Chapter 7: The Ladder
Eating delicious food while growing cultivation is Tang Chen's dream. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info
He didn't think it was nonsense, wouldn't the allocation of spiritual food be to speed up cultivation?
Black beetle meat obviously made his dream come true. In the past, Tang Chen might have been happy with the amazing spiritual effect of the black beetle meat, but now, being trapped in the valley really made him unhappy, and being trapped here for one more day meant being cut off from the food of the outside world for one more day......
What a loss!
After eating, Tang Chen, who did not give up, searched for a way out along the cliffs of the valley again.
Having already walked around a circle, and there was no threat from fierce beasts in the valley during the day, Tang Chen used the Flowing Wind Technique, and the speed was much faster than when he first explored. The kitten sat on Tang Chen's shoulder, squinting and dozing off, but no matter how fast Tang Chen was, it could sit firmly.
After two rounds of searching, Tang Chen's face became more and more ugly.
He searched very carefully, and there were many plants climbing on the mountain wall, most of them with developed vines, some like creepers, and some with large and small gourds. Tang Chen specially found a tree stick, and when he saw the place where the vines were luxuriant, he used the stick to pick or poke, hoping to find a mountain crevice or cave hidden by plants, but to his disappointment, nothing was found.
There is no road!
He doesn't want to be stuck here, he's going to get out!
There are many delicacies waiting for him to taste outside, even if he wants to die, wait for my brother to taste enough!
Standing in front of the mountain wall and looking up, the wall stands with a thousand blades, and the cliff is cut off by clouds and mist, and you can't see the end of the mountain peak. Under the clouds and mist, the height of the mountain peak is no less than a thousand meters, and the geometry on it is unknown.
The whole valley is as good as that.
Tang Chen once commented that even if the total height of the mountain peak is only a thousand meters, the chance of him being able to climb it is very small. The cultivation is too low to fly, and there are no professional climbing tools, so you can only rely on simple tools to climb, and it is impossible to complete it at a kilometer altitude. If it is the same cultivation as a body cultivation cultivator, the probability of climbing out may be slightly greater, but it is also very limited, if Tang Chen's chance of climbing out of the valley is 0.1%, the physical cultivation is about 0.5%.
Tang Chen is now extremely hopeful that he has a magic weapon for flying or climbing.
He still remembers a few advertising words.
"Flying Hook: Pure iron is claw, solid as a rock. The tendons are cords, soft as reeds. Considering the needs of low-level cultivation as a monk and the use of special environments, this hook adopts dual control of spiritual power and mechanism, and can be used without spiritual power, and the effect is particularly outstanding in the mountain and forest environment!
"Yinhui Xiangyun: With two grades of water cloud essence as the main material, and hundreds of precious raw materials are added, the refining master refines it with yang fire, and it takes 9981 days to complete. As long as you input a small amount of spiritual power, you can sit upright on the auspicious clouds, burn incense**, and set up a formation in the wind...... Yinhui Xiangyun can carry four people at the same time, and the promotion period comes with a pearl, what are you hesitating about?
"Red Bat Wing: Are you worried about not having a flying sword? Do you want to experience the thrill of soaring in the sky? Red Bat Wing can perfectly solve your problem! It is easy to use, easy to control, good performance in the air, with a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour, and comes with a [Warmth] rune array, so that you will not feel cold when flying at high altitude. Produced by famous teachers, quality assurance!"
The price of these things is one penny, and Tang Chen can't afford to buy them, so he can only be greedy.
In fact, all he can use is the Flying Hook, as for the silver glow auspicious clouds and red bat wings, they are magic weapons that can only be played by monks in the foundation building period, and Tang Chen's cultivation is still far behind.
The boy who silently looked up at the mountain peak under the desperate valley looked extremely small.
The young man clenched his fists, the loss and frustration disappeared from his face, his confused eyes gradually returned to clarity, and his thick eyebrows were as straight as knives.
The young man murmured: "One thousandth...... Brother bet!"
Tom lay on the ground basking in the sun, his little head held high, and from time to time he opened his mouth to yawn, revealing two pairs of pointed canine teeth. Little Tom "meowed" a few times, trying to get Tang Chen's attention, but the latter was busy, just turned his head to take a look, and continued to work hard.
Bored little Tom, he had to find a show to pass the time by himself.
Before Tang Chen fell into the valley, he had been living alone, without any companions, and needed to pass a lot of time every day, and the cat had a lot of experience in how to have fun. The beautiful blue tail swept around the ground, and little Tom suddenly stretched out his front paws, trying to grab his own tail, and the paws were not the same as the tail. Tom got up and continued to catch his prey relentlessly, the position of his tail constantly changing with his movements, no matter how hard the kitten tried, no matter how quickly it started, fighting with itself, always a little distance.
The kitten was rolling on the ground and having fun.
Not far away, Tang Chen was still busy under the cliff, and his whole body was wet with sweat.
He cut a large amount of green vine from the cliff, and the cliff, which had been covered with green, appeared a small clearing, revealing the obscured cliff face, as if the green canvas had been marked with a reddish-brown patch.
All the branches and leaves on the green vine had been cleared by Tang Chen, leaving the bare rattan. The rattan is thick and thin, the thick one is the size of two fingers, and the thin one is only the thickness of the little finger. After experiments, even the thinnest rattan can fully bear Tang Chen's weight, but for the sake of insurance, Tang Chen still decided to process these thin vines and knead the two strands of rattan into one strand, not only to ensure that the thin rattan will not be suddenly disconnected, but also to have a lot of protrusions on the vine rope after kneading, which is more conducive to climbing.
Climbing the cliff to cut vines, cleaning branches and leaves and knotting ropes, Tang Chen suffered a lot.
Before this, Tang Chen had hardly engaged in manual labor, and climbing the cliff along the rattan and cutting the rattan was a severe test of physical strength. Even if Tang Chen has always had a good habit of sharpening kitchen knives, it is not an easy task to cut down the thick vines that are tangled together.
The originally white and tender hands were full of wounds, and he could hardly find a complete piece of skin, although they were all skin wounds, but every time he touched it, he gasped in pain. The sauce secreted by the rattan branches and leaves soaked in the wound, and it was even more unbearable. At first, Tang Chen would still find a way to treat his wounds, but he soon found that it was pointless to do so, so he simply let it go, allowing the dirt, vine juice, sweat, and blood beads to cover his palm.
Tang Chen didn't want to be trapped in this desperate valley.
Although the chances of successfully climbing out of the valley are slim, it is the only way he can think of now. No matter how little hope there was, he had to do his best.
Before the action, Tang Chen imagined the difficulties he might encounter as much as possible, and made corresponding plans for this.
After comprehensively considering factors such as physical strength, wind power, safety, weight-bearing capacity, and supplies, Tang Chen decided to fight steadily. According to the plan, a temporary footing point is set up every 10 meters on the cliff for him to rest and tie rattan ropes; in order to avoid a dilemma caused by the breaking of a certain section of rattan rope in the middle, two rattan ropes need to be tied to each section; a forward camp is set up every 100 meters, whether it is digging a hole in the cliff wall or building a larger platform following the principle of the plank road, the basic requirement is to be able to reserve some fresh water and let him meditate on it to recover his strength.
The whole operation was named "The Ladder Project", which means to climb out of the valley like a ladder.
The Ladder program is extremely stable.
In order to ensure maximum safety, a large number of rattan ropes and wooden sticks (wedged into the cliff are used to tie the rattan ropes and serve as a foothold). This means a lot of work and a lot of time to invest. For Tang Chen, it is a huge project.
This is a helpless thing, Tang Chen doesn't want to be trapped to death, let alone fall to death.
After the start of the project, new problems kept emerging.
For example, the safety of rattan ropes, the newly cut rattan rope is full of toughness, but if the time is long, the reliability of the rattan rope will be greatly reduced after the water loss. Tang Chen had to adjust his plan, the rattan rope had to be immersed in water to retain moisture, and in order not to pollute the only source of water, he needed to dig a pond first to serve as a long-term storage place for the rattan rope.
Another major challenge was that the physical exertion during the climb was far beyond expectations, and Tang Chen realized this when he was cutting the vine. Even if he remained motionless in mid-air, his physical strength would continue to be consumed, and he had climbed to more than 20 meters above the ground with his bare hands when cutting vines, and he could not continue to hold on for long. However, building a ladder requires a load, and a rattan rope soaked in water is about 20 catties, which is more difficult than bare hands. Even though the ladder planned to set up advance camps every hundred meters, Tang Chen began to doubt whether he could successfully reach the first advance camp. Moreover, the more difficult the project becomes, even if it can be carried out smoothly, in the final stage, if Tang Chen wants to continue to build the "ladder", he must carry dozens of pounds of rattan on his back and climb hundreds of meters high cliffs to work, which is desperate to think about......
Tang Chen, who had no more options, decided to continue to put the ladder plan into practice.
He has one more item in his daily routine: practice climbing every day, master the corresponding skills, and reduce physical exertion.
The length of each of the completed rattan ropes was about fifteen meters, which was about half longer than the ten-meter interval required for the temporary footing point, and Tang Chen left enough room for binding loss and spacing error.
More than 20 rattan ropes were neatly placed beside Tang Chen, which was the result of three days of hard work.
There is also a pile of vines to be disposed of next to it, and in two days, this batch of vines will all turn into vine ropes.
Tang Chen narrowed his eyes, estimating in his heart how long it would take to finish processing this batch of vines. The time spent, combined with the number of rattan roots that can be obtained in the end, gives a rough estimate of how long it will take to get enough rattan.
In five days, the rattan rope obtained is enough for the 150-meter ladder. If the cliff height does not exceed 1,500 meters, Tang Chen is expected to get enough rattan rope within 50 days.
This does not mean that the Ladder Project is about to be successful, and knotting is only one part of the plan, and it is probably the easiest part. Setting up temporary footing points and moving forward is the most important thing, the degree of difficulty and danger are far beyond the knotted rope, especially the middle and high-level operations, the time required is incalculable, but Tang Chen is still sincerely happy.
These rattan ropes represent the hope of getting out of trouble, and they are the reward of his unremitting efforts!
With little Tom by his side, Tang Chen didn't need to worry about the threat of the black beetle, even in the middle of the night, he didn't stop to rest. When he is exhausted, he meditates cross-legged and continues to work after regaining his energy. Exhaustion was clearly written on his face, but the exhausted Tang Chen's eyes were full of longing and optimism.
As night falls, a bonfire rises in the middle of the valley.
During the announcement, the boy sat in front of the campfire and carefully knitted the rattan rope until he fell asleep.