Chapter 174 - Chapter 174: Chapter 170: Bottomless Depths_1

Chapter 174: Chapter 170: Bottomless Depths_1

Translator: 549690339

Suddenly, the boys of Dongchen Village, whether they were in need or not, would all frequent the martial arts training ground to practice on their own, some even doing a pretty good job.

However, very few of them managed to persist till the end.

After some time of training, Jiang Wu’s strength had increased significantly and his body had become more flexible. This once soft and delicate child had begun to toughened up day by day, maturing visibly to the eye.

His rapid progress was not without reason; every night before sleep, Yingbao would give him a bowl of tea boiled with Five Ding Zhi herbs, keeping his small tired body rejuvenated the next day and his strength greatly enhanced from the day before.

Now, when he wrestles or arm-wrestles with others, he doesn’t lose to his fifteen-year-old cousin.

This aroused the fervor of many boys in the village, making them beg their parents at home for martial arts training.

However, this time Zhang Meng and Xu Kun were very picky, discarding anyone over ten years old. After feeling the roots of many children, only Huzi and the clan leader’s little grandson Xiaoyao were selected.

In fact, Yuanbao and Jiang Jie were also not bad, but these two were academic big shots and their family preferred that they focused on academics.

As time passed, Jiang Wu’s progress was phenomenal. He had even surpassed his older brother, Jiang Jie, in height, catching up to Yingbao.

Yingbao was quite envious, and would also train in her spare time at home.

When Jiang Wu returned home, he was also quite willing to teach his sister martial arts, looking quite serious and strict, much like a little master.

Yingbao studied seriously too. From horse stance to bow stance, from empty stance to golden rooster stance, from prone stance to physical training, she persisted in all of them.

To save time, she even managed to do two things at once – training while reciting prescriptions.

After a day of training, her body would ache all over, but as long as she ate a handful of Five Ding Zhi herbs, she would basically recover by the next day. Her body became more and more resilient, and her strength gradually increased.

Later on, she started doing long-distance running, sprinting, frog jumping, leg splitting, and so on. After warming up, she would stretch her waist and leg ligaments.

As time went by, the last bit of Five Ding Zhi on the cave wall was almost used up, which made Yingbao a bit nervous.

Without the formidable power of the Five Ding Zhi, after a day of high-intensity training, both she and her brother would have no energy to study. This was unacceptable.

Martial arts was only for self-defense, she preferred to study medicine.

This is because mastering the medical skills is the fundamental way to settle down and forge her own path.

If one day she lost her cave and the divine Five Ding Zhi, she could still earn a living with her medical skills.

Therefore, no matter how exhausting it may be, she must study medicine.

Yingbao looked up to the top of the cave and saw the Five Ding Zhi hanging like clusters of milky white clouds, growing around the cave’s ceiling. From a distance, they appeared like a large patch of glowing fluorescence.

As long as she had a way to get them, there were enough herbs to last her a lifetime.

But the cave ceiling was too high, she currently had no way to reach it.

Yingbao then recalled the bamboo lantern tower her uncle had built for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Could she also have someone build a bamboo tower?

However, building a bamboo tower more than ten meters high would require a lot of bamboo, and normal bamboo wouldn’t work. Instead, a lot of bamboo poles would be needed to support such a high building.

Although bamboo poles were not hard to find, she could simply buy them. Sister Chuchu’s family produced plenty, she could easily buy two hundred back home.

But who would build a bamboo tower for her?

A bamboo tower over ten meters tall, that was probably impossible.

She sighed and decided to think of another plan.

Yingbao then directed her gaze towards the light-emitting body in the middle of the pool.

She estimated that the huge giant light ball was seven or eight meters high. If she could climb up there, would she get closer to the cave ceiling?

With that thought in her head, she climbed onto the Gourd Boat and used her new paddle to glide towards the center.

Strangely enough, this gourd, despite being immersed in the water for so long, did not rot. The vine leaves seemed still quite green, and the gourd appeared to have grown a size larger.

Yingbao didn’t have time to study this right now, she wanted to see if she could find a way to climb the light source.

After wandering around the light ball for a while, she found it was too smooth and warm like a furnace, making it impossible for her to climb.

“I can’t do it.” Yingbao was discouraged and was just about to leave, when she saw a staircase appear on the light ball in front of her, leading all the way up.

Yingbao was simply stunned.

Could this thing understand her words?

She didn’t hesitate, and began climbing up the stairs.

For each step she went up, the stair behind her disappeared. This made Yingbao feel quite frightened.

But this is her own cave dwelling, and she can always leave if necessary.

This thought immediately made her feel more at ease.

She didn’t’ know how long she had climbed until she didn’t dare to look down anymore.

Finally, she reached the highest point.

In front of her, it seemed like there was a thin fog. Yingbao walked towards it.

The fog gradually dissipated as she approached, and the view in front of Yingbao suddenly became clear.

What kind of place was this? Beneath her feet was a drifting white fog, and underneath that was a massive round land buried in the mist.

The land was a brownish color with a faint flowing luster.

Yingbao walked on this land, the fog gradually dissipated. Stooping down, she touched the clay under her feet, it was soft and delicate.

In the heart of the land lay a black abyss that seemed bottomless.

Yingbao furrowed her brows.

This place felt familiar to her, reminiscent of something.

Right, the color and shape, it looked just like an eyeball.

And the black abyss in the center was like a pupil.

Could it actually be an eyeball? A giant’s eyeball?

This realization sent chills down Yingbao’s spine.

Was she standing on an eyeball?

But that didn’t seem right. The ground here was clearly brown clay, and even what she held in her hand had the texture of soil.

Yingbao thought for a moment, then stepped towards the black pupil area.

She didn’t dare step into the pupil, but she squatted down to touch it. Surprisingly, it was water.

She scooped it up, and it was crystal clear.

Everything was pitch black beneath the water, and she couldn’t see anything.

She took a sip, and it tasted even sweeter than the water in the pool.

Yingbao wanted to scoop some up to take back, but she didn’t have anything to carry it in.

She stood up and took a few steps back, looking up at the ceiling of the cave, it was much closer yet still out of reach.

Never mind, she’d figure out a way later. For now, she needed to figure out what was going on here.

Yingbao slowly looked around. As she moved, the fog around her gradually lifted, and she could finally see the whole landscape.

It was a round land, approximately ten acres.

The black water pool in the middle was just over ten feet in diameter.

Once the fog lifted from the brown land, the place was well-lit like daytime, but there was still lingering fog around the periphery, obscuring the view beneath.

Fortunately, there was no fog overhead, and the five ding plants on the cave ceiling seemed within reach.

Yingbao stood there for a while without returning the same way. Instead, she thought in her heart about exiting, and then she actually appeared on her bed.

With just a thought, she took a small bucket, some seeds, and a shovel from her cave dwelling and re-entered.

Sure enough, she found herself once again standing on the brown round land.

So that’s how it was.

If she entered from below, she’d appear below. Now she was at the top of the light source. If she exited from there and entered again, she would still appear at the top.

Yingbao ran over to the black water pool with the bucket to scoop up a bucket of water, and then she planted the seeds in the brown land.

Some apple seeds, a handful of pepper seeds, and a few melon seeds.

After watering these seeds and fetching another bucket of water, she finally left the cave dwelling.

She was unsure whether they would sprout in that place and resolved to check the next day.

As for the bucket of water she brought back, she decided to let her chickens drink some first and see what happened.