Chapter 4: Night Lodging

They were in a desolate land.

There wasn’t a single blade of grass in sight, let alone any buildings. The only thing there was the dusty ground that filled their vision.

The sky somehow seemed to press down on them, while the sun hung high in the sky. No clouds masked the rays of sunshine that bore down on them, and the sand on the ground was so hot that it felt like they were about to melt at any moment.

At nighttime, however, this place would grow much colder very quickly, and a frightening wave of cold wind constantly blew. Any water exposed to it would be instantly frozen.

The huge temperature range between the daytime and nighttime made Island Abyss one of the most difficult places to live. Even Origin Qi Scholars trying to walk in the day would feel like they were being cooked alive.

Su Chen pulled out his flask and drank some water. He glanced at the others around him and noticed that they were feeling the sun’s torment. Everyone’s spirits were a little deflated.

“There’s a mountain in front of us. Let’s pick up the pace a little and get there before the nighttime falls. We’ll set up camp there!” an “Eagle Eye” responsible for scouting the path ahead said.

Even though he made the mountain sound very close, they were still quite a distance away.

In reality, Su Chen could pull out the Flood Dragon Emperor Shuttle at any time and get there very quickly, but there was no point in showing it off here. Also, using it would be too dangerous — the Island Abyss was an all-natural dangerous area. There were many Demonic Beasts roaming around, and some were even faster than the Flood Dragon Emperor Shuttle.

As such, Su Chen could only continue to slowly walk with everyone else.

Thankfully, no one here was much of a burden. The person with the lowest cultivation base amongst all of them was still in the Blood Boiling Realm. With their combined effort, they finally reached the slope of the mountain right before nightfall.

The temperature was already beginning to fall, and it no longer felt like they were going to be cooked to death. However, the night chill was also difficult to deal with, so everyone hurriedly set up campfires and tents, preparing for the night ahead.

Su Chen pulled out an item from his Origin Ring and tossed it into the air. It automatically turned into a stone house.

This was something he had bought from an Origin Tool market, called the Stone House. They were portable and adjustable in size, making them good travelling accessories. However, because this item required spatial transformations, it was quite expensive. It also had no combat function, so most people wouldn’t buy it.

Su Chen had quite a bit of money. Even if his research cost a lot of money, burning a billion Origin Stones worth of money was quite a daunting task. Naturally, he had bought a few nice things for himself to use.

“Night Demon, this is for you.” Su Chen tossed the other one to Night Demon.

That was originally for Iron Cliff, but he would have to take the hit this time and let the lady go first.

“Ha! Awesome, you really are a bro!” Night Demon patted Su Chen's shoulder happily.

In this desolate area, two lonely stone rooms suddenly sprouted up. Everyone else was jealous.

Even Shi Mingfeng couldn't help but laugh, “Indeed, you're rich if you can afford something like that.”

“Now that you mention it, I'm curious. Didn’t the Immortal Temple save up a lot of money? How come you guys are still living so frugally?” Su Chen asked.

Shi Mingfeng rolled his eyes in mock anger. “Do you know how many people are in the Immortal Temple? Across the whole Seven Kingdoms, we have hundreds of thousands of members. Eight hundred million Origin Stones truly is quite a large sum, but how much could fall into our hands if it gets distributed amongst so many people?”

“But you can’t possibly have distributed it to all those people, right?”

Shi Mingfeng chuckled. “Even the branch within Long Sang Country has a lot of people! With that many people participating in the expedition, the appropriate rewards and bonuses needed to be distributed as well.”

“It can’t be so extreme that you can’t even afford a stone room.”

“But we’re reluctant to do so.” Shi Mingfeng shook his head repeatedly. “That money goes directly towards strengthening ourselves. How could we afford to act so wastefully?”

Cultivation required resources. When demand exceeded supplies, effective cultivation resources were extremely expensive.

With an Origin Energy Medicine as the standard, a normal vial would go for around five thousand Origin Stones and would have a significant effect in strengthening a martial artist. On the other hand, to a Qi Drawing Realm cultivator it would only raise it by a single White Star. In other words, you would need to spend 450,000 Origin Stones to reach the peak of the Qi Drawing Realm. Once you were in the Blood Boiling Realm, that number would jump to 4.55 million.

No one could afford to spend so astronomically. As such, the money they did save would be used to directly strengthen themselves. What was the point in buying something so impractical as a Stone Room?

Only someone from a massive clan or a person with a fortune like Su Chen could treat money like it wasn't worth anything.

When Su Chen heard this, he chuckled. “If I had known that you were like this in the first place, I would have brought you one as well.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m still a Light Shaking Realm cultivator; something small like this won’t give me much trouble.” As Shi Mingfeng spoke, he pointed at the ground. Earth began to protrude from the ground, and under Shi Mingfeng’s control, the earth assumed the form of a house-like structure. It looked very similar to Su Chen’s stoom room, just a bit cruder.

Su Chen was stunned. “I didn't expect that the Master of Rain would be proficient in earth-type Origin Skills as well.”

Even though forming a house seemed very simple, it required a significant amount of control.

For instance, generating a surging wave was actually quite easy, but directing each individual drop of water to its appropriate location, or even making it take on a desired shape, was not easy to do.

The Primordial Continent’s Origin Skills could not be supported with just imagination; every physical manifestation of a phenomenon needed to be backed up by an actual system for releasing it.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any point in doing so much research.

It wasn’t that there were no Origin Skills that allowed you to create a house out of nowhere, but such a skill required developing a system for converting the shape of the house into a command. Similarly, that also meant that the skill would be complicated. Even if you successfully developed that kind of skill, you could only ever make one type of room. If you wanted a different room layout the next time, you would need to redesign the skill.

To an Origin Qi Scholar, this was a colossal waste of money and resources. It was even more wasteful than buying a Stone House. This kind of Origin Skill did exist, but very few people would spend the time to learn it.

The tactic Shi Mingfeng had chosen to use, however, wasn’t an Origin Skill. Rather, he relied on his own will to control earth-type Origin Energy, which required a deep understanding of earth-type Origin Energy. This was also why Su Chen felt quite shocked.

Upon hearing Su Chen’s praise, Shi Mingfeng chuckled. “It’s just a small display of skill, not worth very much.”

The others didn’t have Shi Mingfeng’s skill, and they couldn’t ask Shi Mingfeng to do something for them. They could only pitch their tents obediently.

The sky began to grow dark. Even though the cold wind began to blow, the stone room remained as warm as ever.

Su Chen didn’t go to sleep. Instead, he held a vial of fresh blood in his hand and analyzed it. Under the discerning gaze of his microscopic eye, all of the secrets contained within that vial of blood were revealed to Su Chen.

The blood was He Xu’s.

Su Chen was still continuing to research every single bloodline that he ran across. The Thousand Faces Beast had become his new target.

After having done thousands of experiments, Su Chen’s experimental methods had become extremely routine.

He would first observe the Origin Substance within the bloodline, then use different kinds of methods to observe how the Origin Substance was being used in the body. Finally, he would try to isolate that Origin Substance and use it himself.

It seemed like a simple process, but there were countless difficulties that he would encounter. Every step was accompanied by countless failures, and sometimes he would fail and fail again only to reach a dead end.

But at this moment, Su Chen’s luck seemed decent. He had very easily discovered the strange Origin Substance he had been looking for. This kind of substance’s ability to hide itself seemed to be weaker than other Origin Substances, and Su Chen soon succeeded in one go at identifying the method to utilize the Origin Substance.

This surprised him quite a bit. He felt as if he was going to hit the jackpot — after countless arduous experiments, would he finally have an easy time reaping the benefits?

His reverie was suddenly interrupted by a shrill scream.

“AHHH!”

It was Night Demon!