Chapter 143: Rare Treasure
Translator: Panda_Penn Editor: Chrissy
The crater had a diameter of more than 100 feet, and the water sprout was of more than 100 feet high as well. As such, the amount of water was wondrous. Unless something unexpected happened, the entire island would be flooded in an hour, tops.
It was too late to build a canal now, which would be useless. Luckily, all the residents on the island knew how to swim. As long as there were no Xuan Beasts attacking them, they would not be drowned to death.
"Kill! Kill all the Xuan Beasts!"
Lu Li abruptly shouted. All the Green Dwarfs instantly climbed onto the trees like sharp swords. Patriarch Nine brought five Green Dwarfs with him, while Lu Li had seven with him. There were three staying on guard at the Blood Evil Island.
Lu Li, Patriarch Nine and the other warriors all went into action. Lu Li and Patriarch Nine were fighting against Second-rank Xuan Beasts, and the regular Xuan Wu Realm warriors against First-rank ones. They all engaged in bloody battles.
Lu Li did not release his Bloodline Skill. The time limit for his Bloodline Skill was just an hour, so he would not use it unless there were no other alternative.
Even so, Lu Li’s fighting capacity was strong. Liu Yi had bought him an Earth Grade armor, and he also had an Earth Grade Xuan Artifact in hand. With the release of his Rolling Thunder Xuan Skill, his strength had reached more than 110,000 pounds, and he could clear away average Second-rank Xuan Beasts with ease.
"Splash~"
A huge fish beast shot out of the water. Its mouth was filled with sharp teeth; when opened, it was larger than Lu Li’s body. Without even giving it much attention, Lu Li swept at it with a backhand move, and the big fish was smashed off with its head crashed and bleeding.
The Green Dwarfs were even more ferocious. It was a piece of cake for them to deal with Second-rank Xuan Beasts since they could hurt one Xuan Beast every time they scratched one. It came down to the point where Lu Li and Patriarch Nine needn’t do anything themselves. The Green Dwarfs could effortlessly suppress down the Xuan Beasts.
"Whoosh!"
From the distance, a shadow flew over. It was Hunchback Tian; it seemed he had killed the Nine-tentacle Octopus. A Third-rank Xuan Beast could be as powerful as a warrior of the Soul Pond Realm, however, Hunchback Tian was at the peak of this Realm. It was expected by Lu Li and others that Hunchback Tian could kill the Nine-tentacle Octopus with little effort.
"Patriarch Nine!"
Lu Li rushed over to him and said, "I will guard the place with Hunchback Tian. You bring three Green Dwarfs with you to scan the other places of the island and kill all the Xuan Beasts."
"Okay!"
Patriarch Nine was not worried with Hunchback Tian and the Green Dwarfs here. He brought three Green Dwarfs with him and left. Lu Li and Hunchback Tian stood on the top of a hill and had their eyes locked on the volcano in the distance. They arranged the Green Dwarfs to wander around in the nearby area and clean away all the Xuan Beasts in the water.
"Hunchback Tian, what is the deal with the volcano?"
Since they were threat free now, Lu Li posed the question. Hunchback Tian thought about it and said, "The Thousand-island Lake is a low-lying place, so the water cannot come from the Thousand-island Lake. There can only be two possibilities."
"Oh?"
Hunchback Tian was well-informed since he had lived for more than 100 years. Lu Li said with curiosity, "Do tell."
Hunchback Tian stroke his sparse beard with some pride and put on a mysterious air. As soon as Lu Li stared at him, he smiled apologetically and said, "Either there is a huge underground that river changed its route and got connected to the bottom of the volcano, or… there are some rare treasures that emerged from inside the volcano. Another possibility maybe there are powerful aquatic Xuan Beasts that induced the change in the water flow. There can be no other explanations."
"Underground river changing route?"
Lu Li somewhat believed this explanation. As for powerful aquatic Xuan Beasts? This was a small volcano with not much room inside. How could powerful Xuan Beasts emerge from it? The more powerful a Xuan Beast was, the larger its size would be.
"Rare treasures?"
Lu Li was intrigued by this notion. Which warrior did not like treasures? It was not impossible that the water from the Thousand-island Lake was erupted from here if some rare aquatic treasures showed up.
The volcano was still erupting, and some Xuan Beasts were still coming out. Lu Li naturally was not bold enough to send people inside the volcano to probe now. He had to wait and see.
Fortunately, the Xuan Beasts came out later were not powerful, just of the First or Second Rank. No Third-rank Xuan Beast came out again. Hunchback Tian didn’t take more actions. The Green Dwarfs would do all the clean-up work.
Patriarch Nine came back at once. All the Xuan Beasts outside were killed. Lu Li asked him to leave the Green Dwarfs behind and go help Liu Yi to relocate the tribe people on the island. The volcano was still erupting water, so it was better to relocate the people.
Four hours passed.
The water sprout coming out of the crater became smaller. Lu Li was relieved. So it seemed that it was highly likely a huge underground water re-routed which caused the volcano to erupt water.
There were many rivers and lakes underground, so it was not unusual that some Xuan Beasts were living in them.
Of the few thousand people living on the island, nearly 1000 were killed. The rest were relocated. It was almost done by now, but Lu Li dared not to leave until he was certain that it was completely safe.
Another hour passed and the volcano stopped erupting water. The water level in the crater was going down. Hunchback Tian and Lu Li went to the crater and stared down the deep dark crater silently.
"Hunchback Tian, do you think we should go down and have a look?" After a while, Lu Li said after some thoughts, "What if there are really some rare treasures?"
Hunchback Tian looked interested. He looked at the Green Dwarfs at Lu Li’s back and said, "I don’t have the courage to go down by myself, unless you and your Green Dwarfs go down with me."
With Green Dwarfs by his side, Hunchback Tian would still have the chance to escape even if he were to run into powerful Xuan Beast. If he went down by himself, once he encountered some Fourth-rank Xuan Beast, he didn’t stand a chance to flee.
Lu Li stared at the deep dark crater. He blinked his eyes as he was hesitating. Finally, he said, clenching his teeth, "Okay, I will ask someone to find us some ropes."
With the ropes and people pulling, Lu Li could easily climb up. The danger was not too serious since Green Dwarfs and Hunchback Tian were with him.
The volcano erupted water in such a strange way. Lu Li would always feel disturbed until he explored it. Patriarch Seven and Patriarch Lu were not present; as for Patriarch Nine, he was arranging the relocation. Lu Li, as the Island Owner, could not decline to shoulder this responsibility.
Lu Li sent a man to find them some bundles of ropes in the tribes and asked several men to wait for them at the crater. Then he tied the rope to him, waved his hand and said, "Go, let us go down!"
Hunchback Tian was powerful enough to go down without a rope. Green Dwarfs’ sharp claws could easily pierce through the walls of the volcano so they didn’t need ropes either. Lu Li and those waiting at the crater decided a secret signal. After that, he started climbing down slowly.
Hunchback Tian was the most powerful of them all. He took the lead in jumping down while his Xuan Energy glistened. While he was in midair, he cut at the wall forcefully with his golden saber. This action stopped him from falling down. The eight Green Dwarfs did similar things as their sharp claws grabbed onto the wall. With this, their climb was quick.
Hunchback Tian released his Xuan Energy, lighting up the area below them after some fashion. Water quickly fell down from the earlier eruption. They had climbed down for several hundred yard, but there was still no sight of water.
The inside of the volcano was quiet and spooky. It gave people the creeps. Lu Li was born bold, not to mention Hunchback Tian and eight Green Dwarfs were with him. As such, he wasn’t feeling too uneasy.
They continued to climb down. After another more than 10,000 feet, they finally reached the bottom of the volcano. There was no water down there, no lava, only damp ground and some stuff like algae.
"There is a hole here!"
The bottom of the volcano was not spacious with a radius of only more than 10,000 feet. Hunchback Tian looked around and found a big hole in the corner that extended towards underneath the ground at a tilt.
"Can it lead to the underground river?"
Lu Li untied his rope and walked over. He looked at it and said, "Let’s go. Let’s have a look around along the burrow."
Now that they already got down here, they must figure it out. If it really was an underground river, he could get someone to block the channel later. No such tragedy would happen again and not so many people had to die.
Hunchback Tian led the way. Green Dwarfs followed him and Lu Li was at the back. They moved forward along the damp and slippery burrow. The burrow extended towards beneath the ground, and nobody knew where it would end.
One hour!
Lu Li and Hunchback Tian walked for an entire hour to reach the end of the burrow. They looked to the distance as shock filled their eyes.
They saw an underground lake, but they wouldn’t feel so surprised if it were some regular underground lake. The lake was no average lake since it could actually glow. A bright ray of light shone from the bottom which lit up the entire underground lake.
"Rare treasures inside?"
Lu Li and Hunchback Tian looked at each other, intrigued. If it was not a rare treasure, how come it could give out light that was so bright?