Sage of Humanity-Chapter 455 453 Cloud River Level 2 Realm

After such back and forth, more than half the night had passed, and Lu Ye hesitated about whether he should simply stay at the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union for the night, when suddenly, there was a message from his battlefield marking.

Lu Ye checked it; it was a transmission from Shen Xiaomao, her tone very urgent, "Come back quickly, the spirit ground is in danger!"

Lu Ye hurriedly responded, but there was no more response from Shen Xiaomao's side.

Realizing something was amiss, he quickly left the mercantile union, summoned his spirit ark, and soared into the sky.

Only after one incense stick's time did Shen Xiaomao finally send another message. After briefly exchanging a few words with her, Lu Ye roughly understood the situation, and his heart was full of astonishment, never having expected things to turn out this way.

He raced all the way.

By the time dawn approached, he arrived at the agreed meeting spot with Shen Xiaomao. He descended but did not see any trace of Shen Xiaomao.

He sent a message, but there was no reply.

As he searched around, he saw a few drops of blood on the leaves of a nearby tree, and Lu Ye's brow furrowed, realizing that Shen Xiaomao's circumstances might not be good.

Just when Lu Ye did not know where to search for the woman, Amber, perched on his shoulder, suddenly jumped down and walked with light steps in a certain direction.

Lu Ye hastily followed.

After a moment, in front of a dark cave, Amber paused and gave a sound toward the inside. Lu Ye crouched down and entered, going all the way to the back. The strong smell of blood immediately hit his nose, and at the bottom of the cave, a seductive figure lay in a pool of blood, her complexion pale, breathing faint.

If it wasn't Shen Xiaomao, then who could it be? No wonder there was no response when he tried contacting her earlier.

The woman's injuries seemed severe, and she appeared to have already entered a coma.

Even in a coma, she could sense someone approaching; her brows wrinkled slightly, as if wanting to open her eyes, but her consciousness struggled to awaken, her expression pained.

Lu Ye's expression was solemn as he briefly examined Shen Xiaomao's injuries and found them indeed severe. If left unattended, it was very likely she would die here.

He took some healing items from his storage space and called out, "Yiyi, help her heal."

"Okay," Yiyi flashed out from within Amber and got busy.

Lu Ye then exited the cave, starting to set up a formation around it.

The events of this night were too unexpected; he had not thought that just by leaving the spirit ground for a trip, the ownership of the spirit ground would change hands and Shen Xiaomao would suffer severe injuries. Had this woman not been vigilant enough, she might now be nothing more than a corpse.

From the brief communication he had with her earlier, Lu Ye roughly knew the situation, but he hadn't had the chance to ask about the details, so it seemed he could only wait for her to awaken to discuss it.

What puzzled him more was how someone had circumvented the constraints of the Heaven's Augury Pact.

Could there be a loophole in the Heaven's Augury Pact?

After setting up a simple alert and Concealment Array, Lu Ye sat cross-legged at the cave entrance, took out the Heaven's Augury Pact, and investigated it closely, line by line. But after much scrutiny, he found no exploitable aspect of this Heaven's Augury Pact. The many clauses on this pact, listed by Shen Xiaomao, revealed her meticulous nature; the clauses echoed each other, systematically organized with clear logic, completely eliminating the possibility of exploitation.

He was somewhat baffled!

However, through this ordeal, Lu Ye had indeed witnessed the maliciousness of human hearts, something he had not experienced on the Spirit Stream battlefield. On the Spirit Stream battlefield, there was more straightforward combat, with not much scheming or trickery.

Yiyi walked out of the cave.

"Will she survive?" Lu Ye asked as he put away the Heaven's Augury Pact.

"There shouldn't be any problems, but with such injuries, she will need at least ten days to half a month to recover."

"As long as she lives," Lu Ye nodded.

With the sky already bright, Lu Ye had a little to eat, then took out a white spirit fortune stick and forcefully snapped it.

No matter what, the urgent priority was still to enhance his own cultivation!

One by one, the spirit fortune sticks were consumed, until Lu Ye had exhausted all the white spirit fortune sticks and also used a green spirit fortune stick. Suddenly, the river of spirit force within his body shook as if it had broken some kind of shackle, its scale expanded significantly, and even the speed at which the spirit force flowed became faster!

Lu Ye felt thoroughly relaxed.

Honestly, the cultivation in the Cloud River Realm was never easy, because the entire process in the Cloud River Realm involved expanding the volume of the river of spirit force inside the body. Therefore, in the leap from quantitative to qualitative change in one's personal accumulation, the river of spirit force always imparted a tense feeling of reaching a limit.

Until now, with this breakthrough, that tense feeling suddenly vanished.

But this state was destined not to last long, because as Lu Ye continued his cultivation, that feeling of being stretched to the limit was sure to reappear, until he broke through the next restriction.

Cloud River Level 2!

Lu Ye had never experienced such a swift advancement rate since he began his cultivation!

Even when he was at the Spirit Stream Realm, breaking through a minor level typically took an average of two or three months, and often it took about three months.

But since his promotion to Cloud River, how much time had passed?

Only half a month!

Advancing one level in just half a month, if he could maintain this speed, he wouldn't need even half a year to reach Cloud River Level 9.

Of course, this was unrealistic. The reason he could cultivate so quickly now was mainly due to the power of the spirit fortune sticks, which greatly accelerated the cultivation speed of cultivators. Additionally, Lu Ye's cultivation didn't demand much from nature's spiritual energy. He primarily relied on consuming elixir pills, thus enabling the miracle of advancing one level in half a month.

He still had one purple spirit fortune stick, two blue ones, and five green ones, which could allow him to continue advancing at Cloud River Level 2, though it probably wouldn't be enough to reach Level 3.

In the thrill of cultivation, Lu Ye naturally pushed on relentlessly.

Time flew, and three days later, Shen Xiaomao barely recovered. Although her injuries had not fully healed, at least there was no risk to her life, and she could speak.

All of the spirit fortune sticks Lu Ye held were completely consumed. His cultivation had not broken through further, but he had made significant progress within Cloud River Level 2, saving him a lot of cultivation time.

In the depths of the cave, Lu Ye sat in front of Shen Xiaomao. She hung her head, and because the cave was dim, Lu Ye didn't notice that Shen Xiaomao's face was flushed.

There was no other reason; her clothes had been changed, and many areas had been carefully bandaged, especially some crucial parts. Shen Xiaomao naturally assumed that Lu Ye was responsible...

She couldn't really blame him; after all, he was saving her life!

She tried to convince herself. Cultivators of the path should not be concerned with these minor issues, but she couldn't help thinking about some matters.

Lu Ye held a bowl of water in his hand and fed Shen Xiaomao a few sips before handing her a piece of dried meat which she slowly chewed and swallowed.

After a long time, Lu Ye finally spoke, "Tell me, what happened?"

Recalling the events of that night, Shen Xiaomao gritted her teeth and said, "Ruan Qingzhu had premeditated this!"

That night, while Lu Ye was at the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union participating in the spirit fortune stick auction and had communicated with Shen Xiaomao, nothing had happened yet. But in the middle of the night, while Shen Xiaomao was cultivating, she suddenly noticed something amiss. Before she could investigate, two strangers burst into her room. Both were strong, and in a fierce fight, Shen Xiaomao, outmatched, fought against two, sustaining serious injuries and fleeing. As she left, concerned for Ruan Qingzhu's safety, she tried to call her to flee together, only to find the woman standing outside, silently watching her. Besides Ruan Qingzhu, there was another figure.

Eventually, Shen Xiaomao was chased by three people. If not for a life-saving item she carried, she would likely have perished then.

After escaping here and concealing her tracks, she sent a message to Lu Ye and then passed out. When she awoke, her injuries had been treated, and she saw Lu Ye.

It was now clear that Ruan Qingzhu was in league with those three strangers. Bound by the conditions of the Heaven's Augury Pact, Ruan Qingzhu was merely a spectator at the time and could not strike Shen Xiaomao personally.

Those three people were let in by Ruan Qingzhu because she was on duty in the middle of the night, holding the jade cluster for the big array. Otherwise, with the many formations Lu Ye had left behind, those three couldn't have stealthily infiltrated.

"What I can't figure out is how Ruan Qingzhu avoided the constraints of the Heaven's Augury Pact to connect with those three men."

The Heaven's Augury Pact specifically included a clause that forbade revealing the existence and location of the spirit ground in private, yet Ruan Qingzhu had managed to bypass this clause to call over three helpers.

Throughout these days of cultivation, Lu Ye had also been considering this question and finally figured out one possibility.

"You're right that she had premeditated," Lu Ye said, "After signing the Heaven's Augury Pact, she indeed couldn't reveal the existence and location of the spirit ground privately, but what if she disclosed it before signing the Heaven's Augury Pact?"

Shen Xiaomao was startled, "You mean to say..."

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"Thinking back to the first day we met her, she held her hands in front of her abdomen, tucked into her sleeves. Perhaps at that moment, she had already used the battlefield marking to send a message. The reason they waited so many days before making a move was merely to wait for a suitable opportunity, and my departure from the spirit ground was the perfect chance!"

In Ruan Qingzhu's perception, as an adept array cultivator, Lu Ye had set up numerous formations in the spirit ground. Naturally, the power of those formations would decline significantly without him, so those people just needed to deal with Shen Xiaomao alone.

Their plan was perfect, and if they hadn't underestimated Shen Xiaomao's resourcefulness, Lu Ye might have encountered just a corpse at this moment.

"What deep scheming!" Shen Xiaomao was inwardly shocked, recalling her interactions with Ruan Qingzhu over the past few days. The latter had affectionately called her 'sister' and never showed any signs of malice, making Shen Xiaomao even more apprehensive.

Not to mention Lu Ye, who had only recently arrived at the Cloud River battlefield, even Shen Xiaomao, who had been involved in the Cloud River battlefield for some time, had never seen such malicious intent.

Through her actions, Ruan Qingzhu had thoroughly taught them a lesson.