Chapter 290: Returning To The Mountain
The next day at dawn, Yuan Zhu disappeared into the vast mist.
Today, he would head alone to the Misty Mountains, eager to reinforce his Mountain Lord’s Domain. As for the Frog Killer Girl, Little Girl, and Younger Brother, he cast them all from his mind, ignoring them completely.
After Yuan Zhu had run far away, Nie Yin, who had taken a short nap for two hours, woke up in the temporary bedroom shared by the three of them. She turned to the two siblings she had startled awake and said: “You two stay in this Haunted House and don’t leave. I’ll go back to the school to apply for legal identities for you. Once that’s done, I’ll secretly transport the five half-orc students here and hand them over to Xiao Tiao for training. Also, I’ll bring you some food. Do you have any dietary restrictions or favorite foods?”
From childhood to now, aside from things that would cause immediate death upon consumption, there was nothing they couldn’t eat. So Yuan Tang asked in bewilderment: “Uh? What are dietary restrictions?”
Younger Brother was much more honest, answering every question: “We like eating anything. But the less toxins and the fewer side effects, the more we like it.”
Nie Yin couldn’t imagine just how harsh the living environment was for these two otherworld children. But a trace of pity rose in her heart, and she suddenly felt that her own childhood wasn’t so bad after all.
“Then I’ll bring you some that I like, plus the most popular foods from the Academy.”
Yuan Tang responded politely: “Thank you, big sister!”
It’s a pity this big sister wasn’t big at all, being a whole size smaller than Younger Brother. She wondered if she’d grow to be as tall as her in a few more years.
Yuan Tang, whose appearance was even younger than Younger Brother’s actual age, looked at Nie Yin, who had just come out through the door, and pondered thoughtfully.
…
Meanwhile, Yuan Zhu walked alone on the misty, frog-croaking-filled sidewalk. The footsteps of passersby, vendors’ calls, and sounds of vehicles occasionally reached his ears…
He stopped at a roadside stall for a moment, bought three fried meat pies for breakfast, then ate as he walked to the taxi stand. After ten minutes, he hailed a taxi, negotiated the charter price. For 7 yuan, he rented it for the whole day—just to take him to the Frog Factory construction site address, wait patiently, and finally bring him back.
Sitting alone in the last row, watching the outlines of old buildings shrouded in mist recede outside the window, Yuan Zhu especially missed the “private sports car” that his senior student had promised.
He was fed up with wasting time lining up and competing with others for taxis, and having to haggle over fees.
So he couldn’t help complaining to Snake Snake: “This senior student is just lame! She clearly promised to give me a car, but didn’t keep her word, forcing me to charter a ride again this early in the morning.”
Snake Snake agreed: “Exactly! Since she promised, when she sent us back to Running last night, she should’ve left her car along with the driver. Then walked home herself, right!”
“Forget it, forget it, that would indeed be a bit excessive—I couldn’t do that myself.” Yuan Zhu, with a bit of shame, quickly waved it off.
Snake Snake couldn’t help complaining: “Boss, your only flaw is that you’re too… when it comes to being human.”
The ride was silent. When the driver parked in the designated parking area for the Frog Factory construction site, Yuan Zhu briefly showed himself, stated his identity, and quickly vanished.
The person in charge at the construction site turned a blind eye. Yesterday, they had already met Yuan Zhu and knew he was the real boss. Naturally, he could go wherever he wanted and do whatever he pleased…
As for the vanished Yuan Zhu, he had now turned into Shadow, blending into the dappled shadows cast by the dense forest, speeding toward the depths of the Misty Mountains.
This time, he had an accurate ‘coordinate position’ in mind, no longer distracted by the strange scenery of the misty woods to stop and linger, but advancing at full speed.
In less than half an hour, he shadow-traveled all the way, smoothly entering the outer area of the Yin Fiend Land. The Tiger Demon then gradually slowed down, beginning to appreciate the scenery around his own Grotto-Heaven Blessed Land.
From the moment he stepped into the outer area of the Yin Fiend Land, signs of activity from animals, insects, and birds had already greatly diminished. If observed carefully, one could still spot the remains of animals that had died in some hidden spots.
This showed that the edge area of the Yin Fiend Land occasionally still had signs of animal activity. But the environment here was no longer suitable for ‘living things’; staying too long would lead to erosion by Death Qi, leaving them behind completely to be decomposed and absorbed by plants and fungi.
Moving deeper in, there were completely no signs of animal life. Normal living creatures couldn’t penetrate this far. After crossing the outer mountain peaks and following a mountain stream into the Cold Pond Deep Valley, it became a completely isolated ‘secret realm’.
Since it was now 9:10 in the morning and daylight, not Demon Encounter Time, the Tiger Demon didn’t see those animal undead wandering the woods like lonely souls and wild ghosts last night, muttering to themselves.
Instead, the Ghost Companion shadow magic worms that it had pastured in the Cave Dwelling sensed their master’s return and emerged one by one from corners of the Yin Mountain. Some crawled, some flapped wings, approaching it.
The Tiger Demon stopped the magic worms’ actions, ordering them to continue guarding and hiding, or patrolling… It then swam across to the opposite side of the Cold Pond, returning to the familiar Mountain Lord’s Domain.
In the Cave Dwelling, the White Deer curled up its body, lying in the center of the Nine Palaces Formation, slowly absorbing Shadow Spiritual Energy to infuse its body, mixing and clashing it with the ‘sword qi’ originally honed through biological instinct.
Its Sword Cultivator System had no active cultivation technique for sacrificing sword; it relied entirely on passive accumulation. Now, the White Deer, whose intelligence had been forcibly awakened by the Brain Eggplant, chose to actively take in Shadow Spiritual Energy to refine and polish the ‘sword qi’ within its body a second time.
Doing so would gradually cover the ‘sword system traces’ in its body bit by bit; at the same time, it could refine and purify the roughest and most primal ‘Shadow Spiritual Energy’, such as condensing pure and sharp Shadow Sword Qi.
The two Deer Head Swords inside its body were now reluctantly enduring suppression by the Nine Palaces Formation, suffering erosion and overwriting by Shadow Spiritual Energy (refining flying sword).
When Yuan Zhu stepped into the Cave Dwelling, the White Deer merely lazily lifted its head, snorted twice at the Tiger Demon, rolled over to expose its belly in submission, and continued enjoying the magic array’s fully automatic extraction of Shadow Spiritual Energy to aid its cultivation. There was no sign of it humbly fawning, getting up, bowing its head in obeisance, or yielding its position.
Snake Snake: “It’s acting spoiled, not afraid of you at all, feeling right at home.”
Tiger Demon: “Is this thing male or female?”
“Male.”
“What’s the male burning about?” With a wave of the Tiger Demon’s magic claw, shadows quickly gathered beside it, forming a large hand that swatted the White Deer flying to a nearby corner, clearing the center spot of the Nine Palaces Formation.
Once the Mountain Lord was in position, without a word, it spat out 36 Worm Pillar town stones all at once from the Universe Within The Belly. Building on the current Nine Palaces-1 layout, it further expanded the area of the compound magic array and arranged them in the format of the ‘Thirty-Six Heavenly Dipper Formation’ from the Immortal Scripture Database.
But soon, the Tiger Demon realized space was insufficient.
“The Cave Dwelling opened by this White Bone Scholar is a bit small!”
The eight Worm Pillars of the Nine Palaces Formation were already extremely close to the walls around the Cave Dwelling. Now, thinking in terms of concentric circles, the coordinate positions for the 36 town stones had all exceeded the Cave Dwelling’s area and should be deeply embedded inside the mountain body.
Snake Snake: “Simple, just drill holes! Boss, quickly use the ‘magic worms’!”
The next second, numerous shadow magic worms that were already skilled at burrowing and tunneling—patrol mountain envoys—emerged from the shadows in the corners, clinging to the stone walls, beginning to gnaw and drill…
Taking advantage of this window, the Tiger Demon opened its mouth again, spitting out the remaining eggplant goblin embryos from the Universe Within The Belly. Counting them, there were only a measly 20.
It wasn’t that it didn’t want to carry more, but the total bulk of the 36 Worm Pillars was too great, already approaching the Tiger Demon’s load limit.
After activating and awakening the 20 ‘intelligent laborers’, the Tiger Demon issued a cleaning mission. These crooked eggplant goblins that crawled up from the ground quickly locked onto the accumulating crushed stone constantly produced by the ‘mountain-drilling magic worms’ in the Cave Dwelling and actively began transporting and clearing it.
Watching their busy backs, the Tiger Demon remarked: “They look like robot vacuums.”
At this time, the White Deer that had already acknowledged the Tiger Demon as king came trotting up again, repeatedly rubbing its head against its body, lowing in friendly overtures.
Yuan Zhu instantly recognized this as a pet acting cute and affectionate toward its owner after bonding. This White Deer wasn’t low in intelligence—far superior to the aloof tsundere munchkin cat he had kept in his previous life.
