Chapter 42: The Beast Tamer’s Grand Formation

“Young Master Lu, what exactly did you do?”

Having left the Drunken Immortal Pavilion, Long Xiwei finally voiced the confusion that had been gnawing at her.

Lu Jin laughed. “Honestly, I have no idea. I simply tested my mental power; I didn’t expect them to react like that.”

“Do you know who that old man was?” Long Xiwei asked.

“He called himself the Tower Lord,” Lu Jin replied. “Who knows if he was just an impostor?”

Long Xiwei was speechless. Who would be bored or suicidal enough to impersonate the Lord of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion? She looked at Lu Jin and shook her head slowly, her gaze heavy with meaning. “I couldn’t tell before, but you are actually an alchemist!”

Lu Jin shook his head in return. “I am completely clueless when it comes to alchemy.”

“…” Long Xiwei paused for a long moment. “Fine. Everyone has their secrets. Since you don’t want to talk about it, I will respect that.”

Lu Jin frowned. “I’m telling the truth; I’m truly clueless.”

Long Xiwei remained silent. Sure, you’re clueless! You’re so clueless that the Tower Lord himself came down to flatter you! You’re so clueless that a group of powerhouses treated you with such reverence and escorted you out! You’re so clueless that you saved twenty thousand Spirit Stones in a heartbeat…

She curled her lip and then asked: “Then… did the Lord tell you anything about the Huangque Pharmacist?”

Lu Jin nodded and pulled out the Wandering Spirit Map. “He said the pharmacist is at this location.”

Gulp.

Lu Jin clearly heard the sound of Long Xiwei swallowing hard. “This is… the Wandering Spirit Map!” Her eyes were filled with disbelief as she stared at the map in his hand. “That Tower Lord, Feng Mengdao, actually gave you the Wandering Spirit Map?”

Lu Jin didn’t understand the significance of the map, but from her reaction, he gathered it was a precious treasure. He nodded. “He insisted on giving it to me; I couldn’t exactly say no…”

Long Xiwei was rendered speechless for the third time. “Do you have any idea how valuable this map is to the Drunken Immortal Pavilion?”

Lu Jin shook his head with an innocent expression. No matter how valuable it was, it was a gift; he hadn’t asked for it.

“This map is imbued with the marks of a group of wandering spirits on Xianwu Island,” she explained. “Those spiritual creatures roam the island and gather intelligence from every corner, projecting it onto this map. This is a supreme treasure of the Tower Lord!”

Lu Jin was startled, then smiled with satisfaction. “It seems that Lord Feng really bared his heart to me.”

Long Xiwei shook her head. For some reason, Lu Jin always gave her a feeling of being unfathomable: it seemed her guesses about him were only scratching the surface.

“Since we have the map, let’s follow this route,” Long Xiwei said, her eyes darkening slightly. “However, those guys from the Song family are still following us. Should we lose them?”

Lu Jin nodded with a smile. As for the several other auras lingering further behind the Song family, he chose not to mention them. Whatever their purpose was, he didn’t care: as long as he got the antidote, everything else was secondary.

“Let’s go. I’ll think of something up ahead.”

Long Xiwei nodded to Lu Jin, and the two continued to weave through the towering ancient trees. After traveling for a while, Lu Jin suddenly asked, “Miss Long, it seems there’s a pack of demonic beasts blocking the way. Should we take a detour?”

Long Xiwei laughed. “They are exactly what I was looking for. Follow me.” She accelerated toward the beasts’ location.

“Alright.” Lu Jin followed closely. The strengths of these beasts varied, but the most powerful one was comparable to a third-grade Jindan.

When they drew close to the pack, Long Xiwei’s lips parted slightly as a paper talisman flew from her hand. As she spoke, the talisman ignited and vanished into ash. Then, Lu Jin heard a string of words he couldn’t understand flowing from her lips.

Beast Speech? He raised an eyebrow, surprised by this peculiar technique.

Sure enough, as her voice rang out, the blood-red glint in the eyes of the predatory beasts quickly faded. They slowly stood up and cleared a path through the center, seemingly allowing the two to pass!

“Let’s go!” Long Xiwei called out. They moved through the middle of the beasts. As soon as they were through, Lu Jin noticed the red hue returning to the monsters’ eyes: it was even deeper than before, filled with a bloodthirsty light. However, their predatory glares were directed squarely at the path behind them.

Specifically, at the path Song Wen and his group were taking!

“A masterfully executed move, Miss Long!” Lu Jin praised with a laugh.

Long Xiwei’s face flushed slightly as she waved him off. “It’s just a small trick. It likely won’t hold them for long; those three elders are much stronger than these beasts. We need to hurry. They are also looking for the Huangque Pharmacist; we must get there first. If they find him first, who knows what kind of trouble they will cause us!”

“Miss Long considers everything. Let’s move.” Lu Jin nodded. They increased their speed, heading deeper into Xianwu Island.

Before they had gone far, a series of roars, clashes of weapons, and even curses erupted from the area the beasts were guarding. It was a scene of chaos.

Xianwu Island was massive, with countless smaller islands scattered around it like stars. The terrain was peculiar: a crisscrossing landscape of marshes, lakes, and ravines. Even with the guidance of the Wandering Spirit Map, Lu Jin couldn’t help but marvel at the complexity of the place.

After navigating the difficult environment for quite some time, they finally arrived at the location indicated on the map.

“We’re finally here. However, the aura here… it feels wrong.”

A vast area of overgrown wild grass appeared before them. Within that grass, countless shattered rocks were piled into various sculpture-like shapes, arranged in an irregular, mysterious pattern.

“This is different from what I expected,” Lu Jin muttered, raising an eyebrow. “Is the Huangque Pharmacist really living in an environment like this?”

“This looks like the handiwork of a Beast Tamer,” Long Xiwei whispered, her brow knitting. “These stones are part of a specialized formation. They are useless against humans, but they possess a lethal controlling force over demonic beasts!”

As a Monster Hunter, she was quite familiar with such things.

“Could the pharmacist be a Beast Tamer?”

“No. The Beast Tamer is someone else…” Long Xiwei scanned the area, her gaze finally locking onto a certain position within the overgrown fields. “I didn’t expect it… There are thousands of demonic beasts hidden here!”

Hearing this, Lu Jin’s mental power spread out. He detected many tangled auras, but in a place like this, the demonic Qi should have been overwhelming; instead, it seemed to be entirely suppressed by a mysterious force.

“This is a Super Formation built by a Beast Tamer! A formation of this scale must have taken several years to complete!”

Long Xiwei seemed to have discovered something; shock was written all over her face. She pointed toward a spot ahead. “There… that is the only Gate of Life in the formation. Every other path is a Gate of Death!”

Lu Jin looked in the direction she pointed and suddenly realized that only at that Gate of Life was there the presence of human cultivators.

“A region of several miles is sealed by a grand formation, and the only Gate of Life is guarded by humans,” Lu Jin mused. “It seems they are trying to catch something difficult? But… what exactly requires several years of preparation to capture?”