Except for the few people who were responsible for setting up the formation, the other Song family cultivators by the pond were more or less injured. At this moment, they each chose a place by the pond and used healing pills to slowly recover from their injuries.
Song Qingming, the Great Elder Song Gubai, and the Twelfth Aunt Song Changyun were not injured. At this moment, the three of them were collecting materials from the remaining monsters by the pond.
In this battle, a cultivator from the Liu family was also killed. An elderly cultivator collected the body of this clan member and was about to ask the clan leader how to deal with it, but he found that he had been looking for his clan leader for a long time but could not find him. The few cultivators from the Liu family who knew about the situation hurriedly pulled the old man aside.
Like the Song family, the Wu family was lucky. No cultivators were killed, only one family member was seriously injured, and the others were only slightly injured. They made a lot of money by taking on this mission. The family leader Wu Xiyun was smiling and urging the Wu family members to collect monster materials quickly.
Du Shaokang, the leader of the Du family, was not as relaxed as Wu Xiyun. Although the cultivator who died in the battle of the Du family was not at a high level of cultivation, he was a close junior of the Du family head. He didn't want to die here accidentally. Although so many family members saw it at the scene and could testify for him, the family head was a protective person. This time, he, the leader of the team, would inevitably be blamed when he returned. When he thought of this, he couldn't relax his frown.
The Liu family offered a generous reward for this mission. Each family received two hundred spirit stones. In addition to the first-level monster materials shared by the three families, each family also received an additional monster material worth about one hundred and fifty spirit stones. If no clansmen were killed, this trip would be equivalent to the family's annual income.
High returns also mean high risks. Except for young cultivators like Song Qingming who are going out for the first time, everyone else has long been accustomed to such a bloody battlefield.
Just when everyone was about to collect the remaining monster materials, several bubbles suddenly appeared in the center of the pool. Liu Tianlong, with a pale face, jumped out of the pool and shouted at the Liu family cultivators beside the pool while running.
"Run, there's a level 2 monster down there!"
The pool was extremely calm just now, but after Liu Tianlong jumped out, a huge black vortex suddenly appeared. Several people with lower cultivation levels near the pool were instantly sucked into the vortex.
When Song Gubai saw that something was wrong, he quickly pulled Song Changyun, who was closest to him, and jumped to the shore.
When everyone escaped from the pool and looked back, they saw that the black vortex was getting larger and larger, and suddenly disappeared into the pool. Not long after, a huge black head slowly emerged from the water in the middle of the pool, opened a pair of big blood-red eyes and stared at the people on the shore.
"This is a black-feathered python, everyone run!"
As soon as Wu Xiyun saw the huge head, he immediately recognized the origin of the monster and quickly fled with the Wu family without looking back.
This black-feathered python came from the depths of the Floating Cloud Mountains. It was a second-level, intermediate-grade demon beast. It arrived at this pond two years ago, occupied the cave that originally belonged to the silver-armored crab, and ate many of its kind. The silver-armored crab could not defeat this demon python, so it could only swallow its anger and exchange for another cave in the pond.
The Liu family would send people to investigate the pond every six months, but they did not dare to go deep into the pond and never noticed any changes at the bottom of the pond.
The black-feathered python practiced on the water veins at the bottom of the pool all day long, hoping to break through to the late stage of foundation building and then devour the water spirit fruits from the water spirit fruit tree to help itself advance. However, Liu Tianlong and the other two intervened and picked the water spirit fruits in advance. Now it was furious and finally rushed out of the pool, showing its sharp fangs to the cultivators on the shore.
The cultivators on the shore were also shocked when they heard the name of the Black-Winged Python. Seeing that the monster was already in the middle stage of Foundation Establishment, they no longer had the courage to fight. Soon, led by the cultivator of the Wu family, they scattered like frightened birds and ran in all directions.
The black-feathered python roared angrily, flew out of the pool, and danced its huge body, chasing after the Liu family cultivator in front.
——
Song Qingming only felt that he and the corpse of the monster under him were instantly sucked into the center of the whirlpool by a huge force, and instantly sank to the bottom of the pool along with the water flow.
After a period of darkness, Song Qingming felt as if he had fallen into a cave at the bottom of a pool. He took out a fist-sized night pearl from his storage bag. With the faint light of the night pearl, Song Qingming found himself sitting in an underwater cave.
The night-shining pearl is just an ordinary object in the mortal world. Although such a large night-shining pearl would be a priceless treasure in a secular town, it is just a fun item in the hands of a cultivator. When Song Qingming was setting up a stall in Caolu Mountain, he only used a low-grade talisman to exchange this item from an elderly cultivator in the middle level of Qi Refining.
With the help of the bright light emitted by the night pearl, Song Qingming used a water-avoidance spell to isolate the water on his body. When he was about to get up, he felt a pain in his abdomen. It seemed that several bones were broken. He checked other parts of his body and found that he had some injuries all over his body. He quickly poured out a few hemostatic pills and swallowed them.
Looking at the dark cave entrance ahead, with piles of monster corpses beside him, Song Qingming couldn't help but feel a little scared. He felt like he had been dragged into the cave by some monster. Before being sucked into the whirlpool, he clearly heard Liu Tianlong's shouts. It seemed that there was still a monster under the water, and the place in front of the cave might be the monster's lair.
I have to leave here quickly and find a place to heal my wounds and restore my spiritual power, otherwise my life will be in danger when the monster comes back.
After walking more than ten feet towards the cave exit, Song Qingming quickly walked out of the cave and came to the bottom of the pool. Fortunately, the monsters in the pool had been basically killed by everyone before. Otherwise, even if a mid-level monster came into the water, Song Qingming would be afraid that he would have no way to escape.
After carefully checking the surroundings and finding no danger, Song Qingming left the cave and swam above the pool. Just as he swam a few feet away, his eyes were attracted by a few spiritual herbs on a nearby reef.
Song Qingming swam over and saw that these seemed to be several first-level Xuanyou flowers, which looked to be about fifty or sixty years old. These spiritual herbs could be exchanged for at least seven or eight spirit stones in the market. He looked around and saw that there was no movement, so he happily stepped on these herbs and put them into his storage bag.
Just as I was about to leave, I found a beautiful red bag hanging on the other side of the reef.
"This looks like a storage bag."
Song Qingming picked up the red bag and looked at it carefully. It was indeed a storage bag of a cultivator. However, most cultivators' storage bags were restricted, and he was unable to open the bag now. He didn't know who left it here, but he was sure that this storage bag definitely did not belong to anyone in the Song family, because the storage bags used by all the cultivators of the Song family, including himself, were all of the same green-yellow color.
"It must be some unlucky monk like me who was just swept into the pond and fell here."
Song Qingming looked at the style of the storage bag, which seemed to be of higher quality than the low-level storage bags he used.
The storage bag that Song Qingming has always used is the one he received from the family's gold storage pavilion when he broke through to the middle stage of Qi Refining. This low-level storage bag has limited space, and the inside is only three feet in radius. The storage bag in his hand now should be a high-grade storage bag, and the space inside is several times larger, with a radius of six feet.
If someone came to question him after he went up, he would definitely hand it over voluntarily. If that person had already died in the pool, he would naturally deny it. The pool was full of dangers and unknown monsters. It was normal for the storage bag to be swallowed up in one gulp. They might not dare to go down to look for it. A storage bag like this could be sold for at least a hundred spirit stones in the market. Even if the storage bag was empty, it was worth taking the risk.
He had worked hard for two years selling talismans, but had only saved more than a hundred spirit stones. The value of this storage bag was equivalent to what he had earned from making talismans day and night for two years.
Song Qingming looked around carefully to make sure there was no one around. He quietly put away his storage bag and swam quickly to the top of the pool.
When they jumped out of the pool, they saw the shore in a mess, but there was no one in sight. There was only a pile of monster materials that they had not had time to collect, and the corpses of two Liu family monks not far away.
Song Qingming was shocked. He must have encountered a powerful monster. He didn't even care about the monster materials that were usually priceless to him. He ran away in a hurry.