Fire Spirit Fruits require extremely dense fire spirit energy to grow and survive.
This place has underground fires and a subterranean lava lake; the fire is sufficient, but for unknown reasons, it has lost its heaven and earth spiritual energy.
Deprived of spiritual energy nourishment, this Fire Spirit Fruit tree could not endure and gradually withered and died here.
Xiao Fei walked over and gently patted the trunk. The entire tree instantly shattered into countless small pieces, falling into the lava lake.
These branches had long since withered and died, now useless.
However, his senses detected a trace of life still remaining in the tree's roots.
He immediately took out a flying sword and began to dig into the ground.
The flying sword was incredibly sharp, and combined with Xiao Fei's considerable strength, he was a formidable digger. In just a moment, he had excavated a large pit.
He unearthed the entire root system of this Fire Spirit Fruit tree. Most of it was completely dead, leaving only a small section, about three inches long, that still retained a trace of vitality.
Xiao Fei quickly brought this root segment into his space, dug a hole, placed the root inside, and then covered it with soil.
Given the state of the Fire Spirit Fruit tree's root, he estimated that only his space in the entire cultivation world could successfully grow it.
Xiao Fei emerged from his space, feeling satisfied. Obtaining this Fire Spirit Fruit tree made the trip worthwhile; he could accept it even if he gained nothing further.
He brushed the dust off his pants, searched the surroundings of the lava lake one last time, found nothing, and prepared to leave.
After taking a few steps, something suddenly occurred to him. He turned back to look at the lava lake, realizing he had overlooked it.
Such lava lakes emanated terrifying heat; ordinary people would perish if they got too close.
But he was a Nascent Soul cultivator, and he had cultivated the Primordial Chaos Dharma power. This little bit of heat, lacking any spiritual energy, meant he could even jump in for a bath without issue.
Xiao Fei thought it, and he did it. With a "plop," he jumped into the lava lake.
The astonishing heat emanating from the churning lava in the lake felt to Xiao Fei like nothing more than a warm bath, incredibly comfortable.
If it were in the past, when the heaven and earth spiritual energy here had not yet vanished, such lava could still pose some threat to cultivators.
Now, with all spiritual energy gone, it was merely an ordinary substance to him. What was there to fear?
Xiao Fei took the opportunity to scrub himself clean in the lava lake before diving towards the bottom.
As he descended to a certain depth, he discovered another lava river beneath the ground. Since he was already down here, he decided to follow the lava river to see where it led.
This lava river surged powerfully deep underground. Xiao Fei even spotted a few small fish, seemingly unaffected by the heat, swimming freely in the lava river.
After swimming along the lava river for about a mile or two, he noticed another lava outlet above, similar to the lava lake he had seen earlier.
Xiao Fei surfaced from another lava lake, his head emerging, and surveyed his surroundings. He found himself in a sealed underground space.
Emerging from the lava lake, he found a large stone chamber spanning two to three mu.
The stone chamber was sparsely furnished with simple stone tables and chairs. The floor and surrounding walls were all hard stone. Apart from the lava lake, there were no other passages connecting to the outside.
Xiao Fei crouched down, swept away some dust, and examined the area carefully.
The floor was inscribed with formations and runes, densely packed and interconnected, covering every corner of the two to three mu stone chamber.
This was the most complex grand formation Xiao Fei had ever encountered.
Following the runes, he found a circular platform about ten feet in diameter in the center of the chamber.
The platform was surrounded by numerous grooves. Xiao Fei took out a top-grade spirit stone and placed it in a groove. It fit perfectly, snug and seamless.
Around this circular platform, there were 360 identical grooves evenly distributed, meaning 360 top-grade spirit stones were required.
One top-grade spirit stone was equivalent to 100 mid-grade spirit stones, and one mid-grade spirit stone was equivalent to 100 low-grade spirit stones.
By this calculation, one top-grade spirit stone was equivalent to ten thousand low-grade spirit stones. Activating this grand formation would cost the equivalent of 3.6 million spirit stones.
Even a cultivator as wealthy as Xiao Fei would not dare to activate it casually.
Moreover, top-grade spirit stones were not easy to find. He currently possessed only a little over ten top-grade spirit stones in total.
"Could this be a super-large teleportation array?"
At this moment, Xiao Fei had examined all the formation patterns on the chamber floor. Based on descriptions he had seen in ancient texts, he had an eighty to ninety percent certainty that this was a super-large teleportation array left behind from ancient times.
Teleportation arrays had existed in the cultivation world since ancient times, capable of instantly transporting people from one place to another.
However, due to the extreme complexity of setting up these arrays, even the most skilled formation masters in the current cultivation world could only set up simple, short-distance teleportation arrays.
Furthermore, due to imperfect technology, the failure rate of these short-distance teleportation arrays was very high.
Sometimes, people sent in from one end did not emerge as expected from the other end, vanishing without a trace—neither alive nor dead, with no one knowing where they were transported.
When such failures occurred even once or twice, people no longer dared to use teleportation arrays. They would rather spend more time flying themselves, which was better than risking their lives.
As the saying goes, "use it or lose it." Gradually, teleportation arrays became a rarity in the cultivation world, and few people could successfully set them up.
As far as he knew, this super-large teleportation array before him should be unique in the current cultivation world. No one could set it up anymore, and it was generally used for ultra-long-distance teleportation.
He wondered where this teleportation array would lead. The territory of the Eastern Continent and the Eastern Sea alone did not seem to require such a massive teleportation array.
At this moment, combining his previous speculations, a bold conjecture formed in Xiao Fei's mind.
Beyond this darkness, there might be a vaster world. For some unknown reason, the boundless darkness had formed a cage, trapping the cultivators of their world within.
Xiao Fei did not have enough top-grade spirit stones to activate this array, nor did he dare to try it lightly. What if he transported himself to some绝地 (deadly place)?
However, a teleportation array preserved so completely was extremely rare. He immediately took out a jade slip and meticulously recorded the formation patterns on the ground, intending to study them later.
After recording the complete formation, he did not damage the array. He feared that if he broke it, he might never be able to repair it.
Afterward, he jumped back into the lava lake and followed the lava river downstream, but he did not find any more stone chambers like the previous one.
When he reached the end of the lava river, he climbed out of a volcano.
Sitting on the volcano's summit, it was still dark, but he could see the scattered lights in the distance.
It seemed he had not yet exited the ancient ruins. He could only grope his way towards the direction of the lights.
Meanwhile, the father and son with green bean eyes were searching the ruins everywhere for Xiao Fei.
This was because they had discovered something that made the father and son very embarrassed.
Most of the doors in the ruins were left open, but the rooms inside had been completely cleared out, not even a single hair left for them.
As for the doors with restrictions and formations, they were the same as the entrance, requiring all five elemental powers to be complete to open.
The father and son could only stare helplessly!