Starting as a spiritual plant master, may I eventually become the master of all lands.

Upon hearing the cultivator surnamed Shen mention that Song Chuan also possessed a Spring Sprout Token, the three men's expressions hardened.

After a moment's thought, the burly man surnamed Jiao said to the disheveled man:

"I'll go after that man; he hasn't gone far. Ge Yaoqing is exhausted; you finish her off. That way, both my brother and I can enter Vine Flower Valley!"

After saying this, he cupped his hands in a gesture of respect to the man in green and said, "Thank you, Fellow Daoist Shen." With a flick of his wrist, he darted away, covering about twenty feet.

It was almost twice as fast as Song Chuan!

The disheveled man was about to reprimand Ge Yaoqing, but she completely ignored him.

She swallowed a pill, gritted her teeth, quickly made a hand seal, twisted her body, and leaped away in another direction.

Despite being at the fourth level of Qi Refining, her speed was not much slower than that of the burly man surnamed Jiao.

The disheveled man's face turned ashen. He slapped a talisman onto his body, then, following the incense stick in his hand, he took off after them.

In just a few breaths, only the cultivator surnamed Shen remained by the stream.

He chuckled softly and muttered to himself, "Hey! I'm really curious which two of you four will actually get the hang of it!"

He glanced in the direction where the burly man surnamed Jiao had chased after Song Chuan, and muttered something under his breath:

"Jiao Chuncheng, Jiao Chuncheng! I think that kid, though he's only at the fourth level of Qi Refining, is slippery. Don't let yourself get caught off guard and end up with nothing..."

Then, he put down the green leaf magic artifact, walked to the stream, drank some water, smacked his lips, stood up and looked up, suddenly adopting a solemn posture.

A white light flew through the air and arrived above the Shen-surnamed cultivator in the blink of an eye.

As the white light dissipated, a small, pure white boat was revealed.

Standing on the small boat was an elderly man with white hair, also dressed in a light green robe, but the old man's robe was clearly more exquisite.

This old man was actually a Foundation Establishment cultivator!

The old man looked down at the cultivator surnamed Shen and asked, "Shen Zheng, was there anything unusual here just now?"

Shen Zheng bowed respectfully and said, "Steward Sun, it was just a minor dispute between a few rogue cultivators. It's nothing serious."

The old man nodded, then pondered for a moment: "Could it be because of the Spring Sprout Token?"

"It couldn't escape Steward Sun's discerning eye. The group did indeed clash over the Spring Sprout Token."

The old man shook his head and sneered, "If you ask me, we shouldn't have distributed this nonsense!"

"What Steward Sun said makes sense. I don't know why the sect is recruiting so many spirit plant masters from outside. This will give those people a lot to compete for."

"Forget it! This might be an opportunity given by the sect to smaller families and independent cultivators. You should continue your patrol here. Although the lotus gold here has long since dried up, we can't let outsiders ruin the spiritual stream."

Deacon Sun waved his hand and steered the small boat into the sky.

Shen Zheng watched Deacon Sun's departing figure with envy on his face.

When will I be able to reach the Foundation Establishment stage?

……

At this moment, Song Chuan looked back and saw that the square-faced man was chasing after him at high speed!

He was shocked and instantly realized what was happening. He then cursed the patrolling cultivator from Vine Flower Valley.

Unexpectedly, a disciple of a prestigious sect, a cultivator at the seventh level of Qi Refining, would collude with the square-faced giant and betray him.

At this rate, he would be caught up by the square-faced giant in less than a quarter of an hour.

Is it really that hard to just live a simple, honest life?

After running for another dozen or so feet, Song Chuan suddenly stopped.

He grabbed a handful of soil from the ground, muttered incantations, and made a hand gesture with his other hand.

Then he threw the soil in his hand onto himself, and he sank into the ground, sinking to a depth of ten feet.

He began to move through the soil like a fish.

It is the Earth Escape technique from the "Na Tu Jue"!

He had only just figured out the incantation and hand gestures for this escape technique a few days ago, and had not yet used it.

Now we can only give it a try, as this earth-遁术 (earth-遁术) is at least much stronger than the 轻身术 (lightness technique).

He had considered using the Wood Release Talisman to shake off the person, but he was too reluctant to use this last chance unless absolutely necessary.

Upon seeing that Song Chuan had vanished, the square-faced man behind him scanned the ground with his divine sense and snorted coldly:

"A mere fourth-level Qi Refining Earth Escape Technique? Escaping won't be so easy!"

He reached out and a palm-sized bronze mirror flew out of his storage bag.

He held the mirror in one hand and cast a spell into it with the other, and the bronze mirror suddenly emitted a beam of white light.

He turned the mirror, and the white light pierced through the soil, shining precisely on Song Chuan who was walking through it.

Song Chuan's body froze for a moment, feeling warm and extremely comfortable all over. He even wanted to immediately follow the beam of light back to the ground.

A smile appeared on the square-faced man's face, but his expression quickly changed.

Because Song Chuan was only controlled by the bronze mirror for a few breaths, he actually moved again.

"How is this possible? My Xuan Guang Mirror is specifically designed to break the Five Elements Escape Technique!" the square-faced man muttered to himself in disbelief.

However, now was not the time for him to investigate this matter, so he immediately leaped towards Song Chuan.

Even without the Mystic Mirror breaking this person's earth escape technique, with his Qi Refining Level 6 speed, catching up with Song Chuan would only be a matter of time.

Song Chuan, buried in the soil, was filled with mixed joy and surprise.

It turned out that as soon as he entered the earth, he sensed wisps of earth elemental energy spreading towards him.

To be precise, the earth elemental energy was gathering towards the bead in his arms.

He immediately guessed that this earth elemental energy was emanating from the earth vein nodes.

If he were to channel his magic into the bead right now, he would definitely be able to see the ley line nodes. However, he dared not do such a foolish thing at this moment.

But this gave him an idea: he could use the direction in which the earth elemental energy emanated to escape into a certain ley line, so that the square-faced giant wouldn't be able to find him.

Because the earth veins in the soil, in the words of my past life, are like the blood vessels in the human body.

You can see some arteries and veins, but the most numerous and haphazardly distributed capillaries are completely invisible.

With the square-faced giant's cultivation at the sixth level of Qi Refining, he might not even be able to sense the large earth veins, let alone the small ones.

Unless he has a special magical artifact for identifying earth veins, or is a highly skilled array master, but the possibility is too small.

So Song Chuan immediately found the direction from which the earth elemental energy was emanating and headed straight for it.

But at that moment, he was caught in the beam of light from the mirror and couldn't move.

The earth elemental energy that had gathered there paused for a moment, as if it were about to dissipate into the soil.

The beam of light from this bronze mirror ritual implement actually severed the connection between Songchuan and the soil.

This is also the basic principle for breaking the Five Elements Escape Technique.

Unexpectedly, the bead in Song Chuan's arms suddenly trembled slightly, and the beam of light from the bronze mirror immediately lost its effect, while the earth elemental energy once again converged towards Song Chuan.

Song Chuan also suddenly came to his senses. He ran forward several feet in a frenzy of joy. When he reached a certain rock, he squeezed his body downwards and disappeared completely.

The square-faced giant chasing Song Chuan above kept his divine sense locked onto Song Chuan.

We're about to catch up with this person. When that happens, we'll use a talisman to blast him to death in the ground, and then we'll have the Spring Sprout Token.

However, his face suddenly darkened and turned ugly.

This kid has disappeared!

Although the spiritual sense of a Qi Refining cultivator is limited to this distance, this kid was indeed always within the range of his spiritual sense.

He scanned the area several more times with his divine sense, but found nothing.

His face darkened. Could this person have used some kind of concealment talisman or magical artifact to hide himself?

He took out the bronze mirror again, cast a spell, and the white light from the mirror shone onto the ground in front of him.