Chapter 288: Mirage

Shi Yan led a team into the mine first, actually wanting to explore it first. After all, there are mirage spirits here, and the mirage spirits roam in the mine. If they are allowed to enter rashly, they will probably be wiped out before they go a mile deep. So Shi Yan must go in first to make arrangements.

The mine was a hundred meters deep, and the end of the scaffolding was set ten meters from the bottom of the pit. Dozens of iron cables were hung down, spiraling down along the pit wall, and wooden boards were laid on top to form a chain bridge. Shi Yan warned them not to go in too deep, because who knew if there was a mirage at the entrance to the pit. It was unexpected that they had thought of this method.

Shi Yan's right hand ignited a ball of flame with a bang, and then threw it into the ancient lamp beside the pit wall. This was a lamp from a thousand years ago, and it was used by the owner of the pit a thousand years ago for lighting. Unexpectedly, after a thousand years, the lamp oil in the lamp was still there, which was a bargain for Shi Yan.

The flames exploded in the air and evenly dispersed into each lamp, and the dark mine pit suddenly became bright. Shi Yan walked down carefully along the iron chain bridge and finally stepped on the bottom of the mine pit. The soil here was slightly damp, and there was a little moss in the corner. Thinking that there was a large lake not far away, he was no longer curious.

"Come out, Qianzu!" Shi Yan muttered silently, and the fish leaped out. A light flashed on its forehead, and Qianzu leisurely appeared in front of Shi Yan.

"I smell the scent of cloud energy crystals." Qianzu took a greedy deep breath and sighed with satisfaction.

"Qianzu, there will be enough cloud energy crystals in a few days. The most urgent task now is to deal with the mirages that your tribe has raised here, otherwise my people will not be able to enter here to mine the cloud energy crystals." Shi Yan said to Qianzu.

Qianzu obviously understood the importance of this matter, nodded, and walked ahead, "Follow me."

Shi Yan followed, and the rock squad behind him also followed carefully. This team of rock squad were all elites who could fuse with beast souls. They were now captains of their respective squadrons. At this moment, they had already merged with the beast souls and turned into a group of small giants two and a half meters tall, with solid muscles and a thick layer of rock on the surface of their skin. They looked like a group of mighty warriors wearing rock armor.

Although they are unable to practice cultivation, after merging with the spirit beasts, due to the spirit beasts' cultivation level, each of them is comparable to a cultivator at the foundation-building stage, and their cultivation level is even higher than the spirit beasts' original level. They are almost comparable to a cultivator at the fifth level of foundation-building stage.

Looking at the group of elites behind him, Shi Yan felt a sense of pride in his heart. Back then in Huajian Sect, all the foundation-building cultivators were inner disciples, and in the entire inner sect, there were only about fifty disciples above the foundation-building stage. Now, the number of foundation-building cultivators under his command is more than half of that of Huajian Sect at that time! It has only been a short time, and no one can create such a group of warriors in such a short time.

Only he spoke at that time!

Continuing to walk forward, Shi Yan raised his right hand and lit up the lamps along the way.

Shi Yan and the dragon beard worm shared the same vision. The darkness here was no obstacle for him, but the team behind him was completely blind. Shi Yan rubbed his nose and smiled bitterly. He was so proud just now.

Suddenly, a strong wind blew past, and "Ah!" someone behind me screamed.

Shi Yan was startled and ran over quickly, asking, "What's wrong?"

"There was something just now!" On the rocky skin of the man, there was a very clear knife mark as deep as a finger.

Shi Yan frowned. Although no one was killed, the enemy was in the dark and we were in the light, which was very dangerous.

"Everyone cheer up and move forward carefully!" Shi Yan ordered.

The team continued to move forward, and suddenly, someone screamed again. This time, ten people were attacked together!

"Did you see what it was?" Shi Yan asked solemnly.

"No, I just heard a slight sound of wind, and then a wound appeared on my body." said the man.

Then, Shi Yan asked a few more people and got roughly the same answers.

"Could it be them?" Shi Yan looked at Qianzu.

Chizu nodded, "It's them."

"Then why didn't you inform me!"

"You didn't ask." Qianzu's answer made Shi Yan stagger. This spirit beast was so incompetent.

"If you have anything else to say, just tell me all at once, so you don't have to accuse me of not asking." Shi Yan said angrily.

Qianzu's eyes narrowed slightly, "They don't obey my orders!"

Shi Yan's face froze, "How could this happen?"

Qianzu shook his head, "I don't know, maybe it's been too long, and their descendants have forgotten our existence."

"This is trouble!" Shi Yan shouted hurriedly, "Everyone be careful and retreat in an orderly manner!"

The hard training finally paid off at this time. They retreated in an orderly manner, the team was neat, and there was no panic to cause chaos.

At this moment, Shi Yan suddenly felt a sharp pain on the right cheek, followed by a strong wind. Shi Yan thought something was wrong and stepped back quickly, while using his spiritual power to protect his hands and grabbing forward.

"Squeak!" With a scream, Shi Yan seemed to have caught something, but it was invisible to the naked eye.

"Vision sharing!" Shi Yan finally saw clearly what he was holding. It was a ball of white mist, ethereal, but when it was wiped away, it felt like smooth hair. In front of him was a skeleton similar to the front part of a skull, with two balls of dim light in the two holes. The dim light flickered, and a roaring sound came out of the mouth, as if threatening or intimidating.

"Is this the mirage?" Shi Yan looked at the strange spirit beast in front of him curiously and asked Qianzu.

"Yes, but it is slightly different from the mirage a thousand years ago. The mirage a thousand years ago was completely atomized, and when condensed into a solid entity it was just a ball of white mist, but this mirage has a skeletal 'face'," Qianzu analyzed.

"Could it be evolution?" Shi Yan wondered.

"No, it looks like it has degenerated." said Qianzu.

"Degenerate?"

"That's right. The more ethereal a mirage is, the higher its level will be. The mirage leader from a thousand years ago, except for the Queen Mother and the Divine Dragon Venerable, had to materialize himself before anyone could see him."

Shi Yan was a little surprised, "So powerful! Indeed, compared to those, the one in my hand has indeed degraded a lot."

Suddenly, a cloud of white mist floated into Shi Yan's field of vision, with dozens of faint lights flickering in it.

"Oh no, the mirage is coming!" Shi Yan hurriedly shouted to warn, but except for him, everyone else could see the mirage, and no matter how vigilant they were, it was difficult to resist.

After a while, someone was injured after his defense was broken by the mirage. If it weren't for the fusion of beast souls, he would have died by now.

"This is not a solution at all. The longer we delay, the more dangerous it will be." Shi Yan quickly released Xiao Kong, Bai Ze, Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai. Xiao Kong looked at Shi Yan blankly, not knowing why he suddenly called him out. Bai Ze kept asking Shi Yan for the crystal core, but the next moment, their expressions changed because they were attacked by the mirage.

Suddenly, thin scars appeared on his body.

Xiao Kong was furious, and with a roar, he put on the [Fire Spirit Armor] and instantly turned into a fire monkey with flames burning all over his body.

There were clanging sounds coming from Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai's bodies, and flashes of fire were appearing on their bodies. It was obvious that there were also mirages attacking them, but they underestimated Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai's defenses, and they didn't even have any scars, which instead exposed their whereabouts.

Bai Ze opened his mouth and spit out a breath of cold air, which enveloped Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai. Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai cooperated by closing their eyes and welcoming the cold air.

The cold air enveloped the area, and there were cries all of a sudden. Following the sound, they saw groups of water vapor surrounding Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai, which gradually solidified due to the erosion of the cold air. Bai Ze's cold air came from the cold spring, and the grade was quite high. Although it was not as cold as the extreme cold air of Shi Yan, it was not far behind. After a while, the mirages surrounded Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai like ice sculptures.

At this moment, Xiao Kong swept across with his stick, and suddenly the ground was covered with ice crystal fragments.

With the precedent set, they immediately continued as usual. First, Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai lured out the mirage, then Bai Ze froze it, and then Xiao Kong put an end to it.

Xiao Hei and Xiao Bai emit a soft light, and every time the light comes on, they will be attacked by the mirage spirit. It turns out that the mirage spirit has the habit of moving towards light, no wonder the mirage spirit appears as soon as the light in the mine is turned on.

The three spirit beasts cooperated well, and soon all the mirages disappeared, leaving only ice crystal fragments on the ground.

"The mirage spirit has really degenerated, otherwise it wouldn't die so easily." Qianzu recalled: "Back then, this kind of coldness could only make the mirage spirit manifest its form. If your coldness could activate the seventh level, it would be able to freeze it."

Shi Yan was speechless. The mirage spirit from a thousand years ago was so powerful? Wouldn't that mean it was invincible? You know, even Bai Ze's coldness is very rare in the world, not to mention Shi Yan's coldness, which is the coldest. It takes the seventh level of coldness to freeze like today. How many people in the world can do it!

"Still going forward?" Qianzu asked.

Shi Yan hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, "Let's go. Since the mirage spirit has degenerated and no longer obeys your orders, we have no choice but to kill it! Otherwise, this will be a major hidden danger!"

Chizu nodded approvingly, "Follow me then."

The team continued to move forward.

During this period, Shi Yan and others were attacked by several waves of mirages again, but they were all eliminated with the seamless cooperation of the three spirit beasts, Xiao Hei, Xiao Bai, Bai Ze and Xiao Kong.

In fact, Shi Yan asked to continue moving forward, in addition to eliminating hidden dangers, there was another purpose, which was to find the spirit beast eggs!

Now, basically everyone in the group is unable to practice cultivation, so the "Spirit Beast Seal Technique" is the only way to improve strength. In this way, the spirit beast eggs become very important.

In the beast control world, due to the limit on the number of contracts for the natal spirits, spirit beasts hatched from spirit beast eggs are generally not able to be contracted, so apart from being pets or given to younger generations, they are dispensable and useless. Because it is better to catch wild ones than to cultivate them from scratch, because wild spirit beasts have rich experience, and this experience is not easy to cultivate. In addition, spirit beast eggs are very rare, so the price is very high, which makes cultivators even more discouraged.

But Shi Yan's regiment is different. These people can't practice cultivation, and can only rely on the cultivation of spirit beasts to drive them. So they are the same as spirit beasts, a blank sheet of paper, allowing writing. Moreover, the most important combat ability of the regiment is the fusion of beast souls, which also reduces the necessity of spirit beast combat experience. In addition to Shi Yan's "Spirit Beast Seal Art", it can be said that spirit beast eggs are very important to the future development of the entire regiment.

At this moment, Shi Yan's eyes were attracted by a ray of light.

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