Ninth In the World

The Herald Night Lake was not too far away from the Twilight City. The four of them talked as they traveled. Two days later, Fu Che stopped. “This place is the outermost area of the Herald Night Lake. We can already see the Herald Night Lake. However, Brother Di is not familiar with this place. Let me explain first.”

During the past two days, everyone had gotten familiar with one another. Fu Che had even started to directly address Di Jiu as Brother.

Di Jiu was not paying attention to Fu Che’s words. Instead, he was looking at the scene in front of him, dumbfounded. This was not really a lake. It was more like a humongous round mirror standing erect.

If it was affected by gravity, the lake water would not be vertical. However, the lake before his eyes seemed vertical, although it was a little foggy and indistinct.

This was not right. They were standing at most 1,000 feet away from the lake. One should be able to see clearly by using one’s eyes, so why was everything still so blurry?

Di Jiu’s Spiritual Force swept out. When it came into contact with that huge lake’s surface, he sensed pain from his Spiritual Sea, as if an invisible big hand was about to tear apart his Spiritual Sea. Di Jiu spat out a mouthful of blood and quickly pulled back his Spiritual Force.

“How did it feel, Brother Di? Did your Spiritual Force feel ready to be torn apart mercilessly? Did your Spiritual Sea seem about to explode?” asked Fu Che after Di Jiu spat out blood.

Di Jiu immediately understood that Fu Che and company had known beforehand that one could not permeate the lake with Spiritual Force. Although they had known what would happen, they had not informed him in advance.

Fu Che, who sensed Di Jiu’s displeasure, smiled and told him, “I know that you are not pleased with me, Brother Di Jiu. I didn’t inform you that one could not extend their Spiritual Force out here because I wanted you to give it a try.”

“Why?” said Di Jiu coolly. If Fu Che did not tell him the real reason, he would leave without hesitation.

Fu Che sighed. “Do you know why one can become an inner sect disciple of the five large sects in exchange for 10 Roast Divine Herbs? Because it is simply too hard to pick a Roast Divine Herb. The Roast Divine Herb is hidden in the surroundings of the Herald Night Lake, an area that can compress a cultivator’s Spiritual Force. Anyone who gets close to the Herald Night Lake suffers from the Spiritual Force compression before slowly disappearing. This is why, under normal circumstances, one must leave the Herald Night Lake after staying here for a few days and rest for a while before heading back.”

“I let your Spiritual Force scan the area to test the level of your Spiritual Force. Since the four of us are in the same team, we must determine the number of days we can stay around the Herald Night Lake based on the level of everyone’s Spiritual Force.”

Was there such a thing? Di Jiu pushed his Spiritual Force out from where they were standing. As expected, in a place not far away, his Spiritual Force detected several invisible camps. The Invisibility Arrays set up on the outside were not high, so they were unable to prevent Di Jiu from observing them.

“These people have also come here to rest. When they are ready, they will head back into the Herald Night Lake and search for the Roast Divine Herb,” explained Fu Che, who saw Di Jiu’s eyes land on the invisible camps on the outer region.

Di Jiu sighed. “It’s no wonder the Five Young Masters didn’t want to pick the herbs themselves. This thing could burn one’s Spiritual Force.”

“That’s right,” Fu Che said. “Besides, the higher one’s cultivation level is, the faster one’s Spiritual Force burns out. However, one’s cultivation level should not be too low either. Otherwise, one would not be able to walk to the place where the Roast Divine Herbs grow. This is why cultivators between the Golden Core Realm and the Void Spirit Realm are the best people to come here.”

Di Jiu still had some doubts. Although he had not intentionally sought information on the Five Young Masters during the past few days, he knew what kind of existences the Five Young Masters were. The Roast Divine Herbs had to be incredible if the Five Young Masters needed to obtain them so desperately.

He found it strange that no one else wanted the Roast Divine Herbs that the Five Young Masters were in such desperate need of.

“How does one test the level of one’s Spiritual Force here?” Di Jiu had just learned about the levels of Spiritual Force, so he was unsure of the level of his own Spiritual Force.

“Scan this area with your Spiritual Force,” Fu Che explained. “If your Spiritual Force extends within 100 feet, it is at Level One. If it reaches 200 feet, it’s at Level Two. If it reaches 300 feet, it’s at Level Three. There is essentially no Spiritual Force that can surpass Level Four. So long as everyone’s Spiritual Force is at Level Two, we could stay and search the Herald Night Lake for two days. However, we can’t get too close to the Herald Night Lake.”

“Are all your Spiritual Forces at Level Two?” asked Di Jiu in surprise. When his Spiritual Force had come into contact with the Herald Night Lake earlier, it had surely exceeded 1,000 feet. At which level did that mean that his Spiritual Force was at?

“Yes, we are all early-stage Essence Soul Realm cultivators with similar Level-Two Spiritual Forces.” Fu Che nodded his head.

Di Jiu was even more confused. “Brother Fu, to my knowledge, Spiritual Force is split into 10 levels, so Essence Soul Realm cultivators should have a corresponding Level-Four Spiritual Force.”

Fu Che laughed. “You are right. However, that only applies to geniuses. Usually, one’s Spiritual Force is weaker than their cultivation by two levels. If one’s cultivation is very powerful, then the difference will be one level. Only an extremely small number of geniuses have the same level of Spiritual Force and cultivation. An expert from the Prophecy Pavilion said that there are two reasons why there is an increasingly smaller number of True Form Realm Cultivators in the Small Central World. One, cultivating resources are running out, and two, one’s Spiritual Force cannot match their cultivation level. You just tested yourself. What is the level of your Spiritual Force?”

Di Jiu was shocked. His Spiritual Force had come into contact with the Herald Night Lake from a distance. Even though he could not see clearly, if he could scan several thousand feet, how strong was his Spiritual Force? When Fu Che raised this question, Di Jiu could only say, “My Spiritual Force is slightly stronger than yours.”

“Could it be at Level Three?” Fu Che said in pleasant surprise. “In that case, we could accomplish much in the Herald Night Lake.”

Di Jiu quickly changed the topic. “Why do you say that?”

“The stronger the Spiritual Force and the lower the cultivation level, the closer one could get to the Herald Night Lake,” Fu Che explained. “I’ve heard that Level-Three Spiritual Forces can see the Roast Divine Herbs underneath the Herald Night Lake’s waters.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?” asked Di Jiu.

“It’s completely different. The Roast Divine Herbs obtained from inside the Herald Night Lake have red roots, so one of these herbs equals two regular herbs. If a Roast Divine Herb is completely red and has even one leaf, it is the equivalent of 10 herbs. It’s said that the Roast Divine Herb can move. Once it has matured to a certain age, it can automatically move to the center of the Herald Night Lake,” explained Fu Che.

“Shall we enter now?” asked Di Jiu as he looked at the patch of green in front of him.

From where they were standing, the shore of the Herald Night Lake seemed to be covered in green, so it felt as if they were standing on a grassy plain.

“The sky is turning dark and the Spiritual Force compression is more intense when one enters the surroundings of the Herald Night Lake,” Fu Che said gravely. “I suggest that we leave tomorrow. Here is a small booklet on the Roast Divine Herb. Please take a look at it, Brother Di.”

“Alright.” Di Jiu took the small booklet. He was also planning on checking the Book of the World at night to see what the Roast Divine Herb was.

A lot of cultivators had come to the Herald Night Lake to search for the Roast Divine Herb, yet no one noticed that Di Jiu and his team set up a simple Invisibility Array.

The Invisibility Array and Defense Array outside their encampment were set up by Bei Shitao. Fu Che did not ask Di Jiu if he had studied array formation. In his opinion, Di Jiu would not be better than Bei Shitao, even if he knew about array formation. Di Jiu was really young. Plus, he had been in reclusive cultivation at a remote place for a long period of time. He had to be a hardworking cultivator, so if he had been older, he could have possessed average array formation skills. Younger cultivators, however, needed time to cultivate and definitely did not possess high array formation abilities.

In Di Jiu’s opinion, Bei Shitao’s array formation was not bad. He had set up level-three Dharma Arrays after all. Di Jiu did not think that his array formation talent was much stronger than Bei Shitao’s. Even if it was slightly stronger, there would not be a difference between Level Nine and Level Three. The reason he had become a Level-Nine Array King was 90 percent due to the gray stone in his Spiritual Sea.

Fu Che and the rest of the team would most likely be outside battling, so they had their own cave abode. Di Jiu had recently refined a few simple low-grade Spirit Weapon cave abodes.

Thus, when he saw Fu Che and company take out a supreme-grade Dharma Weapon cave abode, that was what he took out as well.

Di Jiu started to set up various Defense Arrays inside his cave abode. He also set up a Level-Nine Invisibility Array and a Level-Nine Aura-Binding Array at the same time.

The Book of the World was very important to him, so he only dared read it in his Spiritual Sea. He dared not just casually expose its aura.

When the Defense Array was set up, Di Jiu immediately entered the Book of the World.

The Book of the World was a boundless sea of knowledge. Di Jiu had always wanted to spend some time looking through it, but he had unfortunately constantly been on the go. Therefore, he’d not had the time to do so.

Di Jiu skimmed through various materials and spiritual herbs. Two hours later, his Spiritual Force stopped. He had seen the Roast Divine Herb.

The Roast Divine Herb usually grew beside Force Crystals and came in three colors. The blue ones were Level-Three spiritual herbs that were three inches tall, leafless and covered with blue spirit patterns. The red ones were Level-Six spiritual herbs that were six inches tall and covered with red spirit patterns. Finally, the black ones were Level-Nine spiritual herbs that were nine inches tall with three black leaves covered with black spirit patterns…

There were really black Level-Nine Roast Divine Herbs? It seemed that even Fu Che was not aware that the Roast Divine Herb could be black.

Di Jiu was increasingly curious about the Roast Divine Herb. His Spiritual Force immediately landed on the introduction of the functions of the Roast Divine Herb in the Book of the World.

The Roast Divine Herb could expand one’s Spiritual Sea and condense and strengthen one’s Spiritual Force…

Di Jiu was stunned when he read this. Ever since he had started learning about spiritual herbs, this was the first time he’d read about any spiritual herbs that could expand one’s Spiritual Sea and condense and strengthen one’s Spiritual Force. If such a spiritual herb existed, wouldn’t it be long gone?

Even a True Form Realm Cultivator would seize such a spiritual herb. He finally understood why the Five Young Masters wanted this herb.

When he exited the Book of the World, Di Jiu was still unable to calm down. He had the urge to immediately rush into the Herald Night Lake and search for the Roast Divine Herb.

He was still unsure about how strong his Spiritual Force was. However, he was certain about the extreme importance of the Roast Divine Herb. If his Spiritual Force could be strengthened to the maximum, perhaps one day even True Form Realm Cultivators would be no match for him.

He had to obtain the Roast Divine Herb.