The blue crystal disappeared. Shen Yunhao tried several more, but the result was the same.
"Really? Or is it an illusion?"
Shen Yunhao tried again using the fox tail and found that the blue crystals were indeed real, but they turned into a wisp of pure energy and disappeared the moment they touched his body.
It didn't completely disappear. With the enhanced vision provided by the fox tail, Shen Yunhao could see that wisp of pure energy seeping into his body through his pores.
No matter how Shen Yunhao tried to sense it, he couldn't detect where that wisp of pure energy had gone, and the spiritual energy within his body remained unchanged...
After pondering for a long time, Shen Yunhao finally resigned himself to his fate.
"Damn it, I almost died and then this happened..."
Out of caution, Shen Yunhao did not dare to continue absorbing the pure energy generated by the blue crystals. He planned to put them away first and see if they had any other uses later.
Experiments have shown that these blue crystals will not be absorbed as long as they do not come into direct contact with the skin.
However, Shen Yunhao doesn't have a storage magic item right now, so he can't possibly carry so many crystals with him.
So he stored most of them in a hidden corner, keeping only one or two pieces on his person for emergencies.
After doing all this, Shen Yunhao finally began to consider what to do next.
The underground space was vast, and it took Shen Yunhao considerable effort to explore the entire cave except for the pits and hollows.
After some investigation, Shen Yunhao had no choice but to discover that apart from the pits on the ground, there were no other exits at all.
More importantly, he did not find the Heavenly Treasure Pouch or the White Dragon Lamp...
It's important to understand that the White Dragon Lantern is not like an ordinary communication artifact. As of now, apart from the time when it was sealed inside the Candle Flower's belly, no other place can prevent communication between White Dragon Lanterns.
The inability to find the White Dragon Lantern signifies that the only possible means of contacting the outside world has been severed.
"It seems I can only rely on myself..."
Sitting there, Shen Yunhao scratched his head. "Damn it, maybe I've gotten so used to living off women that I'm not used to suddenly having no one to rely on..."
With a slight self-deprecating remark, Shen Yunhao began to organize the current clues and known conditions.
"I'm currently in a secret realm, and the most direct way to leave is to find the entrance... But the problem is, because I was unconscious before, I have no idea how I entered this secret realm, or how I ended up in this cave..."
"Could it be that these pits are actually the 'starting point' of a secret realm? Once you enter the secret realm, you will randomly appear in one of these pits?"
After thinking for a moment, Shen Yunhao shook his head.
“That’s unlikely. According to Xiaoruo, Ziteng also came down. If she was at the ‘starting point,’ she should have come out faster than me, but she hasn’t shown up yet… Moreover, judging from the condition when I first woke up, I must have suffered a very serious injury here, most likely from a fall!”
“Wisteria and I should have entered the secret realm at the same time, but now there is no sign of her at all. It is highly likely that after entering the secret realm, we were teleported to different places. So... it is not very realistic to try to return through the entrance.”
Shen Yunhao looked up at the top of the cave, which was covered with ice crystals.
"Now, besides these potholes in the ground, the only other possible path is above..."
"But it's too high. Not only is it difficult to climb up, but finding an exit in this kind of ceiling is almost impossible without the ability to fly..."
"Could it be... that we really have to go down there?"
Thinking of this, Shen Yunhao walked to the side of a cave on the ground and looked down.
"If we went down to the previous depth, jumping down would have resulted in at least a level two disability... Fortunately, I am now immune to the cold of the ice crystals, so climbing down along the cave wall is not out of the question..."
"But at this rate, how long would it take to explore all of these hundreds and thousands of caves one by one?"
Shen Yunhao sighed, a hint of helplessness in his voice, "But given the current situation, it seems like this is the only way forward..."
As he stood up, he suddenly noticed a patch of still-dry, icy blue liquid on the ground not far away.
This is the venom sprayed by the giant ice crystal python...
Just then, a bright idea flashed through Shen Yunhao's mind.
"No! Who said there are only two paths here, one going up and one going down!"
He looked around and finally came to a huge ice crystal wall.
When it was chased by the giant python, the venom it spewed out had corroded the ice crystal stone on it, leaving it pitted and uneven. In the thinner parts, a faint ray of azure light could still be seen shining through.
"There might be another path ahead..."
After hesitating for a moment, Shen Yunhao raised the Guixue Sword and stabbed it fiercely into the ice crystal.
In general, although these ice crystals contain terrifying cold, their hardness is only average; several pieces were shattered when Shen Yunhao was sent flying earlier...
However, the piece in front of him seemed unusually solid. Shen Yunhao spent a long time chiseling at a weak spot where the blue light was stronger before he could barely make a small pit.
"This is too slow, how about... we try the Phantom Shuttle?"
However, I immediately abandoned the idea as soon as it came to mind.
No one knows what lies behind this ice wall. If he encounters another ice crystal behemoth like the one before, he won't even have a chance to escape...
The thickness of the ice wall far exceeded Shen Yunhao's imagination.
It took Shen Yunhao two and a half days to break through the ice wall. Looking back at the cross-section, it was nearly four meters thick!
As he had hoped, there was indeed another path behind the ice wall.
The moment the ice wall shattered, a chill several times stronger than before rushed out, and even with Shen Yunhao's current level of resistance to cold, he couldn't help but shiver.
He squinted, adjusting his eyes for a moment, before he could clearly see the scene before him—
Behind the ice wall was a huge ice crystal cave!
Moreover, the ice crystals were not the white ones seen in this cave, but rather a deep blue.
Countless azure crystal clusters hung from the cave ceiling, each crystal pillar flowing with liquid-like spiritual light, illuminating the space below in a dreamlike manner.
The ground was covered with glistening ice crystals, without any pits or holes. Stepping on it didn't feel slippery; instead, it had a peculiar, sticky feel.
However, what attracted Shen Yunhao the most was an ice platform in the center of the cave.
A fist-sized, deep blue crystal core floated on the platform, its surface covered with natural patterns, slowly rotating and emitting a heart-pounding energy fluctuation.
"This is……"
Shen Yunhao's pupils suddenly contracted.
Out of caution, Shen Yunhao held the fox tail in his hand as he approached, activating his "True Vision".
At this moment, the energy contained in this crystal core in his field of vision was many times stronger than that that had burst out from the three ice crystal beasts before!
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