Two days later, in an unnamed valley.
After searching around, Zhang Ling found no high-level wild beasts, so he came to a lake in the valley. This lake was several miles wide, with clear water flowing slowly.
With a flash, he entered the lake and swam towards the bottom. It took him more than an hour to eliminate all the second-tier and above wild beasts in the lake.
Next, Zhang Ling directly opened up a simple cave at the bottom of the lake. Then, he took out the Two-Yin Yang Calabash and released the Xuan Turtle from inside. The Xuan Turtle still looked dull and unresponsive, staying quietly at the bottom of the lake without moving.
He planned to stay here for some time to recover from his injuries.
Entering the newly opened underwater cave, Zhang Ling did nothing but lie down on a stone bed and fall asleep.
He slept for a whole day before waking up leisurely.
Upon waking up, he felt refreshed and his mind was much clearer. Zhang Ling opened a storage bag, took out a few bottles of pills, and began to meditate to recover from his injuries.
Time passed quickly, and half a month went by in this way before his injuries were fully recovered.
On this day, in a stone room inside the cave, Zhang Ling took out several storage bags, cast a spell on them, and a large number of items spewed out, filling the entire stone room.
Most of these items were spiritual herbs and the like, and he began to sort them out by category. The most precious of these was naturally the Earth Spirit Fruit, which he had obtained with great difficulty. There were also several fourth-grade spiritual herbs.
It should be known that fourth-grade spiritual herbs are of great value in the cultivation world, and those brought back from the Heavenly Abyss are all precious varieties.
There were also quite a few remaining spiritual herbs, as many as a hundred second and third-grade spiritual herbs, which was also a considerable gain.
In addition to this, the biggest gain was the purple-gold bottle in his hand, which contained the Rootless Lotus and a Spiritual Eye Stone collected from the spiritual vein.
According to the Azure Fox King, the Rootless Lotus can not only improve the aptitude of a cultivator's spiritual roots but also help in the formation of a Core. Although it is not known whether this is true or not, the value of this kind of natural treasure will definitely not be low.
As for the rest of the items, there were quite a few wild beast materials. After entering the Heavenly Abyss Secret Realm alone, he had killed more than twenty high-level wild beasts, including three seventh-tier wild beasts.
The seventh-tier Fire Serpent that he killed in the lava canyon on the second level of the Heavenly Abyss was a complete corpse, with both its demon core and demon soul intact.
After sorting out these spiritual herbs and wild beast materials, Zhang Ling had several more treasures in his hands: two copper rings (one gold and one silver), a colored bubble, a Blood Soul Cauldron, a lump of Shapeshifting Mud, and an ancient painting.
These items were not ordinary treasures either. The copper rings, bubble, and Blood Cauldron could all be used in battle, and after familiarizing himself with these treasures, his strength would increase considerably.
The ancient painting could absorb a cultivator's divine sense into it and recorded a Divine Refinement technique called the Nine Yuan Divine Refinement Art, which he valued most.
Zhang Ling flicked his finger lightly, and a ray of light struck the ancient painting. The painting unfolded again, and the scene on it was now an endless desert.
He had already obtained the first two chapters of the Nine Yuan Divine Refinement Art, and now that his strength had recovered to its peak and his divine sense was full, he planned to re-enter it to explore the secrets of this painting.
Zhang Ling stared at the ancient painting, and his divine sense was sucked into it. He immediately felt himself appearing on the Gobi Desert, and a strong wind swept over him instantly, indicating that he had entered the scene within the painting.
The desert in front of him was endless, and there was nothing else besides scattered rocks and soil. The whistling wind constantly blew against his body, giving him a bone-chilling feeling.
Looking up, the sky was even darker, and the clouds were very low, giving people a sense of oppression.
Endless flowing clouds rolled rapidly, and countless tornadoes descended from the sky, forming a yellow sandstorm not far ahead.
Zhang Ling used his divine sense to create a gray figure and walked towards it.
The closer he got to the sandstorm, the slower his progress became. The strong cold wind blew against his body, making his figure somewhat unstable.
He released a large amount of divine sense to invade the ancient painting, and the materialized figure became much more solid.
The endless cold wind beat against his body, and Zhang Ling felt his divine sense rapidly depleting. However, the body formed by his consciousness was very fast, and with a thought, he directly entered the sandstorm.
Unlike the previous two times he entered, this sandstorm did not transform into any demon beasts.
Only the sandstorm flow rate became faster and faster, and the strong wind pressure formed constantly squeezed his consciousness body, causing the figure formed by his divine sense to become flickering and about to collapse.
Zhang Ling had to mobilize all of his divine sense to stabilize his human form.
At the same time, after entering the sandstorm area, the consciousness body formed by divine sense could no longer move very quickly and could only honestly walk forward step by step.
Zhang Ling pondered for a moment and thought to himself, 'It seems that this is the test of the third painting.' He patiently controlled his consciousness body to continue walking towards the center of the sandstorm.
If there were other cultivators here, seeing him staring at an ancient painting without moving, they would definitely think he was a fool.
This scene lasted for half an hour. Zhang Ling's face became quite pale, and some fine sweat appeared on his forehead. This was caused by the high-intensity consumption of his divine sense.
Fortunately, the divine sense that had invaded the ancient painting had passed through the sandstorm and reached a windless area. A withered tree appeared in front of him.
The withered tree grew in a rocky area and was several dozen feet tall. It was crooked and had no leaves on it, looking as if it had been dead for a long time.
However, when his divine sense swept over it, the withered tree shook a few times, as if it was about to come alive. Zhang Ling quickly stopped his movements, thinking that he had encountered some old monster again.
However, when he withdrew his divine sense, the withered tree returned to calm again. After waiting for a while, nothing else happened.
Zhang Ling slightly lowered his guard and released his divine sense again to probe the withered tree. When his divine sense landed on it, the withered tree shook strangely again. Upon careful sensing, his divine sense was slowly being devoured by the withered tree.
At the same time, he also noticed a magical scene. After devouring a few strands of divine sense, the withered tree seemed to be rejuvenated, and a few emerald green leaves grew on it.
This situation made Zhang Ling somewhat confused as to what was going on.
This withered tree was not really coming back to life. Now, his divine sense was only invading this ancient painting, and what he saw and heard were all illusions. Naturally, the withered tree was not a real plant.
Zhang Ling thought for a moment and released a few more strands of divine sense to cover the tree. After the withered tree devoured the divine sense, it grew many more leaves.
Next, he continued to release divine sense to be devoured by the withered tree. Before long, the withered tree kept shaking as if it had really come alive, growing a large patch of lush green leaves.
After another fifteen minutes, the withered tree had turned into a giant tree thirty or forty feet tall. At this point, the ancient tree stopped devouring divine sense.
The leaves rustled in the wind, and the sound made people feel happy. Even the divine sense that had just been consumed was completely restored in a short period of time.
At the same time, when he observed the ancient tree again with his divine sense, he found that the trunk was covered with dense text. As his divine sense swept over it, the text became bright, flew from the trunk, turned into specks of green light, and merged into his consciousness body.
Zhang Ling's face showed joy, and he quickly retracted his consciousness body back to his main body. He immediately felt that there was a lot more in his mind.
"As expected, it is the third level of the technique," he smiled, the information transmitted into his brain was the third chapter of the Nine Yuan Divine Refinement Art.
It seemed that the time spent was not long, and it seemed a little easy, but the divine sense consumed in it was not small.
