At this moment, on the Dark Abyss Land, at the highest point, a group of people were sitting around a campfire, seemingly discussing something important.
Obviously, the person sitting directly to the east of this group was the leader of this team.
This man was wearing a long dark - blue robe. His face was not ugly, but he was by no means handsome.
Behind his back, he carried a large knife. If one observed carefully, they would find that his weapon was different from ordinary large knives.
Generally, large knives had single - edged blades, but the back of this young man's knife was serrated. If it got stuck in a person's skin, it would surely tear out some of the person's flesh, blood vessels and tendons.
It was obvious that this man had extremely high prestige. When he was speaking, none of the people sitting in a circle below dared to say a word. They even deliberately softened their breathing.
On this man's arm, there was a dragon - horn mark engraved.
This man was the leader of the Broken Dragon Sect - Wu Long.
Wu Long looked rather solemn, and his subordinates didn't even dare to breathe loudly.
"Viper actually dared to threaten me."
Wu Long crumpled the letter in his hand into a ball and threw it into the campfire.
"Boss, is something wrong?"
Wu Long stood up and looked at the five people in his team beside him. "Among you five, has anyone secretly gone down to the bottom layer behind my back?"
After looking around at each other, everyone shook their heads.
"Damn it! Viper wants to frame me. I've given him quite a lot of hush money in the past. This time, he's so greedy that he even resorts to framing and slandering."
"Boss, what does Viper mean?"
"He said that one of our members from the Broken Dragon Sect went down the height and robbed his spiritual beast."
"What spiritual beast?"
"The Lotus Green - Silk Cat."
"Isn't that a spiritual beast that only appears at the second height? How did it end up at the bottom layer? We've been tricked. No wonder the last time we saw Viper, he was acting so mysterious. Instead of going higher, he went down the mountain. At that time, he must have discovered the trace of the Lotus Green - Silk Cat."
Wu Long's face showed no signs of joy, anger, sorrow or happiness. The fact that he kept silent indicated that his mood must not be very good at the moment.
Viper, true to his name, was really a sneaky and treacherous villain.
Previously, because many members of the Broken Dragon Sect were less qualified than him in capturing spiritual beasts, Wu Long specifically invited Viper to assist them.
After several collaborations, they had developed a certain degree of understanding.
Viper never gave in when it came to seizing benefits. As time went by, Wu Long had become a bit intolerant of him, and there had been a few quarrels.
If it weren't for the fact that Viper was of a relatively high rank, since he knew so many of Wu Long's secrets, Wu Long would have wanted to get rid of him long ago.
Unexpectedly, before he could take action, someone else had done it first.
What annoyed Wu Long was that this person dared to do such a thing in the name of the Broken Dragon Sect.
"Among you, is there really no one who has gone down the mountain?"
"Boss, we've all been following you all the time. When would we have the chance to go down the mountain? Viper is just fabricating rumors to sow discord among our team members. Boss, you mustn't believe him."
"Although Viper is sneaky, he doesn't seem to be lying."
"Boss, do you mean that someone is impersonating a member of our Broken Dragon Sect to commit the crime?"
Wu Long nodded, but then, he shook his head.
"Anything is possible. Maybe Viper has been hiding his true nature all along, so we've never discovered his real face."
"What about this matter?"
"Let's wait and see. Although Viper is powerful, I don't believe he dares to openly provoke our Broken Dragon Sect like this."
Wu Long sat down. He picked up his large knife and absent - mindedly whittled the wooden stick in his hand.
He always liked to whittle the wooden stick into a very sharp one. By then, when he saw a spiritual beast within range, this sharp wooden arrow could pierce through the spiritual beast's chest.
The campfire seemed to be burning more and more vigorously.
Zhao Shuning and her group were still climbing upwards non - stop.
Their speed was quite fast.
They had to thank Viper's map. According to the markings on the map, it was obvious that Viper and his group had already reached the first height. Later, they must have gone down for some reason.
Zhao Shuning didn't want to find out the reason.
After all, this map had already brought them a lot of benefits.
With Viper's markings, they could always easily avoid some swamps and whirlpools in the Dark Abyss Land.
If it were other teams, it would definitely take them ten days or half a month to reach the first height. But for Zhao Shuning and her group with Viper's map, they only took five days to successfully reach the first height.
After finally reaching the first height, Zhao Shuning wasn't in a hurry to make the next plan.
Se Se was more meticulous and quickly found a place to rest.
After they took a rest, they began to prepare food for the new day.
While waiting for the fire to burn brightly, everyone gathered together and talked about the next plan.
Everyone had tasted the sweet fruits, so they were naturally more looking forward to the next step. Among them, Kong Shishuang was especially excited.
You should know that Kong Shishuang couldn't even pass the trial for first - level freshmen. Now that they had reached the trial ground for second - level students and successfully reached the first height in just over a month, this was a very proud thing for her.
"Why are you all looking at me like this?"
"No, Xiaoning'er, we're waiting for you to arrange the next plan."
"Ah, the next plan? It's the same as before. A Shui and A Yue, you go and find some bamboo that can be used to build a simple shelter later, and then build a small bamboo hut."
"Boss?"
"Zhao Shuning, can you be a bit more ambitious? We built the bamboo hut at the bottom layer before because we didn't have a map and couldn't move forward. Now that we have a map, what are you afraid of?"
Se Se was a more intellectual girl. Seeing Kong Shishuang talking like this, she replied.
"Miss Kong, you may not know that the difficulties at each height are different. We were just lucky before. It won't be so easy to get through the first height. There must be a reason for the boss to stop."
"Yes, that's right. Miss Kong, if you don't understand, just shut up first. When Xiaoning'er does things, why do you need to question her?"
Kong Shishuang felt a bit wronged and defended herself. "I just talk like this. I have no ill will towards Zhao Shuning. I'll try to correct my over - bearing tone in the future."
The five of them all laughed, and no one minded Kong Shishuang's tone.
"But Xiaoning'er, what should we do next?"