Chapter 2805 — The Land of the Five Fierce Wilds

None dared tarry; they scrambled to their feet and fell in behind Tianjisuan, setting off together toward the mountain.

Wei Zhao led the way with the Heavenly Thunder Pig, while Feng Shihua, Li Ciba, Ge Xian, Zhao Qilei, Yang Qiqi and the rest followed behind. Seen closely, most of the cultivators had formed little circles of their own.

There were exceptions, of course—Zhang Naipao and Mo Ba. The Tomorrow-after-Tomorrow Sect had a foul reputation, and the strength Zhang Naipao had displayed earlier had left many wary, so no one would ally with them.

They walked perhaps dozens of li. But all were cultivators, swift of foot and untroubled by fatigue, and only after they had crossed the Xuan Dan Sect mountain range and come to a remote spot on the rear slope did Tianjisuan halt.

Ahead stood a massive structure resembling a sacrificial altar, its form exceedingly strange. Near the altar, several Xuan Dan Sect disciples had long since been waiting—plainly, preparations had been made in advance.

"We have arrived at the teleportation array of the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds. This array will send you at random to any point within the Five Fierce Wilds, one person at a time. So even if you have formed teams now, once you are inside, meeting up will not be easy. My advice: your best course is to find the spirit herbs on the illustrated guide as quickly as possible!" With that, Tianjisuan pointed to a notice board before the array, on which hung the illustrated guide of the herbs they were to seek, and continued: "Once you have found the herbs, head south. At the southernmost end of the Five Fierce Wilds there is another teleportation array; enter it and you will return safely!"

The crowd nodded. The Land of the Five Fierce Wilds was indeed a strange place. Wei Zhao thought that without a map of his own, he too would likely struggle—no wonder so many never came back from these trials.

"One more thing I must make very clear to you all: your stay in the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds must not exceed twenty days. Normally, you must be out within half a month. If twenty days pass and you are still inside, you will not get out." Tianjisuan warned: "The Land of the Five Fierce Wilds is the domain of spirit beasts, full of mystery and strangeness. If an ordinary cultivator lingers there more than twenty days, the Qi of the Five Fierce will invade his body. Once the Five Fierce enter the body, a cultivator will at best lose all his cultivation and be unable to continue training; at worst, he will suffer deviation and die. So when the time comes, whether or not you have gathered your herbs, you must come out. Otherwise you bear the consequences yourselves!"

"What is the Qi of the Five Fierce?" Zhang Naipao asked, baffled.

"The Qi of the Five Fierce is a composite of true qi of five attributes. Once it invades a cultivator's body, the harm it causes is utterly terrifying!" Tianjisuan explained. "For example—say a cultivator of the fire attribute has the Qi of the Five Fierce invade his body. The fire-attribute true qi within the Five Fierce can be absorbed by him, for it is his own source true qi and will do him no harm. But the true qi of the other four attributes in the Five Fierce will remain in his body, impossible to expel."

Zhang Naipao nodded. He was unconcerned; with the Bee-Devouring Divine Art within him, no true qi of any attribute could harm him, and so the Qi of the Five Fierce was of no use against him.

Besides, his purpose in entering the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds was simply to obtain a Marrow-Washing Bone-Tempering Pill for Zhong Yongliang. Once the herbs were in hand, he would naturally not linger there long.

Wei Zhao, however, was taken aback. Though his constitution was of the five attributes and the void attribute, he was still, after all, a five-attribute cultivator. He wondered whether this Qi of the Five Fierce would trouble him.

"Very well, since there are no further questions, please enter the teleportation array one by one and set foot in the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds!" Tianjisuan said to them all.

From front to back, the cultivators taking part in the trial entered the array one after another, stood in the midst of that altar-like structure, and vanished—plainly, they had already entered the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds.

Toward ancient teleportation arrays and the like, Wei Zhao held a kind of reverence; these were superscientific phenomena that science could not explain.

When Wei Zhao's turn came, he strode into the teleportation array, and the disciples nearby activated some device or other; in an instant his body vanished...

Wei Zhao felt a darkness before his eyes, as though he had entered a long tunnel, and then light blazed forth, and he was standing in a strange place. The altar beneath his feet had become a stretch of mountain land, and the scene before him was entirely new: rolling green hills, steep cliffs and sheer crags, the lovely blue sky and white clouds. It was like a new world, giving one the feeling of having returned to some ancient age.

"Heavenly Thunder Pig, what is this place? How far is it from the teleportation array?" Wei Zhao asked the pig. The Heavenly Thunder Pig had an exceptionally strong sense of direction; so long as the distance was not too great, it could generally estimate it.

"Ji ji..." The Heavenly Thunder Pig shook its head blankly. It could no longer sense from which direction they had entered.

"Ao wu, ao wu..." As Wei Zhao was speaking with the Heavenly Thunder Pig, a sudden roar came from not far off—some spirit beast, he knew not what kind. Wei Zhao's heart lurched; he remembered then that the Land of the Five Fierce Wilds teemed with spirit beasts, many of them heaven-rank!

Wei Zhao swiftly scanned his surroundings warily and spotted a hiding place high on the cliff behind him. No long-term refuge, but somewhere to shelter briefly. At that thought, he scooped up the Heavenly Thunder Pig and leaped up to that hiding place high on the cliff.

Sure enough, before long a spirit beast came charging forth—tiger-like in form, but with horns upon its head. Though its strength was not inconsiderable, its intelligence was plainly low, not so clever as spirit beasts that lived alone in human lands.

Perhaps it had sensed the arrival of Wei Zhao, a human cultivator, but once Wei Zhao hid himself, it circled twice about the spot where he had stood, found nothing, and ran off—it never thought to raise its head and search around.

Earth-rank spirit beasts really are stupid enough, Wei Zhao thought, shaking his head. Yet he could not guarantee that every spirit beast here was as witless as this one, so for the moment he did not come down from the cliff, deciding instead to observe the situation first before considering his next move.

As things stood, Wei Zhao could not determine from the surrounding terrain just which part of the map he was in; he would have to observe the nearby landscape further before he could be sure.