Chapter 489: The Strange Sludge

The water was cold. When Chen Jin tested the water temperature with his fingers, he knew that there was no way he could enter the water with his current level of cultivation.

Feeling helpless, Chen Jin could only go to the base at Haierfa again.

Due to the multiple breakouts of interstellar war, the base was mostly producing interstellar warships, and the submarines had not been updated for a long time. Although it was a relatively outdated product, it was still far ahead of the submarines on Earth from the same time. Without thinking too much, Chen Jin collected two or three submarines into his storage ring and returned to the pool.

He put the submarine in the pool and boarded it with the robots. The cabin hatch was closed and the submarine sank into the depths of the water.

A buzzing sound arose and the submarine descended. At first, everything was still. There was no sign of movement in the water except for the sound of the submarine. However, as time went by, some fish-shaped spirit beasts appeared in the surrounding water. Spirit beasts who lived in this sort of environment possessed frightening levels of physical strength. They slapped the submarine with their bodies until it swayed, but Chen Jin was not surprised by this. After all, the ultimate neutrinos had covered the entire pool of water. These fish-like monsters were within his expectations. He simply sent a few naga robots at the Yuanying phase of cultivation to kill them.

The submarine moved on, and the water became increasingly terrifying. The water pressure was getting higher and higher. The water also possessed a characteristic–it had a wisp of corrosive spiritual energy. If the submarine was not a purely technological product without any trace of spiritual energy, this water alone would corrode the submarine until rusty spots could be seen.

Before long, Chen Jin’s submarine finally reached the limits of the area covered by the ultimate neutrinos.

If he continued to go further down, even the ultimate neutrino would lose its effectiveness.

However, in this final area covered by the ultimate neutrinos was a tangle of vines that had seemingly withered away. This climbing plant was stuck onto the rocky side of the pool at an oblique angle. When the submarine turned its headlights towards the plant, it even reflected a metallic glare. But Chen Jin knew that if a climbing plant could remain uncorroded in such a place, then this was certainly not an ordinary plant.

Chen Jin controlled the submarine’s working arm and grabbed the roots of the plant back to the submarine. Chen Jin looked at the tree roots in front of him, he had never seen this thing. This was extremely hard and very tough. One might think that it was made of steel. Then Chen Jin looked at the cut-off area of the vine and saw its bark and fibers, it was the root of a plant. It seemed that he would not be able to get a clear understanding of its uses for the time being.

After diving for so long to pick up something useless, Chen Jin could not help but feel depressed. But he thought about it again, he was the only one who could dive to such a deep place. It would be impossible for others. Of those who were able to enter the Zone of Trials, there was not one of them with a cultivation beyond the Foundation phase. Who else besides him could go so deep?

The area further down was not covered by the ultimate neutrinos, but he had already dived so far into the pool, it would be a pity to just return. It was better to go on and see what’s below.

After this, Chen Jin descended deeper into the water. The water in the pool gradually turned pitch black, even as it remained just as bone-piercingly cold. The effects of the corrosive spiritual power grew scarier. Even if it was a successful cultivator fell into the pool, his strength would also disappear, and he would quickly sink and die.

Chen Jin even dared to conclude that no one had come to this place except himself. After all, when this water came into contact with something with spiritual power, it would corrode a person until there was nothing left. Unless that person was an immortal, which meant that all the magic power in his body had been converted into immortal power. Only then would he have nothing to fear from this water.

However, this mattered not to Chen Jin. The submarine did not have one iota of spiritual energy, so the water had no corrosive effect on the submarine at all.

As the submarine got deeper, the buzzing sound of the engine became faint and indistinct. It felt weird. Just what kind of special characteristic did this water have that it could even swallow sound?

The submarines produced by the base could travel at a speed of 2,000 or 3,000 kilometers per hour. This speed was usually more than sufficient, but Chen Jin had sat in the submarine as it traveled for an hour before reaching the bottom of the pool.

He saw that the sludge at the bottom of the pool was absorbing wisps of spiritual energy through the water. After seeing this, Chen Jin finally realized that the water in the pool had no corrosive properties, it was the terrifying extent of the sludge’s ability to absorb spiritual energy that caused the water to also absorb spiritual energy everywhere.

Chen Jin was very curious as he looked at the sludge. He did not know why some mud could absorb spiritual energy to such a scary extent. Hence he tossed a low-grade spirit stone into the water. Before the spirit stone had even landed in the sludge, it was sucked dry by the water in an instant. The stone turned white and landed on the mud.

Weird. This sludge was too weird. If he was to exit the submarine, he would probably be sucked dry by the water instantly and then crushed into fine powder by the terrible water pressure.

I have to take some of the sludge to study it, Chen Jin thought to himself.

Chen Jin operated the mechanical arm and grabbed a little bit of the sludge and put it into a hidden area in the submarine. As the sludge would be separated from him by a thick alloy plate, it would not be able to absorb the magic power in his body.

Chen Jin’s research method was also very simple. Didn’t this thing like to absorb spiritual power? Anyway, he lacked everything but spirit stones. He wanted to see just how much spiritual energy could this object absorb.

In a split second, Chen Jin put more than 300 top-grade spirit stones into the hidden area. The spiritual energy in top-grade spirit stones was vast and incomparably pure. Chen Jin did not believe that just some mere sludge could absorb all of the spiritual energy in more than 300 top-grade spirit stones.

What Chen Jin didn’t expect was that it took only a little time and work before the more than 300 top-grade spirit stones started to become discolored, and after persevering for a little while, the spirit stones had turned completely white.

Witnessing this scene, Chen Jin was stunned. Since when could spiritual energy from top-grade spirit stones get sucked dry so helplessly?

Gritting his teeth, Chen Jin cleared up the white spirit stones that had been sucked dry. He took out 2,000 top-grade spirit stones from his storage sack and stuffed the submarine’s entire hidey-hole to the brim. Since the sludge could absorb the spiritual energy to this extent, he would let it suck all that it could in one shot.

According to the absorption speed of the mud, it would take less than ten minutes to absorb the spiritual energy. After ten minutes, most of the spirit stones been sucked dry and turned white. There were only a couple left that still possessed the luster of spiritual energy. The sludge was buried in the pile of spirit stones and there was no trace of it.

After another ten minutes, the spiritual energy in the spirit stones remained. Chen Jin now knew that the sludge could not absorb any more spiritual energy.

The corners of Chen Jin’s mouth twitched. This was too scary, such a small amount of sludge had absorbed more than 2,300 top-grade spirit stones. If the entire mass of sludge at the bottom of the pool could absorb spiritual energy, how many spirit stones would that be?

He shook his head and stopped thinking about it. He waved his hand and the white spirit stones were swept aside, leaving only the sludge that was filled with spiritual energy.

Chen Jin carefully sized up these spirit stone-eating monsters. The sludge no longer looked like sludge. After absorbing all the spiritual energy it could absorb, it was in a jelly-like state, completely different from its previous sludge form. Chen Jin rubbed the “jelly.” It had a similar texture as spirit soil. After everything, it was still mud. He didn’t know what it could be used for.

Yes, that’s right. Spirit soil. This was spirit soil; sludge was also soil. Wouldn’t he know for sure once he planted something in it?

He lifted his hand and several Dragon’s Beard appeared on the sludge.