The Island in the Mist

Han Li was now inside a small general store near the Inch of Gold Pavilion. He purchased a local sea chart and a report on demon beast activity, then unhurriedly left the shop. Finding a secluded spot, he began to study the documents carefully.

After only a rough look, Han Li’s brows were tightly knit.

The number of dangerous zones marked near Qiyuan Island was far too many.

Were they all places where high-grade demon beasts regularly appeared?

As for the famous deep-sea abyss, it was not that far from here. If Han Li flew south at full speed, he could reach it in half a month.

But the abyss was absurdly vast.

Spanning millions of li in every direction, and according to the documents, the waters there were unfathomably deep—no one had ever plumbed its true depth.

After scanning the materials once, Han Li quickly stored the jade slip containing the information. He stood where he was, his expression heavy, deep in thought.

No one knew how long passed before he raised his head, his face composed once more.

He did not visit any other part of Blackstone City. Without hesitation, he left the stone city.

Once outside the small city, Han Li immediately turned into a streak of azure light and shot into the sky.

Qiyuan Island itself was not very large—only a medium-sized island.

And just as Xu Yun had said, aside from Blackstone City, there was not a single other city on the island. The rest of the land was desolate in the extreme, without even a single village.

It seemed that other parts of this island also forbade mortals and cultivators from settling. For reasons unknown.

Han Li soon flew out of Qiyuan Island. Lifting his head, he checked the sky, oriented himself, and then flew northward.

For him now, the most important thing was to find an island where cultivators rarely appeared and establish a new cave dwelling.

The area near the abyss was undoubtedly crowded with cultivators’ caves. Han Li had no desire to squeeze in among them and attract attention.

So he deliberately flew away from the abyss.

In the waters around Qiyuan Island, large islands were rare, and most of those that existed were already occupied by cultivators and mortals.

Han Li did not pause on any of these islands. He ignored them and flew straight past.

Clearly, as he had anticipated, there were not many cultivators in the northern seas.

After more than ten days of flight, he rarely saw other cultivators. When he did, low-grade ones would warily dodge out of his way upon seeing his light. High-grade ones would watch him with extreme vigilance and full caution.

Murder and treasure-seizing were as common here as on any other demon beast island.

Han Li added a bit more caution to his own travel.

After two more days of flight, he saw no other cultivators at all. Only then did Han Li change direction and head west.

According to the sea chart, there should be some small and medium-sized islands with minor spirit veins to the west. Because the veins were of poor quality, or because the islands were too far from Qiyuan Island and offered no safety guarantee, few cultivators had settled there.

As for mortals, they would only live on islands near Qiyuan Island, where safety was somewhat assured.

Han Li naturally did not care about those conditions. He planned to see if any island suited his taste.

…

Half a month later, Han Li stood above a small island only fifty or sixty li in circumference, staring down at it with concentration.

This was already the fourth uninhabited, spirit-vein-bearing barren island he had discovered.

The island was not large, but its terrain was extremely complex.

There were bare, lifeless wastes; dense forests of unknown trees; verdant grasslands of lush green and brilliant purple; and small mountain ranges dotted with hills.

Han Li swept the entire island with his spiritual sense. There was no trace of any cultivator ever having been there.

It was not because the island’s spirit vein was too poor for other cultivators to value.

On the contrary, although the vein was small, the spiritual energy it provided was quite abundant. It was not a top-grade vein, but at least mid-to-high grade.

The reason no cultivator had settled on the island was entirely due to its surrounding environment, which was extremely peculiar.

And this was precisely what Han Li liked most about the island.

The island sat within a vast expanse of white sea fog. But this fog was not naturally formed—it emanated from nearby whirlpools and rapids.

Stranger still, the white mist only spread around the island’s perimeter. The sky directly above the island was completely clear.

When Han Li first saw this, he was also astonished.

But after he parted the water near the island and dove beneath it, he understood completely.

The bottom of this island was densely covered with countless finger-thin holes. Thousands upon thousands of slender silver fish darted in and out of these openings.

At first glance, these silver fish seemed no different from ordinary small fish.

But when Han Li wrapped his hands in spiritual power, casually caught one, and held it up for a closer look, he discovered that these little fish had no scales at all. Their bodies were covered entirely with razor-sharp silver bone spines.

If an ordinary person reached out to grab one, their hand would be soaked in blood without a doubt.

“Swallowing Sea Fish!” The name surfaced in Han Li’s mind at once.

As amusing as the name was, these little fish were a grade-one low-grade social demon beast.

Apart from having bone spines as hard as iron, they also loved to float to the surface, spit out mouthfuls of seawater to produce white mist, and play. They could often be seen near some islands.

But for there to be so many Swallowing Sea Fish near this island that the mist they spat out could completely conceal an entire island—that was an exceedingly rare sight.

Even Han Li himself had only discovered this island in the mist by chance. On the way here, he had encountered a grade-four demon beast called a “Silver-Winged Bird” and, on a whim, chased it into the sea fog. Otherwise, he would have flown right past without a second thought.

From a distance, this small patch of sea fog looked like the most common sight on the ocean—countless such patches existed, completely unremarkable.

After circling the island several times, Han Li quickly made up his mind. He would choose this island to establish his cave dwelling.

If he did not choose such a secluded island, what could be more suitable?

The island’s spirit vein was located on a tiny mountain range only ten-odd li long and thirty to forty zhang high, with just a handful of small peaks.

It was so low that Han Li naturally could not carve a cave dwelling halfway up a mountain.

He simply found a small, narrow concave valley and began breaking rock and cutting stone at the base of the mountain range.

With Han Li’s current cultivation, opening a cave dwelling with the same structure as his previous one was effortless.

In half a day, the general outline of the cave was complete.

Han Li had no interest in meticulously decorating the cave. First, he used several sets of formation instruments he had prepared to shroud the cave dwelling and the mountain range within them. He activated the prohibitions, creating an illusion.

From afar, the mountain range had vanished. In its place appeared a verdant forest, seamlessly connected to the real forest nearby, without a single flaw.

But Han Li, floating in the air, held his chin and stared down for a long while. He was still somewhat uneasy.

If someone happened to fly into the sea fog just like he had, these prohibitions would not fool a cultivator of deep cultivation.

He lowered his head, pondered for a moment, and then an idea suddenly occurred to him.

Without another word, Han Li flew back into his new cave dwelling. He roughly organized the materials he had on hand and began refining something in a secret chamber.

Six or seven days later, when Han Li flew out of the cave again, he was holding over a dozen identical sets of formation instruments.

These formation flags and plates looked crude and were not sophisticated arrays at all.

But when Han Li buried a set at various points across the island and activated them one by one, billowing mist surged from the formations, and the entire island became shrouded in dense fog.

Before long, the mist produced by these formations merged with the sea fog around the island, completely obscuring it.

Now, even if someone barged in, unless they flew at low altitude, it would be very difficult to discover that an island existed below.

After surveying the surroundings from the air, Han Li finally felt at ease.

Although activating so many formations at once consumed a considerable amount of spirit stones, he did not care.

For now, he was willing to spend money to avoid trouble.

Han Li turned into azure light and flew downward.

Now he would formally arrange his cave dwelling: set up the insect chamber, plant the spirit herbs…

Two days later, Han Li sat in a stone chamber, holding the pale yellow jade slip that the Inch of Gold Pavilion’s old merchant had given him. He focused his spiritual sense and examined its contents closely.

His expression was grave.

His expression shifted. He withdrew his spiritual sense from the jade slip and then sank into deep thought.

After a moment, he stood up and paced back and forth in the stone chamber. The expression on his face grew even more serious.

Suddenly, he reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a white jade box.

He stared at it for a moment, then slowly opened the lid, revealing a handful of five-colored small beads.