Chapter 3078: Desire For A Strong Body

The others nodded at his words, trusting the young man’s sharp senses. They still extended their immortal sense as far as the local restrictions allowed—barely a few meters in this place. The suppression here was stronger than what they’d experienced before.

Their footsteps were measured as they descended further, the air growing noticeably colder with each passing minute. The damp stone walls began to glisten faintly, not from moss, but from a sheen of frost creeping along the rock.

Meng Bai shivered despite himself, rubbing his arms. The drop in temperature was biting at him far more than the others. As a mortal still on the cusp of immortality, his body simply lacked the resilience to ignore the cold.

Lin Mu cast him a sidelong glance but didn’t say anything yet.

It was Cattaleya who noticed next. With a low chuckle, she stepped closer and clapped Meng Bai lightly on the back. "You’ll need to get a lot stronger if you want to keep up down here, kid," she remarked, her tone both teasing and matter-of-fact.

Meng Bai managed a wry smile, his breath misting in the frigid air. "I’m working on it."

"Why not train in body cultivation then?" she asked, tilting her head at him. "A good body cultivation art would make you far more resistant to things like this. Strength of flesh and bone is as important as strength of Qi."

The question seemed to linger in the chilled air. Meng Bai hesitated, then shook his head slightly. "I do want to be like my master one day, but... I don’t have the talent for it. I’ve tried before. My body just doesn’t respond to those methods the way it should."

Cattaleya raised a brow, genuinely surprised. "No talent, huh? That’s rare. There are countless tempering techniques across the realms. Surely there must be one that would work for you."

Lin Mu decided to interject before the conversation went too far. His voice was calm but firm. "It’s not that there aren’t suitable techniques—it’s that the ones he could use would come at too high a cost."

Cattaleya glanced at him, curious.

"If Meng Bai pursued body cultivation seriously, it would divert his focus from his true strength—formation mastery," Lin Mu explained. "The training would slow his Qi cultivation and hamper the growth of his array skills. His progress in one path would be bought at the expense of the other."

Cattaleya nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. "I see. Knowing where your talents truly lie... that’s wisdom in itself. Overreaching often breaks more cultivators than it makes."

Meng Bai gave a small, almost reluctant nod of agreement, but the thought seemed to have planted itself in his mind nonetheless. He looked down at his hands briefly, curling them into fists. The idea of having a stronger, more resilient body clearly lingered, refusing to leave entirely.

The group pressed on, the sound of their footsteps dull and heavy in the still air. The Abyss seemed to swallow sound almost as much as it swallowed light. The deeper they went, the more oppressive the cold became, until frost began to crunch faintly beneath their boots.

Lin Mu kept his immortal sense extended to the maximum limit, scanning constantly. Daoist Chu, walking slightly behind him, traced faint sigils in the air now and then, leaving behind invisible markers to map their path.

Above, the entrance they had breached was already out of sight, swallowed by the dark. The only illumination now came from the faint glow of their talismans and Elyon’s confident voice describing the way ahead.

Every step forward carried them deeper into the unknown.

The group had been descending through the Crooked Abyss for some time now, the damp air growing colder with each passing step. Shadows clung to the jagged walls, and their footsteps echoed faintly, vanishing into the oppressive darkness.

The silence was thick—too thick. Even in an underground place like this, there should have been some faint trickle of water, the whisper of a breeze, or the subtle scrape of rock shifting with the weight of the world above. But here, it was almost as if the Abyss was holding its breath, waiting for something.

That something came a moment later.

At first, it was just the sound—soft, like pebbles rolling across stone. Then, the ground trembled ever so slightly beneath their feet. Lin Mu raised a hand, and the group immediately came to a halt. Daoist Chu’s immortal sense flared briefly, but the restrictive laws here kept his detection range narrow, only stretching a few meters ahead.

The sound grew louder. Small fragments of rock along the tunnel walls began to loosen and fall.

Then the walls themselves moved.

With a harsh grinding noise, chunks of stone pulled away from the tunnel, shaping themselves into vaguely humanoid forms. In the dim light, their rocky bodies shimmered faintly with embedded minerals and glowing seams, their jagged limbs shifting with unnatural precision.

Golems.

And not the weak kind one might find in basic guard ruins. These were dense, battle-forged constructs, their strength radiating in waves. Lin Mu’s immortal sense brushed over them, quickly gauging their levels—some were only at the First Tribulation Stage of the Immortal Realm, but others climbed as high as the Fifth.

There were at least a few dozen of them.

"Spread out," Lin Mu instructed calmly, stepping forward without the faintest sign of worry.

Meng Bai immediately took position at the flank, drawing in a steadying breath. He moved toward the nearest golem—one that radiated a First Tribulation aura—and met it head-on. His spear flashed in a clean arc, striking its chest. Sparks flew as stone grated against metal.

The golem stumbled back, but only for a moment before swinging a massive rocky fist at him. Meng Bai ducked under the blow and slashed at its legs, chipping off fragments of stone.

He didn’t try to overpower it directly; instead, he used the openings it gave him, carving at its joints with the combination of his spear arts and his water skills, until it collapsed under its own weight.

But before he could finish it, another golem—this one at the Second Tribulation Stage—lunged from behind.

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