Silent Kill Marsh

"What is your name, lady?" asked Li Zhu, since people from Crouching Tiger Kingdom would not know much about the Myriad Soul Palace, let alone the name of its heir. He did not want to accidentally say her name later on, if he was not supposed to know it.

"Bo Ai, but we better get moving if we want to get any soul crystals!" she hastily replied, before looking up from her map, and starting to run in a direction.

Li Zhu was forced to follow her due to the rules of the trial, so he ran after her, saying, "I haven't told you my name yet... its Li Zhu!"

She simply nodded at him, before continuing towards the location that she had chosen.

"Where are we going?" Li Zhu promptly asked, before looking down at his own map, trying to understand what her goal was.

"Silent Kill Marsh!" they both said in unison, as Li Zhu instantly realized what direction they were going in.

The map listed names for various locations, each of which contained soul crystals. Since this was a trial, the crystals would be guarded by spirit beasts or traps, making it tough to even get one. The locations on the map were also ranked by difficulty, and the harder it was to leave a place unscathed the more crystals that location had.

The Silent Kill Marsh they were heading towards contained six Soul Crystals, and was thus a rank six location in difficulty. The highest difficulty in the illusion world was seven, so it would not be an easy feat for them to survive the marsh, which without a doubt contained many fierce beasts.

The illusion world was quite special, and in the span of a few minutes running, they had already passed a region with snow, a desert area, and even a small jungle. There were thousands of these small areas in the illusion world, and they provided variety to the participants of the trial, something which would make fights more interesting, and would make strategy an important part of a clash. Now, one could use the environment to their advantage, and potentially defeat someone stronger than them.

"What's our strategy going into the marsh?" asked Li Zhu, before proposing, "I think we should stay away from the ground, since there are bound to be creatures lurking in the swamp!"

Although he did not currently have any way to fly, he could still jump from tree to tree, and this was still a better option than braving the spirit beasts of the marsh.

"At least you're smart! I actually agree with you" Bo Ai said, not forgetting to turn even a compliment into an insult.

Li Zhu simply smiled at her comment, not caring about what she thought about him. After all, he had expected her to think of herself as superior, since most cultivators in the mainland thought this way about small countries such as Crouching Tiger, and Bo Ai was even the heir of a powerful force.

This did not mean that he thought her attitude was justifiable, rather he was not irritated by it, since he understood where it came from.

After a few more minutes, the two finally reached the outskirts of the Silent Kill Marsh, as they stood between the gloomy swamp and a vibrant forest behind them. The soul crystals were deep within the swamp, so not wanting to waste any precious time, the two climbed onto the first trees they saw, before heading further into the dark marsh.

Cultivators at the golden core realm and above could fly using Heavenly Energy, which made traveling much easier. Although Li Zhu and Bo Ai were currently only in the qi gathering realm, they could still make use of heavenly energy to hold up their body, decreasing the weight they had on trees. This made jumping from one tree to another much easier, since even the smallest branches could serve as a suitable landing spot for the two.

The swamp was overall quiet, but there was a continuous background noise of bugs flying around, and occasionally a slight movement in the water, sign that a predator was moving.

It did not take long for Li Zhu and Bo Ai to stop, since there were no more trees. The swamp was designed in such a way that one could use trees to quickly reach the depths of the marsh, but after that one was forced to travel by ground, and fight their way to the soul crystals.

"What should we do now, Bo Ai?" asked Li Zhu, wanting to figure out a strategy before heading down into the swamp.

"There's nothing we can do, just charge in, get the crystals, and charge out! Are you decent at fighting? There might be times in which I can't help you, and if you die, I lose the inheritance!" said Bo Ai, worried about losing the trial because of Li Zhu's incompetence.

"Do not worry about that... if one of us was to die, it would not be me!" stated Li Zhu, who was confident in his ability to escape from danger, since he could always enter shadow lurk.

"Well then let's go... as soon as we get the crystals, we run out. Since we need to stay together, do you prefer being in front of me or behind? Both may be dangerous options, but I cannot protect you from all sides." said Bo Ai, simply thinking Li Zhu's comment was boastful.

Li Zhu simply nodded his head, and they both jumped down into the swamp. The location of the soul crystals was clearly marked out on their map, so they simply needed to reach the small cave where they were located quickly, before any spirit beast could sense their presence.

Just in case, though, Li Zhu took Buddy out of his spirit ring, and fused with him. He wanted to at least have the chance to enter shadow lurk, if needed.

His choice was a smart one, since before they even landed onto the muddy little island in the swamp, a large spirit beast jumped from the nearby water, aiming to catch them in their fall.

"A Sword Tooth Alligator!" exclaimed Li Zhu, before activating Shadow Claws. He had jumped down first, so the task of killing this alligator fell onto him.

Sword Tooth Alligators were spirit beasts at the ninth stage qi gathering realm, but they were dangerous even for core consolidating realm experts. This was because of the potent poison that they had around their teeth, something which would without a doubt kill anyone below the third stage of core consolidating realm, in high enough quantity.

For a qi gathering realm expert, two bites was all it took, and when one fought the alligator, it was tough to avoid the teeth, since the weakness of the alligator was its head. If one wanted to use this weakness to their advantage, they would have to aim for the alligator's head, which would make it easier for the beast to bite them successfully.

Li Zhu knew all of this, so the moment the half moon shaped shadow claws of his were released, he entered shadow lurk, effectively avoiding the alligator's sharp teeth.

The beast was not so lucky, as all six shadow claws were real ones, and they all struck it in the head. Li Zhu had long ago reached the strength required to fight ninth stage spirit beasts, so besides the poison, he was not worried about the alligator, which was blown away by his shadow claws, injured.

After all, the alligator was not known for a powerful defense, and Li Zhu's shadow claws were a powerful attack. Having been injured on the first clash, the alligator slithered away as fast as it could, quickly reaching the safety of the water.

"You have some skills, I'll give you that" commented Bo Ai, somewhat impressed at Li Zhu's quick thinking. Most people would freeze the moment they saw the large jaw of an alligator coming towards them, and even if they had the strength required to injure it, that moment of hesitation would spell their doom.

Li Zhu, instead, had reacted instantly, and even avoided the first bite of the alligator, something that even Bo Ai would have had trouble doing. This was because Li Zhu had shadow lurk, a superb skill for dodging.

"Thank you, but we better hurry... that clash may have caught the attention of stronger beasts!" replied Li Zhu, with a solemn expression.

He was almost sure that there would be core consolidating realm spirit beasts in this trial, since it would otherwise be easy for participants like him or Bo Ai to simply move from location to location, gathering soul crystals. Although those powerful beasts were not necessarily intended to be fought, they forced the participants of the trials to think outside the box when gathering crystals, since they would need to avoid encountering these unbeatable opponents.

"Yeah, even in the unlikely possibility that there are no core consolidating realm beasts, we could still die if enough weaker spirit beasts attack us!" stated Bo Ai, seemingly reading Li Zhu's mind, and bringing up a good point.

After all, if enough Sword Tooth Alligators charged at them, there would be no way to avoid every bite, even for Li Zhu.

'This will be tough!' thought Li Zhu, before charging into the swamp, determination on his face. He and Bo Ai jumped from island to island, attempting to stay as far from the water as they could, since that was where most predators resided.