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

A top-tier, first-class golden sword talisman!

This is the talisman that the dark-faced man didn't have time to use.

Great stuff! Its power is much greater than that of a typical top-tier first-order talisman.

If used properly, it can even be more effective than the Wood Thunder Talisman!

This person was in a dangerous situation and hesitated. If he had used this talisman earlier, he would definitely have been able to escape.

Song Chuan carefully put the talisman away and then opened the storage bag of the dark-faced man.

Inside a wooden box were three bright red second-tier spiritual plants.

Tongdan grass!

Song Chuan's face lit up with joy; this saved him a lot of trouble.

These two had already harvested the spiritual plant; luckily, I arrived in time and "stumbled upon" it!

Besides the Crimson Elixir Grass, the black-faced man's storage bag also contained several bottles of Spirit Beast Pills, two magical artifacts, several talismans, and more than thirty spirit stones.

The magical artifacts among them are all mid-tier, and are very common offensive magical artifacts.

There are still two high-grade first-tier talismans left: the Earth-Splitting Talisman and the Mist-Transforming Talisman.

The Earth-Splitting Talisman can break through ordinary earth-escape techniques, like Song Chuan's, he snorted. He must obtain a top-tier earth-attribute cultivation technique in the future.

The Fog-Dispelling Talisman is a type of interference talisman, and it is quite useful.

He then opened another person's storage bag, his eyes first showing shock, then overjoyed.

Inside the man's storage bag were several kinds of second-tier spiritual plants: Bidens pilosa, lemon balm, and sweet jade red...

Unfortunately, none of them were what Duanmu Jingyi and Master Kuzhuo needed.

There are quite a few spiritual plants listed in the sect's inventory.

Song Chuan then saw a strangely shaped spiritual fruit, which resembled five fingers, and the fingers were also peach-shaped.

The peach fruit is also something needed by the sect. It is more valuable than second-tier spiritual plants, but it cannot compare with third-tier spiritual plants.

These items can be exchanged for some sect rewards.

He continued searching the man's storage bag.

There were several mid- and low-grade magic artifacts, as well as various talismans and pills, but very few of them were valuable, and there was nothing that could be used as a trump card.

As for spirit stones, this person has more than a hundred!

Song Chuan sneered a few times. Among those magical artifacts was the sect's Five Elements Hoe!

This person must have harmed many cultivators with his sleep-inducing tricks, hence the large and varied contents.

Song Chuan tidied up the two men's storage bags and then looked at the two corpses.

You can stay here and become fertilizer for the Kongsang Mountains!

Then, he strode away.

One day later, underground.

Wearing silver-threaded gloves, Song Chuan carefully placed a pale white ginseng-shaped spiritual plant into a wooden box.

Corrupted ginseng, a necessary item for Duanmu Jingyi.

Fortunately, it's a second-tier spiritual plant; if it were a third-tier one, it would have been a huge ordeal.

Even so, since this rotten bone ginseng was buried deep underground and contained poisonous tendrils that corroded flesh and bone, he still had to be careful when digging it up.

He put the wooden box into a storage bag and patted the dirt off his hands.

"Not bad, another one done." He smiled.

At that moment, the orchid worm in my arms suddenly stirred.

Ever since two earth dragons appeared in the insect sac, this guy has refused to go inside anymore.

Through telepathic connection, Song Chuan sensed that it seemed to have discovered something.

He packed up the magical tools he used to harvest the spiritual plants and quietly slipped away, following the direction the orchid insects sensed.

They traveled forty or fifty feet, then descended several dozen feet, reaching a great depth from the ground.

He stopped abruptly, because he had no choice but to stop!

In the dark soil ahead, countless insects lay swarming.

Thousands upon thousands, countless.

At first glance, these insects look no different from ordinary cicadas.

But upon closer inspection, you'll notice that they have a pair of small, pointed horns on their heads.

Most of them remained motionless, but every now and then a few would roll and crawl in the soil, as if playing with each other.

"Jiazi Cicada!"

Song Chuan felt a chill run down his spine and exclaimed inwardly.

This is a famous gregarious insect recorded in Lingqiu Zi's book of strange insects.

When this insect is underground, it is merely an ordinary insect. When the time is right, it will crawl to the surface and transform into a demon upon emerging from the soil.

After they are unearthed, they will seek out suitable sacred trees to climb on.

As soon as they climb onto the spirit tree, they will immediately begin to molt.

The molting process takes only a few breaths, and once completed, wings will grow. Furthermore, it will directly advance from the Demon Transformation stage to a first-tier demon insect!

The "timing" at which they emerge from the earth is generally once every sixty years, hence the name "Jiazi Cicada".

No one in the cultivation world knows why they were able to survive underground for sixty years when they were mortal insects.

Many people have tried to investigate this, but no one has come to a conclusion.

Even if this insect becomes a first-tier demon insect, its individual combat ability is extremely poor.

However, when an insect swarm forms, even Foundation Establishment cultivators can only flee in panic!

Song Chuan looked at the cicadas, some sleeping and some moving, and his mouth went dry.

Could it be that our exploration of Kongsang coincided with their excavation?

Moreover, according to Lingqiu Zi's "Strange Insect Manual", when you see a patch of Jiazi cicadas, it is definitely not just this one patch.

In other places, there must be countless other cicadas buried deep underground.

The orchid insect in his arms stirred and instantly burrowed into the outer layer of the cicada.

After sneaking a few bites, he quickly returned.

Song Chuan broke out in a cold sweat and ran!

If they are lured to emerge from the ground prematurely, the Kongsang mystery will become quite a spectacle.

Knowing about this potential danger in advance, Song Chuan's trip was not in vain.

He emerged from the ground, chose a direction, and leaped away.

Three days later, Song Chuan looked at the bottomless ravine in front of him, and even his divine sense could not detect the bottom through the bead.

The ravine was over twenty feet wide, and I certainly couldn't jump over it using my lightness technique.

He looked to both sides; the ravine stretched out quite far, seemingly without end.

If you don't want to waste time going around it, you'll have to use a flying artifact.

He sensed his surroundings, especially the sky, and found no demonic birds. He then took out his green leaf magic artifact and prepared to fly over.

But he immediately stopped, lay down on the ground, and listened carefully with his ear pressed against the ground.

This is a technique called "Earth Listening Technique" that he can use after entering the late stage of Qi Refining, when his perception of the land becomes more acute.

However, this technique is rather useless, as it can only hear subtle movements on the ground at a distance, which is incomparable to the all-round perception of divine sense.

Moreover, it can only be heard when it is the noise caused by a large-scale group action.

After listening for a few breaths, his expression changed, and he quickly hid behind a tree nearby, using a concealment bead to hide his aura.

A moment later, a large swarm of demonic insects crawled out from the other side of the ravine!

The group of demonic insects was arranged in a very regular pattern, and the whole formation was so orderly that it looked just like an army in the mortal world.

They resemble ants, most are the size of a bucket, and are all in the demon transformation stage.

Dozens of them, about half a person's height, were arranged in the left, right, front, and back of the formation, ranging from the early stage of the first rank to the middle stage of the first rank.

And in the middle there was an even larger one, which was already in the late stage of the first tier!

This late-stage Tier 1 demonic insect was surrounded by the team in the very center.

Hunting ants! Song Chuan swallowed hard.

These monstrous ants are among the most disciplined social insects, fearless of death, leaving no living thing behind in their wake!

Moreover, they do not build nests or have territories; they only stay in a certain place for a short rest.

Although it has no wings, it can cross mountains and rivers, and hunt extensively!

Song Chuan's eyes flashed with a strange light; it seemed they had also considered crossing this ravine.