With the path ahead clear of ghosts, and the terrain free of all obstructions, I pressed the accelerator and surged forward with maximum speed. Which of course was incredibly faster than regular pods.
With this power, I was able to cross vast distances in no time and was able to even ignore and bypass a few cultivators who seemed pretty happy about the ghosts disappearing from the area.
Not that it was going to last for a long time. My divine sense range isn't as great as to cover the whole ghostly region, so once the fogless area is over, they'll be forced to slow down again.
And it came soon.
Once again I entered through the fog, however, for some reason not a single ghost came at me. They were terrified because they seem to know what had happened.
I moved undisturbed, using my divine sense to scan the area, and continued moving about.
Still, a few ghosts, thinking that they were strong enough to invade my consciousness tried to take a bite off of me. Only to end up captured and transformed into Nascent Soul food.
A few hours later, I managed to arrive at the second city, Blue Dusk City.
Once I arrived, I was stopped from immediately leaving.
"Wait, take this," one of the cultivators who handed the flags gave me a small ring.
"Use that well, good luck," he said.
I took the ring and inspected it. It had several pills in it, all of them were poison repelling pills. For me, these were poison, and among the pills was a map.
"Thank you," I said.
I didn't need this, none of it was helpful to me.
So I just headed out fast.
I had to replace the Top Grade Spirit stone and moved ahead. Though I checked the map for information, only to realize that if I were to follow the 'safest' path on it, it'll only take far longer for me to get to the last blue city, Baleful Swamps City.
So, I went ahead and drove off into the distance.
The baleful swamp area was a bit far ahead but you could easily 'sense' it the closer you approach. Trees seemed to be becoming scarcer and scarcer the further I moved forward, and even among the many cultivators who were moving about, I was still carefully navigating through.
I needed to make sure of something before I would use maximum speed.
Soon, there were no more hanging trees, and it became all swats of swamps and disgusting smelling rancid water pools. The stench was one thing, the worst was the creatures. Frogs and snakes were normal in any swamp, but not these.
Frogs and toads the size of elephants moved about as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And before I could even notice, the wind exploded as one of the cultivators ahead had his pod completely shattered, as a massive tongue snapped around his pod, crushing it along with his body.
The blood from the cultivator painted the pod red, as the tongue retracted into the gullet of a Toad.
The creature leisurely croaked after it had swallowed the cultivator in an instant. This was pretty dangerous. The creature here are stupidly strong.
The test made sure to make the pods faster than any creature in the test, but not faster than their attacks. The toads here were the first real test, and everyone needed to be wary about their fast tongues.
I rushed ahead, making sure to have my divine sense spread out. Only to find out that another danger was soon to present itself in front of me.
A salamander came out from the bottom of a rancid pool, it too was also as big as the frogs, it opened its mouth and let loose a thick poisonous fog towards me and a few other cultivators.
I immediately realized what type of breath this was, it was a paralyzing smoke, once inhaled or interacted with, it'll cause the cultivator to have their body freeze up.
A few slow cultivators immediately crashed after being in contact with the poison, only to have the salamander gobble up their pods whole.
I and a few other cultivators weren't affected. Mainly because I was impervious to such poisons, while they had already eaten a pill from the ring handed to them.
I continued moving, making sure to avoid the 'gaze' of the toads. Because the salamanders weren't a problem for me, the toads were.
I avoided a few tongues coming my way with the skin of my teeth, just because I decided to pivot away the moment I came in contact with any of the frogs' sight.
And my judgment was correct, my immediate reaction helped me dodge their tongues as I avoided them before they even were released.
And I continued doing so, while many cultivators fell prey to these creatures.
And guess what, this area was considered safe.
Soon after my continuous dodges of death, I arrived at a point where I had to make a choice.
Take the right path or the left.
The left is more or less safe and safe as it's full of these frogs and salamanders. The right one is a 'dead' zone as the map says.
Going there is probably dead. Yet, the right side was faster as it was a direct line towards the next city.
While the other path needed me to do a long half-circle before reaching it.
I took the shortcut. And I wasn't the only one who did so, many cultivators were moving ahead of me deciding to risk it all and get to the next city faster.
I moved rapidly through the dangerous swamps and soon came to the realization of why this place was dangerous.
In the distance, there was a great valley that I needed to cross, and from the depth of the valley came a screech so loud that it caused the souls of any cultivator to shake when heard.
A magnificent, majestic, and extremely huge scorpion was nestled, with all six legs implanted on the walls of the great valley.
Any cultivator that wanted to go through the valley had to go past this scorpion.
And it wasn't easy.
I could feel it, many cultivators had actually decided to stop and wait, for someone brave or stupid to go beyond the valley, but they couldn't wait for long.
I approached the group and stopped, noticing that among the cultivator was the same woman from before.
"Yo," I said.
Once she turned to look at me, she had a surprised look on her face, "How the hell did you survive that? You're not possessed are you?" she asked with a mix of concern and astonishment.
"Fairy Yu, do you know this man?" one of the cultivators asked.
"No, but I have to admit his recklessness saved me, so I owe him," she said.
"You don't owe me anything, it was just a coincidence that what I did ended up helping you, I didn't intend it," I said.
I didn't want to mix in with these people, it seems that they were from the same sect as they wore the same robes. But introducing myself to their 'beauty' is a cliché among clichés which will only bring me trouble.
"Nevertheless, it was thanks to you that I survived, I don't like being owed, here," she said as she handed me a ring.
I looked through it and realized that it had half of the anti-poison pills. If I didn't know better I'd say she want me to die. I can't use these.
I smiled, "Thank you, but these are useless to me," I threw them back.
"You! You dare reject lady Yu's favor! Do you want to die!" the same cultivator who was fawning over her said.
I scoffed at his blatant attempt at making me look like the bad guy and said, "I don't like picking up and collecting trash," I said.
"Trash?!" the man's eyes almost popped out. "You call the lady's favor trash! Anyone would be thankful to have more Anti-Poison pills in this god-forsaken land, she gave you some of her own pills only to call her favor trash! Do you want to die!" he said.
I grinned at his face and decided not to answer back, the best way to deal with these people was to ignore them. make them 'mald'. (It's a trendy term, not a real word, meaning-making someone rages almost 'malding' from wrath)
"You guys look like you're stuck and can't move," I said as I placed my hand over my hand as if trying to squeeze a look towards the scorpion.
"You!" the man said.
"Stop," Yu spoke.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"I don't tell my name to strangers," I said.
She frowned at me and said, "My name is Yu Liang," she said.
"Mine is Shen Bao, an interesting name you have, Bright Smile, good name, but you seem to be frowning more than smiling," I said.
"There is nothing to smile about in this situation," she said.
"True, you're stuck and can't move forward, and going back to take the longer path is even worse since it will only take longer to get to the end zone."
"What would you know," the same pesky cultivator spoke, "If you want to go back no one is stopping you, leave," he said shooing me away with his hand.
"I don't like the sound of barking dogs who can't do shit," I said.
"Anyway, I'm going on ahead," I said.
"Wait, you can't go, that thing will kill you, it's a Third Rank tier beast, unless you're a half step ascendant you can't beat it," she said.
"Just leave him fairy Yu, he's just talking shit," the cultivator next to her said.
"There is no need to waste your life there, Shen Bao," she said.
"Who said I'll waste my life, I can easily go past it," I said.
"Stop boasting! If you really have the ability then show us, words mean nothing," the same cultivator spoke again.
And he was starting to get on my nerves.
"How about we make a bet?" I asked.
