Shaking his head to drive the absurd thoughts out of his mind, Yu Ci calmed his mind and immersed himself into the Divine Map, meticulously observing the vast world within a fifty-mile radius below the cliff.
Overall, the brightness of the Sky Rift Valley diminishes from top to bottom. Layers of clouds and mist obscure it, and even the strongest sunlight cannot penetrate the valley, which is seven to eight thousand feet deep. From about twenty miles deep, the Divine Map already showed a strong contrast of light and dark. At forty miles, it was a region shrouded in darkness, and still, the bottom of the valley was nowhere in sight.
Yu Ci quickly scanned the area and then focused on the details. As his thoughts shifted, the small world in the Divine Map rapidly expanded before him. Soon, a randomly chosen point on the map clearly appeared before his eyes.
He was staring directly into a giant eye, as large as a bronze bell, with golden light as sharp as a knife.
Yu Ci almost threw a punch but managed to control himself just in time, realizing the angle of his vision was off. With a slight adjustment, he saw that it was actually a giant bird with a wingspan of several yards. The eye he saw was the bird’s. The bird’s head was covered in a mess of dark red feathers, which couldn’t hide its typical eagle-like sharp eyes and hooked beak. As the feathers extended towards its body, their color became more vivid, until they seemed to be dyed with fresh blood. When the bird shook its feathers, a layer of bloody light spread through the mist.
What’s this creature called? A Blood Eagle?
Yu Ci’s gaze lingered on the fierce bird for a while, using it as a reference point to extend his vision in all directions. The Sky Rift Valley became increasingly clear in the mist.
He quickly realized that naming the giant bird was pointless; the wonders of the valley were just beginning to reveal themselves to him.
The Blood Eagle, wrapped in wind and mist, swooped down. Its sharp claws targeted a giant lizard, which not only had horns on its head but also two massive membranous wings under its ribs. As the Blood Eagle attacked, the lizard let out a cry, its wings flapping as it glided away. The two monsters clashed in the mist, with blood feathers and broken scales flying everywhere.
Shifting his perspective, Yu Ci saw a gigantic frog-like monster that spat venom and moved effortlessly on the cliff face. He saw a giant ape, three times the height of a man, uprooting trees and throwing stones like a demon god. But he also saw such a monster being brought down by a tiny green snake, only two feet long, its venom lethal. In the deeper mist, he saw massive creatures, as thick as a child’s arm and tens of yards long, resembling legendary serpents, swimming in and out of view.
So many surprises dulled the initial shock, replacing it with uncontrollable excitement. To think, the universe contained such mysterious and grand spectacles, as if heaven had set them up specifically to shatter human common sense!
Yu Ci also recognized the danger, but the constant crises were like spices thrown into boiling oil, spreading a rich aroma that captivated his soul, drawing him deeper into the abyss.
Then, he really jumped down.
The mist rushed toward him, filled with an unprecedented aura that burned his heart:
“I didn’t go deep before because I didn’t know the truth. Now, with the Divine Map, how can I miss this opportunity!”
Guided by the Divine Map, Yu Ci quickly slid to a spot a hundred yards below the top of the valley, where the light was slightly dimmer. This was the deepest he had ventured while gathering herbs previously, but compared to the entire valley, this distance was meaningless!
The further he descended, the more novel and strange the world revealed by the Divine Map became, constantly challenging his imagination. The ever-changing, wondrous ecosystem captivated him, pulling him further down.
Unconsciously, he had descended ten miles. The journey was fraught with dangers, and upon reaching this point, Yu Ci finally found a platform to rest on temporarily and catch his breath.
As he delved deeper, the temperature in the Sky Rift Valley dropped rapidly, the chill penetrating to the bone, reminiscent of winter.
However, for Yu Ci, the most challenging aspect wasn’t the temperature but the disorienting sense of space. At his current position, all he could see in every direction was a vast expanse of mist, with only the cliff behind him for support. Staying in this environment for too long made him feel as if the world was turning upside down, or as if the ground had tilted. If he became too dazed, he might mistake the cliff for the ground and step into the bottomless abyss, shattering his body to pieces.
Fortunately, he had the Divine Map, which allowed him to monitor the changing scenes within it constantly, using this small world centered around himself to adjust his senses.
Additionally, the constant threat of fierce beasts and monstrous birds was a significant danger. For instance, the Blood Eagle that had just flown past him.
This big guy looked very familiar, likely the one he had observed through the Divine Map earlier. It seemed to have emerged victorious from its previous battle and had eaten its fill, flying arrogantly past the cliff, the wind from its blood-red wings almost blowing Yu Ci off.
Yu Ci wasn’t angry; instead, he used the Divine Map to interestingly observe the big bird’s flight trajectory. He planned to use his rest time to understand the habits of such creatures.
The Blood Eagle circled in the mist of the valley, but its flight altitude kept decreasing, from ten miles to twenty, and then to thirty, before climbing back up. Yu Ci realized that this twenty-mile vertical range was the primary habitat of the Blood Eagle.
He initially wanted to learn more in detail, but something else drew his attention away from the Blood Eagle.
It was a slope, located about twenty miles into the valley, a dark region three thousand feet deep.
The upper part of the slope was very steep, while the lower part was gentler, extending about a few dozen yards along the cliff. Yu Ci initially thought the Sky Rift Valley was narrowing here, but further exploration revealed that this was an isolated protrusion, with another bottomless abyss below.
There was no noticeable vegetation on the slope, which was expected, as it was hidden in thick fog all year round, never seeing sunlight. Apart from some mosses and fungi, it was hard for plants to survive. However, Yu Ci trusted the Divine Map and his eyes, clearly seeing that when the Blood Eagle flew past earlier, the wind it brought lifted countless fine, hair-like blades of grass.
Shrimp Whisker Grass!
It had to be Shrimp Whisker Grass. Though he didn’t understand how it could grow without trees, Yu Ci trusted his eyes and the Divine Map.
While Shrimp Whisker Grass wasn’t particularly crucial to him at the moment, it provided a clear objective. Energized, Yu Ci set the slope as his goal for today’s exploration and continued his climb.
This was no easy task. Not every cliff face in the Sky Rift Valley was suitable for climbing; some were as smooth as mirrors, where even the best climbing monkeys would fall to their deaths.
Thanks to the Divine Map, which captured the surrounding terrain, Yu Ci could avoid dangerous areas. Even so, it took him a full three hours to find a path to the slope. By the time he stepped onto the soft soil, it was completely dark.
The Sky Rift Valley was so vast that this seven or eight-acre diagonal land was merely an inconspicuous bump on the cliff face, not significant at all. And Yu Ci on this bump was even more negligible, like a tiny insect.
But this didn’t diminish Yu Ci’s significant discovery. The Divine Map was accurate, and his judgment was correct. This was indeed a unique herbal garden gifted by heaven for Shrimp Whisker Grass.
While there were no large trees, there was a remaining root system of a giant tree. The Divine Map clearly showed that the twisted roots were mostly buried in the soil and rock, spreading in all directions, even extending into the surrounding cliffs. Yu Ci couldn’t imagine how such a giant tree could grow in this place. If the tree with such roots had survived, it would have been a colossal entity!
For some reason, the tree had already broken, possibly having fallen into the deep valley. Most of the remaining roots were dead, but a small portion still survived, becoming a unique host, helping thousands of Shrimp Whisker Grass plants around it obtain nutrients.
This was why the Shrimp Whisker Grass existed here.
Having solved this minor mystery, Yu Ci was greeted with an even greater surprise. He had underestimated the number of Shrimp Whisker Grass plants due to overlooking the surrounding cliffs. By a rough estimate, there were at least two to three thousand plants around the slope, an astonishing number. These Shrimp Whisker Grass plants, combined with his current stock, were enough to exchange for four Three Yang Talisman Swords and still have leftovers.
The trade in Cliff City was bound to be a one-time deal, and Yu Ci wasn’t interested in a steady, long-term business. Excluding those in dangerously precarious positions, he planned to harvest all the Shrimp Whisker Grass around the slope.
Of course, that was a task for tomorrow.
****
When night fell, the Sky Rift Valley was enveloped in such thick darkness that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The dense fog obscured all light, making it difficult to see even a few feet ahead, even with night vision skills. Yu Ci didn’t want to meet his end by falling off a cliff right at the brink of a treasure trove, so he found a sheltered spot on the slope, sat down, and prepared to endure the long night.
This was Yu Ci’s first night in the Sky Rift Valley. After encountering fierce birds and beasts like the Blood Eagle, sleep or cultivation was out of the question. Bored, he opened the Divine Map to see what the Sky Rift Valley looked like at night.
At this moment, the Divine Map presented a nearly perfect hemispherical shape, with the hemisphere standing upright. The cliff behind him extended only a hundred feet, a shallow layer compared to the fifty-mile span of endless void, almost negligible.
The hemisphere’s color had also changed, influenced by the twilight, now appearing a dark grey with a faint blue glow. In the night, it wasn’t too conspicuous, saving Yu Ci the trouble of concealing its light.
Fifty miles… Wait, how could it be fifty miles? Yu Ci suddenly realized something was wrong.
He was currently at a depth of about twenty miles in the Sky Rift Valley. From there to the sky’s limit shown on the Divine Map, it was at most thirty miles. The map clearly showed the sky’s height hadn’t changed, so it was impossible for a complete hemisphere to appear.
The only explanation was that, for some reason, the range shown by the Divine Map had shrunk. The diameter he could now control was not fifty miles, but thirty miles. It was as if an invisible giant beast had swallowed the outer space.
Was it a natural decay of the Divine Map’s power, or was it related to the night? Yu Ci leaned towards the latter, but whether this was due to the unique environment of the Sky Rift Valley or a universal principle still needed time to verify.
For now, thirty miles was sufficient for Yu Ci’s needs.
He found that the Sky Rift Valley was much livelier at night than during the day. The number of creatures moving in the mist increased by at least fifty percent, with some giant beasts wandering in the deeper clouds, occasionally revealing parts of themselves, enough to make him hold his breath in awe.
Yu Ci had already subconsciously slowed his breathing. The Sky Rift Valley at night was more dangerous, more brutal, and more unpredictable. The beasts here seemed not to have the strong territorial sense found on the surface, constantly roaming around, leading to frequent clashes.
In the thirty-mile range Yu Ci could perceive, there had been three extremely fierce battles in just two hours, each ending in the gruesome death of one or even both parties. The scent of blood permeated the valley, mixing with the fog to form its unique smell.
While holding his breath, the fire in Yu Ci’s heart burned brighter. This was the world a cultivator should be exposed to—endless fierce beasts, ever-increasing power, the bloodiness of life and death clashes, and most importantly, the constant stimulation of new experiences. These things constantly refreshed his understanding, making every moment different from the last.
Yu Ci felt like a frog leaping out of a dried-up well, dizzy from the vastness of the outside world, overwhelmed by a sense of happiness.
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