At the beginning, I cleaned the Sutra Library and completed the incomplete skills.

Compared to Li Lan, these younger disciples of Guangji Temple clearly had a much shallower understanding of danger.

They hardly paused at all.

Feeling the density of the surrounding spiritual energy, they went straight towards the central area of Immortal Trace Valley.

It seemed they planned to see what was at the very center first, and then search for spiritual plants to complete their mission.

Li Lan quietly watched from the sidelines.

He had always respected everyone's fate and felt no impulse to help.

Besides,

A'Hua, as their martial uncle, should be secretly watching over these outer disciples on their first mission.

However,

until the first cultivator stepped into the area covered with purplish-black vines,

A'Hua still didn't offer any warning, as if he wasn't even nearby.

By the time this Guangji Temple disciple realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

He didn't even have time to take out a sound transmission talisman,

before he was instantly strangled to death by the purplish-black vines.

Only after this outer disciple in the early stage of Qi training was thoroughly dead,

did A'Hua leisurely emerge from the forest.

Watching his martial nephew die tragically before his eyes, there wasn't the slightest ripple in his eyes.

A'Hua stared intently at the purplish-black vines, which had just finished hunting and were now still, for a long time.

He briefly calculated the distance between himself and the vines.

Then,

he took out a piece of yellow paper from his pocket and began to draw something on it.

Li Lan was slightly surprised by this scene.

He wasn't surprised that A'Hua knew about the danger here.

After all, the other party had joined Guangji Temple for quite some time,

and his understanding of this Immortal Trace Valley might even be deeper than his own.

What really made Li Lan feel strange was that,

A'Hua seemed to have another purpose for this trip,

and wasn't just here to familiarize these outer disciples with the mission.

The more he thought about it, the more strange he felt, and a bad premonition vaguely arose in his heart.

Something must be wrong if things are out of the ordinary.

Li Lan immediately withdrew most of the spirit bean soldiers he had scattered outside, reducing the risk of exposure.

After doing all this,

he still didn't feel completely at ease.

He also ordered the Qi training level one spirit bean soldiers in the central area of Immortal Trace Valley to

stand by in place and stop mining spirit stone mines.

Before figuring out A'Hua's true intentions,

it was obviously better to remain still than to act rashly at this moment.

After that,

the remaining two Guangji Temple outer disciples were also successively hunted down by the purplish-black vines.

A'Hua arrived at the scene as before,

stood in a safe position, carefully observing something,

and then recorded it on the yellow paper.

After repeating this three times,

Li Lan already had some guesses in his mind.

Could this guy be recording the coverage area of these vines?

The more Li Lan thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

A'Hua was different from him; the other party didn't have the Art of Scattering Beans into Soldiers.

He couldn't summon spirit bean soldiers to scout the way.

He could only use this cruel method,

using the lives of ignorant cultivators to carve out a safe path of blood.

Could this person be like him,

wanting to open up a safe cave here for cultivation?

This was very possible.

Moreover, this guy wasn't acting on a whim,

perhaps he had already had this plan eleven years ago.

If it weren't for that fifteen-year-old Qing Shuang Moonflower,

he, Ding Sanquan, and Tie Niu would probably have become the other party's pawns at that time.

Li Lan narrowed his eyes,

gaining a bit more insight into the cruelty of the cultivation world.

After looking at the corpses of the three outer disciples one by one,

A'Hua, holding the yellow paper, controlled his flying sword and flew low in the jungle.

He flew very slowly and carefully.

His eyes were constantly scanning the surrounding movements.

This gave Li Lan an opportunity.

He drove the palm-sized spirit bean soldier,

following unhurriedly among the dead branches and fallen leaves.

Li Lan wanted to figure out what the other party was trying to do through observation.

The more he looked, the more he deepened the conjecture in his heart.

A'Hua's trajectory seemed irregular, like a headless fly bumping around.

But each time, he happened to be outside the territory of the purplish-black vines.

One step further,

and he would instantly be strangled into a dried corpse by the vines.

But A'Hua just happened to never touch that red line each time.

This guy is measuring the coverage area of the purplish-black vines!

What made Li Lan's heart sink even more was that, in order to further improve his cultivation speed,

he had already moved his cave to the junction of the central and outer areas of Immortal Trace Valley.

And A'Hua at this moment,

was flying towards the location of his cave along the edge covered by the purplish-black vines.

This opened cave dwelling wasn't like that palm-sized spirit bean soldier,

which could be hidden at will.

Li Lan also didn't have any illusion-like spells or formation diagrams in his hand.

He had only planted a circle of plants nearby as an obstacle.

But this simple green plant obstacle was like nothing in front of A'Hua, who was flying on a sword.

Because of the Qing Shuang Moonflower incident eleven years ago,

the relationship between Li Lan and A'Hua could be said to be irreconcilable.

The latter had long been scheming to find an opportunity to put him to death alone.

It was just that Li Lan, who was cautious by nature, did things meticulously.

A'Hua hadn't been able to find even one opportunity in the past eleven years.

Li Lan didn't think that,

after being discovered by the other party this time,

he would still be able to have a peaceful chat with him.

If the two sides really met, this would inevitably be a life-and-death battle again.

Li Lan didn't want to provoke this unnecessary trouble.

He took out a masked black veil and put it on his face.

He also put the spirit stones that covered the cave and hadn't completely exhausted their energy back into his storage bag.

The whole person suppressed his breath to the lowest level,

quietly waiting for A'Hua's arrival.

Soon.

A'Hua arrived as scheduled.

Looking at the yellow paper in his hand, his face, which was full of vicissitudes, was somewhat solemn.

Indeed, as Li Lan thought,

what was depicted on this yellow paper was the coverage area of the Purple Sandalwood Spirit Tree vines.

A'Hua had to come here every year to improve the simple map drawn on the yellow paper.

However.

What was different from Li Lan's guess was that,

this was not A'Hua's original intention, but a task given to him by his master, Elder Jian Chen.

In recent years,

because of the Human Emperor Hall's demon extermination, he had temporarily put this task aside.

Until recently,

when the county south gradually returned to peace, the eyes of other sect cultivators were mostly attracted to the Spirit Cloud Sect's spirit veins.

Only then did A'Hua have time to pick up this task again.

It's just that,

today, as usual, using the lives of outer disciples to test, he came to a shocking conclusion.

The area covered by these purplish-black vines has actually expanded a lot!

A'Hua didn't know what this meant.

He only knew that those vines were very dangerous,

and when Elder Jian Chen handed over this task to him that year, his face was also rarely quite solemn.

He specially instructed that if there were any abnormalities in these vines, they must be reported at the first time.

A'Hua had already used the communication order to truthfully report this matter to Elder Jian Chen.

While waiting for the other party to respond,

A'Hua began to carefully patrol the area covered by the vines to see just how much it had increased.

He also had to explain it to his master later.

When passing by an inconspicuous cliff,

A'Hua frowned, as if he had discovered something,

and his originally relaxed posture instantly became alert.