Where Ye Chen stood was a deep pond in the middle of the mountain, with thousands of miles of flat ground around it. The back of the ground had been blocked by some mountains, and two giant forests filled the space on both sides of the deep pond. Occasionally, evil-looking beasts would jump out and hunt some of the weaker and smaller beasts.
The deep pond had been covered by thick mist, so it would be impossible to tell exactly how big it was. All one could see would be vague shapes.
"Huh? Cold Murky Plant, Ice Look Flower?"
After chasing away some of the beasts nearby, Ye Chen saw the two completely different looking plants growing in the gap of the stones. One of them was a dark green, wide-leafed plant which was visibly cold, while the other had a bright pink color. The flower petals and leaves had chipped ice decorating on top, making them look like diamonds under the sun.
As he waved his hand, the two plants landed onto his hand, Ye Chen smiled as he put them into his storage ring.
Both the Cold Murky Plant and Ice Look Flower were top rank medicinal plants which would be great treasures to augment Zhen yuan for warriors with ice element Zhen yuan. However. It was not worth much for Ye Chen, but they were both extremely expensive. Once auctioned, it could be sold for thousands of top rank spirit stones each, which would be quite something after all.
The deep lake was not small, as it took Ye Chen a total of fifteen minutes to walk one lap along its edge. Of course, in that time, he also managed to get seven top rank plants, twenty-four middle rank ones, and another dozens of ice spirit stones. The total value of them all would be more than one hundred thousand top rank spirit stones, which was a huge number, since all Ye Chen had got was seven hundred thousand top rank spirit stones in total.
After gaining all of the plants he needed, he focused back onto the lake water.
"This lake seems to be the source of the fog. It seems ice cold, so it should be containing really pure ice element energy. There must be something inside making it like that."
Ever since spending those ninety thousand top rank spirit stones in the pavilion, Ye Chen had realized it that he still did not have enough for the things he needed. The more powerful he got, the more spirit stones he would need. Only with them could he make sure that he was prepared for everything.
The soul ocean started to scramble as Ye Chen activated his soul power and started to dive into the lake.
"Hm? My soul power is being canceled out?" Ye Chen frowned. His soul power only dove in for one hundred meters before being stopped by an invisible power.
After thinking for a while, Ye Chen took out the sword artist puppet and ordered it to jump into the water.
Crack! Crack!
The lake was colder than Ye Chen expected—the second the puppet touched the water, a frost spread out quickly over it. Within a couple of blinks worth of time, the puppet had been covered in white frost which restrained its movement. The good thing was that the ice qi did not make it into the insides of the puppet yet, which allowed Ye Chen to continue controlling it.
After the puppet dove into for about fifty meters, the pressure under the water actually surprised Ye Chen. He could sense it that it was not normal; instead, it was artificially created from some great treasure in order to keep people away.
His pupils shone with a silver color—it was him increasing his controlling power and ordered the puppet to dive down for another ten meters.
"Not good! This ice qi even managed to make it inside the internal core of the puppet!"
After noticing that the puppet was no longer in his control, Ye Chen hurried to pull it back out of the water.
Dong!
The puppet landed onto the edge of the waterfront, making a huge dull noise that was different from its old lightness.
He pressed his palm on the back of the puppet, and could feel the numbness from encountering the coldness. But, he was a Sea of Souls Realm warrior after all, whose power was dozens of times greater than the puppet warrior's. He let out a breath of Zhen yuan, and the cold qi was shattered immediately as his powerful Zhen yuan went through his palm and poured inside the puppet.
Without a sound, the puppet's frost started to melt, the ice water dripping down onto the ground and forming into frost again that covered the ground.
After putting away his puppet, Ye Chen started to look slightly serious.
From the testing, he easily knew that this lake had an extremely cold qi; and the deeper it got, the colder it would be. At fifty meters deep, the cold qi could make it into the core of the puppet. And besides the ice cold qi, the pressure in the depth of the lake seemed to be extremely intense as well. Even without the ice cold qi, Astral Reaching Realm warriors would not be able to make it in too deep, as if there was something releasing it power from below.
"It looks like I will have to do it myself."
It would be impossible for Ye Chen to give up, since he was sure that there must be something special under the lake. If he just moved on from here, he would definitely regret it.
Taking a deep breath, he bent his knees before jumping into the lake.
Since Ye Chen was at the Sea of Souls Realm, he was able to block out all of the ice cold qi, forbidding the coldness from even getting close to him.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Pushing his Zhen yuan harder, Ye Chen's head was pointing down as he sank down deeper and deeper.
Ten meters!
Thirty meters!
Fifty meters!
Eighty meters!
One hundred meters!
When he reached one hundred meters, he could start to feel a hint of coldness and that pressure which was coming out from the bottom.
"My soul power can still not dive deeper than one hundred and fifty meters. It must not be the problem of the lake."
If it were the lake, then by the time he reached one hundred meters, his soul power should be able to dive deeper than that.
Anyway, he continued to dive down.
One hundred and twenty meters!
One hundred and fifty meters!
"My soul power could not come out anymore!"
Ye Chen could feel that there was an invisible power that was restraining him, which forbade his soul power from projecting out. Luckily, his Zhen yuan was untouched.
One hundred and seventy meters!
Two hundred meters!
Two hundred fifty meters!
Three hundred!
Frost was forming outside his protective layer, and there seemed to be an invisible ice qi that managed to sneak into Ye Chen's body through the layer. But, the Zhen yuan inside his body was even richer—the second that ice qi leaked in, it would be burnt out immediately as if nothing had happened.
"It is indeed deep! It has been almost four hundred meters!"
In the deepest part of the lake, there was a round shaped huge crystal that was sinking at a fast speed, with a human inside it. As the depth increased, the ice qi had formed a thick layer of ice on its surface, which made it look like a whole piece of ice.
Crack!
The ice crystal cracked open, as it could no longer handle the intense pressure. At the same time, Ye Chen's protective layer seemed to shrink down as well.
"I am getting close to the bottom!"
As far as he could see, he saw the bottom of the lake where tough rocks filled up the place. Some of the places had silver black color as it let out a light silver-colored shine, which was indeed the invisible power that had been blocking out his soul power.
"It is a soul rock! A whole piece!" Even he could not help but gasp.
The soul rock was a king of stone that contained the power of soul, which was worth a huge fortune. It was something that super martial institutions lacked and needed the most. Even if a martial school was the largest it could ever be, there would still be limits, and it was the same for warriors. Once they reached the Sea of Souls Realm, their soul power would see everything within one hundred miles. If there were no power blocking the soul power, the school would be in the enemies' plain sight, which would be a big flaw.
Without exaggeration, one fist-sized soul rock could be sold upto five thousand top rank spirit stones; and this one in the deepest part of the lake could be worth more than one hundred times, which would make it worth five million top rank spirit stones. It could make any Sea of Souls Realm master level warrior go crazy.
It was hard to see under the deep parts of the lake; after knowing the reason that his soul power did not work, he instantly started digging the silver black colored soul rock.
The first one was dug out, and was the size of a bucket.
The second was slightly smaller, the size of a human skull.
The third one was the biggest so far, the size of a tub.
After the third one, he let out his soul power again. This time, his soul power detection managed to spread out without any restraint. There was not a spot in the whole lake that was unknown to him now.
However, what he did not know or see was that in the tunnel on the other side of the lake was a pair of white gold pupils that were staring at him. There was a hundred meters distance between the two, yet Ye Chen somehow could not notice it while it could see him clearly.
The owner of the pupils came out slowly and started to approach Ye Chen without a sound.
"I finally figured it out what was happening to the pressure in this lake. Wait! What is going on? Why is the pressure increasing again? And at this fast speed?"
Ye Chen's instinct told him that there was something wrong as the hair on his back stood up.
Boom!
It was right then that a huge twisted figure shot out toward Ye Chen. It was so fast as if the counterforce under the water was nothing.
"Beast!"
Ye Chen stepped onto the ground and shot toward the surface of the lake. He looked back once and what he saw scared him a little bit—a massive white snake was swimming toward him swiftly. The snake's body was wider than a water tank, and its whole body was still in the dark. It was covered in different scales with the size of wine glasses.
On the snake's stomach were four claws, which were all extremely sharp.
It was actually a flood dragon…a pure one!
ROOOAARRR!
With one roar, the aggressive pressure increased drastically. The whole lake seemed to boil up as if there was a tornado buried under the lake.
Ye Chen was traveling fast, but in the water, he was no competitor for the flood dragon which was traveling like a ghost. It was almost in the same second that he reached within ten meters of Ye Chen. It opened its mouth, trying to bite onto him.
"Thunder Lion!"
He did not even have the time to take out his sword, so Ye Chen formed his right hand into a fist. With that, the thunder lion was formed and thrown onto the head of the white flood dragon.
Boom!
Ye Chen's whole body was blown away; under the white flood dragon's aggressive power, his fist power could not even slow it down for a second.
The power gap was too severe.
"Is this the power of a flood dragon? My power is like an ant's!"
Ye Chen had been blown by the power of the flood dragon, feeling dizzy as his shoulder smashed onto the rock wall on the side, creating a huge hole which sucked his body in.
The white flood dragon did not stop at all, jumping where Ye Chen flew out; its roar was loud like thunder.