BXBX NOVEL Chapter 359: Foggy Island
Ye Chen saw that the old man and his granddaughter had noticed his existence, so there was no need to hide anymore. He walked out of the fog and said with his hands held in front of his chest, "Greetings. I am terribly sorry for breaking in the forbidden area, but I am not very familiar with this area, I wonder if I can get a ride from you guys to a place where I can rest." The forbidden area was too mysterious and confusing. Without people as guides, it would be impossible for Ye Chen to find anywhere to rest.
The young lady saw that Ye Chen was so young but carried such a decent aura, with a hint of freshness and sharpness which was not the characteristics of bad men, so she asked the elder with a low quiet voice, "Grandpa, should we bring him with us? Maybe we could ask for some boat fee since most of the people who enter the forbidden area are \'rich\'."
The elder nodded and said to Ye Chen: "You can enter the boat, but you will have to pay three thousand low rank soul stones as fee. How about it?"
In the elder\'s eyes, Ye Chen\'s cultivation was quite odd. His zhen qi was too pure for a Clasping Yuan Realm warrior, but it seemed to be impossible for him to be an Astral Reaching Realm warrior, since one would have such a rich and power zhen yuan, which was different from the one Ye Chen carried, unless he hid his qi. Obviously, the elder did not know that Ye Chen had damaged meridians, so his zhen yuan now was not even half of his original quantity and it was very impure compared to its normal condition. However, the fact of Ye Chen being a Clasping Yuan Realm warrior was certain, and he should be able to afford three thousand low rank soul stones.
"Okay!" Ye Chen agreed instantly. Three thousand low rank soul stones were nothing compared to the rest of his property.
"Get on then!"
The young lady waved her hand.
After getting on the boat, Ye Chen came to realize that the deck was full of dead beast corpses, with their inner pellets being taken out. They were all mainly rank 3 beasts, and not many rank 4 beasts. However, there was one rank 5 beast. He did not understand what these people killed these beasts for, since the pellets from rank three and four beasts would not value much. But, it would not be his place to ask.
He took out three small boxes from his storage ring, each containing one thousand low rank soul stones, Ye Chen handed them over to the elder, "There are three thousand low rank soul stones. You want to count them?"
The elder opened the boxes to check before nodded and said, "We will need to drive the boat in a minute. Can you wait a bit first?"
"Alright!"
Ye Chen was not in a hurry either, so he stood on the side.
Besides the elder and the young lady being Clasping Yuan Realm warriors, there were another two Clasping Yuan Realm warriors amongst those ten warriors who jumped into the lake to kill the beasts. They were the son and grandson of the elder, and the rest of them were all Condensing Reality Realm warriors, equal to normal inner disciple in a normal martial school.
"Did you really come from the outside world?" The young lady approached Ye Chen and asked.
Ye Chen answered, "Yes."
"Is the outside world really that fun? I have never been outside." The woman said with envy.
"You grew up in here?"
Ye Chen was quite surprised.
"Yeah, my great grandfather had gotten stuck in the forbidden area. Ever since then, he got married and had children, and made my family."
After hearing the woman, Ye Chen could not help but feel sorry for her. He did not know exactly how big this island was, but there would be a limit no matter how big it was. Without being able to see the outside world and having to live on an island on her life must have been a torture. Of course, with growing up and living here her whole life, she would have no idea what it was like out there, so perhaps the excitement would not be that deep.
He did not want to let the young woman have too much excitement for the world outside, so Ye Chen shook his head and said that it was very dangerous out there, and he was here because he was being haunted.
"You are lying! Once, someone said that the world outside is huge and endless. There are a lot of interesting places. As for killings, we have that here too on the forbidden island." Young woman said, a bit upset.
Ye Chen forced a laugh while touching his nose.
"Oh, alright, why are you hunting the low rank beasts? The pellet from these rank 3 and 4 beasts should not worth much, right?" Ye Chen could not help but ask.
The young lady made a look at Ye Chen and explained, "The natural yuan qi is quite weak here, and there aren\'t many medicine and great potions. Therefore, we have to kill the beasts and extract the pellets from their bodies to train. However, after a long while, the high ranked beasts are running out as well, so without any other choice, we started to kill low rank beasts."
"I see."
Ye Chen just realized it - the natural yuan qi was indeed quite weak in the forbidden island, less than thirty percent of the outside world. In this kind of environment, the training speed would not be too high.
At the head of the boat, the elder took out a skull-sized light ball, which shone an orange light, but slowly dimmed.
"The sensing ball is about to lose connection with the tower. Everyone, aboard." With surrounding zhen qi, the elder\'s voice spread out in every direction under the water.
Soon, countless human figures jumped out of the water and landed on the deck of the boat. A lot of them carried beasts with them, and were covered in blood.
"Father, what is going on with this guy?" It came from the son of the elder who was in his forties and extremely strong. Before, he was too busy killing beasts to pay attention to Ye Chen. It was until then that he had a minute of free time to ask about him.
The elder answered, "He came from the outside world, and has paid three thousand low rank soul stones already."
"People from the outside… Should we…?" The middle-aged man made a gesture with his right hand.
The elder shook his head, "No, he seems quite powerful. I don\'t have the confidence to take him on. Be careful, if you fail to kill him, then you might get killed. So, it is always good to stay safe."
"You don\'t have the confidence?" The middle-aged man froze a little bit, since the elder was already at peak level Late Clasping Yuan Realm. If even he thought he would not win for sure, then it would be a waste for him to do it himself.
"Alright, let\'s take a head count. Let\'s go!"
The elder said.
"Grandpa, they are all here!"
The young man who was in charge of counting people nodded at the elder.
"Alright, then let\'s go!"
The boat turned around and floated into the distance.
…
Through the conversation with the young woman, Ye Chen found out that her name was Zhao Yushung, the elder was named Zhao Heng, and that light ball in his hand was the mysterious sensing ball.
The gravity in the forbidden zone was very disorienting, with the heavy fog on top of the ocean, the guiding items were all not working anymore. There was a sensing tower that was built up in the center of the island. This sensing tower was just like a light tower, and as long as one carried a sensing ball, the carrier would be able not sense the tower within one thousand miles. However, there was a time limit. The greater the time passed, the connection between the ball and the tower would get weaker. In the end, it would be a terrifying thing to get lost for most of the people in the foggy island.
After the boat got back to the dock, the fog slowly disappeared.
From far away, Ye Chen saw a huge island which seemed to cover hundreds of miles of land. It was like a huge wok covering the lake water. The highest point seemed to be more than hundreds of meters high, and the edge seemed to be connected with the lake. There were countless ships with different shapes anchored on the harbor.
The island was covered in different buildings. It had the same structure as the Snake Island; there were nine levels from the bottom to top. On the furthest outwards was the lowest level, while the ninth level was on the top of the island. A huge sensing tower stood right in the center of that. On top of that was a sun-like light ball floating.
"We are here." The elder whose name was Zhao Heng let out a breath. During each outing, he could not help but get worried about getting lost again.
"Grandpa, what about him? He does not have an identification tag…"
Zhao Yushuang said to Zhao Heng all of a sudden.
It caused Zhao Heng to think, then he said to Ye Chen, "This is your first time on the forbidden island, so you might not know the rules here. I will now fill you in, so that you don\'t lose your life because of not knowing."
"Rules?" Ye Chen glanced at the island, then realized instantly that there must be some kind of rules in such a massive island.
"There are three leaders of the islands, nineteen head elders, and ninety-eight masters. The masters\' powers are like the top Astral Reaching Realm warriors, while the head elders are like Extreme Astral Reaching Realm warriors. As for the leaders, they are the unbeatable ones, as they could easily kill a top Astral Reaching Realm warrior. The whole island is under their control. They made the rules, so you should really pay attention."
Zhao Heng cleared his throat and continued, "Each person on the island has an identification tag, just like the one in my hand. There is a series of number on it." As he talked, he took out a palm-sized iron tag with a series of number carved on it.
"Without one, one must ask for a new one. Otherwise, once caught, you will be killed on the spot. It will not cost you anything for the tag, but for first-timers, according to the cultivation, you will have to pay a huge amount of soul stones. For example, the Early Clasping Yuan Realm warriors would have to pay ten thousand low rank soul stones, twenty thousand stones for Mid Realm ones, thirty thousand for Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors. The rate is three thousand mid rank soul stones for Early Astral Reaching Realm warriors, and nine thousand for Mid realm warriors. As for the Late Astral Reaching Realm warriors, they would have to pay twenty-seven thousand mid rank soul stones. You would be able to change it with low rank soul stones, and the rate would be one to forty. If you don\'t have enough, then you would have to join the party and do things for them. There is no alternative option."
Zhao Yushuang said, "Please, remember, never do anything too reckless. There had been powerful Astral Reaching Realm warriors here and they did not care about the rules here. In the end, they were killed on the spot by two masters, their bodies hung on the city gate for three straight nights and days."
"I understand!"
After hearing the detailed description from Zhao Heng, Ye Chen had a basic idea on the island. Without exaggeration, if the island were a martial institution, it would an extremely powerful rank 7 one, since there would be only one Extreme Astral Reaching Realm warrior in the rank 6 martial school. However, there were nineteen of them on this island, especially those three leaders, who must be the top of the top Astral Reaching Realm warriors. They must not be far away from the Seas of Souls Realm. Of course, there was not a Seas of Souls Realm warrior on the island, so there was no comparison to an actual rank 6 martial school.
"You got everything I have said?" Zhao Heng could not see through Ye Chen, so he could not help but get worried. If it were someone else, he might not even mention it.
"Yes, thank you very much for letting me know."
Ye Chen was indeed grateful. Currently, his power was at the level of new Astral Reaching Realm warriors. Not to mention the masters here, any normal Astral Reaching Realm warrior would have caused some big damage right now. If he were at his best condition, he would have nothing to worry about. He was sure that the party of the island would not want to lose an Extreme Astral Reaching Realm warrior. Otherwise, there would not be nine head elders.
"As long as you are clear... Let\'s go over there."
Zhao Heng let out a breath. He saw that Ye Chen had the quality of a calm, mature man, not someone who was easily aggravated and got reckless. He just wanted to warn him in advance.