Chapter 90 The so-called prize pool is being paddled on a small wooden raft...
"Mingran, how are things on your end?"
The cool jade object pressed against my forehead vibrated and made a sound.
"Hmm." Ji Mingran exhaled slowly, storing the spiritual energy absorbed during meditation in his sea of consciousness. He then glanced around and clicked his tongue. "Let's do it this way."
After finishing her meditation, she lay down in a starfish position, and the raft drifted gently with the waves. For the past ten days, the sea had been calm, without strong winds or large waves, with a gentle breeze and the waves gently swaying. Ji Mingran didn't get seasick, but the swaying made her prone to dozing off.
It was daytime, with the sun shining brightly overhead and nothing to block it, making her head feel hot. Only by taking out the sect's jade token and placing it on her head could she feel much better.
The sect's jade token is warm in winter and cool in summer, which is just right for cooling down a bit.
Of course, most importantly, its communication function has been partially restored, allowing her to stay in touch with her fellow participants in the fourth round of the spiritual competition.
"I really don't understand, why are you the only one who is wandering outside?" On the other end of the sect's jade tablet, Guan Wangzhen asked the same question for the 188th time.
"I want to know too." Ji Mingran crossed his hands behind his head, lay back and admired the blue sky and white clouds, and asked the jade tablet on his forehead for the 188th time.
She was the first disciple to advance to the fourth round of the competition. After leaving the third round of the competition area, she was directly teleported to a raft on the sea to watch the meteor shower.
The meteor shower was magnificent and spectacular, but sadly, such a beautiful sight had no one to share it with. From beginning to end, no one else came. After the meteor shower ended, the ocean was dark and silent, and she was all alone.
It felt as if the world had forgotten him again. Ji Mingran didn't really like this feeling.
Fortunately, the sect's jade tablet regained some of its communication functions, allowing him to contact his companions and hear voices, which lifted Ji Mingran's spirits.
Shen Qingluo, Zhu Shibai, and Guan Wangzhen advanced to the next round of the competition just before dawn that night and were teleported to this sea area.
Unlike Ji Mingran, the three of them appeared together on a small cargo ship. This cargo ship was the one that the participating disciples and spectators of Dingsheng Sect had taken from Yuanzhou to Yanzhou.
“These past few days we’ve occasionally encountered other sect disciples who are advancing in the trials, and they’re all together,” Guan Wangzhen said. “Anyway, so far, among all the sect teams we’ve encountered, only yours is in this situation.”
Therefore, unlike other sect teams that searched everywhere for secret treasures and magical artifacts in the prize pool, the Dingsheng Sect team focused on locating Ji Mingran's direction and trying their best to get closer to her.
The winning team in the spiritual competition will receive treasures from the prize pool as a prize.
This is the prize pool.
Ji Mingran knew that the prizes for the spiritual cultivation competition were thrown into the prize pool, but the prize pool, the prize pool, the pool, the pool, she really didn't expect that this so-called pool was actually the ocean.
Zhu Shibai explained to her, "The fourth competition is a secret realm, formed by the stitching together of several natural secret realms by the former ten great cultivators of the Dao Sect. The secret realm floats everywhere, and no one knows its whereabouts. Only those who pass the first three competitions will be teleported to the secret realm."
"In the last competition, the prize pool appeared in a deep underground pool, which was too big to hold a boat, but its depth was unfathomable. The time before that, it was in a valley, and even longer ago it was in a sea of clouds. Each time it was different."
The location of the prize pool appears mysteriously and randomly, and no sect can prepare for it in advance. No one expected that the fourth competition would be held in the sea. The participating sects that happened to arrive by boat were extremely lucky.
As the disciples who passed the competition were sent away, the secret realm also sent their spirit boats, which carried their auras, to the sea. Thus, they appeared in the sea together with their spirit boats.
As for the other disciples who came through other means, after they advanced and were released into this sea area, the secret realm thoughtfully prepared a wooden plank for each of them.
"So you're still pretty lucky. Maybe it's because you came in first place in the competition that you got a small raft." Guan Wangzhen said, his words filled with schadenfreude: "Some of them didn't prepare any other spiritual artifacts or magic treasures. Those who can fly on swords are fine, but those alchemists, herbalists, and the like are probably out of luck."
It's easy to imagine that he was looking forward to the day when he would see the people of Liuhuan Valley struggling to float by, clutching the wooden planks.
“More likely, they won’t even have a chance to advance.” Guan Wangzhen’s voice rang with renewed joy.
“Mingran, the sea has become increasingly turbulent these past few days, and several sect teams have been attacked by sea monsters. You must be careful,” Shen Qingluo interjected.
"It's still relatively calm here, perhaps because I'm the only one here and the noise is too quiet to attract the attention of the monsters."
Ji Mingran had seen enormous creatures gliding by on the raft before, but those creatures seemed not to have noticed her, wandering around a few times at night before leaving.
His gaze fell on the ten-meter-long shadow that swam slowly past him, its dorsal fin barely brushing the edge of the raft above the water. Ji Mingran pondered for a moment, then cast a protective spell around himself and the raft, and continued, "I'll keep an eye out."
Shen Qingluo was still worried on the other end: "Take care of yourself. The guidance of the sect's jade token is becoming clearer and clearer. We are getting closer to you. I estimate that we will be able to find you in two or three days."
"Don't just focus on picking me up. I heard that other sects have also gotten a lot of good stuff these past few days. Don't forget about that." Ji Mingran's primary goal in participating in this competition was to retrieve the Spirit Stone that the elders of Dingsheng Sect had put into the prize pool of the Spirit Cultivation Competition.
The many treasures that Dingsheng Sect once contributed to the Spiritual Cultivation Competition are also the purpose of this trip.
“You were the first to pass the test, so we speculate that your location might be where the most treasures are hidden.” To prevent Ji Mingran from suggesting that they give up looking for her, Zhu Shibai offered a suitable reason to reassure him: “Our coming to find you won’t affect the progress of the treasure search.”
As Zhu Shibai was speaking, a commotion came from the other end of the jade tablet.
There was also Guan Wangzhen's distant exclamation: "Damn it, that disgusting thing is here again." Judging from the volume of his voice, he seemed to have left his original spot and run to the other side of the ship, putting some distance between himself and Zhu Shibai and Shen Qingluo.
Then came a series of splashing and booming sounds.
Zhu Shibai hurriedly said, "Grandma Ming, we will contact you later."
"Once we pick you up, everything will be fine," Shen Qingluo hurriedly instructed before falling silent.
The sect jade pendant on his forehead stopped making a sound. Ji Mingran took the jade pendant off his head and hung it back on his waist.
The sea is vast, and to live at sea, without any magical artifacts to control the ocean, cultivators cannot survive relying solely on spiritual power. Therefore, they must protect their ships.
Unlike Ji Mingran's small wooden raft, even a boat of a common size requires enough people to operate.
Currently, each sect and family has only a handful of disciples participating in the test, with no more than five people in total. Moreover, most of them have never piloted a ship before. For them, being able to pilot their own spirit boat is already an extraordinary feat.
Under these circumstances, manpower also needs to be allocated to defend against attacks from sea monsters that may appear at any time, making the participating disciples extremely busy and flustered.
Dingsheng Sect currently only has three people on the ship, but their ship is not large, and with Zhu Shibai there, there is no problem navigating the ship. However, if they encounter a monster attack, all three of them will need to work together.
The sect's jade token went out. Ji Mingran rested his head on his hands, stared at the azure sky for a long time, then sat up, took out a brocade pouch from his waist, and took out a wooden die.
The magical artifact given to her by her ancestor, the original body of the Qiankun Mystery Competition, was brought out by her.
This magical artifact is currently useless, but it's good for killing time. When he's bored, Ji Mingran plays with it like a Rubik's Cube, absorbing the spiritual energy contained within it.
From the day it was created, a magical artifact inherently possesses spiritual power. Once the initial spiritual power stored in the artifact is used up, the cultivator needs to replenish it before it can be used again.
However, high-level spiritual artifacts possess the ability to absorb and store the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, thus maintaining their effectiveness for a long time without requiring cultivators to replenish their spiritual energy. Even in the hands of low-level cultivators, such spiritual artifacts can exert the same effect.
That day, Ji Mingran glimpsed his own sea of consciousness, which was shrouded in mist all day long, and thus understood why the spiritual power he had been refining day and night lost its sensation once it entered his sea of consciousness.
Imagine how one could sense a single drop of water in a vast ocean.
Her sea of consciousness was like the ocean before her, vast and boundless. The difference was that, unlike the abundant seawater here, her sea of consciousness was almost dry.
Only a shallow pool of clear water remained. This was the manifestation of the spiritual power she had stored in her sea of consciousness.
This shows that her spiritual energy reserves are truly insufficient. Imagine how long it would take to fill an ocean with just a few drops of water? She will need a great deal more spiritual energy before her next advancement to the Golden Core stage, and she currently has far too little.
Ji Mingran resumed refining without stopping, but relying on absorbing spiritual energy from the air was still too slow.
So Ji Mingran set her sights on the secret treasure's spiritual power. She could play with it while absorbing the spiritual power, and once she had absorbed enough, she would put it back into the brocade pouch to nurture it.
It's like a spirit stone that can automatically recharge; it's very useful.
Ji Mingran's fair and smooth fingers moved quickly through the pages, completely absorbed in her work. It wasn't until the light reflected off the sea dazzled her eyes that she snapped out of her immersive state.
The sea surface shimmered, and this happened frequently. But this time, the light was particularly dazzling.
She has now reached the foundation stage, and her vision is clearer than ever before. A thousand meters away, she can see what appears to be a tiny object floating.
Ji Mingran pulled out the cane accessory from his waist, used its large size as a paddle, and rowed vigorously toward that direction.
......
The small, frail figure rowed the boat with all his might, wielding a wooden stick. The image projected by this projection stone formed a stark contrast with the images of other participating disciples riding in magnificent spirit boats, battling various demonic beasts.
"This looks rather pitiful."
"She is a cultivator after all, so why does she always act like an ordinary person? Even ordinary people are better at rowing than her. How long will she have to row like this?"
"I'm curious what she discovered."
"If it is truly a prize, there must be demonic beasts hiding nearby. Just look at what happened to the other disciples who obtained prizes."
Those with sharp eyes had already spotted the dark shadow darting beneath the small object and were intrigued. "Let's see how she gets the treasure from the demon. This raft can't withstand a demon's attack."
As the onlookers discussed, Ji Mingran struggled against the wind and finally reduced the distance between herself and the object to about 500 meters. She stopped, and the other cultivators turned to look at her.
Ji Mingran held one palm up, and a fluorescent glow appeared, revealing a small mirror that reflected the girl's beautiful face.
The dark figure was still spinning in place, completely unaware that the object floating above its head had disappeared.
Teleportation arrays are simple and easy to obtain.
In the next instant, Ji Mingran reappeared in her original spot along with the raft, putting distance between herself and the dark figure once again.
It's still a teleportation array.
"Hey, her method really works," said the cultivator observing the trial. "It's much safer than getting close to the demons yourself."
The cultivators nearby craned their necks to look, asking curiously, "What did she get?"
Donglu blinked slightly, perfectly concealing the subtle stirrings of his emotions.
She recognized the object in Ji Mingran's hand at a glance. It was the Breaking Illusion Mirror, a special-grade spiritual artifact contributed by the Dingsheng Sect in its first spiritual cultivation competition.
One of the treasures of the Dingsheng Sect was retrieved.
Meanwhile, no sooner had the curious cultivator finished speaking than the person in the projection stone's image put down the mirror and began frantically paddling the raft in another direction.
Hmm? What has she discovered this time?
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