The Nine Cauldrons

Two Poles

The lake lay beneath the earth, in a dark cave where a deathly silence reigned.

However, things were never quite as peaceful as they looked on the surface. The current at the bottom of the lake was quite strong. Teng Qingshan swam like a fish in the current. He was absorbing oxygen through the pores of his skin. Having cultivated his body to the current level, Teng Qingshan could easily control every part of his own body, such as heartbeat, blood circulation, bones, etc.

Breathing through the skin was definitely not as effective as breathing through one’s nose or mouth, but it was good enough while staying under water.

However, once a fight broke out, the body’s demand for oxygen would increase dramatically, lowering the efficiency of breathing through the skin and rendering it insufficient.

Hua~

School after school of colorful fish swam past Teng Qingshan.

This underground lake is way bigger than I’d expected. I’ve been swimming in one direction for more than three miles already, yet there is no end in sight.

The sheer size of this lake was unbelievable in itself. One couldn’t help but be awed at the wonders of Mother Nature. Qingshan continued, Also, the temperature has changed too… And not by a little!

Teng Qingshan knew that the water had been around four to five degrees Celsius when he first plunged in.

After three miles, the temperature had dropped by at least ten degrees. Teng Qingshan had even noticed some broken up ice dregs along the way.

It’s only three miles apart, and the circulation hasn’t been broken at all. How could the temperature be so different? Teng Qingshan marveled at this phenomenon.

The circulation balanced out the temperature in the water through convection, according to common sense. Therefore, there shouldn’t be a large difference in temperature.

What is stranger is that the water is not frozen at all despite it being well below freezing point!

Then Teng Qingshan suddenly remembered ———

Jade Frost Pool was the same. It got considerably colder the closer one was to its bottom.

This underground lake is hundreds of meters below the Bottomless Pit. Jade Frost Pool is also hundreds of meters deep. They have relatively the same depths… Is it possible that the two bodies of water are actually connected? Teng Qingshan guessed.

The same depths… the same great difference in temperature, and both were underground. Teng Qingshan couldn’t come up with a better explanation for these coincidences, other than that the lake and the pond were connected.

Teng Qingshan tensed up just from remembering the extreme cold of Jade Frost Pool. The purple radiant Flood Dragon living there was no small fry, either. Even Gloden Dan masters were scared of confronting that dragon, let alone himself.

Hua~

The sound of rushing water pulled Qingshan away from his thoughts.

Teng Qingshan looked towards the source of the sound. About 200 meters away, an enormous black monster rushed along the bottom, like a giant moving fortress.

“This is…”

Teng Qingshan plunged his hands into the bottom of the lake and pulled himself into the mud, hiding. He had intentionally worn black attire, so that he wouldn’t become a beacon for danger in the water.

“What is this monster? A mutated crab?” Teng Qingshan was shocked, and just stared at the fortress-like existence.

It slightly differed from a crab, but overall, the monster most certainly looked like one. However, its size was countless times bigger than what a crab ought to have been.

Teng Qingshan estimated its dimensions: it was 15 meters wide, 25 meters long, and 7-8 meters tall. Such a large crab monster was undoubtedly a formidable underwater fortress in motion. Its size alone was at least ten times bigger than an evolved Red Scale beast.

Hua~ Its eight long, sharp legs waded through the current like oars.

The front claws by themselves were bigger than the entire body of a red scaled beast! Teng Qingshan didn’t doubt the killing power of those claws.

Teng Qingshan lay silently on the bottom of the lake. He narrowed his eyes at the beast. “What are the bastards of Qing Hu Island looking for? What kind of place is this? It’s like some wilderness forgotten by time. It’s filled with terrifying magical creatures. The crab monster wasn’t recorded in any books. It had to be more powerful than a red scaled beast.

Most of the magical creatures recorded were terrestrial animals.

There were also some recorded amphibian creatures, but most of them were some type of aquatic dragons or serpents. The books had no records of a large amount of deep sea creatures or mutated beasts.

……

After ten more miles, the water temperature was significantly lower than before.

In these ten miles, Teng Qingshan had discovered two beasts. One was the crab-like moving fortress, the other was a green toad. It was not as huge as the crab, only about a meter long. Nevertheless, this toad terrified all kinds of surrounding fish, which all stayed as far as possible from the creature.

Teng Qingshan had no idea what the crab monster was, but he had read about the second one before. The toad was ‘Jade Spirit Toad’. It existed in the ancient forgotten wilderness.

Jade Spirit Toads were known for their venom. The poison could kill any Golden Dan Masters easily. Of course…no Golden Dan masters were stupid enough to drink the venom knowingly. In addition, the poison was also corrosive. Even some the legendary weapons stood no chance again it, let alone human bodies.

Besides the venom, Jade Spirit Toads also possessed amazing jumping abilities. As a matter of fact, the Jade Spirit Toad had nothing special other than its venom, corrosiveness, and jumping abilities. If one could approach the beast without being detected, and run the creature’s skull through with a sword, then one could claim the glory of killing such legendary creatures with ease, except for one problem ———

Once it died, the sacs that covered the entirety of the toad’s skin would release an enormous amount of venom in an explosion.

“What is this lake?” Teng Qingshan was starting to get an ominous feeling about this place.

“Boom!”

“Roar~”

The sound of explosions and roars were coming from the distance.

“Hm?” Teng Qingshan focused on the source of the sound instantaneously, “It should be very far from here, yet even I can hear the commotion… The fight has to be really fierce! It might be those Qing Hu Island bastards!” Teng Qingshan threw away all doubts in his mind and swam swiftly towards the source of the sound. He swam for three miles straight.

Three miles of distance lowered the water temperature another level.

A group of bright lanterns floated in the turbulent current, attacking a black and yellow serpent. The snake was about nine meters long, but its body was strangely flat. The whole snake looked like a blade.

“The scumbags of Qing Hu Island!” Teng Qingshan recognized the thirteen lanterns with a single glance. Those lanterns were none other than the thirteen masters of Qing Hu Island!

Innate masters had powerful innate true origins, but their bodies weren’t too strong. Lifting two to three thousand Jin of weight would be considered a difficult task for them. As a result, their organs’ functionalities were nowhere near special. Innate masters could only hold their breath for a short period of time. If they wanted to stay a long time underwater, they would have to use their innate true origin to form a force field in the shape of a bubble, in order to store air for breathing.

Therefore…

All of the thirteen innate masters had their own innate true origin bubbles. Each of the bubble had a different color: crimson, green, gray, black… The bubbles were the lanterns. The innate true origin of each had its own glow that barely lit up the surroundings.

Of course, this was only innate true origin, not true lighting. Besides, they were fighting underwater. Consequently, the area they lit up was not too big at all.

The crimson one was able to lit up an area of an estimated radius of six meters

As for the gray and black ones, they were barely able to illuminate anything.

“The light from the bubbles and strong energy fluctuations were bound to attract a lot of monsters. If they died from fighting these mythical creatures, then they couldn’t blame anyone but themselves. “ Teng Qingshan glared at the thirteen people and the snake, “ Too bad that they are not going to die. That snake is an Iron String Blade Snake. It’s not poisonous. Otherwise, there has to be casualties among the thirteen.”

The Iron String Blade Snake had superior speed due to its relatively flat body and its blade-like appearance.

Its scales were as hard and as sharp as any legendary weapon. It was a formidable creature. Its only weakness was its eyes. As of this moment, the snake had already lost one of its eyes. Clearly, when facing the thirteen innate masters, the serpent had no advantage.

“Roar ~~~”

Thunderous roars resonated in the distance.

“Let’s go! Leave the snake!” Gu Yong yelled. He wore a golden robe and had a jade-green bubble.

Woosh! Woosh! Woosh!

At Gu Yong’s command, each of the innate masters quickly abandoned the fight and ran away. Go Yong, Zhao Danchen, and another innate golden dan master were the last to leave, picking up the rear. The Iron String Blade Snake screamed hoarsely and escaped with a whip of its tail.

“Humph.” Teng Qingshan started to tail the thirteen Innate masters immediately.

There was no energy fluctuation from Teng Qingshan. He also didn’t use any innate true origin to form a bubble for storing air.

In this pitch black darkness, despite Teng Qingshan being only 90 meters away, Qing Hu Island’s people had no idea that they were being tailed.

“That was a matured Iron String Blade Snake!” The woman in purple regretted leaving it, saying, ”Every piece of its cartilage could be made into such great weapons, especially whips! Its scales can withstand the power of a Golden Dan! We were so close, so close! We almost got that snake!”

The magical beasts were dangerous, but they were also opportunities!

“Sister, this underground lake is way too dangerous. While that Iron String Blade Snake is a treasure, its roars disturbed too many other beasts!”

“We’ve already spent an entire night searching the bottom of this lake. Among all the beasts we discovered, including that Iron String Blade Snake, there were three powerful enough to pose a threat to innate Golden Dan masters,” Zhao Danchen spoke in a low voice. “The dragon in the coldest part is definitely a Purple Radiant Flood Dragon. If we were to fight that creature, even if we could kill it, at the very least half of us would die.”

……

When thirteen people were talking, the voices wouldn’t be very quiet.

Teng Qingshan could hear them clearly, even though he was 90 meters away.

“Purple Radiant Flood Dragon?” Teng Qingshan frowned. ”They’ve found it?” He concentrated again on the conversation tens of meters away.

……

“One end of this underground lake is extreme cold, the other should be extreme heat. The purple Radiant Flood Dragon lives in extreme cold. I believe there is another monster equally powerful living in the extreme heat.” Zhao Danchen continued, “There are too many magical beasts in this lake. Everyone should be alert and not get separated. Elder Wang was wounded earlier by beasts that hadn’t even reached the innate realm. At the bottom of this lake… Those aquatic beasts have a much greater advantage than us.”

“Still, everyone keep an eye out. Don’t force the beasts to band together. If they attack together, we will be in grave danger,” Zhao Danchen finished worriedly.

As magical beasts grew more powerful, their intelligence would also grow proportionally. These beasts with powers matching an innate Golden Dan master were just as smart as any human. If the situation called for it, it was very likely that these creatures would come together for self-defense.

Other innate masters agreed with Zhao Danchen’s words.

Gu Yong proposed, ”We’ve already searched the western and southern parts of the lake. We haven’t checked the north yet. Let’s go check there, see if Emperor Yu’s palace is there.”

Right away, the thirteen innate masters swarmed northwards.

“Underground lake? Emperor Yu’s palace?” Teng Qingshan, who was still following them, was very shocked.

He had finally figured out what Qing Hu Island was looking for!

No wonder this underground lake is home to so many magical beasts, Teng Qingshan thought. Anything is possible when it is related to Emperor Yu. Teng Qingshan swam silently after the thirteen innate masters. He had no worries of losing sight of them. The thirteen lanterns were like thirteen bright beacons in the dark waters.