Chapter 26: The true picture of the green fog region

In less than a minute Feng Xin had already made his way up Peng Zhen's peak. He continued onwards and opened the door to Peng Hall.

The mirage dragonfly was nervously flying around the hall closely monitoring the situation of the members of the green fog swamp sect who currently lay unconscious on the floor.

Despite the purple-black smog having been cleared out, not a single member had woken up. The mirage dragonfly was closely monitoring them to prevent any unexpected accident from occurring to them in their feeble and unconscious state.

It still remembered Feng Xin's warning vividly about not eating them but if an accident were to happen to them, its instincts told it Feng Xin would still not let it off even if it had nothing to do with it. It was already on thin ice with Feng Xin and did not want to push it. Feng Xin had already thrown out a few comments about possibly winding up in the mouth of a kite. That was a fate it hoped to avoid at all costs.

The doors of the hall opened startling the mirage dragonfly that was already on tenterhooks. It shrieked in fear as it readied itself to attack whoever was at the other end of the door. 

It readied itself, ready to react with the most explosive force it could master, which wasn't a lot as it wasn't the most combative or physical for that matter. It could only hope it would be enough.

A feeling of relief washed over it which it would have never expected to get from seeing Feng Xin. Its wings were beating in a more relaxed manner and its antennae were less rigid than they were just moments ago.

Feng Xin smiled at the mirage dragonfly's rigid look. His hair had already turned back to black as opposed to the white color he had on the roof of the sect master's building. He slowly walked over as he spread his spiritual sense, covering the whole building. He carefully scanned every member inside the hall. Once he confirmed everyone was okay he retracted his spiritual sense.

The mirage dragonfly was visibly relieved once it saw the unchanged expression on Feng Xin's face after his scan.

"Do you have a name?" Feng Xin suddenly asked bringing the mirage dragonfly out of its brief celebratory state.

It was puzzled as to why it was asked that before it nodded its head in affirmation. The nod was done in the same impassioned state it had done before when Feng Xin had asked it if it wanted to come with him. It was a strong repetitive nod that created gales of wind from the rapid and forceful movement.

Feng Xin could only helplessly sigh at its reaction.

Feng Xin fished out the milky white transmission bead he had used with Bolin and threw it towards the mirage dragonfly who was still at it with its nods.

Thanks to its all-around compound eyes, it spotted something white coming towards it before it instinctively caught it with its front legs. It looked at Feng Xin with a befuddled look that seemed to ask what it was supposed to do with the bead.

The mirage dragonfly, unlike Bolin, the rainbow mist toad, rarely interacted with the majority of the inhabitants of the green fog region be it the spirit beasts or the humans, being more terrified of the former than the latter. Its interaction was virtually nonexistent.

It always kept to itself hiding in its cloaking abilities. With its reclusive lifestyle, the things it knew, were little, to say the least. It was a habitual creature, and the scraps of information it had were constrained to its day-to-day life, anything outside of that, it did not bother to know.

The only reason it was even around the area where Feng Xin got surrounded was that it had been tailing the green flowered babirusa. The babirusa always had a good nose for finding areas that were filled with spiritual plants of great quality. Most were in the mid-tier and upper tier of the earth rank sometimes there'd be a few top-grade ones.

It would always appropriate a few under the cloaking effect of its ability. It was faster than the babirusa so it never worried too much about being caught. However, it was conscientious enough to take just enough to meet its needs and leave plenty for the babirusa. Occasionally it would even come with a few of its own, the ones that grew around its nest, and leave it where the babirusa could see it as a show of good faith.

Even if it never spoke, the babirusa seemed to have tacitly accepted its presence and gesture as it never chased her away despite noticing its presence. This was a boon for the mirage dragonfly, for one it got to consume delectable spiritual plants of good quality, and the other because of the babirusa's presence, it could eat in peace. The babirusa may have not been as powerful as the false kings, but it was powerful enough to guarantee its survival against them. Few spirit beasts dared to provoke it.

Earlier that day, before Feng Xin was surrounded, it saw the green flowered babirusa madly dashing towards a particular direction with unconcealed greed and excitement written all over its face.

The mirage dragonfly like a loyal freeloader tailed the babirusa with equal excitement. It thought to itself that this must be the mother load of spiritual plants, there may be sky-rank plants involved this time.

In all the years it had been tailing the babirusa, not once had it seen it having that level of excitement. Based on this it assumed surely the babirusa had sniffed out something extremely good. Soon they arrived at the clearing where Feng Xin was surrounded.

The mirage dragonfly was initially cautious, especially after it detected the aura of other spirit beasts who had encircled Feng Xin. From the lineup, it was the weakest, but it had confidence in its speed to escape most of them, except for two. One was the green flash viper and the other was the rainbow mist toad. When faced with just one of the two, it would not even know how it died, especially against the green flash viper, which was one of the most powerful spirit beasts in their region.

On a normal day, it would have flown away at the highest speed when it saw the lineup, but this time, curiosity got the best of it. It couldn't help but wonder what had drawn all these spirit beasts over, that was when its gaze fell on the frail-looking human that was Feng Xin.

A voracious greed appeared within its gaze the longer it stared at him. It had once eaten a few human cultivators who were foolish enough to try and steal from its nest, and it could see why other spirit beasts liked eating human cultivators, other than the delectable taste, the energy they provided was pure and refined, even from the weaker ones, but it had never gotten the same insatiable desire from them that it did when it saw Feng Xin.

A deep insatiable desire welled up inside of her, but it still wasn't enough to corrode her mind. She could have left if she wished to, but when her gaze fell on the green flash viper, an ambitious glint flashed in her eyes. 

The green fog region was extremely enormous in and of itself. Its sheer size alone could match several rank 2 empire territories combined. The deeper one ventured into it, the stronger the spirit beasts and sentient spiritual pants there were.

The central region was the stomping of the truly monstrous ones. There were domain-level spirit beasts and spirit plants in there and it was even rumored there were a few spirit beasts in the soul formation realm.

Feng Xin had got into the green fog region from the southern side. The Green Fog Swamp Sect, the spirit beasts that had ambushed him, and even the three false kings were located within the outskirts of the southern region of the green fog. That area was known by another name outside of the green fog region, it was known as Zone Eight, a term coined by an explorer who once explored most of the green fog region, up until the core parts of it.

The explorer had been at the early stages of the soul formation realm and during his excursion into the region, the map he created segmented the region into 10 ring-like zones with the outermost ring being the 10th zone and the innermost ring being zone 1. 

He never got to zone 1 as he had a hunch that if he stepped in there, he would not make it out alive. It was even a struggle to survive in the area he named Zone 2. The only reason he added another zone instead of naming Zone 2, Zone 1, was he noticed those fearsome beasts he fought against seemed to all be consciously avoiding a certain area of the region.

Curious, he tried to venture into the area but he stopped at what seemed like an invisible boundary separating that area from the rest of the region. He was overtaken by a deep sense of dread when he stared past the boundary. He didn't see anything but the dread he felt was enough to paralyze him where he stood for two months. He dug out every ounce of willpower he had just to move his limbs so that he could finally flee the area. Once he made it out of the green fog region, he never came back.

He auctioned off a few copies he made of his map and journal experience to some of the large sects, families, and various powerful organizations. He then used the accumulated wealth he gained from the auctions to build himself a powerful abode as he closed himself off from the world despite being one of the most active soul formation realm experts around the continent.

The various powerful sects, clans, and organizations sent some of their people to the green fog region to confirm the findings of the journal and map but the people they sent couldn't make it past Zone 4, despite some of the members being at the domain level and the weakest being at the middle stage of the palace realm.

This was enough proof of how scary the green fog region was and they were not curious enough to send more powerful people to find out about the upper zones. 

The green fog swamp sect, the core formation spirit beasts that attacked Feng Xin, and the three false kings, were all located within the southern region of the eighth zone.