Li Jing threw out the two bodies of Six Realm giant beasts and three bodies of Fifth Boundary bird people, leaving them to the Research Institute. He did not take out the dozens of colossal spiritual devices he had seized.
In total, more than two thousand people from the Research Institute accompanied the Heavenly King Group. Only a little over three hundred of them actually had the title of academician. The remainder were all their assistants.
These five bodies alone were enough to keep the academicians busy.
In fact, the giant ape that they killed earlier was still being dissected and analyzed by so of them.
Many jobs had yet to be finished.
Although showing the confiscated spiritual devices would please the academicians, it was not what Li Jing wanted.
Given the limited manpower and ti, it was better to focus on places where work could demonstrate value in the short term.
At this mont, knowing the habits of giant beasts and bird people was far more important than understanding how to make colossal spiritual devices and their material composition.
Only by understanding these essential facts about the creatures, could it benefit their exploration of the Great Secret Realm.
Even if they understood how to make spiritual devices, it would not help much. As long as they knew it was a spiritual device.
The rest could wait until after they returned without any urgency.
The opening of the passage to the Great Secret Realm typically lasted for over a month.
And they only had a month for exploration.
The energy of the accompanying Institute personnel should not be placed on levels irrelevant to the exploration of the secret realm.
Also, half of the initial exploratory phase was already over for the Heavenly King Group.
When a secret realm opens, the front-line exploration groups like the Heavenly King Group and those of the other twenty-four Administrations carry out initial explorations over five-day cycles to collect as much information as possible.
So far, the Heavenly King Group had spent two and a half days in the Secret Realm.
In two more days, they would return to the entrance of the Secret Realm to set up camp, send out the information and gains, and wait for the arrival of the Administration’s reinforcents.
Only then could the real exploration of the Great Secret Realm begin.
The two bodies of giant beasts and three bodies of bird people were keeping the Research Institute personnel extrely busy.
The accompanying academicians and their assistants were all sweating, shouting and carrying out their dissection, sampling, and testing tasks.
Because the five bodies were quite large, under Li Jing’s instruction, the Heavenly King Group temporarily ford a won’s team of two thousand mbers from various small teams to help.
This won’s team wasn’t there to cheer the Institute on.
Having research materials at hand, the academicians and their assistants were all in saintly mode, completely indifferent to won.
The reason for forming the won’s team was that won were usually better at detailed tasks than n and more careful, so they would not be clumsy.
However, the main reason was that the bodies of the creatures that died under World Thunder Punishnt were mangled to the point of being unrecognizable, looking like five blobs of rotten flesh. Any further damage could impede the delicate operations needed.
Li Jing and Chen Yuran spent about two hours arranging for various matters.
It must be said, leading was quite troubleso.
Although the Administration’s team was unrivaled in discipline, and everyone in the Heavenly King Group and the Institute personnel obeyed Li Jing, most of the people could only follow orders without coming up with work plans on their own.
Only the heads of the relevant Institute teams, and the team leaders of the small teams in the Heavenly King Group, could coordinate things after being given orders.
All aspects had to be thought about, planned, and assigned by the two leaders Li Jing and Chen Yuran.
After all the matters were handled, Li Jing’s only thought was how big the headache was.
Looking at Chen Yuran, who also seed relieved, he said:
"Yuran, I’m really lucky you ca along this ti. If I had to lead this ten thousand-man team on my own, I think just assigning the various tasks would’ve been overwhelming."
Upon hearing this, Chen Yuran glanced at him and lightly huffed:
"You have the nerve to say that. I joined this Secret Realm expedition to participate in the exploration. Yet you, the mont we haven’t even entered the Secret Realm properly, conveniently shoved the commander’s responsibilities onto . So far, I’ve never had a proper chance to explore."
Facing this disgruntled comnt, Li Jing laughed awkwardly.
"Isn’t our journey from the entrance of the Secret Realm to here part of the exploration?"
Continuing, he said,
"As the initial exploration group, there’s a limit to what we can do. Our exploration of the Great Secret Realm is only just beginning. You don’t need to be in a hurry. In two days, we’ll send out the information we have on hand right now. Once the main Administration forces arrive, that’s when things truly start. At that point, we can plan and deploy small teams for deep exploration."
Hearing what Li Jing said, Chen Yuran nodded with a smile.
She had just spoken on a whim and wasn’t really complaining.
It was clear to her too, the real exploration hadn’t started yet.
Li Jing leading the Heavenly King Group this far could be considered bending the rules to a large extent.
For the first five days, their only task was supposed to be to investigate the environnt and ecology around the entrance to the Secret Realm, collecting as much information as possible.
At present, they had not only gone deep into the Secret Realm, they had even encountered things they shouldn’t have.
If soone else had led the team, they would neither have dared nor been able to venture so far inward.
Chen Yuran lightly touched the hair by her ear, glanced at the place where the spatial passage had been.
More than fifty minutes ago, just ten minutes after she and Li Jing erged from the spatial passage, the passage completely collapsed.
Now, looking in the distance, nothing seed amiss.
No spatial distortions nor detectable spatial fluctuations.
After look at it for a while, she retracted her gaze and turned her head to ask,
"Now, the spatial passage here has completely closed. What’s our next move?"
"We’ll stay here for two days to see what happens," Li Jing responded.
"Yes, the passage is closed for now, but it might open again. If nothing happens after two days, we’ll return to the entrance to set up camp. As far as initial exploration is concerned, we’ve more than completed our assignnt. There’s no need to go deeper into the Secret Realm."
Continuing, Li Jing added,
"If we proceed deeper into the Secret Realm, we aren’t sure what we’d encounter which might delay our return, causing trouble. The Research Institute needs ti and a peaceful environnt to conduct their work as well. Simply bringing the bodies of the giant beasts and bird people back won’t be of much use. Giving them enough ti to gather all the information we need will benefit the exploration when we join up with the main forces."
Upon hearing this, Chen Yuran nodded in agreent. After thinking for a mont, she reached into her storage space, drew out an Administration tablet and handed it back to Li Jing.
"Here, take this back."
Seeing this, Li Jing was slightly taken aback.
He had given Chen Yuran the Administration’s tablet to help her understand and manage the team. The Heavenly King Group didn’t have plans for more exploration for now, but wouldn’t there be exploration tasks after they had joined up with the main forces?
Chen Yuran suddenly took out the tablet and gave it back to him. Could it be that she didn’t want to continue working?
This is not good!
Without Chen Yuran controlling the overall situation, how could he be cavalier?
Just as he was about to speak, Chen Yuran smiled at the corner of her mouth.
"We don’t have any other exploration plans for the ti being. While we have so leisure ti, you can write the action report first. It saves us ti later, so it doesn’t delay the exploration process after rejoining the main force."
With that, she laughed lightly.
"We have gained a lot from this trip. The senior managent of the Managent Bureau will definitely need to know the details. I only took a look at the back of the passage, and you’re the only one who really knows the details, so you have to write the report. Besides, I can’t be considered a mber of the Managent Bureau, so it’s not quite right for to write the report."
"..."
Li Jing.
It’s a good thing that Chen Yuran does not want to shirk her responsibilities.
But this action report...
With a sigh, Li Jing reached out and took the tablet.
"Fine, I’ll go back to the camp and figure out how to write."
Despite his reluctance, he had to write this action report.
Yes, he is the supre leader of the Heavenly King Group, and his position as an action counselor in the Managent Bureau is indeed a lofty position.
But this position belongs to the front line.
Front-line personnel, can’t avoid writing reports.
In plain terms, his position is not yet at the level where he doesn’t have to write reports.
Moreover, what Chen Yuran said is right.
The action report for this trip must be detailed enough.
Only when the action report is ticulous enough will the higher-ups be satisfied.
Only when the higher-ups are satisfied, more rits will be granted.
This issue is not as simple as dealing with Jiang Yini.
If it were just about dealing with Jiang Yini, he could just make do.
He would just be ’Killing the familiar’, standard protocol.
The problem is that Jiang Yini is just a local bureau chief.
Above her, there are higher level positions such as district chiefs in the Managent Bureau.
Exploration of the Big Secret Realm is not sothing a local bureau chief can decide.
Without ntioning anything else, just for this preliminary exploration alone, the Managent Bureau has called for twenty-five exploration teams from different cities.
There are fifty people just for the positions of bureau directors and deputy directors in the twenty-five city administrations.
Every one of them is a director, but who would dare to take responsibility for the exploration of the Big Secret Realm?
With the subsequent arrival of the Managent Bureau’s main force, there will definitely be higher-ranking individuals higher than local bureau chiefs coming to coordinate everything.
If the highest leader is not Jiang Yini, it will definitely be tricky to deal with.
This involves rits and shouldn’t be carelessly handled.
Looking mournfully at the crowd busily surrounding the corpses of the giant beasts and bird people not far away, Li Jing pondered for a while before pressing his communication earpiece to connect to the frequency of the leader and captain of the Heavenly King Group.
"All group leaders and team captains, prepare a detailed action report for within two hours. For now, we have no further exploration plans. We will station here for two days before returning. When we return to the present world, I need to submit your action reports."
Upon receiving the internal communication, the group leaders and team captains all responded in agreent.
Getting crisp responses from everyone, Li Jing can’t help but chuckle.
He is not the only one who has to write the action report.
The leaders and captains below also need to write.
Let them first write it and submit it to him, he could copy so parts from here and so parts from there, and then add so details he knows.
In this way, the report is much simpler, isn’t it?
I’m such a genius!
Chen Yuran glanced at soone sneaking a laugh with a flick of her mouth.
She couldn’t say how much she knew about Li Jing’s abilities.
Even Liu Sisi could not fully understand this aspect.
But she understood Li Jing’s temperant very deeply.
At a glance, she understood Li Jing’s attitude clearly...
He’s trying to slack off by leveraging his role!
Looking at soone both humorously and irritably, Chen Yuran didn’t expose him, and said,
"I can handle the work here, you can go and rest in the tent..."
Before she could finish her sentence, the voice of Jiu Li in high spirits resounded in their communication earpieces.
"Li Jing! Yuran! Although the at of this giant pig can’t be boiled, it is easily roasted by Fox Fire. The taste is pretty good, why don’t you two co and taste it?"
Getting the sudden communication, Li Jing and Chen Yuran both froze for a mont.
The two giant beast corpses brought back by Li Jing.
One is a pure love warrior that is a combination of a rhino and a buffalo, with six horns on its head, a nearly humanoid body, and seems like a "beastman".
The other is a giant pig with a hump on its back and four legs as sturdy as elephant legs.
Both creatures are pretty peculiar in their bodily forms, as if they are so kind of "stitched monster".
However, after the Research Institute tested their biological structures, they determined that they were both native creatures, born this way, not species artificially patched together.
The first one that caught Jiu Li’s eye was the giant pig.
In her words,
This buffalo looks rough and tough at first glance, its flesh and blood may not be suitable for cooking, but the giant pig looks tender and worth trying to cook."
After evaluating the two giant beasts separately, she imdiately dragged Yulian to start sorting them out.
Over two hours passed, and they have finally made progress.
It can be cooked and the taste is not bad.
The two exchanged glances before Li Jing spoke.
"I won’t go, do you want to give it a try, Yuran?"
"I..."
Chen Yuran hesitated, then shook her head.
"Let’s forget it. That thing looks too strange, I can’t stomach it."
Li Jing grinned, silently nodding in agreent.
The creatures were definitely edible.
At his request, the Research Institute completed tests on the flesh and power of the two giant beasts within half an hour, confirming that they were safe to consu.
This type of food, which could also be consud by humans and had nurous benefits, was highly valuable.
Especially the two six realm creatures brought back by Li Jing.
With the backing of the six realm cultivation level, consuming their flesh and blood was equivalent to triple the effectiveness of eating a six realm spiritual beast.
Who had ever eaten a six realm spiritual beast?
Spiritual beasts aren’t like monsters, they diligently cultivate every day.
For the notoriously lazy spiritual beasts, reaching the six realm growth cycle would take at least several hundred years.
Unless you’re willing to invest heavily, pushing them up step by step.
This cost might be even more terrifying than nurturing a spirit weapon whose attributes have sky-rocketed.
If one is really raised, who would bear to eat it?
In the present world, spiritual beasts are rare.
A six realm spiritual beast is an exceptionally rare existence in the true sense.
Other than stinky tofu, Li Jing had seen many spiritual beasts with health bars being raised by people on the streets.
However, he never saw a spiritual beast beyond the three realm.
Returning to the point.
The body weight of the giant beasts starts at ten thousand tons.
Not only is their flesh and blood highly nutritious, but the quantity is also more than enough.
The value is beyond doubt.
The only downside is that the giant beasts look a bit odd, making it hard for those who know their true appearance to eat them.
After politely refusing Jiu Li’s goodwill through the communication earphone, Li Jing turned his head.
"It’s almost noon, what do you want for lunch?"
At his words, Chen Yuran’s beautiful eyes sparkled a few tis, and a hint of a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.
"Just prepare so seafood. The dishes you’ve been cooking these past few days are too simple and bland."
"Alright, you ’supervise’ here, I’ll send the food over when it’s ready."
Li Jing chuckled and flew off to the temporary kitchen set up in the center of the camp.
...
Arriving at the kitchen, Li Jing casually took out two fish he had caught before entering the Secret Realm. He skilfully began to prepare them while opening his panel.
After nearly three hours, the nurturing progress of the Linglong Tower and Flying Sword Blue Edge respectively increased to 4%.
Just as he had expected.
Upon entering the six realm, his nurturing efficiency had once again skyrocketed.
By his calculations, he was making progress at a rate of about 1% per hour.
hours a day, that equated to a 24% increase.
In just over five days, the Linglong Tower and Flying Sword Blue Edge could ascend to Spirit Device Level 8.
He didn’t expect the decline in nurturing efficiency to be too dramatic before ascending to Immortal Items.
What would co after, was difficult to predict.
Based on the current rate of progress, both could beco Immortal Items during his exploration of the Secret Realm.
Upon confirming this exciting progress, Li Jing felt both exhilarated and resolute to keep Linglong from appearing as a mobile fortress as much as possible, unless absolutely necessary.
The Linglong Tower had been acting as a mobile fortress outside for more than a day and a half.
Basing it off his original nurturing efficiency, it shouldn’t allow the Flying Sword Blue Edge to catch up.
A 1% efficiency takes five days for both to be equal.
But with Li Jing’s ascension and Chen Yuran holding Linglong for a while, the Flying Sword Blue Edge had made up for the efficiency difference.
To prevent a large gap in nurturing efficiency between the two spirit weapons, he must minimize Linglong’s "public appearances".
With the thought of possessing two Immortal Items in less than a month, Li Jing was full of anticipation.
Immortal Items, sothing he hadn’t seen yet.
He had only ever seen spirit items above level five in the hands of Chen Yuran and her parents, Chen Jing.
Of course.
This was due to his lack of combat with others.
Monsters can’t control Spirit weapons, so of course, they wouldn’t have any in hand.
Li Jing didn’t know how powerful Immortal Items could be.
What could be confird was that both the Linglong Tower and Flying Sword Blue Edge would cross a milestone like a natural moat upon achieving Immortal Item status, providing him with trendous assistance.
After gathering his thoughts and checking the skill bar, Li Jing didn’t hesitate to max out his Silent Shadow skill, which he had only added 3 points to before.
Silent Shadow was extrely useful.
It had the effect of greatly enhancing the primordial spirit.
As a limit breakthrough skill, it also has the ability to grow independently.
How could he not max it out?
Splurging 12 skill points to max out Silent Shadow, Li Jing imdiately felt the difference.
Upon entering six realm, his primordial spirit strength had increased by more than one level compared to when he was in the fifth realm. Now with the full-level Silent Shadow boost, his strength increased a further 90%.
At this mont, within his primordial spirit’s perception, everything within a 10,000 ters radius was clearly visible.
Further away, he could also sense that so sufficiently powerful native spiritual beasts of the Secret Realm are active.
Back when he was in the Fifth Boundary, when his primordial spirit’s perception would be fully turned on, he could clearly sense only a little over a thousand ters.
With such a wide-ranging perception ability, Li Jing can now understand why monsters with stronger perception would usually shut down their own senses.
Skills akin to wide-range perception are conveying information into their minds at all tis.
The more complex the environnt, the more constant the feedback.
The feedback in this Secret Realm is rather good. If he were in the mortal world, filled with people, he probably wouldn’t catch a break.
Quietly closing his primordial spirit perception, Li Jing had a bit of an epiphany.
With a max leveled Silent Shadow and a Six Realm cultivation level, he seed to be at the point where he could deceive ordinary early stage Six Realm practitioners with cognitive disruption. This likely wouldn’t work on those in the middle stage or above, or those in early stage Six Realm who pursue spiritual cultivation.
Compared with Liu Shi, who is in the late stage of the Six Realm, he is not only two small realms behind but his primordial soul strength is also lacking.
In spite of the fact that his Divine Origin Unification benefited his primordial soul strength, the deficit is still massive compared to soone like Liu Shi who studies magic skills at the spiritual level and even invented the Silent Shadow.
Looking at the 20 remaining skill points on the panel, Li Jing considered a plan.
Once they leave the Secret Realm, he will ask Xiao Ai to choose two Sword Controlling Skills and a Three-in-One Sky Sword tactic with enough characteristic to perform a limit breakthrough.
He doesn’t expect to "bet" and end up with a mutation skill like Divine Might, the priority is to breakthrough the limit.
The remaining ten skill points don’t need to be saved.
Allocating three of them to skills that can fortify the primordial spirit, as he starts exploring the Secret Realm, he will harvest experiences in order to reach a limit breakthrough and further strengthen his own primordial spirit.
He doesn’t expect any dramatic results, just that the effect of Silent Shadow at full power will be sowhat more noticeable, reaching the level of crossing a small realm.
In this case, once he reaches the mid Six Realm, he will be able to confuse non-spiritual cultivators of the late Six Realm without them noticing.
By then, sneaking a peek will be quite convenient...
...
In a blink of an eye, two days passed.
Given enough ample ti and a sufficiently tranquil environnt, the Research Institute has reaped substantial results.
Both the Giant Beasts and the bird people have been thoroughly analyzed, from the formation of their genetic chains to their chromosos, detailed data has been recorded.
As a result, the Research Institute drew a conclusion.
The bird people and the Giant Beasts, that seem to have huge differences among races, are highly likely to belong to the sa species on an ecological scale.
The two giant beasts, a buffalo and a pig, plus a giant ape.
The genetic composition and chromosos of these three have no correlation with each other.
However, their completely different chromoso structures peculiarly match with certain fragnts of the bird people.
The giant ape matches the least, with only one pair.
The pure-blooded warriors match the most, with three pairs.
With this result right in front of them, the Research Institute reached the conclusion that the four of them likely belong to the sa species.
The bird people are the high-ranking form in their species.
In a sense, they are the pure-blooded descendants.
The "Giant Beasts" originated from the bird people.
Put simply, the entire Giant Beast population might have been interbred by the bird people, a gigantic humanoid lifeform, and after countless generations, they ford a formidable scale of population.
Although the Research Institute’s hypothesis is sowhat shocking, it is not groundless.
The hierarchy of lineage might be the reason why the Giant Beasts willingly submit to the bird people, who are actually lower in actual realm.
It’s worth noting that the chromosos of the giant worms have absolutely nothing to do with the bird people.
In response, the Research Institute ca up with an exciting inference.
In the Big Secret Realm, there is not just one lineage of bird people, but also various other different lineages of Giant Beasts.
If the lineages are different, naturally so are the factions.
The bird people, hidden behind the spatial passage, are just a fallen faction that left the Big Secret Realm for so reason. There might be other survival spaces or stronger lineages in the Big Secret Realm.
If other survival spaces exist, just like the bird people, they are highly likely to open up the spatial channel by special ans trying to return to the Big Secret Realm.
If there are stronger lineages present, they definitely reside deeper in the Secret Realm.
With the hypothesis and inference, the staff of the Research Institute wishes to return imdiately to communicate the "condition" with the Research Institute mbers from the other twenty-four cities, especially the seven cities that explored the Ruins with the Northern God Kingdom.
They have no knowledge about the situation with the Ruins.
At the ti when the Heavenly King Group was advancing deep into the Secret Realm, the team from the Seven Cities Administration that assisted the Northern God Kingdom in exploring the Ruins was held back, occupied with fending off the Western Nations’ offense along with the Northern Major League, so they didn’t have ti to try exploring the Ruins.
The only known piece of information is that the ruins discovered by the Northern God Kingdom are extrely large.
This "large" news, provoked the nerves of those with the Research Institute.
If the Ruins belong to a civilization similar to the Giant Beasts, their hypothesis and conjecture would be largely confird.
This situation is of vital importance for the exploration of the Secret Realm.
For the fellows of the Research Institute themselves, it not only established a new research topic but also marked their ritorious deeds, signaling that a large amount of research funding would be approved in the future.
...
Two days passed.
The Scholars of the Research Institute didn’t rest for 48 hours and threw themselves into various jobs with high-tension spirits. Despite their average cultivation levels, they all had a magnificent aura.
If it weren’t for the fact that these scholars were all at least at the Three Realm, which made them less likely to die from exhaustion, Li Jing was really worried that a few elderly scholars might suddenly pass away on the spot.
Finally, when it was ti for the team to return, the Scholars of the Research Institute disassembled three Giant Beasts and three bird people corpses six hours in advance. They stored them in portable space containers they brought with them in as intact a manner as possible, planning to continue their studies after they set up camp at the entrance of the Secret Realm and then take them out of the Secret Realm to make so specins.
Li Jing, Chen Yuran, and others accompanied the entire Heavenly King Group for a full two days with the Research Institute and longing to return.
The spatial passage showed no sign of opening again.
To ignore such a vast Secret Realm and not explore it was truly agonizing.
After spending two hours dismantling a temporary camp and packing up everything that needs to be taken away, Li Jing summoned the Linglong Tower for everyone to enter, then used the tower to carry everyone and set off on the journey ho.
...
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