Chapter 116: Unknown Liquid

Inside the hall, only four people were truly dead; the others were too severely injured to fight and temporarily lost their combat capability. To prevent them from struggling in their death throes, Su Che used the vines of the Immortal Prison to tie one up first, knock them out, then tie another and knock them out as well… This method served to guard against those who might pretend to be dead, waiting to launch a surprise attack once Su Che got close. Su Che was always very cautious about such things.

“Fellow cultivator, please don’t kill me,” said a disciple from the Spirit Medicine Mountain who was still conscious. After being tied up by the vines, he thought Su Che wanted to seize the Heavenly Blade for himself and kill everyone.

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you,” Su Che said to him through telepathy, then knocked him out as well.

In the end, Su Che piled together the eleven unconscious people and the four dead ones, stepped back a few steps, and spat out a stream of orange-red flames at them. After the flames, there was also a strange black smoke. By the time everything dissipated, the hall was clear again. The fifteen “corpse” on the ground had vanished, completely reduced to piles of white ash.

But in reality, that pile of ash was only from those four corpses. The other eleven survivors were captured by Su Che and taken into the Immortal Prison.

Although the guardians of the sacred land demanded that he kill them all, Su Che found it difficult to kill people mercilessly in battle. Killing defenseless people like a butcher caused him psychological resistance. He could endure killing one or two at most, but killing eleven severely injured people at once required extraordinary cruelty.

So, Su Che used an illusion to make it seem like everyone had been burned to ash. In truth, the eleven survivors were all captured and taken into the Immortal Prison.

Since they were in the Immortal Prison, he couldn’t let them die uselessly. Thus, Lao He granted each of them a small amount of life force. With this life force to sustain them, along with timely use of healing pills, they would surely survive.

Additionally, Su Che seized all of their Qi Pouches, which amounted to a considerable fortune. After all, every treasure hunter had reached the highest level of Qi cultivation. Although they couldn’t bring all their belongings when entering the Lesser Mi Immortal Realm, their respective sects provided them with at least two lower-grade spiritual weapons, along with plenty of pills and talismans. Thus, the contents of just one Qi Pouch could be worth over five thousand spirit stones.

At this moment, only Su Che remained alive in the hall. He didn’t know whether his performance would satisfy that “Sacred Guardian Force.” As he was thinking, the wall behind the stone platform began to split open to both sides, revealing a dark portal… Lao He immediately shouted, “I told you! My detection abilities couldn’t penetrate this wall. I thought it was the totems on the wall that blocked my detection. It turns out there’s something more hidden inside.” “There’s no doubt—it wants me to go in.” Su Che took out a lighting crystal and slowly stepped into the darkness. After descending about a dozen steps and passing through a corridor, he saw a spacious underground hall. Even when not transformed, the Witch Tribe members were tall, standing about ten feet tall, so their buildings appeared especially large and spacious to humans. Clang, clang, clang… Su Che threw six lighting crystals in different directions before the entire underground hall was illuminated. In an instant, his eyes were dazzled by the sight. Countless gems and crystals were embedded in the walls. Now, absorbing the light from the lighting crystals, they emitted brilliant, dazzling glows, making the entire hall sparkle even brighter. Ordinary gems would surely be dismissed by cultivators, but at this moment, Lao He started shouting, “Master, look! That one seems to be Fireflame Stone, that’s Blue Spirit Jade, and that one looks like top-grade Spirit Stone…” “Oh?” Su Che’s heart stirred, and he quickly asked, “Are you saying these gems aren’t ordinary?” “No, most of them are ordinary gems, but there are also many precious high-grade Spirit Stones, which are now extremely rare in the cultivation world,” Lao He exclaimed anxiously. “Hurry, master! Those things are valuable! Quickly pick them off…” “Don’t rush. They haven’t been taken away in millions of years. Don’t worry; no one will snatch them from you in a moment.” Su Che’s gaze shifted. Instead of being distracted by those valuable high-grade Spirit Stones, he noticed a circular pool on the ground in the center of the hall. Dark gray liquid was swirling inside, appearing extremely hot, with boiling bubbles popping up with a “blorp blorp” sound. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s this pool that it led me here for.”

Su Che guessed that the dark gray liquid in this pool was likely very beneficial for the children of the witches. ‘It’ saw itself as an underage witch, and after he passed that killing test, it guided him here to take a bath as a reward…
“But while this liquid is good for witches, it might be deadly for humans.”
Su Che grew nervous and thought to himself, “Lao Hei, ignore those stones for now. Let’s check out this pool first. Should I dare to get in and take a bath?”
Lao Hei examined it quietly for a while before saying in a low voice, “It should be fine. With the protection of Black Stone Clear Flow, these substances shouldn’t be able to harm you.”
“Okay, then let’s give it a try.”
Su Che walked to the edge of the pool, squatted down, and first carefully dipped his left little finger into the liquid…
He held a sharp dagger in his right hand, ready to cut off that finger without hesitation if anything went wrong…
After his finger touched the liquid, he felt it for a while. Lao Hei was right—thanks to the protection of Black Stone Clear Flow, he could only sense the temperature of the liquid, which caused no harm to his skin. It seemed he could indeed take a bath.
Su Che thought to himself, “I must find a way to pass ‘its’ tests, so that it firmly believes I’m an underage witch. Then maybe the entire Little Mi Immortal Realm will become my personal paradise…”
With such delusions, Su Che slowly stepped into the pool.
Thanks to the protection of Black Stone Clear Flow, the unknown liquid indeed did no harm to Su Che, nor did it bring any benefits.
Instead, Su Che became curious: “Could this liquid also be beneficial for humans?”
Since he was curious, he decided to give it a try.
Of course, he didn’t dare try it himself, so he secretly collected some of the liquid and took it to Immortal Prison, asking Lao Hei to find a prisoner to test it on.
Lao Hei chose a disciple of the Xuan Sha Sect whom he considered extremely guilty, dropped a drop of the dark gray liquid on him, and immediately saw the severely injured man tremble all over and roll his eyes white…
“Huh? This seems quite like the prelude to turning into a black giant in the Stone Forest!”
Just as Su Che was puzzled, he saw the disciple’s body start to swell.
In the blink of an eye, he turned into a giant five zhang tall—even larger and more muscular than the black giants in the Stone Forest.

Moreover, he still retained a normal appearance—no monstrous look of black sarcoma, no signs of distress like “hunger, hunger,” and even his previous injuries no longer affected him; with a loud thud, he stood up.
Huff, puff…
The giant panted heavily, scanning the surroundings with a fierce gaze.
Upon seeing Lao Hei, he roared and charged forward, delivering a powerful punch from above straight at Lao Hei’s head.
In front of this giant, Lao Hei appeared as small as a baby, but with just a gentle wave of his hand and a word of “get lost,” he sent the giant flying.
As the ruler of the Immortal Prison, Lao Hei could amplify his power a hundredfold, crushing the strength of prisoners by the same amount. This contrast created an infinite gap between them.
“Can it turn humans into giants? I wonder if there are any side effects. I’ll keep observing…”
Su Che, who was in the pool, secretly took in more dark gray liquid from the Immortal Prison until the amount in the pool noticeably decreased before stopping.
After staying in the pool for over an hour without receiving any mental messages from “it,” Su Che had had enough and emerged from the pool. Holding the dagger, he began digging for valuable high-grade spirit stones on the walls under Lao Hei’s guidance.
Names like Fireflame Stone, Blue Spirit Jade, Golden Dusk Sand, and Sky Yellow Star—Lao Hei had mentioned them—were unfamiliar to Su Che, but he knew that even a single top-grade spirit stone was worth ten thousand lower-grade ones.
However, in the eyes of the ancient witch tribe, these spirit stones were just pretty rocks like ordinary gems, with no special uses, so they were simply stuck on the walls as decorations.
When he first removed a spirit stone, Su Che was cautious, but after extracting five more without any warnings from “it,” it seemed it was quite lenient toward this young witch.
Perhaps in its eyes, Su Che’s actions were just a child being playful after seeing beautiful and interesting stones…
In the Immortal Prison, the five-zhang-tall giant had already been subdued by Lao Hei. Two hours had passed, and he remained unharmed, with no signs of side effects.

However, Su Che intuited that the dark gray liquid could turn a human into a giant, boosting their strength by ten times. But every advantage has its downside; there must be some side effects, only they haven’t manifested yet because the time wasn’t right. Nearly a hundred high-grade spirit stones had been taken from the walls around them. Su Che guessed that perhaps more treasures worth hundreds of thousands of spirit stones had ended up in his possession. This trip to the Little Mi Immortal Realm—so long as he didn’t die and managed to get out alive—would undoubtedly make him rich overnight.