They made their way towards the innermost regions of the Dark Lighting Valley. There were very few bumps along the way, save for a few magical beasts that had dared to fight a group as strong as Sheng Tian's. He had already met his quota for his mission and thanks to his All Seeing Eyes he had racked quite a lot of cores and neidans, along with large quantities of beast corpses.
Sheng Tian had learned most of the techniques in his entire sect and had used all of them. Wu Di did not have many low level techniques that he could use without blowing himself up and so he needed to find the best techniques of the Mortal Realm.
Of course he did not forget about the many treasures he had obtained during his exam and had already sorted everything out. He wore all of his protective and supporting treasures and underneath his abode was a formation that helped with the forming of mid grade spirit stones using the spirit stone vein he had gotten.
There was only one problem and that was the Nine Star Heavenly Thunder technique. One had to be in the Core Formation Realm to start comprehending laws and so he could not yet practice the secret technique. He didn't even have lightning laws!
On the bright side, with the lightning xiantian dao stone, he could form a lightning law seed without having to be in the Core Formation Realm. Perhaps he could also snag a few strands of Heavenly Tribulation Lightning. . .
An earth shattering roar pulled Sheng Tian out of his thoughts. They had traveled into the territory of a strong magical beast.
A thirty meter long serpent rose above the group. Its body was one meter wide with white scales. On its head was a slightly visible gold protrusion and it hissed angrily.
Xiao Hua managed to identify the beast "be careful! It's a rank eight Albino Spirit Python and judging by its aura and the horn that is forming on its head it is an emperor ranked beast that is about to evolve. Legend says that if it is successful, it could evolve into a dragon"
A rank eight magical beast is roughly equivalent to a soul tempering cultivator. However, magical beasts were usually stronger than humans of the same rank and adding its emperor status and the fact that it would soon mutate, its strength would deter even Foundation Realm experts.
Luckily, Sheng Tian had reached the soul tempering realm and his body and soul had reached the eighth rank. With his status as a tier six divergent, he could fight against a Sky Splitting Realm cultivator and even some weaker Ocean Cleaving Realm cultivators. Of course he would hide most of his strength for now.
Even the two women merely tensed for a moment before composing themselves. This beast would only be of slight trouble.
"We can split the scales and corpse in half and we will decide how to split it's neidan, core, and any treasures we find after we kill it"
Sheng Tian nodded in agreement. His All Seeing Eyes allowed him to see that the beast had a neidan that was around one thousand years old and a core of the eighth rank. such a beast would usually guard some kind of valuable natural treasure so if it was of no use to him he would trade it for both the core and neidan.
The python hissed and shot forward with speed usually not associated with something of this size. The trio jumped up as its head slammed into the ground creating great billows of dirt and dust. Each of them split up and positioned themselves in a triangular position.
After spending some time together, Sheng Tian and the others had formed a bit of synergy and understood how to cooperate with each other. Sheng Tian would face anything head on while Xiao Hua helped him attack. Bing Xue on the other hand, would support them with her zither.
Not only is she a natural ice cultivator that had many techniques that could lock an opponent's movements, but she is also a music cultivator. Music cultivators specialize in aiding teammates with sharp attacks and calming their minds, making them both valuable and rare.
Bing Xue pulled a string on her earth grade zither and a wave of ice froze everything in front of her, eventually reaching the python that was still trying to extract its head from the ground. Great mounds of ice covered it, ensuring that it stayed where it was.
Sheng Tian and Xiao Hua knew that this was their signal and prepared their strongest attacks.
"Mountain Splitting Sword Strike"
"Descending Vermilion Phoenix"
A gold sword and a phoenix descended towards the neck of the python, intent on severing it in two. The Albino Spirit Python started thrashing about when it sensed grave danger. The ground shook and trees fell. Sheng Tian's brow furrowed slightly and urged his sword forward. If they didn't take it out quickly then it might attract other things.
Right before their attacks collided with the beast's scales, the Albino Spirit Python's aura grew tremendously and its scales took on a red hue.
As soon as their attacks landed a huge explosion of flames erupted. Despite this, they all jumped back and regrouped. They weren't idiots and knew that the python became much more dangerous then.
"It ignited its blood essence, be careful," Sheng Tian said.
Once the dust settled they saw that it had freed itself from the earth and had a deep cut that went halfway through its body.
Before it had ignited its blood essence, Sheng Tian and Xiao Hua's attacks would have severed its head off completely and killed it. Now that the Albino Spirit Python had chosen to risk its own future to kill the trio their attacks would do much less and the situation has become more dangerous than before.
"We can only attack it with everything we got to finish it off quicker" Sheng Tian said.