Chapter 207: Prison Zone (1)
Wentan Research Center.
After a few days away, Su Yu found himself missing the research center. Naturally, he wasn't missing the dirty living area. Rather, he was missing the precious second floor.
When Bai Feng looked at the living area that had turned into a pigsty again in Su Yu's absence, he coughed awkwardly and said, "I'll take you to the prison zone on the second underground floor. Be careful. Don't let the beasts scare you too much."
Su Yu merely smiled. Was there a need for the warning? Did he look like a coward?
"There are currently six living creatures in there. Some are either dead or pretending to be dead. You can ignore them."
"Pretending to be dead?" Su Yu asked curiously, "What do you mean?"
Bai Feng smiled, "Some of the creatures have been reduced to a pile of bones. But these bones can transform back into a living being with flesh and blood. Some races have special abilities that can allow them to resurrect from a pile of bones. Your grandteacher normally ignores these creatures. Since these creatures enjoy pretending to be dead, they can keep doing so. After long enough time, they will be dead for real."
Su Yu nodded. That was enlightening. Some creatures could even resurrect from a pile of bones. That was incredible.
To speak the truth, he was quite curious about the prison zone as well. He had heard some noise from the prison zone, but he hadn't heard anything since then. He had thought that those creatures were all dead because they had all been so silent.
"Teacher, what do we feed them?"
"Meat and source qi liquid. We can't feed them too much. Just feed enough to make sure they don't starve to death. I'll tell you more about it. You can't feed enough for them to gather strength. They would be very troublesome to handle after recovering enough strength."
"Source qi liquid..."
Su Yu was somewhat speechless to hear that. Their faction was already very poor. Why was Bai Feng feeding those creatures source qi liquid?
"Don't look at me like that. We can only get something in return if we're willing to invest. If we feed them source qi liquid and keep them alive, we can harvest their blood every now and then. And we can then extract some blood essence from the gathered blood. Do you understand now?"
That was so ruthless.
However, Su Yu did not feel too much sympathy toward the creatures.
While talking, they arrived at the first underground floor. Su Yu had only been there once during his first day in the research center when he was checking out the storage. Bai Feng ignored the storeroom and opened a door at the corner of the first underground floor. The door opening process seemed rather complicated.
Su Yu could see the flickering dots of light on the door. Bai Feng had taken his Dragon Slaying Sword out. Like what Chen Yong did previously, the sword transformed into a key. After the key was inserted into the door, it swung open.
"You still can't materialize your Divine Characters so I can't leave any willpower imprints on your Divine Characters. You won't be able to open this door the normal way."
Bai Feng then took out a jade pendant and tossed it to Su Yu. "Remember to keep this well. You can use it to open this door. Since you still can't materialize your willpower, you can't take this jade pendant into your sea of willpower. If you lost it and someone else found it, they would be able to open this door."
Su Yu immediately grew anxious, "Teacher, why don't...you keep this with you. It would be too troublesome if I lost it. And you have basically planted the flag of me losing it in the future. I will definitely lose it after you say that I won't."
Bai Feng was speechless. What was the meaning of that?
"Cut the crap. It won't matter that much even if you do lose it. This research center looks shabby, but the tunnel right in front of the main entrance can seriously injure even Mountainsea cultivators. And someone strong enough to get this far without authorization probably won't even need the jade pendant to get through this door."
Su Yu heaved a breath of relief. Bai Feng should have told him that earlier. He had been so worried that he would lose the jade pendant and get in great trouble. When the door swung open, a set of stairs was revealed. After going down the stairs, they arrived at a large room.
"The prison zone is separated from the other floors. There is only a single door leading into it."
Su Yu was focusing on the explanation when he took a turn out of the winding stairs and was faced with a sight that captured all his attention.
The room was filled with metallic cages. At a glance, there were no less than 20 metallic cages. At the back of the room was a dark corridor, seemingly leading to more rooms that were being used as independent prison cells.
Some of these cages weren't empty.
The first thing Su Yu noticed was a massive lion.
It was a golden lion. However, there was no luster to the golden mane of the lion. It was sprawled on the ground. Its eyes were filled with ruthlessness and killing intent when it looked at Su Yu.
When Bai Feng noticed Su Yu looking at the lion, he calmly explained, "This is one of the six surviving creatures here. Just call him #3. He is a suanni, a top 100 race.
"He's at the ninth-stage Skysoar Realm. Your grandteacher captured him at the Allheaven Battlefield 15 years ago. At the time, this fellow was slaughtering a military camp. Only a few of the army of 1,000 survived. Do not hold any pity for these fellows. None of the creatures here are kind beings. They are all murderers who have taken countless lives. The truly innocent ones would all remain in their realms instead of roaming around the Allheaven Battlefield. Every single person is ready for everything upon stepping onto the Allheaven Battlefield."
Immediately after, the golden lion stood up and roared. He started speaking the common language.
"Bai Feng, you can kill me. But why are you imprisoning me to extract my blood and harvest my flesh? Is this how you treat experts?"
Bai Feng indifferently said, "#3, you're not an expert. You don't deserve respect. Shut your mouth. If you had challenged a human of the same cultivation level to a fight and killed that human, I would have respected you more. But instead, you were caught slaughtering Great Strength and Infinite Strength soldiers. How can you be considered an expert?"
"They were merely a bunch of weaklings." The golden lion did not think that he was wrong. "I was passing by and they dared to attack me. As mere weaklings, they dared to offend a superior person. Thus, they deserved death."
"I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you."
Bai Feng looked at Su Yu and said, "Ignore that fellow. Just feed him a drop of source qi liquid every three days."
He pointed at the cages and said, "Your grandteacher personally made these cages. He even got the head of the Talisman Faculty to create a layer of lightning talisman on top of each cage. Those below the Mountainsea Realm won't be able to damage these cages. The talismans would activate the moment they touch the cages. The talismans have the attack power of the Cloudbreach Realm and they can be controlled manually as well. I'll teach you how to control them. If these fellows are feeling rebellious, just strike them with lightning."
Bai Feng pointed at the lion, "Each time I extract his blood, I would strike him with lightning until he can't move before the extraction. That way, he won't be able to create trouble."
The golden lion roared furiously.
Bai Feng ignored the lion and said, "He's all bark. Just ignore him."
He then pointed at a different cage. The cage was empty. To be precise, there was a clump of darkness in the cage.
"This is #2, a fellow from the shadow race." Bai Feng's face turned solemn as he said, "You can see the shadow now, but when this fellow was first caught, nothing could be seen. It was as though this fellow was completely transparent. He can also attach himself to your shadow. Be careful and don't approach the cage. Also, don't allow your shadow to enter the cage or he would take the chance to attach himself to your shadow and escape."
Su Yu was alarmed.
Bai Feng smiled and said, "Don't worry. There is a layer of light talisman outside his cage. Your shadow won't be able to get into the cage anyway. This fellow used to be at the third-stage Cloudbreach Realm. But after having so much of his blood extracted, he has grown weaker. But he's still stronger than you. You only need to feed him a drop of source qi liquid every five days."
Su Yu was very shocked. He had read about the shadow race before. This was a top 100 race. Both the shadow and suanni were top 100 races. As the one who had captured all these creatures, his grandteacher must be quite a ferocious individual.
Bai Feng continued his introduction, "There are four other creatures. Look..."
Bai Feng pointed at a cage at the corner. Inside the cage was a...bull?
Su Yu assumed that he was looking at a bull with only one horn.
"This is a mountaindrill bull, the distant relative of the mountainbreak bulls..."
The moment Bai Feng said that, the bull in the cage said, "Bai Feng, I am from the mountaindrill bull race. I am unrelated to the mountainbreak bulls. I'm not their distant relative..."
Bai Feng smiled and said, "You can call him #4. The mountaindrill bull isn't a top 100 race. It is ranked 182nd among the myriad races. But this fellow isn't weak at all. He's at the ninth-stage Great Strength Realm. Like #3, just feed him a drop of source qi liquid every three days."
"That's #5..."
Su Yu followed Bai Feng's finger and looked at the cage beside the mountaindrill bull. There was a tiny white cat in that cage.
Su Yu swore that if it wasn't for the cage around the cat, he would have thought that this was someone's pet.
"#5, white civet. Don't look down on this fellow. She's at the eighth-stage Skysoar Realm. Her race is ranked 375th, a race good at sneak attacks and disguises. If the shadow race does not exist, the white civet race would be the kings of assassinations due to their incredible speed. And that's #6."
Su Yu looked at a different cage and saw a bird in the cage.
"A crow?" Su Yu stared at the bird for a bit before saying, "Teaching, is this a fire crow?"
"Yes." Bai Feng smiled, "This is a fire crow. A seventh-stage Skysoar cultivator with a weak physical body. However, he is capable of flight and throwing flames. Their racial ability is similar to the fire hog race, but the fire crows can burn even your sea of willpower. They are ranked 418th among the myriad races."
Su Yu had encountered five different races here. But he was curious about something. Where was #1?
#2 was a shadow, #3 was a suanni, #4 was a mountaindrill bull, #5 was a white civet, and #6 was a fire crow.
Su Yu looked around and only saw a few piles of bones. Was #1 one of them?
"#1, stop pretending to be dead."
Bai Feng guessed Su Yu's thought and raised his hand. His willpower pulsed and next, rumbling sounds rang out within one of the cages.