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Chapter 70: Alarming
The passage where Xiao Shenqiang was located collapsed amidst the sound of an explosion, reducing his frozen body to several pieces, which were then completely buried. Meng Zhang had prepared beforehand and positioned himself in a passage where cultivators would pass through or secretly approached other cultivators. He divided the items from Xiao Shenqiang's storage bag into many portions and scattered them on the ground. In the end, even the storage bag itself was discarded, with the spirit tool being the only item Meng Zhang chose to keep.
Meng Zhang thought it through repeatedly and was unwilling to give up this spirit tool. He carefully analyzed the situation and believed he could conceal the spirit tool from the people of Twin Success Valley. Next, Meng Zhang searched the underground for a long time and finally found a relatively quiet and safe place. There, he hid in a corner, set up several flame columns outside, and then sat cross-legged on the ground, risking a Divine Soul Departure from the body under such circumstances.
As Meng Zhang's Soul left his physical body, it didn't stray far but picked up the spirit tool and began to refine it. The spirit tool was as light as a feather, yet it took great effort for Meng Zhang's Soul to barely hold it in his hand. While Meng Zhang was busy refining the spirit tool, chaos and conflicts had erupted in the various passages outside due to the scattered belongings of Xiao Shenqiang.
The possessions of a Foundation Building stage cultivator were irresistibly attractive to numerous Refining Qi stage cultivators. Riches have a way of enticing people, and hardly anyone can resist the temptation of a sudden windfall. Some self-proclaimed lucky cultivators found the treasures, confirmed they were not traps, and secretly kept them. There was even a Second Rank magic tool that was nearly discovered simultaneously by several groups of cultivators, resulting in a fierce battle and leaving a pile of corpses behind, with the victorious one taking the magic tool and leaving.
During the chaos when Xiao Shenqiang was killed by Meng Zhang's Ice Poison Yin Thunder, the soul lamp in the ancestral hall of Twin Success Valley went out. The Endless Sea of Sand was already resource-scarce, and the area where Twin Success Valley was located was even more desolate. The sect couldn't afford to have a soul lamp for every disciple; they were only set up for important figures within the sect, such as elders and true disciples. The ancestral hall was guarded day and night, and when Xiao Shenqiang's soul lamp extinguished, it immediately alarmed the disciples on duty.
Soon, Twin Success Valley's Sect Master, Xiao Haisheng, and several elders were alerted. Even in a sect boasting ten Foundation Building stage experts, the Foundation Building elders were still essential pillars of the sect. With Xiao Shenqiang's death, they couldn't let it go uninvestigated and had to find out the truth. Xiao Haisheng, a late-stage Foundation Building expert, immediately led numerous disciples on a rarely used Second Rank flying vessel and departed from Twin Success Valley.
The journey to eradicate the sand monster nest that Shan Ying and Xiao Shenqiang were dispatched for had already been known due to sect orders, so it was not a secret. The Second Rank flying vessel could carry over a hundred cultivators and was much faster than a First Rank vessel.
In less than half a day, they arrived over the sand monster nest. Xiao Haisheng left a Foundation Building elder to guard the place, preventing anyone from leaving. He personally led a group of elite Refining Qi stage disciples into the nest.
As expected of a late-stage Foundation Building expert, Xiao Haisheng's actions were decisive and powerful. It didn't take long for him to quell the chaos within the sand monster nest. With his unparalleled cultivation base and years of accumulated prestige, Xiao Haisheng gathered all the cultivators inside the nest and essentially annihilated all the sand monsters, destroying the core of the nest completely.
With the nest's core destroyed, it meant the nest lost the ability to reproduce sand monsters. Even if a few wandering sand monsters remained outside, they were no longer a threat.
After dealing with the sand monster nest, Xiao Haisheng gathered all the cultivators inside the nest to the surface. Before Xiao Haisheng arrived at the nest, Meng Zhang had completely refined the spirit tool with his out-of-body soul.
The main material of the spirit tool was the rare outer skin of a ghostly beast found in the Netherworld. Though not a powerful creature, this ghostly beast possessed exceptional stealth abilities. Ghosts didn't reveal themselves voluntarily and were invisible to ordinary people. Cultivators could see ordinary ghosts by infusing their eyes with true qi, but those skilled in stealth were challenging for cultivators to detect unless they had special Divine Abilities for vision.
When the outer skin of the ghostly beast was refined into a magic tool by a Ghost Path cultivator, it not only easily deceived ordinary cultivators but also made it difficult for ghosts themselves to detect it.
Meng Zhang named this ethereal spirit tool the "Concealment Gauze Cloth."
Among the soul techniques Meng Zhang mastered was a Collect Thing Spell, which could hide this kind of special item that existed somewhere between tangible and intangible. After casting the Collect Thing Spell, the spirit tool Concealment Gauze Cloth would be concealed deep within his soul. Unless someone forcibly tore open Meng Zhang's Soul, it would be difficult to discover the existence of the spirit tool.
After successfully concealing the spirit tool, not long after Meng Zhang's Divine Soul returned to his body, Twin Success Valley's Sect Master, Xiao Haisheng, entered the sand monster nest. Soon after, Meng Zhang, along with other cultivators, was driven to the surface.
The ground was packed with cultivators from various factions. Under Xiao Haisheng's forceful command, all the cultivators present assembled and stood according to their respective faction affiliations.
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