Chapter 166

  "Eh? Young man, take some more, or else we wouldn't be able to accept so much gold from you!!" The two hunters handed the grass basket in front of Tang Yin, no matter how he hesitated, they still wanted him to pick some more. Tang Yin had no choice, and could only take out a few more ginseng, slightly shaking off the dirt on top, then directly stuffed them into his mouth, chewing with big bites.

  The ginseng that had just been dug up was bitter with a hint of sweetness, and sweet with a hint of bitterness, not very palatable. But Tang Yin could get used to this kind of taste, he never picked at his food, especially when he was hungry.

  After receiving so much gold from Tang Yin, the two hunters kindly advised him again not to go into the mountains. However, Tang Yin seemed to have heard but not taken it to heart. Seeing his nonchalant attitude, the two hunters could only sigh heavily and silently pray that he wouldn't encounter any accidents.

  The two hunters took their leave of Tang Yin, having made a pretty penny from this trip into the mountains. Both were satisfied and didn't plan on collecting any more, preparing to head back home.

  Tang Yin smiled and watched the two leave, leaving behind two of the ginseng he had bought, eating all the rest. Then he stood up, rubbed his hands together, stretched his limbs, and began to climb quickly towards the top of the mountain.

  He was agile and didn't need any equipment to assist him, his body was like a nimble monkey, sometimes crawling, sometimes jumping, and soon he reached the top of the peak.

  Upon reaching the mountain top, strange rocks stood upright and weeds grew thickly. Unintentionally, Tang Yin discovered an inscription on a massive boulder, which read "Yun Zhongzi arrived late for a tour". He ran his hand over the engraving, which was carved with a sharp object. After looking at it, he shook his head and smiled, apparently there had been adventurers who had passed by this place before, just like modern people, it seemed that people of this era also had the habit of leaving evidence in the places they had been to.

  He twitched his mouth, walked to the other side of the mountain peak. According to what the two hunters said, this side of the mountain is the central part of Wan Shou Mountain. He stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down, but the mist surrounded him and he couldn't see the bottom of the mountain. He casually picked up a large stone and threw it far away.

  As the boulder fell, he counted silently in his heart: one, two, three, four... It wasn't until he reached ten that he faintly heard an echo coming from below the mountain.

  Such a large boulder, it took a full ten seconds to fall to the ground. Roughly calculated, there must be hundreds of meters below. This is much deeper than the other side. From this, we can see that the center of Wan Shou Mountain is also a low-lying valley, and it's a very deep mountain valley.

  If it were an ordinary person, seeing such a deep valley alone would definitely not dare to go down. But Tang Yin was fearless, he released his spiritual energy and covered his palms with spiritual armor, so that in the process of going down, he could grasp more firmly. Then, his body flashed, and he quickly climbed from the top of the mountain into the valley.

  The mountain peak on this side was indeed much deeper than the other, and as it went down, the light became more and more insufficient. The sky was blocked by the surrounding high mountains, but fortunately, Tang Yin was a dark system cultivator, so his vision was not a problem. After climbing halfway down, the tide of energy grew stronger, and the rocks on the mountain were covered with moss, wet and slippery. At this time, the spiritual armor on Tang Yin's palm came into play, and his ten fingers were like iron hooks, tightly grasping the cliff wall, supporting his body so that it wouldn't fall halfway.

  Even Tang Yin had to use all his might to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the valley.

  The valley was much larger than Tang Yin had imagined, with a narrow entrance at the top and a very spacious bottom, shaped like a gourd, only it was too dark, if Tang Yin wasn't a Dark Cultivation Practitioner, he would have difficulty seeing things at the bottom of the valley.

  Perhaps due to the lack of sunlight for many years, the plants that grow here are mostly unseen and unheard of by Tang Yin, even creating a kind of illusion, as if one has entered another world, where everything seems so novel.

  He slowly moved forward to explore, the ground was not covered with grass, but was filled with huge mushrooms, some of which were as big as an adult's palm. Tang Yin had never seen such large mushrooms before and couldn't help but walk up to a giant mushroom, break off a piece, and try to taste what it was like.

  Just as he pinched off the mushroom, a swarm of black beetles suddenly surged out from the broken base, crawling up his palm. Tang Yin reacted extremely quickly, releasing spiritual energy in the first moment to envelop his entire body with a spiritual armor. At the same time, those black beetles crawled all over his body along his palms and feet, biting frantically.

  When beetles gnaw on the Ling armor, they make a faint and piercing rubbing sound.

  What kind of weird bug is this?! Tang Yan flicked off the insect on his palm and then covered his eyes with his hand, muttering to himself as dark flames erupted from him. With a whooshing sound, his entire body was enveloped in dark flames. Along with a hissing noise, the beetles crawling on his body instantly turned into mist.

  The beetles were tiny, numbering in the tens of thousands, but the spiritual energy they transformed into was extremely thick and substantial, floating in mid-air, coalescing into a ball. Tang Yin looked up at it, and as he breathed, the spiritual energy slowly entered his body. He closed his eyes to savor it, and after a while, he murmured two words: "Pure and correct!"

  The spiritual energy of these beetles is not only more pure than that of wild beasts, but even more refined than that of humans, as if they had grown up by absorbing the essence of heaven and earth.

  Unexpectedly, these disgusting insects had such a pure spiritual energy. Tang Yin was overjoyed at the moment and completely crushed the mushroom that he had broken off a piece of, and in an instant, more beetles emerged. Although there were many beetles, they crawled onto Tang Yin's body like moths to a flame, with no return, and soon, the beetles that crawled out of the giant mushroom were all burned to death by the dark fire.

  Tang Yin let out a long sigh, looked around and saw that the valley was filled with giant beetles everywhere. These black armored insects were countless in number, and if he could absorb them all, he estimated that his cultivation would directly advance from the Spiritual Origin Realm to the Spiritual Heaven Realm.

  He smiled with a grin, as the saying goes, "Accidentally planting willows and becoming shade", he himself entered the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain just to practice his Dark Fire, but unexpectedly stumbled upon such a great place for cultivation.

  Being able to cultivate the Dark Flame to the point where one's soul is burning is good, but if you can raise your cultivation to the Spiritual Heaven Realm, that would be even better.

  Tang Yin couldn't hold back the joy in his heart, and immediately went to pry open another giant mushroom beside him. After prying it open, he only saw the white flesh of the mushroom, but didn't find a single beetle. Tang Yin was unwilling to give up, and with both hands and feet, he climbed onto the mushroom, trampling it into a pulp, still without seeing any sign of the beetle.

  "What the...?!" Tang Yin's heart sank from joy to despair in an instant. Could it be that among all these mushrooms in the valley, only that one had a beetle inside? And he just happened to stumble upon that one? What kind of luck was this?!

  He was not convinced and didn't believe he would be so lucky, so he simply drew his curved knife and with a casual swing, cut down several mushrooms. But just like the previous one, there were no beetles inside. When he walked out a few more meters and continuously cut down over twenty mushrooms, he saw the scene of a large number of beetles emerging from the mushrooms again. This time, he treasured them greatly, trying not to let any escape, and absorbed them all with his Dark Flame.

  After trying a few more times, Tang Yin discovered that not every mushroom had beetles inside, but rather these beetles seemed to treat the mushrooms as their own nests, gnawing away at the flesh and living inside. In each cluster of mushrooms, only one or two would have beetles dwelling within.

  It turned out to be like this! He smiled wryly and shook his head. Although the spiritual energy of the beetle was pure, but relatively speaking, there were too few of them. Now he didn't have so much time to check one by one which mushrooms had beetles and which ones didn't.

  He didn't dare to disperse the spiritual armor, instead he merged the twin blades, transforming into a sickle, and continued to venture deeper into the valley. In this unknown mountain valley, danger lurked everywhere, and he didn't dare to be even slightly careless.

  The valley is full of plants and animals, and they are all animals that Tang Yin has never seen before.

  These animals were not large in size, some resembled lizards with scales covered in reverse thorns, running at extremely high speeds. Some were soft-bodied, without bones, like giant maggots wriggling on the ground, their bodies sticky and full of toxic liquid. As soon as Tang Yin approached, the maggot-like creatures sprayed him with toxic liquid, which splattered onto his armor, making a hissing sound and corroding into wisps of green smoke.

  It spits poisonous water at Tang Yin, and Tang Yin retaliates with dark fire.

  The animals in the valley have one thing in common, that is, no matter how strange and disgusting their appearance is, the spiritual energy transformed by the dark fire is very pure, and inhaling it into the body brings great benefits to Tang Yin.

  If he didn't use Dark Flame, if he didn't cover his entire body with Dark Flame, then when he touched those beetles he would have already died.

  Although the Soul Reaper can use spiritual armor to protect his body, he cannot protect his eyes. When the beetles crawl all over his body, even if he can cover his eyes with his hands, the beetles will slowly gnaw away at the spiritual armor on his body, and in the end, he will still be left with nothing but a lifeless corpse.

  Tang Yin regards the creatures in the valley as treasures that can enhance his own cultivation, while to others who approach them recently, these things are all deadly demons.

  He walked for a long time and finally reached the center of the valley. This was the only place where sunlight could penetrate at noon, but it was desolate and barren, with not a single blade of grass growing on the ground. The ground was dry and cracked, and in the center, there was a black hole over three meters wide. The surface around it was pitch-black and seemed to be bottomless.

  Inside the unfathomably deep mountain valley, there are actually unfathomably deep caves, making one unable to help but marvel at the wonders of creation.

  Tang Yin walked slowly to the edge of the cave, looked inside and saw nothing, but a faint aura of yin energy came rushing towards him.

  His courage was already considerable, but at this moment he still couldn't help but shiver inwardly and involuntarily take a step back.

  His rationality told him not to go in, but his intense curiosity couldn't help but make him want to enter and investigate.

  After some deliberation, he steeled himself and decided to go in and take a look.

  Now that I've come all this way, if I don't investigate thoroughly, I'll probably regret it for the rest of my life.

  Because he didn't bring a rope, Tang Yin had to climb down bit by bit. He disassembled the sickle into two spirit knives and inserted the curved knife into the stone wall of the cave as support, then slowly made his way down.