"Hoo..."
Yun Ze let out a long sigh, looking at the 'spoils of war' before him, a sense of satisfaction immediately welled up in his heart.
He first ran through the other four stomachs, using the power of Immortal Jade to extract all the spiritual liquid within, then condensed them into blocks of ice and placed them into his Spatial Ring. Afterward, he moved them all to the fifth stomach.
He didn't know how much control the spirit whale had over this fifth stomach, nor did he dare to act rashly. He could only try to condense a small piece of pure spiritual liquid into ice.
After confirming that nothing happened, he put this block of ice into his Spatial Ring, then replaced the ordinary spiritual liquid ice with it, and decomposed it into liquid form to fill the fifth stomach.
This cycle repeated.
About half an hour later, all the ice blocks in his Spatial Ring had been replaced with pure spiritual liquid!
A total of one hundred pieces!
Each piece of pure spiritual liquid was as large as his entire body!
If he were to absorb all this spiritual liquid, it might not reach Foundation Establishment, but it would be enough to reach the peak of Qi Refining Ninth Level!
If it were to be raised to the Ninth Level Qi Sea...
Yun Ze shook his head, finally casting this thought aside!
He wasn't one of those freaks, why would he create trouble for himself!
He sat idly in the fifth stomach, idly playing with his jade token, but still hadn't received any new messages from Tan Chenyu.
If this comrade arrived, he would definitely notify him, but since there was no news at the moment, he didn't want to disturb her rashly.
After all, they were in a secret realm now. What if something went wrong if he disturbed her rashly?
He might as well take this opportunity to absorb more spiritual liquid.
Yun Ze sat cross-legged in the spiritual liquid and began to absorb the surrounding spiritual liquid to cultivate.
As his cultivation state deepened, he gradually entered a state of meditation.
But just as he entered meditation, a voice suddenly echoed in the depths of his mind!
"Come... come... come!"
"Who!"
Yun Ze was instantly startled awake!
He looked around but found no one, only the spiritual liquid filling the entire stomach.
Could it be that he had been in this confined environment for too long and was hallucinating?
But the voice just now didn't sound fake!
Yun Ze frowned in confusion, but just then, his jade token vibrated again!
He didn't have time to think and poured his spiritual energy into it.
"Comrade Yun Ze, are you still alive?"
"Still alive."
Yun Ze replied, and he heard Tan Chenyu's voice sounding a bit strange, so he couldn't help but ask, "Comrade, you are..."
"Ran into a little trouble on the way, which delayed me, but it's been resolved.
I've now reached the vicinity of the spiritual lake, but I didn't see the spirit whale. It should still be hidden at the bottom of the lake."
"I'll find a way to make some noise."
Yun Ze said quickly, "You retreat a bit and be careful."
"Okay."
Hearing Tan Chenyu's reply, Yun Ze switched the jade token to his left hand, then circulated the "Xing Wu Dao" and ascended.
He looked down at the spiritual liquid and muttered, "Daoist friend Spirit Whale, it's not that I want to do this, but you're hiding too deep, and people can't find you.
If I don't get out soon, I'm afraid I'll end up growing old alone here, so I'll have to trouble you!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he took out the water-attribute Immortal Jade and held it in his right hand, pouring spiritual power into it, then uttered a word!
"Condense!"
The entire spiritual lake instantly froze into ice!
"Ying!"
A cry of anguish exploded in his ears, and the surroundings began to tremble uncontrollably!
Fortunately, he was suspended in mid-air at this moment, otherwise, the shaking alone would have made him dizzy.
"I see it!"
Tan Chenyu's voice came from the jade token, "Comrade Yun Ze, hold on! I'll be right there!"
"Okay, don't rush."
Yun Ze replied, but could only continue to stay in place, staring at the massive 'ice!'
It wasn't that he didn't want to collect it, but this thing was simply too big!
The one hundred pieces of spiritual liquid crystals had already almost filled his Spatial Ring, and there was too much spiritual liquid here, he couldn't possibly collect it all!
If only he had a larger storage space.
But then again...
Tan Chenyu had found him, but how did she plan to rescue him?
Kill this spirit whale?
But even if she was at the Ninth Level of Qi Refining and Ninth Level of Qi Sea, she would have difficulty breaking through the spirit whale's defenses, right?
He then sensed a sharp intent attacking him!
This is... sword energy!?
Yun Ze instinctively dodged, and then a breath of fresh air entered his nostrils!
"Huh? Why isn't this spirit whale defending itself?"
Tan Chenyu's confused voice rang out, this time not from the jade token, but from above his head.
Yun Ze looked up in the direction of the voice and saw Tan Chenyu holding a sword, her robes fluttering, standing in mid-air, looking at him and the frozen spiritual liquid beneath him with some confusion!
"How did you do it!"
The two of them blurted out almost in unison.
"Ying! Ying! Ying!!"
A series of cries sounded, and the surroundings churned. The spirit whale was clearly in pain!
"This is not a place to talk. It's not dead yet. Let's get out first!" Tan Chenyu said quickly.
"Okay!"
Yun Ze replied, but then stopped and looked down at the spiritual liquid, asking Tan Chenyu, "Wait! Is your storage space big enough?"
Tan Chenyu's eyes lit up upon hearing this!
She leaped forward, raised her hand, and pressed it onto the crystal, then collected it!
"Ying!"
The spirit whale felt its Qi Sea being emptied and let out a roar, clearly enraged!
But...
Without spiritual power, without cultivation, what use was a spirit whale with only a strong physical body?
"Hurry!"
Tan Chenyu uttered two words and then stepped forward to grab Yun Ze's wrist, "My friend and I shall be a hundred meters away, not in the water!"
"What?"
Yun Ze didn't understand what Tan Chenyu said, but he felt his vision darken. When he came to his senses, he was already on the shore of the lake.
The sky above, the earth beneath, and before him was the spiritual lake stretching for a hundred miles, and the churning spirit whale!
Just... came out?
Yun Ze turned to look at Tan Chenyu. Before he could speak, Tan Chenyu grabbed his wrist again and sprinted towards a certain direction!
"It's not safe here, come with me first!"
Yun Ze stepped on "Zhu Ying," practicing the "Xing Wu Dao" technique. His speed and evasion techniques had long surpassed Su Ling'er's from back then!
But in front of Tan Chenyu, he was still being dragged along, unable to keep up!
The two of them ran for several thousand meters. When they were completely far from the spiritual lake and arrived at a plain, Tan Chenyu finally let go of Yun Ze's hand and panted, looking down.
"Phew, we finally got out! The commotion just now was too big. If we had been entangled by those guys, we would be in trouble!"
"Those things?"
Yun Ze didn't quite understand what Tan Chenyu was talking about, so he continued to ask, "Comrade... Comrade, what exactly are you talking about? And how did we get out just now? Why did we suddenly appear by the spiritual lake?"
"This is a long story."
Tan Chenyu took a breath, scanned the surroundings, and after confirming there was no danger, said, "Time is tight, let's talk as we walk!"
"Where are we going?"
Yun Ze frowned, "We came here not to find Yuan Qi and break through? The spiritual lake just now was the most likely place to find Yuan Qi, why are we leaving?"
"We are going back, but we have to go back slowly from the periphery."
Tan Chenyu said as she walked back in the direction they had fled, "Otherwise... we might be ambushed!"
"Ambushed?"
Yun Ze frowned, "By whom?"
"The myriad spirit beasts in the secret realm."
Tan Chenyu stopped and turned to look at Yun Ze, her eyes filled with excitement, "Comrade Yun Ze, we might be exploring a secret hidden for thousands of years!"
A secret hidden for thousands of years?
Yun Ze tilted his head, indicating he didn't understand what she was talking about at all.
He didn't know if it was an illusion, but he always felt that she had a bit of Wei Huang's syndrome, and wouldn't she start calling herself "lonely" in the future?
"Oh, right!"
Before Tan Chenyu could start explaining what this so-called secret was, she turned to look at Yun Ze with a confused expression, "I still want to ask you, how did you manage to condense all that spiritual liquid into ice?
That's a spirit beast in the late Foundation Establishment stage, with a vast Qi Sea, and the spiritual liquid is difficult to condense. How exactly did you do it?"
"This..."
Yun Ze hesitated for a moment, then a figure appeared in his mind, and he said with a serious expression, "Comrade Tan Chenyu, I really want to tell you, but Brother Yu said that this matter cannot be known to outsiders.
So..."
"Ah? Then please don't say it!"
Tan Chenyu covered her mouth and said, "I'm very prone to letting things slip! Don't say it, absolutely don't say it!"
"Then why don't you tell me what you know first?"
Yun Ze quickly changed the subject, "For example... what is this secret hidden for thousands of years?"
"Okay, it's like this..."
...
...
At this moment, in the center of the Zhutian Secret Realm.
This was the strangest place in the secret realm. Logically speaking, the center of a secret realm should be the place with the most abundant spiritual energy.
But this place was the opposite.
There weren't many spirit beasts here, nor much human habitation, and even the spiritual energy wasn't very abundant. It was like a forgotten corner of the secret realm.
If anyone was teleported here, they would truly be unlucky. Others might have already found Yuan Qi, while they might have just started.
But after the secret realm's disturbance, the spiritual energy here had actually increased significantly!
The surrounding spiritual energy surged towards this place, slowly condensing into liquid, and a spiritual rain descended from the sky, gradually forming a small puddle. Beside the puddle, many tender sprouts were emerging.
A figure slowly appeared in the reflection of the puddle.
If one looked closely, they could still vaguely see a smile hanging on his lips...