The Supreme God of Martial Arts
Chapter 311 The Gnome

Violet measured up the little beast curiously, as if it was an incrediblypowerful monster.

"Gnome?"

Austin had never heard of such a thing before.

"Yes. They're very rare. In fact, their species is almost extinct.

The other diabolic beasts said that back in the ancient times, there weremany gnomes.

They are good at replaceing various kinds of precious natural resourcesbecause they can sense them.

Gnomes like to eat underground minerals which contain intensespiritual energy.”

"Wow! It sounds like they're really special!”

Austin's curiosity had been aroused by Violet's words.

Just then, the gnome pointed at his Space Ring again.

Austin laughed bitterly. He knew that the gnome wanted to eat thecrystals in his Space Ring. He had collected these crystals from theround cave, and all of them contained a large amount of spiritualenergy.

But since the gnome had found two kinds of precious natural materialsfor him, Austin didn't want to refuse its request. He took out threemore crystals and gave them to the gnome.

The gnome let out a joyful cry before swallowing the crystalsimmediately.

"Little fellow, we have to say good-bye now," Austin said.

He had decided to hide in the imperial capital city and help the youngman fight for the throne in half a year.

He walked toward the direction of the imperial capital city with Violet.But after taking several dozen steps forward, he realized that thegnome was following closely behind. In fact, it was walking right besidehim now.

"You want to go with us?" Austin asked, stopping

The gnome quickly nodded.

“With this gnome by my side, I'll be able to replace many precious naturalresources in the future, * Austin thought to himself excitedly.

He laughed and gestured to the gnome to jump on his shoulder.

The gnome didn't protest. In the blink of an eye, it was perched onAustin's shoulder. The three of them set off on their journey together.Austin knew that he was being hunted furiously by people from theFlaming Sun Valley and the Blood Wolf Team. Both groups must havecultivators who were good at tracking.

He was especially worried about Blood Wolf Team members, whospecialized in hunting and killing people. He knew that they woulddefinitely replace a way to track him.

To avoid being tracked, he kept choosing small mountain roads inremote mountain ranges along the journey.

A few days later, Austin found himself above a huge valley that coveredan area of tens of thousands of miles. Looking at the chilly fog rollingup and down, Austin and Violet frowned.

Although they hadn't entered the valley yet, Austin could tell that itwould be hard to resist the cold. When he heard the wind howling likeghosts crying, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Austin planned to change his route to bypass the valley, but the gnomestopped him. It pricked up its ears, twitched its nose, and sniffedcarefully. And then, all of a sudden, it grabbed Austin's clothes andpointed at the valley.

Austin was a little surprised by this new development.

"There are treasures in the valley?”

The gnome nodded.

"Violet, how about having a look in the valley?" he asked.

Violet smiled.

"It's up to you, Master. I'll follow you wherever you want to go.”

Austin thought about it for a while.

“Wealth and honor have always required adventure. Maybe there aresome extremely valuable treasures in the valley. It would be a pity if Imissed the chance.

Besides, the Golden Sun Scripture I have cultivated is a primemasculinity formula, so it should be sufficient for me to resist the coldin the valley.’

With that thought, Austin gritted his teeth and made up his mind toenter the valley.

He looked at Violet and reminded her, "You must follow me closely.Never stray more than thirty feet away from me.”

"Got it!" Violet made a face at him. Then, she wrapped her clothestighter around herself.

Without any hesitation, they headed toward the valley with the gnome.Using the Golden Sun Scripture skill, Austin summoned the light goldenvital energy in his body and made it surround Violet, the gnome, andhimself.

The moment they entered the valley, strong cold winds blew at themfrom all directions. Violet shivered in the cold. But after a shortmoment, the light golden vital energy gave off a stream of heat anddispelled the surrounding coldness. Soon, Violet recovered.

Austin wasn't affected by the coldness as he had reached stage three ofOverlord Body-refining Formula and his body was tough enough toresist cold winds.

On the other hand, the gnome didn't seem to mind the cold winds atall. It jumped around Austin and Violet, looking around and rummagingabout from time to time.

The deeper they walked into the valley, the more desolate it seemed.There were barely any trees in the valley. And even when they did see acluster of grass occasionally, the grass looked cold and grim.

The howling of the wind grew louder. The coldness in the valleyseemed to have penetrated their spiritual souls.

"Let's move on!" Austin said and led them deeper into the valley.

He was surprised that, except for the uncomfortable environment andthe cold winds, they had not met with any danger. Of course, hewanted it to stay that way.

After walking for a long time, they came across some debris. Theywalked over and looked at it for a while.

There must have been a building here, but it had collapsed a long timeago, leaving only broken walls behind. The edges of these broken wallshad been smoothed by the wind.

Austin suddenly yelped in surprise. He seemed to have foundsomething special.

He quickly strode a few steps forward and stopped in front of thebroken walls. Then, he began to walk around an area there.

He released his spiritual sense power to probe around the area anddidn't replace any danger around them.

After a while, he walked back to Violet and the gnome, lost in thought."What did you replace?"

Violet asked curiously.

"Array," Austin answered in a low voice.

"Since there is some trace of array here, this should be the ruins ofsome sect. We have to be really careful. Normally, the power of arrayincreases the deeper we go into the territory of the sect. Maybe wedidn't see any arrays until now because we haven't entered theinfluence sphere of the sect yet."

Violet nodded and asked, "Which way shall we go?”

Austin released his spiritual sense power and probed the area within athousand meters. After a short moment, he pointed in a certaindirection and said, "This way!"

Since Austin had spent some time on spiritual sense power cultivationwith powerful crystals, he was able to sense a range of a thousandmeters now.

As they walked, they found more arrays. However, these arrays seemedto have lost their power after all this time.

Along their way, Austin and Violet occasionally came across a fewarrays which were still powerful but could be broken easily.

Austin guessed that these arrays might have been very powerful manyyears ago, but now, they had lost most of their power.

Although he could break these arrays easily with Violet's help, he didn'tfeel relaxed.

On the contrary, he looked more anxious. “From looking at the ruins ofthe sect, it's clear that the arrays were arranged many years ago.However, they're still effective, so the sect should have been extremelypowerful once. The arrays it arranged in its territory should also beextraordinary, ' he thought to himself.

After breaking another array, Violet clapped delightfully and turned tosay something to Austin.

But before she could open her mouth, Austin suddenly rushed towardher and pulled her behind him. Then, he reached out lightly andreleased a strand of vital energy force.

At first, it seemed like the light golden vital energy hit nothing but air.But then a shrill scream rang out. It had an incredible power similar towhat the spiritual souls attacking skill released. It began to attack Austinand Violet's Soul Sea. However, its power was not strong enough, so itfailed to break the defense of their Soul Sea.

Violet's face turned pale. She was shocked because she hadn't sensedany danger before being attacked.

She calmed herself down and looked carefully in Austin's direction. Toher surprise, Austin was holding a faint and almost invisible figure in hishand. The figure, which was surrounded by rolling vital energy, had apained look on its face. Its visibility decreased and it kept shrinking untilit vanished completely.

"Was that a ghost?" Austin and Violet cried out simultaneously.

They looked at each other and felt a chill run down their spines.

Ghosts were formed from the spiritual souls of creatures when theydied. They were like another form of being of these creatures.Normally, without a body to attach to, the spiritual soul of any creaturewould be unable to exist for a long time. It would disappear in the airand become a part of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.However, if the spiritual soul was kept in a suitable Secret Weapon orattached to some other creature's body, it wouldn't disappear.However, the Secret Weapon to store spiritual souls was not easy torefine. And it was extremely dangerous for a spiritual soul to enteranother creature's body as it was very likely to be swallowed by thespiritual souls of its new host.

In addition to these two methods, there was another way for a spiritualsoul to keep on existing: replaceing a suitable environment.

As the valley was very cold and moist, the dissipation rate of spiritualsouls was very slow. Under these conditions, they could exist for a longtime and finally become ghosts.

But when a spiritual soul was transformed into a ghost, it would lose itswits and would only follow its instinct.

Ghosts were very aggressive and treated all living things as theirenemies. It was hard to kill them without proper magical skill or aSecret Weapon.

The Golden Sun Scripture Austin had cultivated was a prime masculinityformula, so the light golden vital energy he released was able tosuppress the ghosts. Other cultivators who hadn't cultivated suchformulas wouldn't be able to destroy the ghosts as easily as he had.