Chapter 1395: The Mysterious Ice Box

Island Master Shen and the others likewise suspected that the demon race had been behind it, deliberately putting on a show of fighting desperately over the white-robed man while secretly sending the Rainbow Rat to make off with the treasure. They had only themselves to blame for overlooking the Rainbow Rat.

Cut by Master Feng's sarcasm, Bifang grew all the more humiliated and furious, wishing he could drag the Rainbow Rat out then and there and carve him into eight pieces. But reason told him it was already too late.

The island lay so close to the storm belt that, once the Rainbow Rat fled into it, no one could trace him.

Bifang glared viciously at the eagle and snake demons, who had once been on friendly terms with the Rainbow Rat.

The eagle demon let out a bitter laugh, half admiring and half angry. "I never imagined that in such a state he'd still have the nerve to swallow the treasure for himself."

A precious treasure of Mystic Heaven Palace was something everyone wished to keep for themselves, and the Rainbow Rat was reckless beyond all bounds.

Some of the demon kings did, of course, wonder whether the Rainbow Rat's inexplicable disappearance might have something to do with the white-robed man, whether the one laughing last was in fact the white-robed man. But none of that mattered any longer.

Master Feng and his people did not believe a word of their nonsense, taking these few demon kings for nothing but play-actors, profiting handsomely and feigning innocence besides.

"Kill!" Master Feng roared.

Since the Rainbow Rat could not be found, he would have to vent his rage on the demon kings before him.

Master Feng's voice transmission sounded by Qin Sang's ear, inviting him to join forces and hunt down Bifang, to cut the beast to pieces.

The precious treasure of Mystic Heaven Palace had eluded them, but the ice boxes used as bait held treasures of great value within.

Worthy of one from Mystic Heaven Palace, the white-robed man had been rich indeed. Island Master Shen and the others had seized several of the boxes and would split the spoils afterward, with a share for Qin Sang.

Qin Sang's expression shifted slightly. After a moment's thought, he agreed to Master Feng's proposal. A chaotic battle was about to erupt.

Without a word, Qin Sang and Master Feng both lunged straight at Bifang, killing intent surging. Alarmed, Bifang dared not hesitate. His wings beat furiously, the feathers of blood flames across his body ringing crisply, and like an arrow released from the string he sped off the island.

Island Master Shen and the other two struck out one after another, tangling up the frog-fish and the other three demon kings, but with one fewer in their ranks they were soon caught at a weak point. The chase between the experts of the two races played out once more across these waters.

A streak of crimson light tore through the night sky, with two streaks of evasion light close on its heels, like three meteors flashing at speed across stretch after stretch of ocean. All three streaks were near their limit, yet a gap remained between them.

Bifang's blood-flame transformation secret technique had not yet run its course, his evasion speed swift as lightning, and at last he plunged into the storm belt.

Qin Sang could keep up, but Master Feng gradually fell behind. His evasion technique won out through nimbleness, his body turning to wind and mist, able to slip through any crack, yet in pure speed he fell a touch short.

Qin Sang was rather surprised by the speed Bifang now displayed. After watching a while, he finally caught the telltale sign.

Bifang had become a mass of blood flames, the flames pouring endlessly from within his body, burning his own blood and essence, very likely a supernatural ability that overdrew his potential.

This is already the third transformation of the blood-flame transformation. Bifang's supernatural ability is no simple thing. Qin Sang thought to himself.

No wonder Bifang had entrenched himself between Crescent Moon Realm and Stardust Archipelago and stirred up trouble so long without being killed.

Qin Sang gave chase without pause, though his mind was on the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet and the Sky-Eyed Butterfly. After a stretch of pursuit, Bifang, seeing no hope of shaking Qin Sang loose, flew back out of the storm belt.

Before long, Qin Sang saw demonic qi surging into the sky to the north, the sea darkening in a vast black mass. The demon race's great army had finally arrived. Well-trained, it advanced without breaking its battle formation. Qin Sang halted and watched helplessly as Bifang fled into the demon formation.

With the demon army formed up, and no telling whether more demon kings lurked within, and with the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet not at his side, he had no wish to risk a forced charge.

By this point Master Feng had been left far behind. Shaking them off for a time had been Qin Sang's very aim. Rather than retracing his path to rejoin Master Feng, he flew toward the storm belt, doubled back for a while, and a black shadow rose from the surface of the sea. The Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet had returned.

The Sky-Eyed Butterfly's excitement had not yet worn off. It threw itself against Qin Sang, nuzzling him again and again before slipping into his Qihai. Qin Sang took the ice box from the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet's hand and looked it over. The seal upon it was far from ordinary, and he would have to study it carefully once he returned.

"A spiritual body..." Ice box in hand, Qin Sang recalled the course of the earlier battle, lost in thought.

On neither battlefield had the white-robed man's Spiritual Infant been seen, yet the aura he gave off had clearly been that of a Spiritual Infant cultivator.

In the battle of the storm belt the white-robed man could not possibly have pulled another trick, and had surely fallen. Still, his spiritual body seemed somewhat different from the primordial spirit of an ordinary cultivator.

His spiritual body had no sense of drifting to it. It was extremely solid, like a ghost cultivator that possessed a physical body. Could he have cultivated the primordial spirit exclusively? Something stirred in Qin Sang's heart.

In the immortal cultivation world of today, such spirit cultivators were rarer even than body cultivators. At the very least, in Beichen Realm, he had never heard of anyone reaching the Spiritual Infant Realm through the exclusive cultivation of the primordial spirit or the body alone.

Could it be that an immortal cultivator who cultivated only the primordial spirit or the body had no need to form a Spiritual Infant? Qin Sang searched his memory of the texts he had once read, but the records on the matter were so scarce as to be all but nonexistent.

So far as Qin Sang knew, in broad terms most paths of cultivation could be grouped into three paths, those of essence, qi, and psyche. In ancient times all of these could achieve the Great Dao, and art cultivation was merely one of them.

In the present age, the Immortal Dao was a hard road. For the human race alone, only art cultivation remained the one true path. By the other paths, even those who could barely cultivate at all held only the faintest hope of reaching the Golden Core Realm, and so they had gradually declined until they were abandoned.

Art cultivation refined true essence and formed the Spiritual Infant. The other two, perhaps, did not!

"The Fire Seed Golden Lotus is only a secret technique for subduing spirit fire. A pity that the Heavenly Demon Body Refinement comes from the demon race and I cannot cultivate it in full, or I might have grasped something of its mysteries." Qin Sang mused, sighing inwardly. "Mystic Heaven Palace, the strongest power of the North Sea, truly lives up to its name. Even an art so rare as this has been passed down, and one that can actually be cultivated to the Spiritual Infant Realm. I wonder whether I'll ever have the chance to borrow it for a look."

It was a shame he had not obtained the art from the white-robed man's relics. Qin Sang tried a few more times, but for the moment he could not open the ice box. He stowed it in the Thousand-Jin Ring, took a long, roundabout route, and rejoined Master Feng and the others.

On learning that Qin Sang had lost Bifang in the chase, Master Feng was rather disappointed, though he understood it was no fault of Qin Sang's.

"Bifang burned his blood and essence to flee this time. Without a hundred years or more of quiet recovery, he can't possibly come out to stir up trouble again. The frog-fish and the other demons are all carrying wounds as well, so this is the perfect chance to drive them back to Demon Realm in one stroke." Master Feng meant to vent his rage on the nearby demon race, but the thought of that treasure left him deeply unreconciled. "It's maddening that the precious treasure fell into their hands!"

Betraying nothing, Qin Sang played along with Master Feng, and together they cursed the Rainbow Rat roundly. They turned back to link up with the human army, made their arrangements, and returned by the same route to the nameless little island.

As they walked into the great hall, everyone fell silent, the atmosphere heavy. Island Master Shen swept the gloom from his face and said with a smile, "At least we made off with a few ice boxes. The treasures on that man should be no small thing, so we haven't come away empty-handed. Let's first see what's inside..."

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