Chapter 647: The Underground City

As soon as Han Li stepped into the formation, he felt an indescribable invisible pressure emanating from the golden formation, enveloping his body.

His body immediately felt heavy, as if he were standing at the bottom of a vast ocean, and for a moment, he could not move at all.

Golden threads of light converged from all directions, swirling around his body, while waves of light cascaded down from above.

Han Li raised an eyebrow, sensing two forces surging from the formation into his body—one gentle and agile, the other vast and dense.

The two forces roamed through his body, perceiving everything within.

Han Li did not attempt to block them, for though this description takes time, it all happened in an instant. His body paused slightly, then regained movement, and he calmly walked forward.

In fact, since leaving the inn, he had been circulating his immortal spiritual power according to the Water Evolution Four Seasons Art.

Additionally, he had used a secret technique to seal most of his exuberant blood vitality, completely concealing the essence blood of several true spirits within him and the aura of the Great Zhou Stellar Source Art.

In short, Han Li had done his utmost to handle all information that might reveal his identity. If the Heavenly Mirror Formation still detected his true form, he would have to accept it.

The golden formation hummed as the two forces roamed up and down Han Li's body, pausing a little longer at the seals within his body and on his right index finger before slowly moving away.

Han Li breathed a sigh of relief and quickly walked through the formation to stand beside Hu San and Shi Chuankong.

The two nodded at Han Li and looked toward the front at Rehe Zunzhe.

Rehe Zunzhe had already swaggered into the formation and passed through smoothly.

“The identities and information of the four fellow daoists are all in order. You may use the cross-domain teleportation array. The fee is one thousand immortal spirit stones per person,” said the square-faced man, approaching.

Han Li and the others each took out one thousand immortal spirit stones and handed them to the square-faced man.

Hu San, while handing over the spirit stones, quietly slipped a storage ring into the square-faced man's hand.

“Follow me, please.” The square-faced man revealed a slight smile and led Han Li onward to another hall.

On the floor of this hall was a spatial teleportation array, about ten zhang in size, inscribed with countless silver array patterns, rivaling the Heavenly Mirror Formation outside.

Silver light flickered, and intense spatial fluctuations emanated from the array.

Under the square-faced man's guidance, the four of them stood inside the teleportation array.

The square-faced man pointed with his finger, and four beams of white light shot out, attaching to the four with a “slap”—they were white triangular talismans.

The man then took out a silver jade token and began chanting incantations.

The silver-haired youth and the white-bearded elder also stood on the other side of the array, each taking out a jade token and forming hand seals.

The teleportation array immediately glowed with bright silver light and operated vigorously.

After a flash of silver light shooting into the sky, the four figures vanished.

The square-faced man chanted incantations and pointed with a hand seal.

The teleportation array quickly calmed down and soon returned to its previous state.

The silver-haired youth and the white-bearded elder walked over and stood beside the square-faced man.

“These immortal spirit stones are a reward for you.” The square-faced man took out a storage artifact and tossed it to the two, then turned and walked away.

“Thank you, Protector Fang.” The two were delighted, bowed, and said.

After the square-faced man's figure disappeared, they opened the storage ring; inside were one hundred immortal spirit stones.

The two immediately split them equally.

“I've long heard that working on the second floor of the Flying Immortal Hall is a lucrative position, but I never expected such generous perks. After a while longer, I'll have saved enough immortal spirit stones to buy a grade immortal artifact,” said the silver-haired youth excitedly.

“Of course, otherwise why do you think so many people want to come to the second floor of the Flying Immortal Hall?” chuckled the white-bearded elder.

The two chatted and laughed in low voices, arm in arm, as they walked out.

…

In the north of the Black Earth Immortal Domain lay a narrow continent shaped like a flood dragon, named the Black Dragon Continent.

In its northern region, thousands of mountains ran across, ten thousand rivers raced, and the terrain was extremely undulating, with countless mountain ranges stretching for tens of thousands of miles scattered everywhere. Between them, thousands of deep and shallow huge ravines were sandwiched, rich in water systems, making the terrain particularly complex.

Due to its special topography, although there were many cities in the entire north, few were of any considerable scale. Among them, the one with the largest area was the 'Black Glaze City' located in the middle section of the Ti Liang Mountain Range.

Although the north of the Black Earth Immortal Domain was sparsely populated, it was not a dangerous place of barren mountains and harsh waters. On the contrary, because of its variety of rare spiritual soils, it became a lush growth place for many spiritual medicines, immortal herbs, mountain spirits, and demons.

Many chambers of commerce dealing in spiritual medicines in the neighboring immortal domains also regarded this place as a merchant's blessed land, setting up branches here one after another, collecting and planting various spiritual herbs, while purchasing mines and digging up earth-vein spiritual soil.

Black Glaze City got its name from a black spiritual soil unique to the Ti Liang Mountain Range where it was located.

This spiritual soil looked like oil sludge, contained spiritual energy, and could not be used to grow spiritual herbs, but could be used to forge puppets.

Because 'Black Glaze Soil' had unique adhesive properties and the ability to store spiritual energy, adding a certain proportion of this soil when refining puppets could greatly increase the success rate and grade of puppet refinement.

It was precisely for this reason that the Black Glaze Soil of the entire Ti Liang Mountain Range was heavily excavated.

After nearly a million years of mining and excavation, the entire mountain body of the range had almost been hollowed out, and the Black Glaze Soil underground was almost exhausted.

Because the mineral veins were depleted, the entire Ti Liang Mountain Range subsided, making the ground flatter and more open compared to other places, suitable for building large-scale immortal ferry terminals for various ferry boats to dock and operate.

Therefore, from over a hundred thousand years ago, the entire Ti Liang Mountain Range was no longer mined as a mineral vein. Except for some areas that were built into several large ferry terminals, the rest were covered with spiritual soil and replanted with various spiritual herbs.

As for its middle section, it was constructed into a huge underground city, which is the present-day Black Glaze City.

This city extended hundreds of miles underground and was divided into seven levels, hence it also had the alias 'Sevenfold City'.

In the seventh city at the deepest underground, a teleportation hall covering a considerable area was built, capable of receiving cultivators teleported from the neighboring Black Mountain Immortal Domain.

At this moment, four figures were slowly walking out of the teleportation hall. The leading one was a thin man in black, and the one walking almost shoulder to shoulder with him was a handsome man with curly white hair. They were none other than Hu San and Shi Chuankong.

Han Li and the Reclining Flame Venerable followed a step behind, also walking out closely, one with a slightly solemn expression, the other with a complex look.

"What's wrong? Fellow Daoist Reclining Flame, feeling a bit anxious about returning to your old haunt?" Han Li looked at the old man beside him and said with a smile.

"It's still far from my old haunt. Although I've been staying in the Black Mountain Immortal Domain all along, not too far away, I never dared to return to the Black Earth Immortal Domain. I don't know what it has become now. I do feel a bit of 'home timidity,'" the Reclining Flame Venerable said with a wry smile.

"This Black Earth Immortal Domain is indeed a bit different. The teleportation hall is actually built underground."

Han Li looked around and saw that the dome above was extremely high, embedded with huge bright pearls that emitted a warm light like the morning sun, illuminating the surroundings brightly.

The hall behind him was set into the stone wall, while in front of him was a spacious hall. Straight ahead and to the left and right, there were wide passages leading to unknown places.

"Fellow Daoist Li, you may not know this, but the place we are in now is an underground city built along an old mine. Down here, there are not only teleportation halls but also immortal inns and many shops. Later, I'll take you for a stroll, and you'll see," Hu San, who was quite familiar with this place, turned back and said to Han Li.

"Then I'll trouble you," Han Li said with a smile.

The four walked out along the passage on the left. Along the way, they could indeed see halls embedded in the mountain walls, many of which were directly hollowed out of the mountain, with green bricks laid outside to form door walls.

Many of them were also decorated with carved beams and painted rafters outside the door walls, hung with lintel plaques and various banners, looking no different from shops in ordinary large cities.

"In the Sevenfold City, most of the functional institutions are located. There are the fewest traveling merchants, but the actual management offices of the chambers of commerce are basically set up here. There are also two largest immortal inns built on this level. Nothing much exciting..." Walking along the plank road outside these shops, Hu San introduced to Han Li and the Reclining Flame Venerable as he walked.

Passing through an arched doorway and walking another few hundred steps, they arrived at a spacious hall. On the side near the mountain wall stood a two-story stone gate tower, decorated with various patterns of flowers, birds, fish, and insects, looking extremely magnificent.

At the top of the gate tower hung a huge plaque with three golden seal-script characters: 'Hundred Creations Pavilion'.

"What? Fellow Daoist Li wants to go in and have a look?" Shi Chuankong asked, seeing Han Li stop in front of the gate tower and look up at it.

"Is there any connection between the Hundred Creations Pavilion and Hundred Creations Mountain?" Han Li asked in confusion.

"Don't you know, Fellow Daoist Li? Hundred Creations Mountain is famous for artifact refining. Besides doing business with various chambers of commerce, it also has outer sect elders preside over shops selling magical treasures and puppets. This Hundred Creations Pavilion is one of its shops, with branches in many immortal domains," Shi Chuankong explained.

"Hehe, I'm just ignorant," Han Li said with a smile.

Although he had had considerable dealings with Elder Jing Yang before, their discussions had mostly focused on artifact refining techniques, and he had never paid attention to these aspects.

"Not surprising. From what Fellow Daoist Jiao San said, you have been in remote places like the North Han Immortal Domain all along, so it's not strange that you haven't seen the Hundred Creations Pavilion," Hu San said.

Shi Chuankong's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and he couldn't help but look Han Li up and down again.

Han Li noticed Shi Chuankong's gaze, smiled at him, and the latter nodded slightly before shifting his gaze away.