Chapter 217 215- Poor Bastard

*For my privileged readers: Hey guys, sorry I don’t usually do this but I have a new book out that’s participating in WPC #302. Send some power stones its way guys, it’ll mean the world to me. And I wouldn’t mind if you used the one reserved for this novel. Oh, that’s of course if you like it, but I’m pretty confident you will:)... The novel’s name is No Escaping The Undead, it has 5 chaps out and it’s gonna be pretty dark so be warned*

After a moment, Li Shen sighed and said.

“Just what have I gotten myself into, this place feels like human presence is unwelcomed.

“But thankfully, I don’t need to worry. I have plenty of stuff in my storage ring to keep me going for now. This place has Spiritual Qi so my strongest skill is usable to protect myself. As for my cultivation…”

Li Shen sent a bit of his perception inside his Sea of Consciousness, and seeing the Constant Qi Circulation of Time Qi was still ongoing he smirked.

“The one thing with cultivating Time Qi is that, unlike others that are unique, it doesn’t need a requirement to be cultivated. Like the six natural elements it’s everywhere, and even where they aren’t Time Qi is since time itself is everywhere in existence.”

With that, Li Shen was beginning to think this might not be so bad.

“I’ll just take this as my birthday vacation! As long as I stay in one area and I don’t run into this place's inhabitants I’ll be good, and even if I do I have my cultivation to defend myself. If not then I can use some of my treasures, and if that still isn’t enough I could always run away using a Spirit Artifact!”

Li Shen had thoughts of just waiting until someone come to find him but a thought suddenly struck him like a thunderbolt.

“Wait, I read about separate dimensions that have a different time flow than the outside world. This isn’t one of those places right?”

Li Shen then couldn’t help but remembered that when he came here it was day, but outside was night.

“Crap, there is a time difference. But by how much? I have no way to figure out if it’s faster or slower in here.”

Li Shen was beginning to worry once again.

If it happened to be faster, then a year could pass in here while a month goes by outside. He didn’t want to be stuck in this place for a year!

He hoped it was slower, maybe if he spent a day in here a week or so would pass and he would be rescued.

Not knowing if it the time difference was slower or faster in here began eating away at Li Shen, but he managed to think positively that it was slower. No, he began praying it was slower.

But asides from that, how big was this place?

If his vast knowledge of various fields, including ecology, wasn’t wrong, this place was the territory of those giants.

For them to be so large means that either they were the dominant species in this place, or this place is so big monsters like them could exist alongside other species that had similar-sized territories.

Though it could just be an exception of those three?

Li Shen wasn’t sure, he couldn’t grasp what this place was like, even till now only sand was visible as he flew threw the air.

“And there’s a possibility of air-bound species as well. God damn it, this place could be a death trap for me!”

The more Li Shen thought about the odds against him the more his hopes of surviving in this place plummeted.

“I’m gonna die like this, aren’t I?”

Li Shen looked down at the broken jade slip and realize that there was probably no way to fix it. The runes it contained were connected to this place and could have teleported him from here, however, with them broken so did the connection.

He wasn’t sure if he could replicate the runes and connect them to this dimension as even the material of this jade slip is a part of the rune's creation.

It was careless of him for getting it destroyed, but...

“I’ll never submit!”

Li Shen gathered the jade slip inside his storage ring before he flew up and shouted out with a serious expression.

“I don’t care what this place is or what comes my way, if anything, this place should buckle up and get ready for Li Shen!”

The worry Li Shen felt about being stuck in this place was somewhat gone, what take over was a boy filled with confidence in his abilities and resourcefulness.

“I could stay cooped up somewhere hoping the time difference is slow and someone would rescue me, or I could explore this place to see if there’s some exit I could use. Either way, I’ll see what this world is, seeing those stone giants is making my researcher side tingle to learn more.

“Plus this is a place my Founding Ancestor created, I’m sure there’s something here related to the Li Clan. Either a building of some sort or a tomb, just anything. I’ll search for it.”

A bit of anticipation was now in his heart, but now he was wondering which direction he should go. in

He chose west based on the fact that no stone giant was coming from this direction, meaning they had no territory on this path… hopefully. He didn’t want to stay in this territory since he had killed one of its inhabitants.

Though whether that was the case, his mere presence would stick out like a sore thumb.

Li Shen was heading back to control the boat but he immediately paused.

“No wait, will my presence stick out like are sore thumb? Aren’t their other people in here?”

Thinking back on the destroyed city, he figured there must have been.

“Though who would those people be? Would they be part of our Li Clan? It would be weird if a place guarded by us had people, not from our clan inside.

“But more importantly what is this place?”

Li Shen was asking himself that ever since he came here, but thinking that people might be in here was making him wonder what was the purpose of this place. Why did his Founding Ancestor create this separate dimension?

Surely it’s for some reason.

Was it training?

Secluded cultivation?

Perhaps the former made more sense, it wasn’t the latter since no one could cultivate in peace when the threat of monsters linger about.

Li Shen stopped his speculations and decided to speed up the boat, heading west.

He just wanted to find something, either another city or some form of evidence that showed signs of human civilization.

There, he might find clues on how to escape, or what this place was.

---

After flying through the air nonstop for several hours, a bored Li Shen finally saw something up ahead other than sand.

He saw trees.

An endless amount as a forest filled the horizon the closer he got.

Seeing this drastic change in the ecosystem Li Shen was first happy, but immediately became cautious.

This was another territory.

The sand desert had those stone giants, so this place must have its own inhabitants.

Li Shen stopped the boat several miles away from the forest.

“I’m guessing either spirit beast roam this territory, or it’s filled with plant monsters.

“Maybe both?”

Frowning, he looked around, but there was no other alternative. It was either this unknown danger or the danger of those stone giants that could crush him along with an entire city with a stomp.

After a while, Li Shen sighed for the umpteen time.

“I wish Little Snow or Tai was here. Their void abilities would be great in this situation. But I can't even sense their connection now, instead, I have to face monsters as strong as…?”

He pause there, he didn’t even know the level of monsters in this place. The stone monster he fought didn’t cultivate Qi so he had to go with its physical strength. And it was around the early Foundation Realm.

As for those massive stone giants, they probably have the power of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in pure physical strength. But a lot of weaknesses, for example, their slow speed.

“Now that I think about it, wouldn’t it be better to go up against those stone giants?”

Li Shen had on a blank expression as he asked himself that but then shook his head.

“No, what’s the difference? This or that place is just as terrifying, at least the forest is better to look at than a bunch of hot crystallized sand. The potential of civilization is more likely to be here as well.

“Eh, either way, the forest it is!”

As if he was done playing roulette for his survival, Li Shen controlled the boat to move towards the forest.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, not even twenty minutes had gone by after he entered the separate dimension.

Unbeknownst to him, the time dilation was 5/1. The place he was in being 5 and the outside world 1.

Li Shen's speculation was right, this place was used for training. It was similar to a time laps dimension where cultivators could train for hours or days but only have minutes or hours go by in the outside world.

Only, this place in the Li Clan was of a massive scale that was mostly reserved for Elders that had contributed greatly to the Clan.

Li Shu giving Li Shen the opportunity to cultivate in that place was a birthday gift for him. And he thought that he needed no supervision since anyone with that jade slip could leave at any given point if something went wrong.

But he didn’t consider the possibility that as soon as his son entered he would be transported right in front of a random stone golem, who would then go on to attack him and destroy the one thing that could let him leave.

His son was now alone in a place where the cap level was Elder-level monsters, and he had no way of escaping.

If Li Shu had known this, he would have immediately gone to Fulong and gotten another jade slip to have Fu Wei enter to rescue Li Shen. Since only Nascent Realm existences were allowed in there.

Li Shen was walking on a thin line between life and death and didn’t know it.

Poor bastard...