Sage of Humanity

The bottom of the cave had been cleared out, leaving a clean space, and even the ground had been baked by Lu Ye using the Fire Dragon Technique.

Ropes were dangling from above, allowing those cultivators with lower cultivation levels to climb down with their help, of course, the main purpose was to facilitate an escape...

Squads holding torches were heading deep into the insect cave.

It was the first time that the Righteous Blood Sect had faced an Insect Plague, so the main tasks at the moment were twofold: one was to find the location of the insect hive, as everything else would be easy once the hive was found.

The other was to explore the underground environment and draw a map of the underground space.

The Insect Plague would not be a one-time occurrence, and it would happen again, although the location of the hive would certainly change. By spending more effort on map drawing now, reference to the map next time would save a lot of time and effort.

Lu Ye had noticed when he came down earlier that the underground was crisscrossed with many forks, nearly comparable to the mine veins of Evil Moon Valley, and it was unknown how such a complex terrain had formed.

Exploring such a complicated environment definitely wouldn't work with too few people.

Lu Ye genuinely felt fortunate that after the Spirit Stream Defense Battle, he had recruited many disciples and independent cultivators for his garrison; otherwise, he would have no one at his disposal now.

Suddenly, he remembered that Shui Yuan had mentioned before that since the Righteous Blood Sect had already started recruiting disciples, it might as well go even bigger, asking Lu Ye to recruit as many disciples and independent cultivators as possible, which was related to the future development of the sect.

Looking at it now, Shui Yuan must have considered the Insect Plague when giving Lu Ye such advice.

Lu Ye once again mobilized his spirit force, constructing a huge set of Spirit Energy Gathering Spirit Runes here, which would become the place for the named disciples and independent cultivators to heal and recover.
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Hua Ci and others would also stay behind here.

After finishing these tasks, Lu Ye did not rush to leave, but first took some time to recover, refining a few elixir pills to ensure an abundance of spirit force, then set off towards the interior.

Along the way, emerald green insect blood was everywhere, but insect corpses were nowhere to be seen, having been collected.

Soon, he reached the second fork and randomly chose a path to move forward.

The farther he went, the more forks he encountered.

One incense stick's time later, he arrived at a deserted fork, took out the Boulder Mountain Saber, and while killing insects, pushed forward, exploring the terrain while searching for the location of the insect hive.

At this very moment, inside the myriad passages of the underground labyrinth, the disciples and independent cultivators of the Righteous Blood Sect were engaged in fierce battles with the Insect Race within the numerous forks.

The deeper they progressed, the larger the Insect Race they encountered, and correspondingly, the stronger their strength. As a result, it was inevitable that the disciples would get injured. Those injured would immediately retreat along the original path to the cave entrance, where, while being treated by Hua Ci, they would take out the maps drawn by their squads and hand them over to her.

Hua Ci was responsible for compiling all the fragmentary maps and then drawing a complete map of the underground.

Progress was fairly smooth; aside from not yet finding the location of the hive, every squad had made rewarding advances. However, as the strength of the Insects encountered increased, casualties were inevitable.

The life of a cultivator was like this, full of danger at every turn. Comrades who had just toasted to their bright future yesterday might become cold corpses today.

One day later, while slaughtering his way through a fork, Lu Ye received a message: the insect hive was found—a lot of people meant high efficiency!

He immediately turned back, heading towards the way he came.

One hour later, at the entrance of the insect cave, Lu Ye arrived covered in green blood.

Hua Ci cleaned the blood for him, and Lu Ye used his spirit force to dry off the dampness on his body. Illuminated by the torches around, he joined Hua Ci at a table.

On this table lay a map, the result of one day's exploration by seven hundred cultivators of the Righteous Blood Sect.

From the map, it could be seen that the number of forks underground was extremely large, winding around with no discernible pattern, with many forks interconnected with each other.

The map was not complete, as many areas had not yet had time to provide feedback and updates.

Hua Ci pointed at a location on the map, "The hive is located here, but that place is very dangerous. Chen Yu has already led a team over, and Amber and Yiyi are with him."

Lu Ye stared intently at the map before him, gradually forming a clear route in his mind.

He then looked at other routes on the map, speaking, "As the fourth brother said, the hive is a very large underground space that connects to many passages. These passages will all converge towards the exit, that is, our current location. Conversely, if we start from here, no matter which fork we take, the final direction will also point to the location of the hive!"

So, if the entire map were to be completed, the lines representing the forks would form a spindle shape. At the two ends of the spindle, one would be the exit of the insect cave, and the other the location of the hive.

Now, this spindle shape had been mostly drawn, representing the progress of the Righteous Blood Sect's cultivators. However, so far, only one line had connected the two ends of the spindle, which was the line representing the team that found the hive.

The other lines were still progressing. Some were advancing slowly because of the overall low strength, while others were doing well, almost reaching the underground space where the hive was located.

"I'll go check out the insect hive first."

After Lu Ye had said that, he turned and entered deeper into the insect cave.

Along the way, torches were lit on the walls of the cave at intervals. Such common means of illumination were something almost every cultivator carried plenty of in their storage sacks, because no one knew when they might be needed, better to be safe than sorry.

He moved quickly, and in just half an hour, he could sense the sounds of intense battle up ahead, including Amber's roars.

Looking up, he saw the flashes of light from various magic and spells, alongside the fierce roars of a girl!

"Level 7 Insect Race, Yiyi, hurry and block it!" Chen Yu's voice sounded.

There was now a rough understanding among everybody regarding the strength levels of the Insect Race—the so-called Level 7 Insect Race was equivalent to a Level 7 cultivator.

"I'm a girl, Senior Brother Chen Yu, you're being too much! Ah, I'm going to fight you!"

Lu Ye turned a corner just in time to see He Xiying covered in a valiant aura of blood Qi, holding a big shield as tall as herself at the forefront. In front of her was a mantis taller than her, swinging its mantis sabers and striking the shield, making a clanging noise. With each strike, He Xiying's body would shudder.

Despite He Xiying's soft and cute appearance, she was actually a physique cultivator!

When Lu Ye found out about this fact, he was quite shocked; he couldn't fathom how such a small frame harbored such vigorous blood Qi.

With her blocking the Level 7 insect, Chen Yu and Yiyi, among others, could let loose, casting their magic and spells and wielding their controlled weapons. In an instant, the mantis was sliced apart.

But what followed were even more enormous insects.

"Retreat, there are too many!" Chen Yu bellowed. The commotion here had obviously alarmed the inhabitants of the insect hive, as several Level 7 and many Level 6 and Level 5 insects swarmed out.

Before Lu Ye arrived, they had already been retreating while fighting, having made quite some distance from the original point.

"A physique cultivator only dies standing, never lives in retreat, I can still hold on!" He Xiying gritted her teeth, then suddenly felt lighter as she floated backward, "Huh?"

Just at that moment, she felt someone grab her collar and fling her backward.

Landing lightly, she looked only to see that where she had been standing, an additional figure appeared with red streaks of Liu Guang flickering through the tunnel. One by one, the insects fell with shrieks as they succumbed to the might of the spirit force imbued saber.

When a gigantic Level 7 insect leapt up at him, the saber sliced down, splitting it cleanly in two...

"Lu Ye!" Yiyi's excited voice rang out.

"Fifth Senior Brother!"

As calls echoed, Lu Ye flicked the insect blood off the Boulder Mountain Saber, nodded slightly and said, "First, we kill!"

With his reinforcement, the tide of the battle, which was on the brink of collapse, immediately stabilized. Under the influence of the weapon control's gleam, one insect after another perished as the group made their way forward.

Lu Ye didn't need to use his saber again, for weapon control was enough. He even had time to observe Yiyi and Amber.

Amber had grown tremendously since coming to the Righteous Blood Sect, treated well with ample food and countless elixir pills, and would come to Lu Ye every few days to claim a line of blood from his Scale Armor.

Amber's exact strength wasn't easy to quantify because it wasn't a cultivator itself; however, in battle, the fluctuations of its demon Qi were in no way inferior to a Level 6 cultivator. Enveloped in golden demon Qi, it shone with a golden luster, majestic and imposing.

With a bite of its jaw, it could crush the hard shells of the insects, and with a swipe of its massive paw, their bodies would sport a new dent.

As for Yiyi... Initially, she wished to study healing under Shui Yuan because Lu Ye got injured often, so her greatest dream was to become a healing cultivator. This way, she could heal Lu Ye whenever necessary.

Yet dreams are just dreams, and hers were shattered by harsh reality. After a heavy dose of disillusionment, her dreams lay in ruins, causing her to be deeply distressed for several days.

Afterward, when Shui Yuan saw Yiyi's despondency, she recommended that Yiyi learn magic and spells from the sect master. Yiyi didn't have much hope at first, but this led to the opening of a new world...

Lu Ye had never asked about how Yiyi was progressing with her studies of magic and spells, but she spent most of her time with the sect master.

It was only at this moment, as he saw the various techniques and their glows blossoming in Yiyi's hands, that he understood...

Privately, the sect master had praised Yiyi's talent for magic and spells more than once, suspecting that Yiyi must have been a magic cultivator before becoming a minion spirit. Often, after being taught a new spell only two or three times, Yiyi would be able to cast it.

Being Amber's congenital minion spirit, Yiyi's strength was contingent on Amber's—whatever strength Amber had, Yiyi could match. Therefore, the strength she displayed now was equivalent to that of a Level 6 magic cultivator.

Furthermore, since she had a Spiritual Body void of any affinity toward the Five Elements, Yiyi could cast spells of any element sign.

The major issue for her was recuperating her strength. Being a Spiritual Body, she couldn't ingest elixir pills. To recover, her only option was to hide within Amber, refining Amber's blood Qi.

The duo of Amber and Yiyi derived their strength solely from Amber itself, which hastened Amber's depletion.