Chronicles of the Green Vine: A Mortal’s Path to Immortality

Zhang Ling quickly pulled out three talismans. With a touch of spiritual light, he activated them, transforming them into three fireballs the size of millstones, and slammed them directly into the quicksand pit.

A moment later, the smoke dissipated, leaving a scene of devastation. The insect swarm was almost entirely reduced to ashes.

Finally solved it, Zhang Ling wiped the sweat from his forehead.

But before he could rejoice, a buzzing sound reached his ears again. In the distant sky, an even larger cloud of insects was rapidly approaching.

Zhang Ling turned and ran.

That insect cloud was more than ten times larger than the swarm that had just chased him. It contained over a thousand strange insects, which he couldn't handle.

A quarter of an hour passed in the blink of an eye. The insect cloud behind him was getting closer and closer, seemingly locked onto his aura.

The area was barren, offering no place to hide.

Zhang Ling tossed two more spirit-recovering pills into his mouth and quickly pondered a solution.

Suddenly, he saw that the cliff ahead came to an end. An idea struck him. He grabbed a green gem with his left hand, emitting wisps of spiritual light.

On his left arm, a verdant vine bulged with nodes, each flashing with red light.

Zhang Ling quickened his pace. After turning past a cliff, he flashed and landed on the ground.

With a shake of his left arm, the vine burst forth, growing wildly. The nodes burst open one by one, emitting intense red light, and grew into thick, black vines.

These vines were covered with dense, small red leaves, their crimson color strikingly eerie. This was the Firestar Grass vine he had collected earlier.

Zhang Ling lowered his body, merging most of it into the soil, and covered himself with the dense Firestar Grass vines.

Just as he finished, the large insect cloud arrived overhead. After a long while, the strange insects lost their target and disappeared.

This time, Zhang Ling breathed a sigh of relief. Demonic insects were not common in the world of cultivation.

They were not strong individually, but they appeared in swarms. Each appearance involved hundreds at the very least, thousands at most, or even hundreds of thousands.

Even high-level cultivators would find them troublesome. As the saying goes, many ants can kill an elephant, let alone fierce spirit insects.

If one was too slow, they would be devoured and killed like that rock snake.

However, he had successfully picked over twenty spirit peaches, which could be considered a gain.

Zhang Ling sat on the spot, holding a piece of Earth Spirit Stone in his hand, and meditated to recover his spiritual power.

Around him were the hastily grown Firestar Grass vines. This forced growth, like the Wood attribute's Entangling Technique, meant that the spirit plants couldn't exist for long, only briefly unleashing their potential.

They generally only lasted for a quarter of an hour before turning to ashes.

However, because he used the vine parasitizing his arm as a foundation, the Firestar Grass vines he grew, as long as they didn't detach from the vine's main root system, could grow like normal vines.

However, this consumed spiritual power and couldn't be maintained for long, but it could still be maintained for several hours.

While Zhang Ling was recovering his spiritual power, the cultivators who entered Blazing Flame Valley also encountered dangers.

In a place filled with flames, a group of cultivators were engaged in a fierce battle.

There were six or seven cultivators on each side. They were not rogue cultivators but sect disciples. One side was from the Hao Yuan Sect, and the other side was a group of demonic disciples from the Blood Bone Gate.

The two sides were evenly matched, but in the end, the Blood Bone Gate cultivators were slightly better, killing their opponents before quickly disappearing.

In a magma swamp in a volcanic area, a man wearing the uniform of the Flame Fire Sect wielded a large saber magic weapon, slashing out green blade shadows, killing a black snake demon beast.

The man looked ecstatic and, without even looking at the demon beast's corpse, turned his head to look at a boulder not far away, on which grew a spirit grass half the height of a man.

The man revealed a greedy look and approached the spirit grass. He saw that the spirit grass emitted a strange black light, obviously not an ordinary spirit herb.

The man was extremely excited and bent down, reaching out to grab the spirit grass. Suddenly, strange gurgling sounds came from the surrounding hot magma.

A pink shadow shot towards the man. The man's face changed, and a fiery shield appeared in front of him.

With a loud bang, the man was knocked into the sky. The shield was also sent flying.

The man revealed a look of panic, spiritual light flashing in his hand as he took out a long saber magic weapon, seemingly about to use other means, but the shadow flashed and transformed into a fire phosphorus python over ten feet long.

With a single bite, it swallowed the man whole.

The python then spat out the long saber, roared to the sky, and then burrowed into the magma, disappearing without a trace.

And only the long saber magic weapon was left on the spot, falling into the magma and being swallowed up after a moment.

As if nothing had happened here.

......

In another valley, there was a clear water lake.

At this moment, a man and a woman were fighting against three Iron Tail Crocodiles. Both of them were at the eleventh level of Qi Refining, each holding a cyan jewel and a white jewel.

The cyan jewel transformed into a wind ball several feet in size, smashing into the Iron Tail Crocodile, instantly exploding into a large area of wind blades, cutting one Iron Tail Crocodile into a pile of minced meat.

The white jewel was attached in mid-air, with circles of water waves rippling around it, like a water curtain mirror, shooting out ice thorns.

Hitting the ground, it splashed up a burst of ice flowers. The remaining two iron tails were frozen in place, unable to break free for a while. Finally, the cyan jewel released two ten-foot-sized wind blades, instantly killing the two Iron Tail Crocodiles.

After the man and woman collected the demon beast corpses, they directly dived into the lake. But soon, only the female cultivator left the place with a gloomy face.

In another narrow canyon, two cultivators wearing black robes, whose faces could not be seen clearly, seemed to be rogue cultivators.

Beneath their feet was a scene of chaos, with the body of a Qingyun Temple disciple lying separated from his head.

One of them sneered. "Boss, these sect disciples are still rich, they even have a top-grade magic weapon. Why don't we just wait here for the rabbit to come to us?"

"Humph, stop talking nonsense, quickly clean up the battlefield. We still need to find the main medicine for the Foundation Establishment Pill to join the Demon Sect. It's not worth it to delay here for too long." Another black-robed man snorted.

"Hehe, what the boss says is true."

The two quickly cleaned up the battlefield, destroyed the corpses and traces, and left the place.

Blazing Flame Valley has not been formed for a long time, and many natural treasures have been generated in the special environment. And next to these treasures, there are many powerful level one demon beasts guarding them.

The closer to the center, the more difficult the demon beasts inside are to deal with. Some demon beasts are difficult for even Foundation Establishment cultivators to deal with.

If it weren't for the experts from the Nine Sects coming here every once in a while to kill those second and third-order demon beasts, this place would definitely not be a place for Qi Refining disciples to enter.

Blazing Flame Valley is, after all, a spirit medicine storage place for the Nine Great Sects.

Whether it is the righteous sect or the demonic sect, they will all fight for resources. Only those who survive can be cultivated by the sect.