Some disciples who were too close to the volcanic crater swiftly retreated .
The way hot lava and tephra were flying out from the volcano was horrifying; even an Ancestor God Realm master would be injured if they got splattered with lava or struck by a volcanic rocks. In the past, there was a high-level Ancient God Realm cultivator who had gotten splattered by lava and was incinerated until nothing was left.
The crowd could see several disciples who were too slow to retreat, getting struck by lava and the volcanic rocks that were flying out from the volcanic crater; the scorching heat burned a hole through their flesh in an instant. These disciples fell to the ground like tumbling trees, rolling and screaming in pain.
A few disciples were completely inflamed, and in a few breaths, they were turned into a pile of glimmering ash that was carried away by the wind.
The remaining crowd that was waiting to search and collect the golden beads turned slightly pale at this sight. Not to mention, some people who were visiting the volcano for the very first time, looked deathly pale.
They had heard horrifying stories about this volcano, but they had dismissed them as exaggerated rumors. But now, they were witnessing it with their own eyes.
Fortunately, Huang Xiaolong’s group was standing almost a hundred li away from the crater. Therefore, they were less affected by splattering lava and tephra, except for a couple of volcanic rocks that had flown at them. These volcanic rocks were easily dispersed by Huang Xiaolong with a wave of his hand before they could get any closer to them.
Ten minutes had passed, but the ground’s quaking and swaying did not subside, instead, it became more vigorous as the volcanic eruption intensified, spitting out more lava and tephra as time went by.
Huang Xiaolong frowned at the increased number of lava splatters and volcanic rocks that were falling on his group. His only option was to have Li Lu, Wu Qian’er and Luo Yunjie to retreat further away with him.
Other cultivators also retreated, again and again.
“What is going on? Why is the volcanic eruption so intense this time!”
“The last time when this volcano had erupted with this much intensity was three thousand years ago. In general, the more intense the volcanic eruption, the more golden beads will be spit out!”
“Really?!”
“That’s right, three thousand years ago when this volcano had erupted with such similar intensity, it had spat out over fifty thousand golden beads!”
Lot of people were astonished when they heard this number.
Over fifty thousand golden beads!
That is five times more than the usual amount of beads that would erupt from the volcano .
Huang Xiaolong, Li Lu, Wu Qian’er and Luo Yunjie retreated once again until they were three hundred li away from the volcanic crater.
The volcanic eruption went on for two more days before it gradually weakened and died down on the fourth day. The moment the cultivators were certain that the eruption had died down, everyone rushed up towards the crater.
Huang Xiaolong’s group of four also went forward.
The splatters of lava were still exuding an alarmingly high degrees of heat, and the golden beads were buried underneath them. This made it very difficult to spot them with naked eyes. To top it all off, this lava also has the ability to hinder the divine sense or any secret exploration techniques, making it further difficult to find the golden beads.
On top of that, these golden beads were also extremely fragile under the palm force, thus restricting cultivators’ from flipping away the lava to look beneath.
Most of the disciples could only resort to the most primitive methods of looking for the golden beads, such as using a divine artifact or other things to push away the lava.
This scene reminded Huang Xiaolong of a group of children playing in the mud.
Some of the stronger high-level Ancient God Realm disciples flew straight towards the volcanic vent because there were more golden beads closer to the crater.
However, the heat and flames around the volcanic crater were overwhelming; even a peak late-Tenth Order Ancient God Realm master didn’t dare to get too close to it. The closest they could get was thirty li from the crater.
"I’ll go inside to take a look." Huang Xiaolong said to Li Lu, Wu Qian’er, and Luo Yunjie; and he disappeared in a blur.
Luo Yunjie wanted to stop Huang Xiaolong, but he was already a dozen li away.
Watching Huang Xiaolong’s figure, Luo Yunjie’s mouth opened and closed silently, not knowing what to say."
"Senior Brother Huang will be fine, right?" Wu Qian’er asked with a deep concern and added, "I have heard that the waves of flames around this volcanic crater contains fire poison. In the past, some Tenth Order Ancient God Realm disciples had discovered after a month or two that the fire poison had entered their bodies. By that time it was already too late, as their bodies were rottened by it—extremely gross."
"Brother Huang has his True Dragon Physique, he’ll be fine... probably?" Luo Yunjie answered. But he wasn’t feeling confident, "Why don’t I call Brother Huang to come back right now!"
Li Lu shook her head, "It’s fine, Xiaolong knows what he’s doing." Li Lu understood Huang Xiaolong more, compared to the other two.
By this time, Huang Xiaolong had arrived at the border of thirty li distance from the volcanic crater. Waves and waves of alarming flames and heat were spreading outwards from the crater, and even Huang Xiaolong’s True Dragon Physique was struggling to endure it; he was feeling as if he’d be incinerated into a pile of gray ash at any moment.
He immediately circulated the four divine fires to protect his body.
As expected, the moment he circulated the four divine fires, the heat waves within a hundred zhang around Huang Xiaolong were devoured by the four divine fires, and he was left completely unharmed.
These four divine fires were Huang Xiaolong’s trump card, and he wouldn’t have dared to come this close to the volcanic crater by relying on his True Dragon Physique alone.
Huang Xiaolong continued to fly closer towards the crater, beyond the thirty li distance.
“Who is this Fortune Gate disciple?! Doesn’t he want to live anymore?”
"It seems to be Fortune Gate’s Huang Xiaolong!”
“Huang Xiaolong!”
Some late-Tenth Order and peak late-Tenth Order Ancient God Realm cultivators, who were waiting at the thirty li distance boundary from the crater, exclaimed in shock when they saw Huang Xiaolong fly closer towards the crater. A few of them recognized who he was.
Huang Xiaolong ignored these people as he flew onward, until he was only ten li distance from the crater. At this point, the waves of fire were almost viscous, dominating the ten li radius from the crater. Even with Huang Xiaolong’s four divine fires, he struggled to advance by another foot.
Huang Xiaolong calculated that the golden beads were most likely to have fallen around this ten li distance, once the volcano had spit them in the air.
Huang Xiaolong began searching for the golden beads in that area.
A ten li distance was quite close to the volcanic crater, and the lava accumulated here was several hundred meters thick. It was ten times harder to find golden beads under this thick blanket of lava.
Waving away the lava with palm force clearly was not an option.
Huang Xiaolong’s brows furrowed, deep in thought.
‘Will it work if I use the Archdevil Supreme Godhead’s force to suck the lava away?’ All of a sudden, a thought flashed through Huang Xiaolong’s mind, and he immediately put it into action.
He saw the lava below him move slightly, and then, a golden reddish bead flew out from underneath.
Huang Xiaolong couldn’t help feeling ecstatic seeing a golden bead fly out. He quickly grabbed it and increase the suction force from his Archdevil Supreme Godhead. Soon, another golden bead flew out.
The second bead! Subsequently, in less than a second, the third golden bead flew out, then the fourth, the fifth...
In less than five minutes, over a hundred golden beads were hovering around Huang Xiaolong!
It was fortunate that there were no other sect or families’ disciples near him or their eyes would have fallen to the ground in astonishment.
Huang Xiaolong collected the hundred plus golden beads into his Ghost Buddha Depository then flew to another area and continued to collect more with his Archdevil Supreme Godhead.
Two hours later, Huang Xiaolong had collected all golden beads around the circumference of ten li boundary from the crater. His bountiful harvest had exceeded his expectations, as there were over four thousand golden beads!
Over four hundred thousand golden beads! If this information was to leak out, other cultivators who were also searching for golden beads would go insane. Huang Xiaolong broke the record of collecting the largest number of golden beads.