Chapter 98: The Mysterious Cave Entrance (Seeking Recommendations)

  "This direction feels like it's deviated quite a bit from when we came?" Qin Hao furrowed his brow, somewhat perplexed.

  "This is natural." Ye Ling smiled slightly and said: "If we return to the original place, we may encounter a lot of night-walking monsters' attacks. Although this road is farther away and takes longer, it's relatively safer."

  Qin Hao's eyebrows relaxed a bit, and he said lightly: "So that's how it is. By the way, I'd like to know why you must hunt down this Ice Frost Fox? Even if you want an ice-elemental crystal, you don't necessarily have to choose one from a second-tier intermediate demon beast with such a notorious reputation."

  "How much do you know about the characteristics of Bing Xue?" Ye Ling didn't answer directly, but instead asked Qin Hao back.

  "I've heard some of it. Can't say I have a deep understanding."

  "The Snow Fox loves to eat Ling Cao's rare fruits, you must have heard of it." Ye Ling asked with a smile.

  Qin Hao nodded slightly.

  He naturally understood the characteristics of the Frost Fox. The Frost Fox had an innate greed for some spiritual herbs, often devouring a large number of ice-based spiritual herbs. Moreover, most of these spiritual herbs were relatively gentle and could purify one's aura.

  "The Frost Fox that ingests the Spiritual Grass will have the medicinal properties of the Spiritual Grass contained within its Crystal Core." Ye Ling continued, "Using this Crystal Core to manufacture an auxiliary type Sealing Array has a great effect."

  "Are you Zhen Shi?" Qin Hao asked calmly.

  "No." Ye Ling shook his head: "But my grandfather, also the Wood Elder of this Hunting Alliance branch, is a second-class high-ranking array master."

  Qin Hao's heart stirred, and he deployed the second-grade high-level formation master. This formation master was already extremely high-ranking, and among the second-grade high-level formations, the Sealed Mysterious Formation was the best in terms of ranking. The power that burst forth in an instant was even higher than that of a ninth-rank Spirit Void martial artist.

  It seems that those sealed Xuan arrays on the second floor of the Hunter's Guild branch should all be made by Ye Ling's grandfather.

  Thinking of this, Qin Hao couldn't help but pay a little more attention to Ye Ling in his heart.

  Suddenly, he seemed to feel something strange. His grandfather was a second-class high-ranking array master, so at least there should be some sealed mysterious arrays on his body for protection.

  Refining a second-tier advanced Sealing Mystical Array is quite difficult. However, refining some second-tier intermediate arrays with power equivalent to a full-force strike from a 4th to 6th realm Spiritual Martial Artist's Sealing Mystical Array should be sufficient for Ye Ling to save his life, and that's quite normal.

  How come I didn't see this thing at all when I was fighting against Han Bingying just now?

  In Qin Hao's heart, a cloud of doubt suddenly rose. His eyes stared intensely at Ye Ling, thinking about the reason in his heart.

  "Why didn't your grandfather refine some Sealing Mystical Arrays for you to carry on yourself?" Qin Hao asked, his eyes gazing forward, a hint of a smile in his voice, as if he was asking casually.

  "Second-rate intermediate, there are some." Ye Ling smiled and replied: "However, relying on external forces is not good after all. Therefore, before encountering real danger, it's best not to use them. This is the most common phrase I've heard over the years."

  "It's not wrong either, relying on external forces will hinder the tempering of oneself." Qin Hao's face was calm and composed.

  However, he was somewhat perplexed in his heart and didn't know where the problem lay, but instinctively felt that something was not quite right.

  "Huh? What's that?"

  Ye Ling suddenly stopped and pointed in surprise. Qin Hao's thoughts were also interrupted, he stopped in his tracks and looked in the direction Ye Ling was pointing, only to find a skull frame hidden among the weeds.

  The three people behind also came up.

  "Want to go take a look?" Ye Ling asked Qin Hao inquiringly.

  Qin Hao nodded and turned around to walk away. Ye Ling walked beside him. The other three people didn't have any reaction either.

  In the Valley of Ten Thousand Beasts, where martial artists hunt and kill demonic beasts, it's common to see some martial artists being severely injured by these beasts, so their mental endurance hasn't gone very far.

  The five people gradually approached, Ye Ling took the lead and stepped forward, pushing the weeds aside, and an incomplete frame appeared in front of them. Behind the skull frame, a cave entrance suddenly appeared.

  "Is there a cave entrance here?" Qin Hao furrowed his brow, pulled out the map, and found that this entrance was not recorded on the map.

  "This place I came last time didn't see it at all." Ye Ling said with his hand on his cheek, looking quite puzzled: "There shouldn't be anything strange inside this cave entrance, how about we go in and take a look?"

  "What if some powerful and ferocious monster appears?" Shen Yue asked worriedly.

  "It won't be." Ye Ling smiled and shook his head, his tone certain: "If that were the case, we would have sensed the demonic beast's aura long ago, and it wouldn't be this peaceful around here.

  Ye Ling suddenly turned to Qin Hao again and asked with a smile: "Tian Lang, what do you think?"

  "Whatever." Qin Hao sized up Ye Ling for a moment before spreading out his hands and responding casually.

  "What about you two?" Ye Ling asked Xie Feng and Zeng Hua.

  "Master Ye would never be wrong about this." Xie Feng hastily said.

  Zeng Hua nodded in agreement: "In or out, it doesn't matter either way."

  "Then let's go in." Ye Ling nodded slightly, coming to a conclusion. He took out a shiny bead from his ring and walked forward cautiously along the road.

  Qin Hao followed them up, while the other three were hanging behind their two bodies.

  The cave entrance is extremely deep, with moss covering the stone walls. The faint wind blows, and the sound of footsteps and kicking stones are not carried by the wind to the depths.

  The cave entrance was initially only wide enough for three people to walk abreast, but as you went deeper it became more spacious, and eventually it was almost as wide as a highway.

  "What is this?" Shen Yue suddenly exclaimed.

  Qin Hao stopped in his tracks and looked at Shen Yue, only to see her hastily retreating a few steps back, her expression seemingly somewhat flustered.

  Ye Ling stopped and walked to Shen Yue's side, holding the pearl to illuminate. Just a few steps away from Shen Yue, a skeleton of a demonic beast lay quietly.

  The skeleton of the monster is extremely intact, and at a glance, the distribution of bones is very clear. On the monster's claws, there is a mark that should be where Shen Yue stepped on it just now.

  Qin Hao sized up the demon beast, his gaze following the movement of the pearl's glow, slowly rising until it finally came to rest on the beast's skull.

  Qin Hao's heart skipped a beat.

  The monster's skull was surprisingly intact, not just bones, but with flesh and blood. The monster's face was also extremely distorted, as if it had endured some great pain. Just one glance at it made people's hearts skip a beat.

  "It seems that something is really strange." Xie Feng muttered. Zeng Hua's eyes were also wide with extreme surprise.

  It was Shen Yue, whose small face had turned pale and was breathing slightly rapidly, but her expression gradually returned to normal. This endurance was not weak.

  "Be careful when walking." Ye Ling nodded at the four of them and raised the pearl, continuing forward.

  On the way, the corpse of this monster appeared several times, from initial astonishment to slight surprise, until finally numbness. In a short moment, they experienced a huge mental transformation.

  "What is it?"

  Qin Hao's mind kept thinking about the body's kung fu, and quietly started to operate, every muscle in his body was tense at this moment.

  Although on the surface he still looked like he didn't care at all, in his heart he had already begun to be on guard.

  "It should be the end up ahead." Ye Ling pointed forward and said.

  Qin Hao looked ahead and saw that about ten zhang away in front of him, it seemed to expand outward, forming a huge cave entrance.

  They all slowed down their footsteps when they got here, and walked forward step by step.

  They finally walked out of this long corridor soon.

  As soon as I stepped out, I felt that the surroundings were extremely vast. It seemed like a huge egg-shaped cave entrance. The reason why few people have discovered it so far may be because others thought that the small hole they saw at first was all there was, instinctively thinking it was just an ordinary mountain cave, unaware that it was only a passageway, and behind the passage lay another vast sky.

  "Let's take a look." Ye Ling said softly. He raised the bead in his hand, and infused it with his vital energy, instantly illuminating the cave entrance as bright as daylight.

  The situation inside the cave was also fully exposed.

  In an instant, everyone was stunned.

  Xie Feng and Zeng Hua's faces turned pale, and soon they were vomiting on the ground.

  Qin Hao's face was extremely solemn. The four walls of the mountain cave were covered with one giant cocoon after another, all made up of golden silk threads.

  Above the giant cocoons, one head after another is exposed. In the middle of each cocoon, a hole was broken, and through the hole, you can see the skeleton inside.

  There were humans and there were also monsters.

  That situation is exactly the same as when I came in just now.

  Hundreds of giant cocoons, adjacent beast heads and human heads, formed a strange picture in this cave. The gorgeous golden silk threads, the bleached bones placed together, looked even more abnormal and eerie.

  Qin Hao had a rough guess in his mind, perhaps it was a demonic beast that wrapped its prey with silk threads into a cocoon, only exposing the head, and stored it away. When it was time to eat, it would open a hole on the cocoon and slowly gnaw at the body.

  This thought made Qin Hao feel a surge of acid water churning in his stomach. No wonder those demonic beasts had that expression.

  If he were dead, it would be better. If he were alive, enduring immense pain and watching his own body being gnawed into a skeleton, this situation, even thinking about it, made Qin Hao's scalp feel numb.