Once a strand of his spiritual sense was attached to the puppet, he could clearly observe everything inside the pool through their mental connection, even though his physical body remained above the water's surface.
The pale silver pool water was clearly even more wondrously viscous than he had estimated!
The moment the giant wolf submerged three or four zhang deep, a repulsive force surged up from the bottom, and the surrounding pool water simultaneously transmitted countless threads of tremendous force from all sides, making its descent suddenly become extremely difficult.
After the giant wolf struggled down inch by inch to about a zhang deep, the forces from all directions abruptly surged several fold, and the repulsive force grew so powerful that it could not descend even a fraction further.
At the same time, cracking sounds periodically erupted from within the puppet's body, as though it were about to be crushed at any moment by the overwhelming pressure.
When his strand of spiritual sense swept through the surroundings, aside from the pale silver pool water, it still could not detect a single thing.
Above the pond, Han Li furrowed his brow slightly, and his mind stirred.
The giant wolf's limbs shifted, and it rose half a zhang or more before beginning to swim slowly back and forth at the same depth.
Although its movements were extremely slow, the pond was only about a hundred zhang across, and in roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the giant wolf puppet had searched the entire pool—but found nothing.
Han Li hesitated for a moment, then waved one hand toward the water.
With a whoosh, the giant wolf puppet shot out from within, and at the same time a ball of white light burst forth, flashing briefly before vanishing into Han Li's body.
Han Li swept his gaze over the wolf and, finding nothing out of the ordinary, swept his sleeve to stow the puppet away.
He certainly wouldn't give up so easily. Instead, he raised one hand, and a pitch-black beast ring hummed as it spun out into the air.
After a pale golden glow swept across the ring, hundreds of enormous beetles flew out from within.
Each one gleamed with golden light and bore a pair of fearsome fangs — they were mature Gold Devouring Beetles.
Without hesitation, Han Li formed a hand seal with one hand. A flash of white light suddenly appeared between his brows, and a sharp hissing sound rang out.
Over a hundred crystal-like threads shot outward from it, each one accurately piercing into a golden beetle.
The hundred-plus beetles moved in unison, transforming into clusters of golden light as they flew into the pond, quickly sinking toward its depths.
With their nearly indestructible bodies and the immense strength they possessed, the Gold Devouring Beetles could naturally dive into far deeper places with ease.
In the blink of an eye, these several hundred Gold Devouring Beetles sank seven or eight zhang deep in one go before they finally began to slow their descent.
But even then, they still had not reached the bottom of the pond.
A look of surprise appeared on Han Li's face, and he couldn't help but secretly consider whether he should deploy more than a dozen of his reserve beetle kings next time.
However, when these Gold Devouring Beetles finally struggled their way down to a depth of ten zhang, a look of delight finally appeared on his face.
Below the ten-zhang water level, he finally saw a vast expanse of white, sandy ground.
Overjoyed, Han Li immediately ordered all the Gold Devouring Beetles to begin searching in different directions.
As a result, they easily discovered seven spiritual lotus plants, each about a foot tall, in two remote corners of the pond.
Each one had stems as transparent as crystal, with dense, thread-like veins of blood running through them straight up to the lotus atop the stem.
Of the seven spiritual lotus plants, three were merely fist-sized pale buds, two had opened nearly halfway, and only one had fully bloomed.
Those that had not truly bloomed were nothing more than an ordinary pale yellow color, but the fully bloomed spiritual lotus had petals of a flesh-red hue, with what appeared to be human-like blood vessels and meridians faintly visible on its surface — truly extraordinary.
When Han Li saw this scene, he felt not disappointment but rather overwhelming joy.
Although information about the Spirit Cleansing Pool and the Pure Spirit Lotus was exceedingly rare within the Spirit Realm, he had naturally done everything possible to gather general intelligence before planning his perilous venture into the Demon Realm.
According to the information he had obtained, the Pure Spirit Lotus was considered a wondrous anomaly of heaven and earth. Not only could it only be born within the Spirit Cleansing Pool, but prior to blooming and undergoing its dramatic color change, the lotus was no different from an ordinary spirit herb, possessing little efficacy.
Once this lotus bloomed, however, it could persist for a full thousand years. If left unharvested, it would gradually dissolve into pure spiritual energy and automatically merge back into the Spirit Pool. The next time a lotus bloomed would require another wait of several thousand years.
Therefore, even for Long Family Ancestor and others who had long coveted this opportunity, there was no guarantee they would encounter a fully bloomed lotus upon entering the Spirit Cleansing Pool. Moreover, even if they truly obtained one or two blossoms, due to the number of people involved, having two or three petals per person would be considered the best possible outcome.
Now, with Long Family Ancestor and the others having perished unexpectedly, leaving only himself, this single blossom of the Spiritual Lotus was naturally sufficient for his needs. It would allow him to fully absorb its miraculous medicinal effects.
Han Li forcibly suppressed the joy welling up in his heart and directed his Gold Devouring Beetles to conduct a more thorough search of the other corners at the bottom of the Spirit Pool.
The results showed that besides those Pure Spirit Lotuses, no other spirit medicines were discovered.
This was not at all strange!
Given the terrifying pressure exerted by the spirit water within the Spirit Cleansing Pool, ordinary spirit herbs truly could not survive at its bottom. Furthermore, the spiritual energy within the pool was, relative to the outside world, simply far too refined and pure. Any other spirit herb seeds that occasionally fell into it would only suffer a self-destructive end, let alone having any chance of sprouting and growing.