At this moment, the old woman, surrounded by a sea of insects, also wore a gloomy expression. She was enveloped in a red light罩 (zhào) (cover/shield), which was densely covered with Spirit Devouring Insects, frantically gnawing at the spiritual energy shield.
With a muffled thud, the red light shield around the old woman shook, killing many Spirit Devouring Insects, but in the blink of an eye, it was once again covered with Spirit Devouring Insects, endlessly engulfing her in the sea of insects.
Not far from the old woman were several strange black spheres, also teeming with Spirit Devouring Insects. These were several insect nests.
With her Nascent Soul-level strength, it would be easy for her to break out. But if she left, the insect cloud would inevitably reach Flying Cloud City faster. Now, she could only delay as much as possible, buying time for Sect Leader Sun and the others to prepare adequately.
The old woman thought to herself, it would be best if those mature Spirit Devouring Insects didn't appear, otherwise, it would be difficult for her to deal with them.
As time slowly passed, the direction of the insect swarm's advance was still towards Flying Cloud City.
On the city wall, the number of wild beasts was rapidly decreasing under the resistance of the crowd, and the number of high-level wild beasts appearing was decreasing. If it were like in the past, this wave of beast tide would soon pass.
However, everyone's faces were gloomy, without the slightest hint of excitement or joy. Whether cultivators or mortals, their faces were filled with exhaustion and worry.
Especially among the many low-level cultivators, one could often hear people muttering about Spirit Devouring Insects and insect clouds. For a time, a sense of oppression spread throughout the city wall area. At this time, everyone knew that behind the beast tide, there was a swarm of fierce insects about to arrive.
At the same time, in contrast to the chaos outside the city, the city was still peaceful.
In Mount Qiyun, on the sixth floor of the Flying Cloud Sect's library, the old man Jiang, who guarded the library, was standing in front of the window, looking towards the city wall and sighing.
"Alas, I wonder how Sect Leader and the others are resisting the beast tide. I haven't seen a beast tide that occurs every few hundred years before. I really want to fight!"
This person seemed to know little about the outside world. This was not surprising, as he had been stationed here for nearly a hundred years. Even now, during this special period of the beast tide's arrival, he had not been mobilized.
After all, the library was also an important place for the sect. Unless the sect was in danger of being destroyed, these elders with special identities could not be moved rashly.
What Old Man Jiang didn't know was that, a quarter of an hour ago, the teleportation gate behind the bookshelf leading to the seventh floor flickered a few times, and something entered the seventh floor.
……
Inside a strange stone cave, glittering starlight floated everywhere.
If there were cultivators here, they would be able to keenly sense that these starlights were spiritual mist manifested to a certain extent by spiritual energy. The concentration of spiritual energy had reached the level of a high-grade spiritual vein. Golden Core cultivators could even speed up their cultivation slightly in this place.
The stone cave was not large, and looked like a natural stone cave, with many stalactites of various colors. In the center of the stone cave was a huge cylindrical stalactite, pointing straight up and connected to the top of the stone cave, more than twenty zhang long.
Only this stalactite had many small holes carved into it. Each small hole was not large, and most of them contained things. With a sweep of divine sense, one could find that these things were ancient jade slips, old books, and other things. It seemed that this stone pillar was used as a bookshelf for placing books.
On the left side of the stone cave was a circular stone platform about ten zhang in size. This was a small teleportation array, the only exit from this place.
At this time, next to the teleportation array, there was a transparent thing lying on the ground. If a cultivator could notice it, they would find that it was a palm-sized black turtle.
Is this the seventh floor of the library? It turns out to be in an independent space.
The turtle lay motionless on the ground, constantly observing the situation in the stone cave. This was naturally the Xuan Turtle controlled by Zhang Ling's second Nascent Soul.
After observing for a while, it did not find any traces of cultivators here. Moreover, there was no restriction light curtain on the central stone pillar, and the books and other items placed on it were quite messy, as if no one had taken care of them for a long time.
It was unknown whether the Flying Cloud Sect did not care about these things, or whether there was something else mysterious about them.
The second Nascent Soul did not act rashly, neither using spiritual power nor releasing divine sense to probe. Covered in Illusionary Mud, it remained hidden and quietly climbed towards the stone pillar.
In a short while, the Xuan Turtle climbed to the bottom of the stone pillar. It first circled around, not seeing any array patterns, as if there were really no array restrictions here.
It was unknown whether the Flying Cloud Sect was really negligent, or whether an old Nascent Soul ancestor was stationed here all year round, so no array was needed. But now, no matter what, it had already arrived here, so there was naturally no possibility of retreating.
The Xuan Turtle's figure swayed and climbed onto the stone pillar. Next to it was a small hole, containing a green book with several ancient immortal characters written on it.
This was a type of immortal script circulating in ancient times, and it was easy to recognize. With just a glance, the second Nascent Soul recognized it. This was a cultivation method called Wind Spirit Force, seemingly a wind-attribute cultivation method. Anything placed here must be a top-level cultivation method.
However, Zhang Ling did not lack cultivation methods, and in order to be cautious, he did not touch this cultivation method. The Xuan Turtle controlled by the Nascent Soul climbed to another small hole.
A moment later, the second Nascent Soul checked thirty or forty locations. Most of the jade slips or books placed in them were cultivation methods, and many were incomplete. They were likely ancient cultivation methods collected by the Flying Cloud Sect, but these were naturally not its target.
After another cup of tea's time, it saw a strange stone plate in a small hole near the top, with a small flag in the shape of a Flying Cloud Flag placed on it. It seemed to be a magic weapon, but the second Nascent Soul was overjoyed and thought to itself, it had finally found it.
With a glance, it was a small flag carved from bluish-yellow jade, with the same style as the Flying Cloud Flag. It was indeed a magic weapon, with many tiny ancient immortal characters imprinted on it. The three largest characters were the ancient characters "Gathering Cloud Technique".
The second Nascent Soul was excited, but did not directly take the jade-carved Flying Cloud Flag. It carefully released a wisp of divine sense and carefully observed it.
After a few breaths, all the characters engraved on it were memorized by it. The small characters engraved on it were indeed the Gathering Cloud Technique for condensing Swallowing Cloud Stones. It never expected that the Flying Cloud Sect would use this item as a jade slip.
Speaking of which, this was not a secret technique, but a refining method for a special array. The refined array was called the Gathering Cloud Array, which could absorb cloud energy into it, and continuously compress and condense it to form Swallowing Cloud Stones. Moreover, it had to be used in conjunction with the Flying Cloud Flag to function.
This was simple. The refining method of the Flying Cloud Flag was public, but because the main material required was Swallowing Cloud Stone, only the elders of the Flying Cloud Sect would refine it. As for those Flying Cloud Flags with different attributes, they were refined by adding five elements materials, so there were attribute differences.
The Gathering Cloud Array needed the Flying Cloud Flag to cooperate to function, but there were no attribute requirements.
Zhang Ling happened to have a Flying Cloud Flag in his hand, the fire-attribute Flying Cloud Flag that he had previously obtained from the Hu family's treasure cave. As long as he refined the Gathering Cloud Array, he could condense Swallowing Cloud Stones himself.
In this way, the purpose of his visit here had been achieved.
