Xu Qing wasn’t unfamiliar with nighttime in forbidden regions. Whether it was the city ruins, or this jungle, it was roughly the same. He had lived for upwards of two weeks in the former, and had spent a number of nights in the latter.

As he huddled in the tree hollow, he kept his eyes half-open as he quietly performed breathing exercises, absorbing the mutagen-heavy spirit power. Once the spirit power was inside him, he cleansed it with the Sea and Mountain Incantation, allowing the pure spirit power to spread through his body, while the mutagen entered his shadow.

He had already become used to the difference in cultivation that his shadow provided. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his shadow, or the general danger in the forbidden region, but regardless, he had no choice but to maintain a high level of concentration. And thanks to that concentration, his cultivation progressed rapidly.

Right now, he wasn’t far from the fourth level of the Sea and Mountain Incantation.

It’s like a grindstone.

He wasn’t sure exactly how grindstones worked, but he remembered a blacksmith back in the slums talking about how you needed to work a knife against one to get it truly sharp. Right now, the dangerous forbidden region had become his personal grindstone.

After working under the influence of that grindstone, Xu Qing completed a full cycle of cultivation, then opened his eyes. Looking out of the tree and into the night, he heard mutant beasts roaring. It sounded like the howling of devils.

A sinister coldness was ever-present, seeping into everything. And even hidden in the tree, Xu Qing was no exception.

It was very cold.

It reminded him of his time in the city ruins, and before long, he also felt a similar sense of loneliness. That said, he was used to loneliness. After a short time, he closed his eyes again and started another session of cultivation.

In that manner, time passed.

He had selected a very safe place to settle down. However, about halfway through the night, in the middle of his cultivation, he heard footsteps outside. It sounded chaotic, like there were numerous people walking around outside.

Xu Qing looked suspiciously out of the tree, but other than the trees, there was nothing else outside in the darkness. His heart sank further as he realized that the mutant beasts outside had grown silent. That put him even more on the alert. He thought back to the Singing and the footsteps from before. However, these footsteps seemed different.

It doesn’t sound like the Singing. There’s no song at all.

Having come to this conclusion, he remained quietly in place, even masking his breathing.

The footsteps grew clearer, and eventually, it sounded like a group of people approaching.

At the same time, a coldness arose, so intense that Xu Qing worried it might freeze him where he hid. He wasn’t unfamiliar with this type of coldness. Whether it was the time he heard the Singing, or occasions in the city ruins when the grues came out.

However, this seemed different than when he heard the Singing. Back then, he felt like his soul was frozen, but right now, though it was uncomfortable, he could at least still move.

This is something like the grues in the city ruins!

Having reached this determination, he gripped his iron skewer tightly and took a deep breath. Trying to stop his heart from pounding, he closed his eyes tightly.

Don’t look at them. Don’t touch them. Don’t get close to them.

After he closed his eyes, the footsteps became more urgent, and closer. It was like a host of people were milling about the tree.

Xu Qing was shaken, but he forced himself not to open his eyes and look at whatever was outside.

Eventually when the sun rose into the dome of heaven, the footsteps faded into the distance.

It was daytime.

However, Xu Qing still didn’t open his eyes. He waited for a moment before looking out of the tree hollow. To his shock, he found that the opening had been sealed over with ice.

Seeing that sunlight shone through the ice onto his face, he exhaled a shaky breath, then clenched his hand into a fist and punched the ice, shattering it.

Xu Qing climbed out into the open and looked around. All the wolf bones he’d seen the night before were gone. In their place… were a mass of footprints.

Human footprints.

There were so many that there had to have been hundreds of people in the area.

Xu Qing had never heard of a situation in which hundreds of people would enter a forbidden region together.

And what was even more unusual was that… they were actual footprints, not shoe prints.

Eventually, he looked away from the footprints, feeling a new sense of understanding about the grues in forbidden regions. Thankfully, it was now daylight, which meant there was less danger to deal with. And Xu Qing wasn’t about to give up on his search. He continued on.

Several hours later, he reached the spot where he and Squad Thunderbolt had harvested seven-leaf clovers in the canyon.

Just like before, the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the leafy canopy of vines that stretched over it. The entire place was filled with a floral fragrance, and seemed completely different from the dangerous world outside of it. It was almost like a paradise. Upon reaching the harvesting spot, Xu Qing breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked beyond it to the distant temple complex.

He rested only a moment before retracting his gaze and continuing onward at top speed.

The jungle past the canyon was even thicker, with less sunlight making its way through the canopy. But perhaps because the ancient temple complex still radiated a bit of its former might and glory, the area seemed less dangerous.

The surrounding jungle also seemed a bit warmer.

In fact, as Xu Qing got closer to the complex, the jungle trees seemed more like ordinary trees from the outside world. They didn’t seem twisted and dark. He even spotted some seven-leaf clover, which he harvested.

Everything about this area was surprising, but he didn’t let his guard down.

Another two hours went by, and evening was about to fall. That was when Xu Qing emerged from the jungle proper and saw the temple complex in front of him.

There were still trees in the area, but not many. The sunlight that hit his eyes was dazzling, but he still saw the numerous temple structures. They were round, and all of them were dozens of meters tall. Most of the stone walls were crumbling and covered with moss, but a few of the buildings were relatively intact. The entire place contained an air of grandeur.

Stepping inside, he heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath his feet. And for some reason, he felt like he was looking around at an immense kingdom. Everything was in ruins, but it all had an aspect of profound age to it. It almost seemed like the ruins were trying to explain their history to him.

Walking a bit further in, he found himself in front of a crumbling statue. Most of the bottom of the statue had been crushed into rubble, but the head and shoulders were intact.

Even still, the statue loomed ninety meters in the air. Back when it was whole, it must have been at least 600 meters tall. Standing in front of it, Xu Qing felt miniscule.

The wind sounded like a lonely flute that cut this area out of space and time. Whatever glory this place had once embodied, it was now a thing of the past.

He looked at the statue for a long time. He thought back to the slums outside the city ruins, and wondered what they would be like when people came back years later to explore them. Would those people be like him now, carefully entering the forbidden region and peering into the ancient past?

After a while, Xu Qing left the statue to look around the rest of the temple complex. However, he didn’t find the special crystal Sergeant Thunder had mentioned.

Before leaving, Sergeant Thunder had described it in full, which was how Xu Qing knew it glowed with a seven-colored light. Apparently, they were natural objects that didn’t conform to any specific pattern in terms of where they appeared.

After a fruitless search, he was feeling a bit disappointed, and headed to the top of one of the larger temples to look around.

Behind him was the jungle of the forbidden region, which seemed to go on without end. After calculating the date, he realized that this was the fourth day since Boneblade had bought ‘insurance’ from him.

He hadn’t noticed any fog in the jungle the day before, and it didn’t seem like there was any today. So, he wouldn’t have to do any rescuing.

On the other side of the temple complex… were the true depths of the forbidden region.

Looking up, he saw that there was still some daylight left. That meant there was some time to explore deeper into the forbidden region, then come back to the temple to rest.

Having made his decision, he jumped off the temple and continued onward to explore. As soon as he was in the jungle again, his nerves felt stretched taut, and he put himself on full alert. After all, this place would be full of more hazards than the outside areas.

In fact, only about an hour later, he was back in the temple, his expression grim and fearful.

On the upside, his sack was absolutely full.

He had barely gone 500 meters into the jungle before finding a large patch of seven-leaf clovers. Much to Xu Qing’s delight, it had obviously been a long time since anyone harvested from that location. As a result, the harvest would fetch quite a sum.

However, as he began picking the clover, he sensed the surrounding mutagen getting stronger. If it wasn’t for his shadow being able to absorb the mutagen, it would have been difficult to make much progress at all.

And that was when, far off in the distance, he saw the same type of gruish jellyfish he’d seen before. Except it wasn’t just one jellyfish, it was about ten. They were smaller, but at the same time, emanated an intense coldness. Most of them seemed to be hanging from trees asleep, but the mere sight of them caused Xu Qing to creep away quietly.

The further he got into the jungle, the more he got the sense he was being watched by countless avaricious eyes lurking in the depths of the jungle. It caused a prickling sensation on his neck and back. And that was only the outside part of the forbidden region depths. It defied imagination to think of what terrifying things might exist further in.

Not daring to explore any further, he’d hurried back to the temple complex. It was only after reaching the complex that the prickling sensation on his back faded away. The complex itself was a border that marked the truly deep parts of the forbidden region.

Xu Qing took a deep breath and used the last bits of evening light to find one of the intact temples to hole up in for the night.

Inside, he found a wall crevice into which he crawled. Sergeant Thunder had mentioned that this place was a safe place to find refuge.

Xu Qing looked around the temple. It was large, with an enormous statue, a divine likeness, bearing a saber. It stood in the position of honor, surrounded by other life-like statues on the walls. However, all of them were eroding in the sands of time.

That said, there weren’t many mutant beast droppings or footprints. If there were none, or if there were many, that would be an abnormality, and he would have picked another location. As long as those signs were few, it meant this place was relatively safe.

The temple complex was in the middle of the jungle, but was in something of a clearing, so it made sense that the surrounding mutant beasts wouldn’t come in very often.

Soon, night fell.

As the howl of beasts drifted in the night air, Xu Qing started his breathing exercises.

Time passed. As he had guessed would be the case, a few mutant beasts came into the temple complex. But those he did hear were far away. However, just like the night before, about halfway to morning, he heard the chaotic sound of gruish footsteps!

This time, they were just outside the temple!

They’re back?

He frowned, wondering why these footsteps had appeared twice, both near him. He felt very uneasy, but considering the previous experience, he decided the best thing was to keep his eyes closed.

However, instead of the footsteps eventually going off into the distance, they seemed to grow more numerous.

As they gathered, sinister coldness spread. It made it seem like a whole army of grues was gathering to attack the temple.

Xu Qing’s heart sank, and he gripped his iron skewer tightly as he thought of ways to escape if things got too dangerous.

However, that was when the footsteps outside ceased, and everything became incomparably quiet.

The silence didn’t make Xu Qing feel like he could breathe easily. It was like the quiet before a storm, and it caused the hair to stand on end. He felt convinced that the grues were simply hesitating about whether to enter.

And then, in complete silence, one of the grues finally did walk into the temple. Xu Qing could hear the footsteps on the stone floor tiles.

His heart leapt into his throat. But then, a murmuring sound drifted through the temple, something that sounded incredibly holy. Streams of golden light seeped out of the walls, filling the temple with light, and covering Xu Qing. Now, his closed eyes perceived, not a world of pitch black, but one of radiance.

And the golden radiance grew so intense that his eyes hurt. Then, for the first time since encountering grues, he opened his eyes.