Fighting the elements (part 6)

Yun Jhin looked through the spatial ring but was disappointed by what he found inside, it was a few herbs that were meant for those around the ki cultivating realm, it made sense that the heavenly realm guy would risk his life for them but Yun Jhin found it disappointing.

There weren't many things he could use in the spatial ring but he took what he could then he crushed the ring in his hand transforming it into ashes, the heartless body on the ground transformed into ashes as Yun Jhin glared at it.

There was no time to waste around the outer edges of the underwater palace, the palace had 3 parts, the outer edges, the inner palace, and the most dangerous Naga Nest, the Naga nest was full of aquatic beasts around the Sage Realm and there were even rumors of a God Realm beast hiding deep inside the palace, but it was slumbering 95% of the time.

Yun Jhin left the outer edges of the underwater palace and strode further inside, he would see people here and there fight fish-men and yakshas to harvest their internal organs or cores but Yun Jhin didn't need those, he needed two herbs: A dragon serpent lily, a toxic water lotus and lastly he would need something that wasn't a herb, it would be the purified salt from the inner palace.

Fish-men and other aquatic races create this type of purified salt with formations and store it inside the inner palace, it could be used for cultivation, body refining, and soul refining depending on its quality it could do all three at the same time.

Yun Jhin didn't need much time to find the dragon serpent lily and the toxic water lotus, he had to fight some aquatic monsters for them but he didn't even break a sweat even though they were around his cultivation base.

The further he went into the underwater palace the more cultivators he met, of course, he didn't show himself to them, the outer edges had few visitors as there weren't many around the heavenly realm that were courageous enough to venture into the danger zone. But the further inside the palace the higher the cultivation base, those with higher cultivation bases were bolder thus they thought they could conquer the danger zone.

A lot of young men and women died this way daily, Yun Jhin already saw around 10,20 people getting mauled to death by the aquatic monsters but he couldn't care less about them. What he wanted to do now was entered the inner palace and steal some high-quality purified salt.

Getting nearer to the palace meant more monsters, the underwater palace was considered the most dangerous zone due to it being filled with monsters even at its outer edges, most of the other danger zones had monsters that didn't have a cultivation base or wouldn't bother you if you didn't bother them, but the underwater palace monsters were extremely aggressive. There was also the fact that the underwater temple housed a lot of herbs that could be found easily compared to the other danger zones.

The earth danger zone was starting to show signs of being fully depleted of herbs due to it having almost no difficulty if you didn't enter the deeper zones.

However, the underwater palace won't have this problem even in 100,000 years or more at the rate it was going.

Yun Jhin approached the inner palace zone and cloaked himself using his stealth technique, becoming transparent, what he needed from here couldn't be easily taken as most of the salt urns were protected by a 5th stage King realm Yakshas.

But Yun Jhin could deal with them, after all, they only had a relatively average intelligence that could be easily abused by scheming humans.

Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he saw a few others trying to steal the salt, it seemed he had competition!

The group tried to distract the guard Yaksha but they were repelled in the end, then some reinforcements came and made a quick work of them, their plan wasn't bad but they didn't execute it properly.

Yun Jhin watched with interest as another group approached then did the same thing, however, this group got a bit of salt and two of them escaped compared to the other one which was fully annihilated.

While he watched he was also creating a formation that would paralyze the King Yaksha for a few minutes when he walked by him, after the formation was finished Yun Jhin slowly got near the yaksha and put the formation to action, but the Yaksha turned his fish nose into the air then stabbed directly to Yun Jhin's direction.

Yun Jhin frowned then he plastered the formation over the Yaksha making him unable to move, however, it seemed the Yaksha was angered as it tried to break from the formation, it wanted to shout for reinforcements but it couldn't, so Yun Jhin unceremoniously went to the salt urn and put it into his spatial ring!

Suddenly the Yaksha broke through the formation binding him and started to shriek like it was possessed, Yun Jhin didn't want to wait for anything to happen to him as he continued using his stealth and retreated.

The place was fully engulfed by Yakshas suddenly a fish-headed old looking man came and berated the Yaksha then he ate him in one gulp!

Yun Jhin observed what happened before he started running away, he didn't want to become the next meal for the old Fishman.

Yun Jhin wasn't sure how the Fishman knew where he was located, it might have been his innate talent that let him do that but fortunately for him, he had already had the formation ready, even though it didn't last as much as he wanted to.

Yun Jhin frowned as he looked behind him, he felt someone was following him!

But it couldn't be possible, he was in his stealth technique, up till now he didn't find anyone capable of seeing through his stealth technique, but there were always exceptions.

Yun Jhin kept swimming at high speeds but the one that was on his steps didn't let up as he ran after him and caught up with him.

It was an average looking man that looked to be around 26 years old, he had black shaggy hair and wore a martial artist outfit that consisted of a white gi and pants with a black belt that kept them on. He was barefoot, Yun Jhin took a better look at his face and he realized that the man had no eyes! Both of them were empty sockets.

Yun Jhin frowned, there was one way to counter his stealth technique and that was having an extremely enhanced sense of hearing, however, this type of trait was extremely rare as you would have to be born with it, and it also couldn't be stolen like constitutions and bloodline, it was bound to the soul and even if the soul of the one that had it was refined one wouldn't be able to steal it.

Yun Jhin only found 3 people who were born this way in his previous life, all of them died at his hands and became his puppets.

The man ears moved but Yun Jhin didn't move nor breath as he stood motionlessly, the man smiled as he said:

"This friend, I have heard what happened with the Yakshas, wouldn't you mind to share some of the salt you got with me? After all, you took the whole urn."

Yun Jhin was right the man was one of those very rare with enhanced hearing, he even heard him picking up the urn, even though his stealth technique minimized sound to it being almost unintelligible if heard, even if someone truly heard something they would dismiss it as they wouldn't be able to see it, most people thought that what they couldn't see wasn't real this didn't apply to most cultivators but they could become careless as cultivators were extremely reliant on their senses as they trained them to their peak if they couldn't hear something they would try to see it if they couldn't either they would try to smell it, touch it and some even tasted the air to try and find opponents in stealth.

Yun Jhin frowned, the man suddenly appeared near him as he grabbed him by the arm and threw him down, then he mounted Yun Jhin and put his arm behind his back as he pushed his head into the marble ground of the underwater temple and said:

"Trying to be silent, are you? The thing is you can't silence your heartbeat no matter how much you try to!"

Yun Jhin tried his best to stop his heartbeat but he couldn't, his stealth technique didn't let him do that yet, in the end, he was restricted by his cultivation base.

Yun Jhin frowned as he tried to get up from the ground but he realized that he was bound tightly by the man, it seemed his physical strength was above his!

This could mean only one thing, the man had cultivated his body and was of a higher cultivation base than Yun Jhin.

Cultivating the body was the art that scaled along with the ki cultivation of the user if someone strengthened their body to a certain rank then increased their ki cultivation their bodily strength would increase again along with their recovery abilities, there were no demerits to cultivating the body besides taking a long time and resources, Yun Jhin was fortunate enough to be able to get that heart of the natural spirit, but if he evolved his body again his bodily rank would reset and he would have to strengthen his body again.

Yun Jhin struggled to get up from the stranger's grip but he just couldn't the man must be atleast at the 5th stage or above.

The unknown man fondled Yun Jhin here and there seemingly looking for something before he went towards his hand and took off his spatial ring, Yun Jhin frowned but atleast there wasn't anything important in the spatial ring beside the salt, he didn't have time to put the salt into his secret spatial bag, but everything else was already inside.

The man bowed to Yun Jhin then said:

"I shall thank you in advance for getting me this salt, after all, such a blind man like myself would have a hard time to take it myself, I shall hear you later, we can be friends when we meet again!"

The man started running in the wrong direction then he rotated and started to run in the exit's direction.

Yun Jhin got up from the ground and frowned while he checked his body for any tracking formations or anything else that the man could have inserted while he incapacitated him.

Yun Jhin realized that there was nothing else inside his body but his mood was extremely sour due to this random eye-less man stealing his salt, he thought that he would only have to wait for a few more days before the formation core inside him dissipated so he could leave back to the Empire but it seemed he wasn't that lucky.

Yun Jhin frowned as he walked back into the inner palace but he realized that there were no more salt urns around, the one he took was the last in the inner palace! This was extremely unlucky for him!

It seemed the other urns were stolen some time ago and only the cannon fodder remained to try and take the last urn which had the worst quality of salt, that was why so many dumb cultivators threw themselves to death for the urn, only the dumb ones remained as the smart ones already took whatever they could!

Yun Jhin was extremely angry right now but there wasn't much he could do besides going inside the Naga region and betting his life on taking some salt from there.

Or he could just go back to the Empire and hope the Emperor had some salt inside his treasury which he would unceremoniously give him due to his successful training.

Yun Jhin was a careful man, careful to the point bold ones would call him a coward, but his 'cowardly' attitude let him live to the utmost in his last life, while he was weak he would act cowardly but if he was strong he would act like he was god, he was that type of guy who would fear the strong and bully the weak.

So he didn't want to throw away his life as there was a chance of not even getting the salt in the Naga region, he decided to wait it out then return to the Empire and ask for the salt from the Emperor. Even though it was a shameless thing to do Yun Jhin didn't mind being shameless.