Chapter 784  : Strange State

In the following period, Jiang Chengxuan and his group split up, including Jiang Chengxuan and Shen Ruyan themselves.

Despite the inherent risks of solitary exploration increasing the likelihood of danger, it was a necessity under the circumstances.

Their current pace in gathering the needed Hearts of Plants was unbearably slow, and they were under no illusion that others wouldn’t eventually come to the same conclusion and decision.

With a heightened sense of vigilance, Jiang Chengxuan extended his divine sense to its limits.

Slowly, he began to feel an eerie connection, as if his consciousness was on the brink of merging with the very essence of the island itself.

This startling realization prompted him to abruptly halt the process.

“Something’s amiss here,” Jiang Chengxuan muttered, his intuition telling him that the central island was not as easy as it seemed on the surface.

Attempting to recapture that fleeting sensation, he expanded his divine sense once more, but the peculiar feeling eluded him.

This made him feel more that something was amiss.

So he kept trying. Once, twice, three times…

Persisting in his attempts, after numerous tries, the sensation of becoming one with the environment resurfaced, granting Jiang Chengxuan a clear insight into the whereabouts of the Hearts of Plants.

“A Heart of Plants lies roughly three hundred and seventy miles from my location,” he noted silently.

“Another is seven hundred and ninety miles away, and further afield, a thousand and eight hundred miles away, lies a cluster of five Hearts of Plants.” In this transcendent state, Jiang Chengxuan swiftly located over ten Hearts of Plants.

Including those he had previously acquired, he had now gathered enough to meet the trial’s requirements.

However, when he attempted to withdraw from this heightened state of awareness, he was shocked to find himself trapped, unable to return to normalcy.

This made his heart sink.

Indeed.

This state, along with the central island itself, was truly bizarre.

Fortunately, I had taken precautions beforehand.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

At that moment, a series of crisp bell sounds suddenly rang in Jiang Chengxuan’s ears.

These sounds, or perhaps bell chimes, seemed capable of penetrating the Primordial Spirit, instantly jolting Jiang Chengxuan awake from that strange state.

As he fully emerged, he immediately felt a slight fatigue emanating from his Primordial Spirit, sending a chill through his heart.

Without a doubt, this weariness at the Primordial Spirit level was directly related to the state he had just experienced.

He even suspected that if he had remained in that state for too long, he might never have been able to extricate himself from it again.

“What a strange place.”

Jiang Chengxuan could not help but look around again.

Spiritual light began to flicker in his eyes.

Yet, despite his observation, he detected no abnormalities.

Jiang Chengxuan didn’t dare to be negligent. He immediately informed everyone of his discovery through a message.

However, his warning came a step too late.

As he sent out his message, in a jungle dense with vegetation, a Void Returning cultivator named Qian Shaoqiang was ecstatically gathering Hearts of Plants.

In just a short while, he had collected no less than thirty Hearts of Plants, filling him with immense excitement.

“I didn’t expect that I, Qian Shaoqiang, would have such a day.

There is actually such a special method on this central island.

No wonder we were tasked with finding ten Hearts of Plants.

No wonder those Hearts of Plants were so difficult to find. It turned out that we had not grasped the right method.

Just you wait, I’ll soon give you all a grand surprise,” he said to himself, continuing to sense for Hearts of Plants in other areas.

Unbeknownst to him, as time passed, his form began to fade increasingly, as if he were truly merging with the world around him.

So much so that he failed to notice the message sent by Jiang Chengxuan.

It was only after finding several more Hearts of Plants that he suddenly realized something was amiss.

“Wait, why is everything around me so quiet?

Why can’t I feel any vitality from my own body?

What… what is happening?”

Suddenly, a primal fear gripped Qian Shaoqiang.

He attempted to escape this current state, but how could he possibly break free by his own strength after being immersed for so long?

Gradually, his sense of self became increasingly blurry, his existence fading away.

Eventually, he lost all sense of self, dissolving into nothingness, perhaps truly merging with the world around him.

Qian Mengchen, Qian Donghai, and the others, who had already received Jiang Chengxuan’s message and sensed the danger from it, suddenly looked alarmed as if they had realized something.

They each pulled out a jade scroll, and on it, the light representing Qian Shaoqiang had vanished.

This meant that Qian Shaoqiang had perished on this central island.

“If Qian Shaoqiang truly encountered danger, he would have sent us a message.

Unless he met someone who could completely overpower him, leaving him no chance to even send a message.

But such individuals should be rare on this island.

It’s more likely, as Fellow Daoist Jiang suggested, that it was that state.

Qian Shaoqiang probably fell victim to it,” they thought.

This realization made Qian Mengchen and Qian Donghai even more cautious, doing their best to avoid entering that state.

They had also noticed that the longer and more frequently one entered that state, the harder it became to leave it.

Rather than risking their lives, they preferred to search slowly on the central island.

BOOM!

Just then, as Jiang Chengxuan was about to reunite with his partner Shen Ruyan, he suddenly sensed a powerful surge of Dharmic power thousands of miles away.