Cultivation: Beginning with the Heart Reflecting Heaven and Earth

With a single blow, a large crater appeared in the ground. Amidst the flying dirt, a layer of ice could be seen around it. At the same time, many charred marks appeared inside the crater, emitting wisps of black smoke.

"What magnificent magical artifacts!"

Lu Qian was quite surprised. He had always lived a secluded life and had not seen many magical artifacts, so he was naturally somewhat surprised, but he was not particularly envious.

Elegance does not equate to combat prowess. Although the Thunder Whip is simple and unadorned, looking much like a fire poker, it is still easy to use, and that is enough.

Immediately afterwards, with a low growl, a tall figure sprang out of the pit. There was a long wound from its chest to its abdomen, which was still burning with icy blue flames. Its skin and flesh had a steely texture. Its two eyes were dark and dull, with extreme ferocity in their ignorance, which made people feel cold in their hearts!

With its powerful roar, the ground suddenly bulged up with many mounds of earth, from which many dried corpses crawled out, swaying and slowly but resolutely charging towards Lu Qian and his companions; there were at least forty or fifty of them.

"There are so many corpse slaves! I miscalculated!"

Mu Dong's expression was grave. "Although it's just the lowest-level Iron Corpse among demonic corpse refiners, its ability to command so many corpse slaves is still quite troublesome!"

The so-called demonic corpse refining is naturally made using orthodox corpse refining methods, using spiritual liquid, poisonous herbs, and yin fire. It also requires nurturing the corpse. The resulting corpse is extremely powerful and has a certain fighting instinct, making it not so easy to deal with.

As for earth-born corpses and rotten bone corpses, they can only be considered second-rate corpse refinements, and they don't require much effort to deal with.

Seeing so many earth-dwelling zombies crawling out of the ground, Lu Qian felt a pang of guilt. "These earth-dwelling zombies were too easy to deal with; I subconsciously overlooked them!"

He wasn't unaware of it, but dealing with the earth-born corpses was too easy, and he hadn't anticipated that the iron corpse could command these earth-born corpses, so naturally he didn't bring it up.

Mu Dong shook his head, not intending to blame Lu Qian, but simply said, "There's nothing we can do about it! The Iron Corpse can command the Corpse Slaves, and we can't possibly clear out all the Earth-born Corpses in the vicinity before dealing with the Iron Corpse. As long as we take action, it will definitely alert it."

"Even if I could avoid alerting it, I wouldn't do it. There are so many earth-dwelling corpses; dealing with them one by one would waste so much time."

The Chaotic Burial Mountain Range already has a large number of refined corpses. Cleaning up all the refined corpses here, even just a small area of ​​land, would be a huge undertaking, something that these few people simply cannot do.

At most, it's just a matter of making some arrangements in advance to deal with the hidden corpses nearby as quickly as possible, so as not to act hastily.

Mu Xue silently reached out, and a blast of icy air swept forward, instantly freezing most of the earth-born corpses. Those frozen corpses then quickly collapsed to the ground, turning into fragments. Only then did she speak, saying, "It's just a matter of magic, what's there to worry about?"

Mu Dong said helplessly, "We haven't even dealt with the Iron Corpse yet, and you're already wasting your true energy like this, and it might not even be useful! Do you think I can't handle these Earth Corpses?"

Iron Corpse was also affected by the Corrosive Curse of Turbid Waves, its eyebrows were covered with frost, but it was not seriously injured. It roared again and summoned more than a dozen earth-born corpses, but they also looked a bit weak.

At this moment, Mu Dong's aura fluctuated wildly, and bursts of scorching heat were held back. Then, a large piece of ground in front of him suddenly cracked open, and thick, dark red flames spewed out from the cracks.

The flames collided with the ice formed by the previous Turbid Wave Corrosion Curse, instantly creating a large area of ​​cold mist and poisonous miasma. The iron corpse was sometimes frozen and sometimes burned in the cold mist. After taking only a few steps, it suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground, breaking into several pieces.

The seemingly imposing and powerful Iron Corpse died instantly from two spells, almost without even having a chance to make a move.

At this moment, Mu Dong smiled at Lu Qian and said, "Everyone says that thunder magic is fierce and powerful, capable of vanquishing demons and evil, and is unparalleled among all magics! My water and fire magic should be just as good, right?"

Lu Qian could only nod and say, "Water and fire magic is no weaker than thunder magic!"

He never expected that the Crimson Flame Melting Technique and the Turbid Wave Bone-Corroding Curse, when simply combined, could unleash such power. Before the iron corpse could even make a move, it had already died in the midst of ice and fire.

The Daoist arts of water and fire, as a long-standing tradition of the Canglan Holy Land, naturally have their reasons.

If we have to compare water and fire magic with thunder magic, perhaps their power is not much weaker, and in some aspects they may even be stronger, but the difficulty of cultivating them is far greater.

As long as one has a lightning spiritual root, cultivating lightning techniques will not be too difficult. However, regardless of the type of spiritual root, cultivating water and fire techniques will not be easy. This is the difference between the two.

After witnessing the power of water and fire magic firsthand, Lu Qian also had the idea of ​​going back to cultivate the Crimson Flame Melting Technique.

Both the Turbid Wave Corrosion Curse and the Crimson Flame Melting Technique were already powerful enough, but when these two spells were combined, they were able to unleash even greater power.

Lu Qian was not entirely unaware of this.

After all, the characteristic of water and fire magic is that any two powerful spells can be combined to form a supernatural power, but he believes that both spells must be cultivated to an extremely high level and released in a specific way to have great power.

What he didn't expect was that the combination of water and fire magic, simply releasing two spells in succession, could still unleash a certain power.

However, it is clear that such a coordinated application of magic also has limitations. The corpses do not have much intelligence, which is why they obediently take the beating.

If one were a cultivator, they would definitely avoid spells, and knowing the power of water and fire magic, they would absolutely not want to endure two spells at the same time. Such a simple combination would hardly be effective enough.

However, lightning magic does not have this drawback. The power of lightning magic is fierce, and once it is unleashed, its speed is extremely fast, making it difficult for both cultivators and corpse refiners to dodge.

In any case, this simple tactic is easy to use against these zombie-refining creatures, and it's a pretty good way to gain battle merits.

After his initial smugness, Mu Dong added, "If we want to speed things up, we can lure over more iron corpses, but that would be too dangerous and we'd need to be more skilled at it."

Lu Qian could only smile helplessly.

If that's really the case, he probably won't be able to play a significant role. Moreover, he's the weakest in terms of physical cultivation and magic, so he'll have a hard time using them against the Iron Corpse and could easily find himself in danger.

"Take a moment to calm your mind before continuing."

After Mu Dong spoke, the group found a place, cleaned up the surrounding corpses, and took Rejuvenation Pills to regulate their breathing.

Because it was their first time on a mission, they remained cautious throughout, not wanting to take any risks.

The most time-consuming part is finding the Iron Corpse. Different Iron Corpses seem to have their own territories, and you have to be a certain distance apart to find another Iron Corpse.

However, this also has an advantage: you don't have to worry about encountering multiple iron corpses at the same time, so you won't be in danger.

However, they are still in the outer area of ​​the Burial Mountain Range. If they go deeper, the situation may not be the same. These experiences cannot be applied blindly, because one wrong move could be fatal.

Two days later, Mu Dong cleared his throat and said, "Alright, we can go back now!"

In the past two days, their group has only cleared out three iron corpses. Including the earth-born corpses and rotten bone corpses, they should be able to obtain around five or six hundred battle merits.

They encountered danger once during the battle. After killing the second Iron Corpse, they were collecting spoils of war. Although Mu Xue looked down on the small amount of merit provided by the Earth Corpse, it added up to a considerable sum. So she went to find the Earth Corpses one by one and took out their teeth.

Therefore, the group lingered in place for a while, but then they heard a terrifying roar coming from the depths of the gray-white mist, which was getting closer and closer. They had not had time to adjust their breathing and their true energy had not fully recovered, so they had to run away quickly.

From then on, they reached a consensus: after eliminating the target, they should run away as soon as possible, because staying in the same place might lead to unknown dangers.

Moreover, the time and risk involved in collecting the teeth of those earth-born corpses was not worth it. After some calculation, they decided to only collect the teeth of rotten bone corpses and iron corpses, and there was no need to collect the teeth of earth-born corpses. It was not worth it for those battle merits.

After two days of harrowing events, Mu Xue's hair had become a bit messy, and she looked rather disheveled. At first, she tried to tidy herself up, but later she couldn't care less. Hearing Mu Dong say that she could leave, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief. "I've never been this tired before. If I don't rest, I really won't be able to walk anymore!"

Although there were dangers in the previous training missions, the intensity of the combat was not very high.

The situation is different in the Burial Mountain Range. Almost every minute, a refining corpse could approach, so they have to act at any time and keep their nerves on edge, which naturally makes them feel very tired.

On the contrary, Lu Qian, who had the lowest cultivation level, still looked energetic. His Zhou Tian Xing Qiao had a strong recovery ability, and most of the time he did not even need to take the Hui Yuan Pill. His Xing Chen Bu Mie Ti was also constantly working, so his condition was actually the best.

During cultivation, the benefits provided by the Zhou Tian Xing Qiao (a specific acupoint) are not significant, but in actual combat, the effect of rapid recovery becomes very obvious.

Often, while Mu Dong and Mu Xue were still recovering, Lu Qian had already regained his strength and started standing guard.

Moreover, Lu Qian did contribute; his eyesight played a significant role in the search for the Iron Corpse.

Otherwise, avoiding danger and finding the Iron Corpse in the endless misty Burial Mountains would not be so easy, and it wouldn't have been just one dangerous encounter.

Also, Mu Xue cast spells too frequently at the beginning, which resulted in insufficient true energy to cast the Turbid Wave Corrosion Curse when encountering the second Iron Corpse. It was Lu Qian who filled in the gap with the Turbid Wave Corrosion Curse and worked with Mu Dong to deal with the Iron Corpse.

Overall, Lu Qian was not entirely a drag on the team; he can honestly say that he played a significant role.

However, he wasn't stupid; he could sense that Mu Xue sometimes deliberately acted recklessly to give him a chance to make a move.

Lu Qian had teamed up with Mu Xue before. It was true that Mu Xue could be reckless at times, but she was also incredibly meticulous in battle. It was unlikely that she would waste her true energy recklessly and be unable to unleash the necessary spells.

Moreover, Mu Xue has already begun to comprehend the Heart Demon Manual. With the differentiation of her divine sense, she can think clearly about everything and will not be unable to use even a spell.

But it's one thing to see it, but it's another to say it out loud. It's just a tacit understanding, something to keep in mind. There's no need to be too specific about it.