Chapter 79: Space Fluctuations

Chapter 79: Space Fluctuations While Carlos slept peacefully, urgent footsteps echoed through the area where the wind-carved pillar cluster used to stand... A seven-person Psionic squad from Rock Sand City—four men and three women—arrived, worn out and covered in dust from their journey. "Ptui, ptui, ptui! I’ve been eating sand this whole damn trip! This godforsaken wasteland—could there really be ancient ruins out here?" The speaker was a burly man wearing beast-hide spirit gear. His bronze skin showed incredibly powerful muscles, and he kept spitting sand from his mouth. "Basse’s got a point—this really is the middle of nowhere!" Sibel shook the sand off her leather armor and knocked her boots together. Sand poured out with a soft rustling sound. A good bit of it hit the armor of the Samba and Sambo brothers standing nearby, making little pattering sounds. Right then, Demi, the only Arcane Practitioner on the team, pulled out a disc. A pure white eye floated above it, rolling around. She tossed a white crystal into the disc, pressed her hands together, and bowed: "Please help us, Uto!" The white crystal melted and got completely absorbed by the disc. The big eyeball on the disc rolled even faster. "Uto! Uto!" It kept bouncing toward one direction. Seeing this, Demi immediately grabbed the disc with both hands and headed in the direction the big eyeball was bouncing. Her teammates didn’t dare make a peep, afraid of messing up the search ritual. The big eyeball stopped bouncing. Joy flashed across Demi’s eyes, and she quickly called out to her companions: "Space fluctuations! Right here!" The teammates rushed over, looking all around. Nothing but empty space. After searching several times, there were no signs of any portal. Everyone looked at each other, stumped. "Sister Demi, why isn’t there a ruins portal?" Loris, the youngest, asked hesitantly. "Huh? How can there be nothing here? Could it be invisible?" Demi’s face went stiff. She searched again herself, and sure enough, there was no space portal. She felt pretty embarrassed. The books hadn’t mentioned anything like this. The ruins portal detection ritual was clearly working fine—how could they not find a portal? Lezhe, the squad captain, looked at the smooth sand around them and said steadily: "Demi, take a look at the sand here. Notice anything?" Hearing this, Demi closed her eyes and crouched down, placing her finger on the sand. A detection wave spread out from her fingertip. After a few moments, she suddenly opened her eyes, cutting off the detection. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. "Someone performed an extremely high-level unknown arcane array here!" "What! Could it be human traitors!" "Damn it! We’re one step too late. They must’ve used some unknown method to destroy the ruins portal!" Sibel and Basse cried out in shock. The Samba and Sambo brothers gripped their greatswords tightly, looking grim. "Quiet. This mission’s over. We need to get back to Rock Sand City fast and report this!" Captain Lezhe cut off his team members’ outbursts and signaled everyone to start heading back... ... On the Flat-Top Mushroom Stone Pillar, dim sunlight filtered down. The tent in the center opened, and Carlos walked out. Still half-asleep, he yawned. "A new day." He grabbed his toiletries, washed up quickly, then sat down, pulled out some breakfast, and started eating... Information about Spiritual Essence gained kept popping up in his mind: [Spiritual Essence +1.5] [Spiritual Essence +0.6] [Spiritual Essence +1.1] ... With 12 Purple Thornblade Shield Guards and 10 Redrose Shield Guards grinding monsters non-stop, Spiritual Essence piled up incredibly fast. After just one day and one night, Carlos’s Spiritual Essence progress was already close to one-third of the way to the next boost. [Spiritual Essence: 3427/11000] "So fast, so fast! In just a couple more days, my spirituality will jump again!" With 22 skeleton shield guards that could dominate the Desolate Desert farming monsters for him around the clock, Carlos’s spirituality improvement speed was absolutely terrifying! Enjoying the sweet flow of constantly gaining Spiritual Essence, he finished breakfast. "Time to keep going." Then he spread his crimson-gold wing bones and flew down... After a while, he flew back, bringing those two Redrose Sword Guards with him. After intensive monster hunting with higher spirituality, the soul fire within their bone frames had become really vigorous, and their bones had grown quite a bit. They’d clearly reached the threshold for second sublimation. Then, Carlos taught them Bone Shield Tactics... Soon, the Flat-Top Mushroom Stone Pillar erupted with two waves of surging gray-white flames. The eleventh and twelfth Redrose Shield Guards were born! "Go join your buddies and bring me tons of Spiritual Essence!" Carlos deployed them in the surrounding area, and while he was at it, he called back several Purple Thornblade Shield Guards whose health had dropped to half. "No rush to clear the dark mist nodes. First, let’s boost spirituality—that way I’ll get the most bang for my buck." Flying through the air, passing over patches of dark brown dunes. Carlos was hunting for suitable monster groups to practice his Sun Emperor’s Court Swordsmanship. "You guys’ll do nicely." Below were two groups of monsters duking it out. One group looked like scorpions. But they had no tails, were 13 feet long, had four pairs of legs, and two pairs of giant pincers with rows of saw teeth on the inside. These were Tailless Sand Scorpions—spirituality 13, strength 6, constitution 3, speed 3. Fighting with the Tailless Sand Scorpions were snake-like monsters. They were about 16 feet long with dark brown patterns on their bodies that looked mind-bending. Dark Brown Sand Snakes—spirituality 12, strength 5, constitution 4, speed 2. The two monster groups were locked in brutal, bloody combat. Some Dark Brown Sand Snakes hissed, trying to strangle the Tailless Sand Scorpions, but got viciously torn apart by the scorpions’ giant pincers, with snake blood flying everywhere... Others dodged the pincers, and several Dark Brown Sand Snakes managed to coil around a Tailless Sand Scorpion’s head. Then they squeezed hard. With a sickening crunch, brain matter splattered, and the Tailless Sand Scorpion became a headless corpse... Without hesitation, Carlos dove down! "Sun Emperor’s Court Swordsmanship!" The greatsword in his hand burst with incredible golden light, like a blazing sun crashing into the monster pack. In an instant, Dark Brown Sand Snakes and Tailless Sand Scorpions got shredded, creating a clear circle! "Hiss hiss!" The Psionic’s aura instantly caught the attention of both monster groups, and they roared like crazy. Sharp saw-toothed giant pincers and thick snake bodies attacked the landed Carlos. Psionic Energy surged within Carlos, and the greatsword in his hand blazed with light. "Slash!" "Slice!" ... Countless sword shadows bloomed like little blazing suns bursting forth. Snake chunks and severed pincers flew everywhere. Nasty blood splashed through the air, then got instantly evaporated by the incredible heat! Carlos freely unleashed his amazing 16 points of strength. Against him, this group of measly 13-spirituality monsters didn’t stand a chance... [Spiritual Essence +1.3] [Spiritual Essence +1.2] [Spiritual Essence +1.3] ...