Chapter 103 - 99 Dao Food Fights Back? _1

Lu Yan did not act rashly.

There are five levels of Martial Marquis, and he couldn’t gauge the exact cultivation level of the Zheng family’s Marquis. However, he was at least at the peak of Martial Marquis Level One, with robust and substantial bone strength.

Although he had not used his full strength before, who knew how much power the other party had exerted?

"You possess impressive strength," he declared.

The Zheng family’s Marquis also praised, "If you are willing to accompany us, I assure you on the name of the Marquis, we will not harm your life. Moreover, after the mission is accomplished, we will reward you with five thousand silvers."

"Five thousand silvers."

Lu Yan pretended to perk up at the sight of the wealth, revealing a glimpse of greed. "I’m not opposed to accompanying you. But the five thousand silvers must be given in advance."

"Give it to you in advance? I don’t carry that much silver when I travel."

The Zheng family’s Marquis frowned and spoke.

"You all can put the money together," Lu Yan spoke.

The people of the Zheng family reluctantly agreed. Although they acted with resentment, they held onto the hope that Lu Yan’s abilities could save their lives at a critical moment. They had no choice but to agree to Lu Yan’s terms.

A few dozen martial artists pooled their resources and produced five thousand silver tickets.

"Sir, here are your silver tickets."

The Zheng family’s Marquis, holding a handful of silver tickets, handed them to Lu Yan.

Lu Yan stepped close to the Marquis, took the silver tickets, and put them in his bosom.

"Look out!"

Just then, Lu Yan’s expression drastically changed, and he abruptly leapt towards the right.

Seeing the change in Lu Yan’s expression, the Zheng family’s Marquis knew that something was amiss. Reacting swiftly, he jumped following Lu Yan.

But in mid-air, Lu Yan suddenly twisted his waist, forcefully halting his momentum and began falling downwards.

The Zheng family’s Marquis was unprepared. His abrupt jump was too vigorous, and it was too late stop his momentum.

He knew he had been tricked.

"How dare you!"

As the Marquis passed by Lu Yan in mid-air, he roared, one of his claws reaching out to snatch at Lu Yan, hoping to use Lu Yan’s weight to steady his flight.

Lu Yan was prepared, and punched out his fist that collided with the Marquis’ claw.

With a thud, Lu Yan used the impact to retreat and moved back to his original position. In contrast, the Zheng family’s Marquis got propelled forward and fell into an empty area.

As his body was about to hit the ground, a dense Will Power Pattern emerged on the ground.

The Zheng family’s Marquis felt a chill run down his spine, his body erupting in cold sweat. Facing a life or death situation, he burst out with unparalleled potential. His body twisted forcefully in mid-air, his left hand slammed downward, unleashing powerful bone strength towards the ground.

With a loud rumble, the ground shook violently. But the Zheng family Marquis’ left arm exploded in the Will Power Pattern, and the force of his attack shot his body backward over ten meters, before falling on a safe patch of ground.

Lu Yan, on the other hand, punched a large man blocking his way into two halves, broke free from the encirclement and dashed towards the depths of Linchuan Cliff.

He hopped left and right, each time avoiding the Will Power Pattern, landing in safe spots. In a blink, he ran several hundred meters, disappearing behind some rocks.

"Ah, you thief, I will kill you..."

The Zheng family’s Marquis shouted angrily, his eyes bloodshot, his face contorted.

His left arm was blown open, damaging his Origin Energy and shaking his cultivation foundation. It was unlikely his cultivation level could progress any further.

Preserving his current level was already fortunate.

Although there were legends in the history of Da Chu Dynasty about warriors who despite losing an arm continued to progress and eventually became formidable figures, those cases were as rare as a phoenix feather or a unicorn horn, all with exceptional talents.

He knew his limitations and knew that he did not have such talent.

Therefore, his hatred for Lu Yan seeped into his bones.

But no one dared to chase after Lu Yan. Lu Yan could evade the Will Power Pattern, but they couldn’t.

"You, go outside and tell Third Uncle and the rest to surround the exit. We can’t let that bastard escape."

Zheng Zhongtian instructed.

A young man withdrew to report the situation.

...

Lu Yan continued to head into the depths of Linchuan Cliff without stopping. Based on the warnings from the Dao book, he avoided various danger zones.

His first target was the Dao food.

Besides, the Dao book’s intense reaction indicated that it was somewhere deep in Linchuan Cliff.

Naturally, if he encountered any clams throughout his journey, he confirmed the safety before casually picking them up and putting them into the bamboo basket on his back.

The Linchuan Cliff was vast, forming a long strip around twenty miles long and six to seven miles wide.

After delving for a while, Lu Yan began to slow down.

Probably due to the nearness to the towering cliffs that blocked the sea breeze, less weathering occurred. The Will Power Patterns became more intensive.

Even with the warnings from the Dao book, Lu Yan had to proceed with caution.

Two hours later, Lu Yan finally reached the deepest part of Linchuan Cliff, arriving at the location indicated by the Dao book.

Inside the bamboo basket, there were already five pounds of clams.

Lu Yan’s gaze settled onto a stone pillar up ahead.

The pillar was about five meters high and about a meter in diameter. On it was carved a peculiar figure of a creature that was vividly lifelike.

The creature had the upper body of a human and the lower body of a snake, while sprouting a pair of wings on its back. The appearance was of a woman; her facial features were delicate, and she was stunningly beautiful.

"Is this the Dao food?"

Lu Yan was left speechless.

According to the Dao book, the target should be this stone pillar.

But Lu Yan didn’t dare to act rashly because the Dao book also gave a warning: there were abundant Will Power Patterns around this stone pillar.

"How do I get it?" Lu Yan eyed his surroundings, his head aching.

The area was surrounded by patterns of will power; he wasn’t Shen Yinuo, capable of finding safe passages within the Will Power Pattern.

However, at this moment, the Dao book in his sense sea started to tremble slightly. The sense of hunger was unprecedentedly strong. Instantly, the Dao book flew out from Lu Yan’s sense sea, rushing towards the stone pillar.

The Dao book swiftly enlarged, a vortex appeared on it like a gigantic mouth, it tried to swallow the stone pillar.

But at this moment, the stone pillar underwent a drastic change too.

The originally ordinary-looking stone pillar suddenly radiated a bright light. As the light shone, the figure of the woman with a human body and snake tail seemed to come alive. The snake tail wriggled its way up the stone pillar and then leaped towards the Dao book.

There was a loud crash. The Dao book was slightly pushed back, and the human-headed snake figure was driven back onto the stone pillar.

The light from the stone pillar grew extraordinarily brighter, and the energy surged to form a shadow that looked exactly like the carved figure.

Whoosh!

The Dao Book darted again, each page as solid as a brick, it slapped onto the shadow figure.

Bang!

The figure retreated once more.

Then another slap, forcing the figure to withdraw again.

The Dao Book clearly had the upper hand. In a swift instant, it engulfed and ’swallowed’ the human head-snake body into its pages.

Next, the Dao Book approached the stone pillar. A whirlpool appeared on its pages, through which one could see strands of energy being sucked from the pillar and absorbed into the book.

This process continued for about two hours until the pillar was drained of energy. Only then did the Dao Book ’satisfactorily’ fly back, sinking into Lu Yan’s brow and hovering in his sea of consciousness.

Unlike before, an aura now shrouded the Dao Book, protecting it.

Meanwhile, the Martial Arts Avatar remained motionless.

"Seriously? It absorbed all that energy without giving any to the Martial Arts Avatar?"

Lu Yan tried his best to communicate with the Dao Book, but found it unmoving, as if it had... fallen asleep.

"What’s going on? Is it malfunctioning?"

Lu Yan was frustrated.

He pondered, forming a few speculations in his mind.

Did the Dao Book have some damage, therefore it absorbed the energy of the Martial Food relentlessly, just to repair itself?

And certainly, the energy of the Dao Food was the most appropriate for this.

Just now, the Dao Book seemed to have absorbed enough energy from the Dao Food to enter a sleep and repair itself.

"When the Dao Book wakes up, will there be any changes?"

A wave of anticipation stirred in Lu Yan’s heart.

But then he remembered a terrifying problem. If the Dao Book was ’asleep’ and couldn’t give warnings, how would he navigate outside?

Luckily, he found that although the Dao Book was ’asleep’, it could still provide warnings, which was a relief to Lu Yan.

Immediately, he began inspecting the area around the pillar.

Suddenly, his eyes brightened.

The pillar was near the rocky cliffside, which towered a hundred meters high, its steep and jagged surface blocked the sea wind.

On one section of the cliff, shellfishes were crawling everywhere.

An entire colony of shellfishes.

Lu Yan went along the pillar to the right, passing by the area with will power patterns, and arrived at the under of the cliff to collect shellfishes.

The shellfish was about the size of clams, resembling abalone, with delicate, bright red meat that was soft to touch. As he brought it to his nose, there was a subtle fresh aroma.

But it was quite heavy.

Such a small piece probably weighed about a tael.

Ten pieces would equate to a catty.

Here, there were at least hundreds of these shellfishes.

Lu Yan’s hands moved swiftly. A pinch and a hook, and the shellfish was thrown into the bamboo basket in a smooth arc.

In no time, hundreds of shellfishes were wiped out.

Lu Yan picked up the bamboo basket and found it to be about thirty jin.

Pretty good harvest.

Barely a few hours inside, and he already had thirty jin, which was excellent.

Lu Yan continued to search around the base of the cliff.

At this point, members of the major feudal lords were still on the periphery, not yet deep into the cliffs. This was his chance.

But really, finding thirty jin of shellfish in one spot was a rare occurrence. Lu Yan searched along the cliffs for several hours, although he found another twenty jin of shellfish, they were all in small huddles.

"Finding more than a hundred jin by myself is too difficult, let alone get in the top two."

Lu Yan shook his head silently.

The master-level feudal lords had brought dozens of people; even without the Dao Book’s warnings, their efficiency was bound to exceed his own.

Continuing like this, he was bound to lose.

"Zheng Family, I’m counting on you."

Lu Yan’s eyes flickered, then he retreated to where the stone pillar was, heading towards the periphery.

Soon enough he heard people talking.

Quiety, he hid behind a boulder and looked ahead.

A group of seven or eight people were gathered around a huge stone that looked like a sharp sword, at the base of which shellfish could be seen crawling.

Lu Yan looked, but they all had unfamiliar faces, not from the Zheng Family. They should be from a Martial Marquis level faction.

These people didn’t dare pick up the shellfish recklessly. Instead, they confirmed there were no will power patterns around by dripping blood, then proceeded to gather the shellfish.

Soon, dozens of shellfishes were wiped clean.

They were about to leave when they were blocked by people.

More than ten people were blocking their path.

"The Zheng Family’s people have finally shown up."

From behind the boulder, Lu Yan continued to watch the drama unfold.

"Zheng Family."

Upon seeing those who were blocking their path, those people’s faces changed.

"Hand over your shellfish, and you can leave safely."

A burly man from the Zheng Family said coldly.

"You are robbing us."

The previous group looked visibly upset.

"This world is naturally a case of the survival of the fittest, why resist in vain? Hand over the shellfish, or die."

The man from the Zheng Family had a cold, merciless expression, full of killing intent.

Although their group only had a few people more than the others, they were confident about overpowering their opponents.

The clansmen of the master-level feudal lords, undoubtedly, practice high level Martial Arts.

Even some trusted retainers practice high level Martial Arts.

And the Martial Marquis level clans, only the talented clansmen are eligible to practice high level Martial Arts.

So although the Zheng’s had only a few more people, they could overwhelm the others if it came down to it.