Chapter 2117  Unforgiving Marshland

The inability to fly became a major hindrance to Monk Hushu and Crown Princess Shang in the Trial.

Unlike the frozen wasteland and the volcanic region, they didn"t have solid ground everywhere to walk on. They tried to use their immortal sense to tell what place was "solid" enough, but the area seemed to be making it hard to do that with its unique properties.

Their immoral sense seemingly became m.u.f.fled as it entered the mushy soil, and the muddy waters of the marshland.

Monk Hushu found it strange and looked more into it, before realizing that there was some kind of energy permeating the entire place. This was the energy that made it hard for their Immoral sense to work when going through materials.

The two weren"t ones to back down just from this and started exploring the trial grounds.

It didn"t take them long to encounter the enemies after that, as they seemingly rose out of the ground as well as the water.

They were shaped like Alligators, large frogs as well as insects like Dragonflies, Water Striders and more creatures that one might find in a marsh.

These mud beasts were also hard to kill due to them regenerating. But here, Crown Princess Shang seemed to have an advantage. Since she was proficient in both fire and wood elements, it allowed her to sense the energies of the mud creatures better.

Due to it being a swamp, there was still wood element mixed into it, which also mixed into the bodies of the mud beasts. This allowed Crown Princess Shang to pinpoint the energy cores of the mud beasts, finally figuring out a method of killing them.

Crown Princess Shang and Monk Hushu wandered the marshes for about a month before they finally encountered their first key. They had killed a rather large Leech that was guarding the said key and discovered it hidden near it.

They took it as the thing that was needed to clear the trial and started searching for it. But the deeper they went into the Marshland the worse it got.

At first the area had plant life such as shrubs, trees and lots of moss and algae. But after a certain point, only mangrove trees could be seen. The amount of mushy ground they had left to walk on also reduced and everything was wet. The humidity had also reached the saturation point, causing everything to become damp. In fact, the amount of Water elemental immortal Qi in the air had also become high enough that using any fire elemental skills would become difficult.

The water element in the air would suppress those skills, causing those that used fire like the Crown Princess to become weaker too.

But She still had her Wood element, which finally prevailed over everything here. She could overcome the earth and water elements in mud with her Wood Elemental skills and was easily able to use them to kill the mud beasts.

In fact, her wood elemental skills became stronger allowing her to propagate large and long vines and roots, that killed every beast that came near them. This initially made their search for the Iron Keys easier and they obtained ten keys doing this.

But in the next area, the marsh become several times worse. No plant life was visible here with only remnants of dead trees spread around. Their trunks were rotting and branches floated around in the muddy water. Strange mushrooms grew everywhere that replaced the algae and moss.

The air also became a lot more pungent, making them find it bothersome too.

The Mud Beasts also got stronger and started to avoid their attacks. But it wasn"t until a week later that they found the air becoming toxic. The rotting matter released poison into the air that eventually transformed into poisonous Qi that hampered the two.

They couldn"t absorb the immortal Qi from the air anymore as it would be accompanied by the poison Qi too. Not just that, but they had to use more Qi to protect themselves too. The deeper they went, the denser the poison Qi became until it reached a point where it would try to enter their body at all times.

Finding the Iron Keys also became harder as they were no longer found on the surface.

The keys were hidden deep in the depths of the muddy water, or sunken in the swamps. The two had no option but to get their hands dirty to find the Iron Keys. This was the major reason why it took them this long to finish the second trial, as the keys had to be carefully dug out of the swamps or fished out of the muddy water. If they accidentally used a skill that was too strong, they could destroy the keys as such they had to hold back a lot, causing them to further slowdown.

The mud beasts in the central area were the strongest and used a lot of mud attacks that coated them hundreds of time which they had to clean up. But eventually they gave up as it was simply not worth it, deciding to bear through it all.

They grit their teeth and did their best in finding the Iron Keys, until finally they obtained the final key that opened up a Teleportation gate.

"And that"s how we ended up here." Crown Princess Shang finished.

"Wow… that was certainly… Harsh." Lin Mu said listening to their ordeal.

"I"ve been to many marshlands and swamps before but never to one as disgusting as this." Crown Princess Shang spoke.

"I don"t want to see another swamp for a few years at least." Monk Hushu chimed in.

"Perhaps that"ll be for the best." Daoist Chu couldn"t help but agree.

"Though, how many keys did you two obtain?" Lady Kang who had been silently listening to it all finally asked.

Lin Mu"s ears perked up, as he wanted to know this too as it was the only thing that would allow them to get to the next trial.