full three joints!!"
He had once seen the stalk of Spirit Bamboo treasured by his father at home; it was only about the length of a middle finger, yet when his father took it out, he actually held it with both hands and wouldn't let Li Pingyi touch it the entire time.
According to his father, just that tiny piece of Spirit Bamboo had cost him several months' worth of stipend as an executive steward.
As he trimmed away the top and bottom to extract the Spirit Bamboo, the red pillar of light on the chessboard instantly sank back into the chessboard, and in that split second, his Consciousness Sea received a bit of feedback once more.
That wave of feedback surged into his Consciousness Sea, and the slightly dim Consciousness Sea felt as though a trickle of fresh spring water had been poured into it, feeling so wonderful that Li Pingyi almost groaned out loud.
The light pillar of the Spirit Bamboo was slightly thicker, and the feedback was even more pronounced than that of the Earth Spirit Grass.
Sure enough, the thicker it is, the more comfortable it feels...
*Finding just two treasures has boosted my Consciousness Sea by an amount comparable to nearly ten days of my usual bitter cultivation!* Joy surged wildly in his heart. *If I can just do this a few more times... this life! There really is something to look forward to!*
Looking at the Spirit Bamboo and Earth Spirit Grass resting quietly inside his Qiankun Pouch, Li Pingyi instantly felt brimming with confidence.
As he straightened his sagging snake-skin belt, he walked in the direction of the green pillar of light not far away.
...
Meanwhile, of the eighteen Outer Sect disciples of the Qingxuan Sect who had successively entered the Grotto-Heaven—aside from two who were trembling in fear in a corner—most of the rest had given up on continuing their search after a round of fruitless looking, turning instead to cultivation.
Because the sound-transmitting Dharma Artifacts within the Grotto-Heaven could not be used, and the space was extremely vast, very few people managed to converge together; occasionally running into two or three people already counted as immensely fortunate.
In the eyes of most people, the Grotto-Heaven was fraught with danger. Not only did they have to constantly guard against sudden attacks from Monster Beasts, but they also had to remain vigilant against sneak attacks from rogue cultivators and Evil Cultivators, and above all, they worried about accidentally stumbling into some barren dead zone from which it was hard to say whether they could ever escape.
Therefore, the majority of people would choose to find a safe and secluded spot to sit in meditation and cultivate, waiting until the Grotto-Heaven ended to be automatically teleported out.
The Grotto-Heaven generally lasted only twelve hours.
And cultivating for twelve hours in this Spiritual Qi-dense Grotto-Heaven was equivalent to a full month of arduous cultivation outside.
It was a completely risk-free, guaranteed profit.
Of course, there were also those who chose to hunt for treasures—such as some senior brothers and sisters at the Qi Condensation Great Perfection.
In this Qi Condensation Grotto-Heaven devoid of the Foundation Establishment Stage, as long as one wasn't courting death, they could pretty much go take a look anywhere.
Yet the vast majority of the time was still wasted on aimless searching, which instead yielded losses that outweighed the gains.
All in all, the efficiency was simply too low.
Li Pingyi was different, however. With the help of Brother Chess, he was like running a high-precision map inside the Grotto-Heaven.
Li Pingyi noticed that of the twenty-odd pillars of light that had lit up on the chessboard when he first entered, counting the two he had acquired, roughly five had vanished, among which one had been a black pillar of light.
"Are the senior brothers and sisters all this ferocious? They only fight monsters and don't pick up loot?"
Looking at the solitary red pillar of light left behind after that black pillar of light had vanished, Li Pingyi involuntarily drooled.
It seemed he wasn't the only one whose eyes were acting up...
"A red pillar of light about the same size as the Spirit Bamboo, but it's a bit too far away."
He wiped away the drool that had leaked out and roughly estimated the time; traveling there at full speed would take around two to three hours, and in the event that he had to make detours along the way, the time spent would only be even longer.
"I'll go grab it immediately once I'm done here. I need to pick up the pace."
Pacing hurriedly, Li Pingyi moved forward at a fast clip.
The moment he stepped out of the bamboo grove, his field of vision suddenly opened up wide.
A shimmering lake appeared before him.
And on the other side of the lake, a small wooden house stood quietly.
"A lakeside cabin, yeah, this is definitely one of those places you shouldn't go into."
Perhaps because he had watched too many horror movies in the past, Li Pingyi felt a lingering creepiness in his heart anyway.
He walked along the lake toward the cabin, making sure not to forget to draw his axe along the way.
He could practically be certain that the green pillar of light was inside that wooden house.
As he slowly drew closer, the full appearance of the wooden house came into view.
The wooden house had been weathered by the passage of time; the timber was aged and dim, and the wooden roof tiles were chipped and missing, giving it a dilapidated and disheveled look. Weeds grew profusely all around, and upon closer inspection, strange patterns could be faintly seen among the weeds, resembling the leftover traces of a formation.
Li Pingyi projected his short and punchy spiritual sense, cautiously probing the surroundings. Confirming there was no danger, he walked around to the front of the wooden house and slowly pushed open the door.
The next second, a wave of stale, moldy stench hit him head-on, nearly knocking him out cold.
He hurriedly manipulated his hand seals to cast the Breath-Holding Technique, and his pale, ashen complexion eased only slightly.
Once his breathing stabilized, he pinched an illumination spell, sending a blue-black ball of light hovering above his palm, before he finally dared to take half a step into the house.
The eerie light swept across the mottled walls, where one could still faintly make out that the room had once been furnished quite elegantly: a stone table sat in the middle, surrounded by several stone stools, all covered entirely in thick dust and cobwebs.
The once-comfortable bed now consisted only of a dilapidated frame, the brocade on it long since rotted away, leaving behind nothing more than mottled stains.
In the corner, a bookshelf had collapsed, and several yellowed ancient books lay scattered across the floor.
Ancient books? Good stuff... A sharp gleam flashed in his eyes as he strode forward. However, the moment his fingertips brushed against the pages, the fragile paper turned to ashes like sand.
He froze in place, staring fixedly at the dust particles scattering from his palm, and squeezed out a dry complaint from his throat: "You turned them to ash and still won't let me take them?" Resignedly brushing the remaining dust from his hands, he vigilantly scanned his surroundings and, confirming that the green pillar of light was still somewhere inside the house, crouched down to continue his meticulous search.