Chapter 623: Mirage |
"It's fine, just have your people follow you closely."
Ning Qi shook his head, not accepting his offer.
"Very well, if anything happens, transmit to me at any time."
Zhao Tianlei saw Ning Qi insist, and stopped persuading him, nodding in agreement.
"Then I'll take my leave."
Ning Qi cupped his fist once, then took his leave and departed.
After he left, he picked a direction and sped off.
"Master, do you think that group back there will come after us?"
Pill Spirit had landed on his shoulder by now.
"Whether they will or won't depends on them."
"We only need to pursue our own opportunity."
Ning Qi didn't care, and continued, "I feel there should be some treasures down here."
"I can feel it too, like there's some powerful lifeform down below."
"However, I don't know what it is."
Pill Spirit also looked downwards.
Ning Qi then directly came down onto this broken celestial body.
"Phew!"
When he landed on a stretch of Gobi, a fierce wind blew across.
As far as the eye could see, it was all Gobi.
Looking further ahead, the sky filled with drifting yellow sand.
"Master, why come to a place like this?"
Pill Spirit flitted around, his eyes full of confusion.
There were still areas nearby with green hills and water, yet Ning Qi deliberately chose this place.
"Everyone else is going to the obvious spots, so of course we go against the grain."
Ning Qi smiled and explained, "They'll definitely head to places likely to have resources, but I sense the opportunity is here."
"What? Why?"
"Wouldn't places with Immortal Energy and fluctuations be more likely to have encounters?"
Pill Spirit immediately showed perplexity, staring at Ning Qi and asking curiously,
"Feel this place carefully first."
Ning Qi pointed to the Gobi in front of him and smiled.
"Oh? Master, have you discovered something?"
Pill Spirit grew curious at his words.
He flew out to inspect the area.
But after watching for a while, he couldn't see anything odd.
Finally, he returned to Ning Qi's side.
By now, Ning Qi had already traveled quite a distance.
"What did you find?"
Seeing him back, Ning Qi smiled and asked.
"Master, I found nothing. It feels like there's nothing here."
Pill Spirit settled on his shoulder again, his eyes full of puzzlement.
"Didn't you sense signs of battle here and a powerful aura?"
Ning Qi pointed ahead and continued, "Besides, there are fluctuations of restrictions and formations here."
"Think about it—if there was nothing, how could these fluctuations exist?"
"How could there be a powerful aura fluctuation?"
"Oh? Master, now that you say it, I do sense a faint fluctuation."
"But restrictions and formations can be elsewhere too."
"People fight elsewhere as well."
After Ning Qi's explanation, Pill Spirit began to counterargue.
He still felt Ning Qi's coming here was pointless, just wasting an opportunity.
By the time they returned, those other places might already have been scavenged clean.
They'd be making a silk purse out of someone else's sow's ear.
"We can bet. I will definitely find our resources and opportunity here!"
Ning Qi smiled and continued, "If I win, you'll promise me one thing; if you win—"
"If I lose, I'll give you one drop of my Origin Source life."
Pill Spirit spoke first, "I only have ten drops, I usually can't bear to waste them."
"Very well, it's settled then!"
Ning Qi nodded in agreement.
He knew Pill Spirit was holding back, just without interest, but since he volunteered to wager, Ning Qi accepted with a laugh.
"Deal, it's a promise!"
Pill Spirit said firmly, "Master, you will lose this time!"
"Oh? Then let's go see."
Ning Qi smiled at that and continued forward, quickly vanishing into the yellow sand.
None of this affected him.
He already had Golden Immortal power, and such low-level natural phenomena were like a tickle to him.
He pushed on. At first, the Gobi showed scattered skeletons.
Further on, the bones became more numerous,
some well preserved, others dried out by the wind.
"Master, some of these corpses were very strong. They must have been formidable in life!"
Pill Spirit observed the surroundings and told Ning Qi.
"Indeed, these people must have once been mighty and influential!"
"Unfortunately, they were schemed against when they came here."
Ning Qi nodded and said with a smile.
"Schemed against? How can you tell?"
Pill Spirit asked curiously.
"These bodies are well preserved."
"That proves they didn't experience battle when they arrived here."
"If they didn't die in battle, what else could have killed them?"
Ning Qi smiled and asked.
"Formations, poison—anything's possible, so it's hard to say."
Pill Spirit shrugged.
"They were tricked; someone set them up."
"That's why it's like this!"
Ning Qi looked ahead. "But beyond that it could be different; let's go and see."
"Alright!"
Pill Spirit stopped overthinking.
He agreed and followed Ning Qi onward.
They passed through the bone-strewn Gobi plain and soon reached the desert region.
Here, corpses were indeed scarce.
However, the deeper they went, the more a sense of dread settled in.
"Master, do you think there's an ambush?"
Pill Spirit suddenly recalled Ning Qi's earlier words.
If so, they had to be cautious.
"Then we'll go forward and check."
Ning Qi didn't analyze further.
He simply chose to proceed step by step.
"Master, be careful. I keep feeling something's off."
Pill Spirit no longer flitted around on his shoulder.
Worry filled his eyes as he kept watch on their surroundings.
Ning Qi continued, sinking and rising through the dunes as he advanced.
They soon reached the heart of the desert.
"Master, look! There's an oasis ahead!"
Pill Spirit suddenly spotted it and pointed excitedly, "Finally a place to rest."
"Let's go see what's there."
Ning Qi glanced ahead, then lowered Pill Spirit and moved on.
They walked for the Time It Takes to Drink a Cup of Tea and arrived at the oasis Pill Spirit had seen.
There was a small oasis, not large in area, but dotted with Immortal Herbs and Exotic Flowers
and a small patch of woods.
At the center sat a little lake.
When they reached the water, they saw schools of fish swimming within.
"Not bad at all, life still exists here."
Pill Spirit danced about, continuously observing the area. "Master, do you think there might be treasures here?"
"That remains to be seen."
Ning Qi said nothing more.
He dispersed his Spiritual Sense.
At first he found nothing.
But when he probed into the lake with his Spiritual Sense, suddenly there was a reaction.
"What's wrong?"
Pill Spirit noticed Ning Qi's change and immediately asked.
"There's something in here."
Ning Qi came back to himself and focused on the lake: "Go take a look and see what's going on."
"Alright!"
Pill Spirit agreed and followed Ning Qi to the water's surface.
Ning Qi drew a deep breath and submerged into the lake.
Underwater, he directly summoned Black Tortoise.
"Master!"
Black Tortoise bowed respectfully.
"Take me down. Let's see what's wrong down there."
Ning Qi gestured toward the depths.
"Yes!"
Black Tortoise answered, then suddenly flashed,
transforming into a set of armor that donned Ning Qi.
With Black Tortoise's armor aiding him, Ning Qi no longer worried about the water.
He felt as comfortable as a fish in water.
He accelerated and swam downward.
In the blink of an eye he reached the depths of the lake,
but astonishingly, the lake seemed bottomless, impossible to reach.
"Strange, what's going on?"
Ning Qi frowned as he looked down.
He could see the lakebed close by,
yet no matter how he tried, he couldn't touch it.
"Master, could there be a formation here too?"
Pill Spirit couldn't help but warn, "Otherwise why would it be so odd?"
"Maybe. I'll try."
Ning Qi nodded and circulated Dao Patterns.
A ripple of water-wave pattern rolled out.
It soon merged into the lake. After a few breaths, Ning Qi returned to himself.
"Any result?"
Pill Spirit hurried over to ask.
"No restrictions or formations."
Ning Qi shook his head.
"Then what do we do? Should we keep going down?"
Pill Spirit said worriedly, "I can't shake the feeling something's wrong down there."
"Let's go check; otherwise it would be pointless."
Ning Qi made up his mind and continued downward.
Gradually he felt the bottom moving further away.
He looked back up.
What he saw made his brow knit.
The sky above had turned into something like the mouth of a well.
"Not right."
Pill Spirit noticed the problem too and said, "Master, are we being tricked?"
"If so, you lose."
Ning Qi smiled and looked at Pill Spirit.
"Fine, I admit defeat. But are we trapped?"
"I... why does the exit seem to be getting smaller?"
Pill Spirit could no longer consider anything else.
All his attention fixed on what was before them.
"Let's go back up and see who has the gall to toy with us."
Ning Qi began to swim upward.
He kept accelerating, eventually unleashing his full strength,
but no matter what he did, the exit above remained small.
Just like the bottom, it seemed forever unreachable.
"Master, it looks like we really were tricked."
"But you checked earlier—there were no formation restrictions. How can this be?"
Pill Spirit stared up, then down, his brow tightly furrowed.
He racked his brains but couldn't figure it out.
"Don't you think it's strange?"
Ning Qi suddenly asked, as if he'd thought of something.
"Strange? What's strange?"
Pill Spirit was puzzled; he hadn't noticed anything unusual.
"This is clearly a desert—why is there an oasis?"
Ning Qi thought and then spoke seriously: "When things are abnormal, there's a demon; something's wrong here."
"Ah, Master, you mean we were trapped from the start?"
Pill Spirit reacted with sudden realization. "But why didn't we sense anything?"
"If someone set a trap, why haven't they shown themselves yet? Are they deliberately mocking us?"
"This place has been broken for who knows how long. Even if someone trapped us, would they still be alive?"
Ning Qi continued swimming upward as he analyzed: "That's why—this might be a trap set long ago."
"A place designed to lure people and let them fall into a scheme."
"So what do we do? We're trapped."
Pill Spirit grew anxious and scanned their surroundings: "I felt something was off the moment we went down."
"Why did the fish we saw vanish when we descended?"
"And it's a lake—why have we swum so long without seeing a single fish?"
"Exactly, that's the problem!"
"This space is an illusion; everything is unreal!"
Ning Qi nodded and looked around: "So no real life exists here."
"The fish we saw earlier must have been part of the illusion from the start."
"Ah? You mean it's all illusion magic?"
Pill Spirit was puzzled at his analysis: "But when was this illusion set up? Why did we not notice at all?"
"If we had noticed, would we have gone down?"
Ning Qi smiled and said, "Since we didn't, I want to see how this illusion can be broken!"
"Master, do you think this is a mirage city?"
Pill Spirit suddenly thought of something and hurriedly asked.
"No. If it truly were, would we have a chance to physically enter it?"
"If so, we'd spend years walking around this place and never find its source."
Ning Qi immediately rejected that idea.
"This isn't that, and that isn't that. We can't stay trapped forever, can we?"
Pill Spirit sighed and shrugged.