116 Gathering Spiritual Inten

In a deep canyon, a youth sat quietly as he meditated. If not for the slight breath that could faintly be heard within the deep valley one would mistake him for a statue. The space between his brows were calm and tranquil.

The still air suddenly vibrated.

The youth shuddered and his jaws tightened. For a few moments he struggled internally but he could not capture that feeling. His mental energy dissipated as soon as it left his body and the air stilled once more.

A faint sigh was heard.

Van did not dwell on the failure but tried once more. He was getting closer and closer to succeeding. It had already taken him three hours just to form a strand of mental energy and now the critical point was making sure it did not dissipate as it left his body.

The red-haired youth inhaled and let his worries go as he exhaled.

[Once more!]

A thin strand of mental intent formed in Van's mindscape. As small as a ripple within the ocean, it travelled to the centre of his forehead. The silver strand of mental intent surged forth.

A blurry image of the outside world formed in Van's mindscape.

Van's heart pounded. His eyes were closed, that means this image was formed purely from his mental energy.

Just a little bit more…!

Clap clap clap

At that moment, a sarcastic clapping noise echoed through the canyon.

The small strand of mental intent that had formed suddenly collapsed. Van's deep concentration had been broken by the loud and annoying clapping noises.

The red-haired youth got up slowly to his feet, glaring upwards.

Standing far above him, at the ledge of the canyon, two small figures were looking down at him disdainfully.

Realising who they were, Van was immediately uninterested. He sat back down and closed his eyes.

Cordelia stared down at the helpless ant far down below in the canyon and was filled with vicious glee. He could pretend indifference all he liked, but he had already lost! She stood at the edge of the canyon, full of superiority and smugness.

Actually, when Cordelia originally stumbled upon this valley and saw the red-haired youth within, her immediate instinct had been to rush down there and beat the crap out of him. Then she and her sister would steal the treasures within his pouch. However, Daphne was pulled her back at the last moment, recognising that the canyon was in fact a powerful entrapment array. If not for her Aunt's warning before the Monster Mausoleum, Daphne would not have known that this canyon could actually be such a vicious thing. Luckily, a crisis was averted. If Cordelia had really rushed down into the canyon then she would also be trapped inside the array and have to miss out on the treasures in the outside world.

Although Cordelia felt that it was unfortunate that she couldn't personally beat him up and rob his things, the thought of him rotting helplessly in this dark and depressing canyon was too sweet. She looked eagerly down into the canyon, hoping to see the youth's despairing expression as he realised his path to victory had been cut.

However, when Cordelia looked down, she saw Van looking up coldly for a few moments before closing his eyes and starting to meditate again.

Her blood pressure raised a few degrees.

How dare he look at her like that…!

A soft hand landed on her shoulder.

"Sister," Daphne shook her head, "He is just trying to get a rise out of you. He has no way out of this situation. Even Aunt was in the Sea Establishment Realm before she could deal with such a powerful array. Forget about him. He is only a loser with no way out anymore."

Cordelia's rage instantly cooled as she considered Daphne's words. After a moment, she giggled and pressed a small hand over her curved lips.

"It only makes sense that dogs have dog shit luck!" She said loudly, hoping to get a rise out of the meditating youth down below.

When he did not respond to her taunting, her smile faded. When she spoke, her voice was sharp and unpleasant.

"Still so arrogant. Let's see how arrogant you are when all your little Cedar Sect disciples are bullied by us. Daphne, we are going!"

With a wave of their sleeves, the twin phoenixes of the Zephyr Sect disappeared.

Down in the canyon, Van opened his eyes. A glint of anger was seen within their dark depths. Their quarrel was with him and yet they dared to bring others into it. Simply too disgusting!

[Van, your mental energy is getting unsteady,] Jet warned.

The red-haired youth forcibly calmed himself down. When he inspected his mindscape, he saw that his mental energy was indeed unsteady from his emotional turmoil. He drew in deep breaths and a few moments later his mental energy was smooth once more.

[Try once more. You were nearly there,] Jet encourage.

The youth nodded. In the split second before Cordelia and Daphne arrived, he had already grasped the sensation of extruding his mental intent into the outside world.

______

[8 hours later.]

Kssstttt!

Van felt the change in the air before he heard the hissing noises. Immediately he leapt up onto his feet and disappeared like smoke.

Ten strange creatures suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked Van as a coordinated group. If not for the fact these dark, golem-like creatures were all in the 5th rank Van was afraid he would have sustained a severe injury.

As it was, Van stood about 50 meters away from the golem-like creatures with a cold look in his eyes.  Despite his uncaring appearance on the inside he was actually quite anxious… but not for himself.

[Samuel and Johnathon will have to work hard to survive in the Underworld Labyrinth. Although the level of these dark golems is not high, unlike the monsters in the first 5 waves, they are intelligent enough to coordinate attacks and only attack one person. In the previous waves, it was a lot easier to survive as we could fight in groups and defend each other's weaknesses.]

Without a change in expression, Van waved his hand and a giant wave of freezing water crashed down onto the ten 5th rank monsters that were running towards him in an eerie movement style.

The lashing water was so cold it immediately slowed down the running pace of the dark golems. Half of them were eliminated immediately due to the tyrannical strength of Van's perfection-realm Dark Seas Palm and his affinity for water which was caused by the shell of the Xuanwu descendant in his mindscape.

With another brush of his palm, a swirling tornado of icy water picked up the remaining 5 and within the next minute they were also eliminated.

In less than 5 minutes, Van dispatched the 10 5th rank golems without a change in expression.

Those watching in the outside world could not help but cluck their tongues in admiration for his efficiency. However, they could not help but feel even more pity for the youth in the canyon. If he were not so unlucky and did not land in this array… Ah, it's not worth going over again.

When the red-haired youth calmly sat down once more to meditate, they felt that it was even more of a pity. Such calmness in the face of despair was really rare and admirable. He was even meditating carefully and trying to make the most of his imprisonment by cultivating.

A shame, a shame.

Only a few observers saw the secretive smile that spread over Van's lips.

At that moment, a thin strand of silvery mental intent flowed out from between Van's brows and floated through the air. It sensed the spiritual energy in the canyon and headed for the faint glimmer in the air that was the formation of the array.

In just one day, he had succeeded in forming spiritual intent!

Van meditated without resting. After tasting success with his first strand of spiritual intent, he worked relentlessly and by the time the morning sun arose, there were now ten strands of spiritual intent.

With these ten strands, Van was able to search more of the canyon around him. However, their range was too limited. If he only had this much, he would need several months to search the entire 100km length of the canyon, let alone in two more days.

Luckily, due to Van's bountiful mental energy and strong will of mind, he quickly increased these ten strands into a hundred strands by the late afternoon.

By the evening, these one hundred strands turned into five hundred. Thanks to perfecting the process of manipulating his mental energy to produce spiritual intent, he was becoming faster and faster.

When night descended, he had created 1000 strands of spiritual intent.

Van's brows were tightly furrowed and his eyes slightly glassy when he opened them. He had been working at full throttle without rest and was finally feeling exhaustion. However, he could only be cruel to himself and continue on doggedly.

At that moment, ten dark and bulky shadows appeared in the deep canyon. It was the same type of golem that had appeared the previous night, except now they were split evenly between the 5th and 6th rank.

Van dispatched them quickly and efficiently - his mind was completely preoccupied with thoughts on how to improve his spiritual intent quickly.

Without another wasted movement, he closed his eyes again and spread his hundreds of strands of spiritual intent into the air. They gently spread away from him, scenting the air around him for traces of the array like sharks smelling for blood in water.

By the time the sickly sunlight spilled down from the top of the canyon, Van had increased his spiritual intent to 2000 strands. If anyone in the outside world knew of his quick progress in spiritual intent, they would have shivered in fright and immediately proclaimed him a heavenly talent.

However, Van was very clear in his heart that this 2000 strands was not enough for what he needed to achieve.

Van tried to open his eyes but found that his eyelashes were crusty from having meditated so long. He rubbed his eyes and cracked them open. He stared at the top of the canyon somewhat at a loss of what to do next.

When he calculated, he felt that if he used all his energy to search the canyon, he would be able to cover 30km if he were lucky, no where near 100km.

Van sighed.

At that moment, the black ring within his head shook. Jet had woken up from his beauty nap.

The ring was immediately shocked.

[Such a crude and basic method, and yet you were able to create so much spiritual intent already!?]