The original repairer

Chapter 36: The Dangerous Return

Shi Chen stayed underground for two days, making sure there was no danger around before carefully escaping the surface. As soon as he poked his head out of the bushes, he immediately stopped, then slowly retreated back underground, returning to the underground space.

At this moment, he was filled with panic. He discovered that the three small warning traps he had set had all been triggered. The surrounding area was filled with all kinds of messy footprints, fallen branches and flowers, sword marks and knife marks on the surrounding trees, and wood chips shattered by Taoist magic...

Shi Chen took a deep breath, tried to calm his inner panic, and continued to practice silently.

Two more days passed, and Shi Chen slowly emerged from the ground again. This time, he observed carefully for a long time and found that the traces from the previous two days had not changed. The branches and leaves on the ground had dried and withered, and the birds on the branches were chirping. He concluded that there were no monks lying in ambush here, so he jumped out of the ground, cast a purification spell on himself, took a deep breath, and prepared to leave.

A black dot in the distance flew towards him quickly, and in less than three breaths, it was in front of Shi Chen.

Shi Chen looked closely and found that it was a man wearing a black tights, with blood dripping from his left hand, standing about ten feet away from Shi Chen.

"It's you!" they both said in unison.

Then, the man reached into his arms and threw a fist-sized object to Shi Chen, then said: "I will come to find you in half a year. Don't use the earth escape technique here." After that, he flew away on his sword in less than five breaths.

Looking at the receding figure, Shi Chen didn't even look at what was in his hand. He put it directly into the storage bag and ran towards the stream more than ten feet away. He reached the edge of the stream in three or two steps and then jumped into the water.

The stream was two meters wide. He swam upstream for more than ten meters, touched the mud at the bottom of the water, used earth escape, and hid in the mud at the bottom of the stream. He then hid more than two meters down, squeezing out a space for a person, and began to gather his breath, shielding his five senses, and blending into the surrounding mud and sand.

It took about eight breaths to complete all of this. Two more breaths later, the three monks stood where Shi Chen and the man in black tights had met.

"Junior Brother Liao, see which direction he escaped to?" said a tall and thin monk with a pale face and wearing a Taoist robe.

"Senior Brother Lu, according to my tracking spell, there were two cultivators here ten breaths ago. One was the cultivator who had reached the perfection of Qi training that we were chasing, and the other seemed to be in the middle stage of Qi training. They fled separately, one flew north on a sword, and the other should have escaped by using this small stream." Junior Brother Liao said as he cast the tracking spell.

"Junior Brother Liao and I will chase after the cultivators who have completed their Qi training, and Junior Brother Lu will chase after the cultivators who have escaped by using water escape." said another short and fat cultivator.

"Yes, sir! Senior Brother Fu!" The cultivator named Lu lowered his head and said with a resentful look on his face.

After Senior Brother Fu and Junior Brother Liao flew away on their swords, the cultivator named Lu snorted coldly and followed the footprints to the place where Shi Chen jumped into the stream.

He looked at the rushing stream, and his spiritual sense swept out ten feet. There were only three or two footprints pointing to the stream around. His spiritual sense sensed everything within ten feet on the ground, and could clearly sense more than ten feet underwater. He could only sense two feet underground, and did not find any trace.

The monk named Lu hesitated for half a breath, then jumped into the stream from the place where Shi Chen jumped into the stream.

The water in the stream does not flow fast, flowing about half a meter in a breath.

The water flow at the bottom of the stream is relatively slow, and the environment at the bottom of the stream is complex, with aquatic plants, mud, rotten leaves, and fish, shrimps and crabs.

There were traces in the mud and sand in many places. They were not made by Shi Chen, but were left by fish and crabs. The monk surnamed Lu used the ice thorn spell to test every obvious trace.

When he found the location where Shi Chen had escaped into the earth, he also used the ice spike spell to attack the mud and sand. The ice spike penetrated into the mud and sand more than ten feet deep and stayed on the surface of the mud and sand. His spiritual sense swept downwards, but the sensing distance of his spiritual sense decreased. He only sensed a depth of less than five feet under his feet and found nothing abnormal.

After searching for thirty breaths and finding nothing suspicious, the monk surnamed Lu emerged from the water. With a surge of spiritual energy, his robes dried in an instant. After a moment's thought, he quickly flew downstream.

Twenty breaths later, the monk surnamed Lu returned to the spot and stayed for five breaths to observe everything around him, sweeping his spiritual sense across the entire area. Unfortunately, he found nothing unusual.

He flew upstream quickly for fifty breaths to look for any trace, and then returned to the stream where Shi Chen had escaped into the earth.

He took out the audio communication talisman, explained the situation to the talisman, activated it, and then sat in meditation on the spot to recover his spiritual power.

After half an hour, the talisman will shake, and the power will be stopped and activated.

The monk named Lu left without any hurry. He flew away slowly on his sword and disappeared from sight after a few breaths.

Shi Chen had no idea what was happening on the stream. He tried his best to calm down and concentrate, and to control his breath. He estimated that it would take an hour or two before he could move underground and leave this dangerous place.

He felt a little regretful that he did not buy a spell to restrain his breath, which could be combined with the earth escape technique to better hide his breath.

If I can return to Qishafang City, I must find a way to get a breath-concealing spell, and I also need to learn one or two other escape techniques. The earth escape technique is still too slow. At my current level of minor success, I can only travel two meters in one breath, which is already the limit.

Two hours later, Shi Chen estimated that there should be no problem, so he began to use the earth escape technique to leave, slowly escaping towards the Qishafang market.

Before his spiritual power was exhausted, he opened up a space about three feet underground, then meditated and swallowed qi-replenishing pills to restore his spiritual power. He only began to escape after his spiritual power was fully restored.

It was only a mile or two towards Qishafang City in an hour, but Shi Chen was not in a hurry. Safety came first.

The man in the tight black suit was called Du Liangpeng, a casual cultivator who had reached the ninth level of Qi training. While in the Qisha Market, he had asked Shi Chen for help refining pills several times. He was a decent person, often leading several casual cultivators in the middle stage of Qi training to hunt monsters, and had a decent reputation in the market. Shi Chen didn't examine the item Du Liangpeng had thrown him, suppressing his curiosity and continuing on his way.

It took three hours before he was able to burrow five miles underground.

Open up a space and start recovering spiritual power. When the spiritual power is fully recovered, start practicing.

The next day, he continued to burrow underground. When half of his spiritual power was used up, he swallowed a Qi-replenishing pill underground to restore his spiritual power and continued to burrow underground.

For five consecutive days, he burrowed underground for about three hours every day. Sometimes he encountered rocks and had to go around for a while. It was intermittent, but he still had twelve or thirteen miles to reach Qishafang City.

As long as you enter the market, you will be safe. The formations in the market are difficult to break for those below the Jindan level.

The market town is the territory of Qingxuan Sect and is managed by Qingxuan Sect. If something happens in the market town, Qingxuan Sect will send foundation-building disciples or Jindan cultivators over within an hour.

After burrowing underground for another two days, Shi Chen found a dense forest about seven or eight miles away from Qishafang City and escaped from the ground.

After more than ten days of escaping through the earth, he finally came to an end. He cast a cleansing spell on himself, removing the earth and decay from his body, before flying towards the market on his sword.

Entering Qisha Market and seeing familiar places, Shi Chen finally felt relieved. The days of fear were finally over.

After more than four months, Shi Chen finally returned to his cave.

In less than a moment, Huang Qi's brother and sister rushed over and were relieved to see that Shi Chen was safe and sound.