Chapter 394 - 253: Obtaining a Treasure

Chapter 394: Chapter 253: Obtaining a Treasure

On his journey, Yu Fei witnessed many Martial Artists fighting to the death. Sneak attacks, ambushes, and brawls over treasures were common occurrences, perfectly matching his stereotypical image of the martial world.

The Jiaoyan Sea, despite having "Sea" in its name, was actually a sea of magma.

Here, hardened slabs of earth bobbed up and down, floating on the magma. There were also continuous outcroppings of dark red rock, each several meters tall.

According to the map, the ambient temperature here was over 200 degrees, making it unsuitable for Martial Artists to linger for long.

But in the depths of this magma sea grew a rare natural treasure: the Golden Flame Orchid.

When processed, this strange flower could enhance a Martial Artist’s yang-attribute aptitude to some degree. It also strengthened the physique, making it a precious resource for those who practiced Body Refining.

However, harvesting the Golden Flame Orchid presented two major difficulties.

First, it grew in the depths of the Jiaoyan Sea, where the hardened earth slabs were smaller and magma could erupt at any moment. Furthermore, there were very few rocks for a Martial Artist to use as footing. One careless step could send them plunging into the magma to be consumed.

Second, if Golden Flame Orchids were gathered in one place, the temperature of the immediate area would spike. Experiments had shown that if three Golden Flame Orchids were placed within one meter of each other, the ambient temperature would soar to a thousand degrees, and the miraculous flower would quickly lose its potency.

This was why the Golden Flame Orchid fetched an extremely high price on the market.

But for Yu Fei, these difficulties were trivial, which was why he had made this place his first stop.

He fully extended his perception and detected roughly forty life auras within a thirty-kilometer radius. It was a relatively large number of people.

As he continued to scan the area with his perception, a mental map of the Jiaoyan Sea’s topography formed in his mind.

Most of the protruding rocks were stable, but many were rootless and merely floating. Step on one of those carelessly, and it could flip over at any moment.

The hardened slabs of ground averaged three to four meters in thickness, but this was highly inconsistent. Some areas were over ten meters thick, while others were just a shallow layer. A careless step on one of the latter would likely mean falling right through.

And between these hardened slabs, crimson magma flowed.

Tempered by the intense heat over a long period, these rocks and earth slabs floating on the magma sea all emitted a faint, extraordinary aura, which was the only reason they hadn’t been consumed.

His perception probed deeper, seeing the churning magma. Beneath it, a dense, extraordinary aura flowed without pause, but it was too deep to be reached by human hands.

This place was actually better suited for Grandmasters to explore for treasure. Seventh-Realm Grandmasters had the ability to fly and thus didn’t have to worry about their safety.

Within Yu Fei’s range of perception, however, there were no Grandmaster auras. Most of the people present were Divine Realm Martial Artists.

Putting away his suit of armor, Yu Fei took out an Ice Silkworm Robe and put it on. The robe was incredibly light and offered some fire resistance, but it had virtually no defensive properties.

The Shuofeng Liquid Silver Armor weighed a full one hundred kilograms, making it inconvenient for exploration. ℴ

He had prepared plenty of fire-resistant supplies for this trip, all stored in his personal dimension, ready to be used as needed.

Yu Fei stored all his miscellaneous belongings in his personal dimension. Dressed only in the Ice Silkworm Robe and a crab-faced mask, he stepped into the Jiaoyan Sea.

His intelligence suggested that besides wondrous items like the Golden Flame Flower, the Jiaoyan Sea held many other special resources.

Relying on his powerful perception, Yu Fei would immediately rush toward any wild extraordinary aura he detected and collect the source into his personal dimension.

After two hours of this, he was growing a little bored.

’This isn’t working. It’s too inefficient!’

The shallows of the Jiaoyan Sea, near the shore, had already been picked clean by countless others. Few treasures remained, and he had found next to nothing.

After a moment of thought, he decided to venture deeper.

Moving in stealth under the cover of night, Yu Fei left no trace of his passage.

The Celestial Star Travel Body was perfectly suited for this environment. Combined with his Burning Void Escape, it wasn’t long before Yu Fei reached the core region of the Jiaoyan Sea.

The temperature here was even higher, the hardened earth slabs were smaller and thinner, and geysers of subterranean magma erupted from time to time.

This posed no problem for Yu Fei, however. With his superior perception, every danger was laid bare. He effortlessly avoided all the natural traps and moved at incredible speed.

Yu Fei noticed that the Martial Artists who had made it this far all possessed decent Iron Body training and Body Techniques.

The former allowed them to withstand the high temperatures, while the latter was essential for survival.

Their progress, however, was incredibly slow. They would often observe their surroundings carefully, even tossing rocks to test the path ahead before advancing to the next foothold. Every move was made with extreme caution; after all, a single misstep could send one plunging into the magma to a gruesome death.

It was no wonder they were so cautious. Here, the hardened earth slabs were less than a meter thick on average, making the terrain exceedingly dangerous.

As he was proceeding, Yu Fei suddenly detected intense energy fluctuations up ahead, mixed with the auras of numerous Martial Artists.

’Is this... the emergence of a rare treasure?’

Yu Fei hurried toward the source of the anomaly. After traveling just over ten kilometers, he suddenly felt a peculiar ripple from his Void Clearing Mirror.

’Other perception-type Martial Artists! Two of them!’

He had instantly detected the auras of others like him.

Perception-type Martial Artists almost exclusively hailed from the Seven Greats, which meant these two were undoubtedly chosen geniuses.

However, with his Void Clearing Mirror, Yu Fei wasn’t worried about being discovered.

This ultimate Qingjing Strange Skill from the medieval Daoist period had one unique property: any perception-based Secret Technique it activated would passively gather information. This was fundamentally different from ordinary Soul Foundation Secret Skills, making him incredibly difficult for other perception-type Martial Artists to detect.

Normally, when two perception-type Martial Artists met, it was a contest of their perception ranges. The moment their ranges overlapped, they would inevitably detect one another.