Lu An laughed at Yang Kai's words. "How many more do you want to teleport back?"
Yang Kai said, "Naturally, the more the better."
Zha Hu waved his hand. "There's no need. The pocket worlds stockpiled outside the pass right now are already enough to keep the soldiers inside busy for ages. As long as the worlds we brought back can be fully mined, the resources obtained will be more than sufficient for several centuries of consumption inside the pass. That's more than enough to meet our needs. Besides, the deeper you go, the more likely you are to run into the Ink Clan. We've already gotten a good deal—no point pushing our luck and inviting trouble."
Yang Kai nodded at this. "In that case, I'll follow Commander Zha's judgment."
Lu An said, "You've been running around outside for two years. It must have been exhausting. Once you're back, take a proper rest. You haven't had a chance to cultivate properly since your breakthrough to the Seventh Order, have you?"
Yang Kai shook his head. "I haven't had much time for proper cultivation, but I've raised a number of living creatures inside my Small Universe. They're constantly adding to its foundation, so I'm not worried about an unstable base."
Lu An nodded in realization. "Right, I'd forgotten about that."
"There's one more thing I need to report to you both."
"What is it?"
"While I was teleporting those pocket worlds, I happened to pass through a stretch of void where I vaguely sensed fluctuations of spatial power."
Lu An was taken aback. "Fluctuations of spatial power?"
Zha Hu caught on immediately. "You're saying it could be the entrance to a Secret Realm?"
Yang Kai nodded. "Not just could be—I can confirm it's the entrance to a Secret Realm. I was too busy teleporting the pocket worlds at the time to investigate, but now that there's no need to keep doing that, it might be worth a look. There's a chance we could find Xuanpin Spirit Fruits inside."
Xuanpin Spirit Fruits were an extremely precious resource for any human stronghold. Yang Kai remembered the exchange options listed in the Supplies Hall—the very first item on the list of materials that could be traded for resources was the Xuanpin Spirit Fruit.
After all, every human stronghold had a considerable number of soldiers who had been corroded by the Ink Force. Left with no choice, they had severed their own Small Universes, leaving them incomplete.
That incompleteness could only be repaired by Xuanpin Spirit Fruits. As a result, the spirit fruit was in desperately short supply at every human stronghold—demand far outstripped supply.
And Xuanpin Spirit Fruits could only be found within certain Secret Realms inside the Ink Battlefield.
Zha Hu's eyes lit up immediately. "Do you remember the location?"
Yang Kai said, "I've already marked it on the World Map."
"Good. In that case, once I've assembled a team, I'll go with you." With that, Zha Hu immediately sent out a transmission.
Moments later, over a hundred people gathered aboard the Dawn. Zha Hu would be accompanying them, while Lu An would remain behind to hold down the base—after all, there was still a Purging Ink Ship docked there, and it required an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm master to guard it properly.
Including the original members of Dawn, the ship now held over a hundred people—equivalent to seven or eight squads.
The captains of those squads all came over one by one, warmly greeting Yang Kai with broad smiles and cheerful conversation. They were mostly comrades who had fought alongside him. Even if Yang Kai didn't recognize every face, they all looked familiar, and after a round of introductions, they were acquainted.
Once the pleasantries were done, Yang Kai found a moment to slip over to Zha Hu's side and asked with puzzlement, "Commander, why are we bringing so many people?"
He was certain that the spatial power fluctuations he had sensed marked a Secret Realm entrance, but it was only a single Secret Realm. His original plan had been to lead the Dawn squad in to explore it and grab whatever treasures they could.
Who would have thought Zha Hu would assign seven or eight squads to follow, and personally come along as well?
Even if they needed to guard against the Ink Clan, there was no need for this many people. Besides, this area was practically devoid of Ink Clan activity—all the pocket worlds had already been teleported back outside Biluo Pass. There was nothing left here, so why would the Ink Clan come running to their deaths?
Zha Hu didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "How much do you know about the Secret Realms of the Ink Battlefield?"
Yang Kai shook his head. "Not that much. I only know that some Secret Realms contain Xuanpin Spirit Fruits, along with many rare medicinal herbs."
In the Ink Battlefield, cultivation resources could generally be mined from the dead pocket worlds, but the spirit flowers and exotic herbs needed for refining pills had to be transported in from the Three Thousand Worlds, or found in those Secret Realms.
Because of that, pills were generally rarer than ordinary cultivation resources in the Ink Battlefield—materials for pill refinement had far more limited channels of acquisition.
Yang Kai genuinely didn't know much about the Secret Realms of the Ink Battlefield. When he had arrived here through the void corridor from the Black Domain, he had landed directly inside a Secret Realm, but that was his only experience with one.
At the time, though, he had only been concerned with survival and hadn't done much exploring.
Zha Hu nodded. "The Secret Realms of the Ink Battlefield have a particular characteristic—they appear in clusters!"
Yang Kai raised an eyebrow. "Clusters?"