A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The mist from the spiritual spring, carrying the distinctive rusty smell of the bronze cauldron, wafted towards us.

Ye Shuli stared at the water stains remaining in the rock crevice, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the hot birthmark behind her ear.

Jiang Ye bent down to pick up the star compass, which aggravated his wound, causing the hemostatic powder to fall onto his newly changed cloud-patterned belt.

“Find the Sage first,” she suddenly said, pulling a jade pendant from her waist and tossing it to the still-grimacing boy. “You said last time the Sage’s bamboo hut was in Misty Valley?”

Jiang Ye clenched his fingers slightly when he caught the jade pendant, as it was so cold.

The twelve elders were still worshipping the bronze cauldron when he kicked away the fragments of spirit stones blocking his way. "Is there something wrong with that jade light in the northwest corner?" Before he finished speaking, a beast-like roar came from outside the cave, startling the owls in the entire Qixia Forest.

As the two hurried along the mountain path entwined with moon vines, Ye Shuli finally saw the appearance of those creatures with unbalanced spiritual energy—their translucent bodies were filled with a flow of energy interwoven with crimson and indigo, and the ends of their twelve tentacles were condensed with ice crystals and flames.

Jiang Ye swung three spirit-piercing darts, piercing the third tentacle of the foremost creature, instantly turning the monster into fluorescent fragments scattered on the ground.

"Attack frequency of seventeen seconds!" Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's collar, and the two narrowly avoided the sweeping ice and fire tentacles.

She stared at the flickering light spots on the creature's chest cavity. "Do you see those energy vortexes?"

Doesn't it resemble a current node during a short circuit?

Jiang Ye spun around and cleaved the incoming light blade. Upon hearing this, his wrist trembled slightly, almost slicing his own hair.

Using the reflection from the star compass, he glimpsed the bulging chests of the three creatures simultaneously, and suddenly recalled Ye Shuli's demonstration of the "parallel circuit" with the lightning-struck wood the day before—the analogy the girl had made when she crushed the spirit fruit was now exceptionally clear at this critical moment of life and death.

Three sword energies wrapped in lightning pierced precisely into the center of the vortex in the monster's chest cavity.

Amidst the continuous explosions, Jiang Ye wiped away the fluorescent liquid that had splashed onto his chin. "Your physics..." Before he could finish speaking, Ye Shuli tackled him to the ground, and two intersecting light blades severed two strands of his flying hair.

The five surviving creatures suddenly began to merge.

The ice and fire tentacles twisted into a spiral-shaped energy pillar, and the rocks that were hit instantly vaporized into purplish-black smoke.

Jiang Ye's breathing became noticeably heavier, and cracks began to appear on the star map on the surface of the star compass.

"Step back!" Ye Shuli suddenly bit her index finger and used her blood to draw a broken six-pointed star in the air.

This is an ancient spirit shield technique that a sage from the spirit world taught her three days ago, now mixed with the energy field concept she gleaned from modern electromagnetism.

The moment the pale golden barrier collided with the monster, the spiritual energy pointers throughout the Misty Valley deflected by fifteen degrees.

As the cracks in the shield spread to the seventh one, a clear and melodious crane cry suddenly came from afar.

Jiang Ye was about to turn around when Ye Shuli pressed down on the back of his neck: "Don't move!"

There are three more energy fluctuations in the southwest 30-degree direction—

A mountain breeze carrying a cool, refreshing plum fragrance brushed past their noses, and suddenly the old pine tree behind them made a crisp sound as its branches snapped.

As the mountain breeze, carrying the scent of pine resin, swept over us, the silvery-white sword light just happened to tear apart the last tendril.

The pursuer from the spirit world swept across the fluorescent fragments scattered on the ground with the hem of his dark robe, and the whirlwind created when he sheathed his sword blew away the stray hairs on Ye Shuli's forehead.

Jiang Ye's star compass was still emitting a piercing shriek, which only stopped when he slammed it against the rock.

"These inferior creatures dare to hurt you?" The pursuer used the tip of his sword to lift Jiang Ye's torn sleeve, and ice crystals quickly froze into frost flowers along the tear.

When he turned to look at Ye Shuli, the crimson flame mark between his brows suddenly shone brightly. "Why aren't you wearing the phoenix feather hairpin I gave you three days ago?"

Jiang Ye suddenly gripped the broken spirit dart at his waist.

Ye Shuli stepped on his about-to-launch hidden weapon box, her bloodstained index finger pointing towards his brow: "You have seven disordered spiritual energy nodes. I suggest you first address the problem of the reversed spiritual energy flow in your left shoulder meridian."

The spirit seeker was stunned for a moment, and Jiang Ye's cold laugh had already landed on the pile of rubble: "Some people don't even understand the basic law of conservation of energy, yet they try to act as saviors?" He deliberately used modern terms to sting the other party, and Ye Shuli's slightly twitching lips were reflected on the surface of the star compass.

Three escaping spirit creatures suddenly burst out from the cracks in the rocks.

As Ye Shuli flung out the lightning-struck wood, Jiang Ye and his suitor's sword energy simultaneously pierced through the core vortex of the creature.

In the intense light of the exploding fluorescent light, she saw sparks flying as the hilts of the two men's swords clashed.

"We'll have to deal with these 'short-circuit devices' first!" Ye Shuli said, slapping the talisman between the two of them.

The electric grid that suddenly appeared on the ground temporarily divided the battlefield, and the bloodstains on her fingertips traced a crooked diode symbol on the talisman.

When the seventh wave of creatures emerged from the mist, the three's bizarre coordination had already formed a fixed pattern.

Jiang Ye used his knowledge of modern physics to predict the attack trajectory, the pursuer used his profound spiritual power to carry out area attacks, and Ye Shuli's spiritual energy barrier precisely filled the gaps between each attack.

The spirit balancer had somehow taken up a treetop to watch the battle, its transparent wings flickering in and out of focus with the ebb and flow of the fighting.

"45 degrees southwest, peak spiritual pressure!" Ye Shuli suddenly shouted.

Jiang Ye's spirit-piercing dart collided with the pursuer's frost sword energy in mid-air, and the resulting energy wave pulverized the last three fused creatures into dust.

The spirit balance sprite cheered and pounced on the spot of light, scooping up fluorescent fragments with its tiny paws and stuffing them into the cloth bag at its waist.

As the morning mist in Wuyin Ravine began to shimmer with gold, the bronze bells on the eaves of the bamboo house suddenly twitched without any wind.

The sage from the spirit realm leaned against the thousand-year-old wisteria, his gaze falling on the reddened birthmark behind Ye Shuli's ear: "Two quarters of an hour earlier than expected."

Jiang Ye was wiping the cracks in the star compass with the corner of his clothes when he heard this and suddenly looked up: "You knew all along that the imbalance of spiritual energy would recur?"

"The anomaly in the spiritual veins is merely the fuse." A swirling nebula appeared in the sage's palm, and Ye Shuli's birthmark suddenly resonated with one of the stars within. "The true spark was ignited the day you stepped into the Spirit Realm—someone triggered the 'Celestial Pivot Restriction.'"

The spirit energy balance sprite suddenly emerged from Ye Shuli's sleeve, holding a fluorescent fragment and dancing around excitedly.

The wise man lightly tapped the ground with his cane, and a blurry afterimage of the leader of the turbulent forces emerged from the fragments.

Jiang Ye's Spirit-Breaking Dart was drawn three inches from its sheath in an instant, but Ye Shuli held his wrist down to prevent it from flaring up.

"There are seven layers of restrictions." Crimson runes appeared in the air as the sage's staff swept across, each corresponding to the pattern of Ye Shuli's birthmark. "When the final seal is broken..."

Suddenly, the spring outside the bamboo hut boiled, and the wise man's unfinished words dissipated in the morning light along with the rising steam.

Ye Shuli turned around, touching the burning birthmark, and bumped into Jiang Ye and his suitor, who were both holding out their hands at the same time—the former holding a bottle of hemostatic medicine, and the latter holding a piece of cold jade that suppressed the disordered spiritual veins in his palm.