Ye Yun finally nodded. "Good. Go deal with that Giant Snake. Its materials are worth a lot of money, so don't waste them." He pointed at the enormous blue-scaled Giant Snake carcass nearby, which was as large as a small hill.
"Yes, Brother Ye!" Yan Xiao Liu answered, as pumped up as if he'd been injected with chicken blood. Though injured, he was brimming with energy. He drew the sharp dagger he carried at his side and, fighting down his fear of the Giant Snake's lingering menace, swiftly began to butcher its corpse.
The snake's hide was incredibly tough, excellent material for making armor; its gallbladder was as big as a fist, emerald green and translucent, a holy remedy for poison; its fangs were as sharp as daggers and worth a fortune;
and then there were its sinews, which contained pure demonic power... Yan Xiao Liu worked quickly and precisely, clearly experienced in processing demonic beast materials. Before long, he had cut away the most valuable parts and carefully wrapped them in the oilcloth he carried.
Ye Yun stood with his hands behind his back, seemingly casting a casual glance over the chaotic battlefield. In truth, his spiritual sense extended like invisible tendrils, cautiously probing the surroundings for any danger that might be lurking.
Fallen leaves, snapped branches, churned-up earth, dried dark-red bloodstains... Everything was shrouded in the deathly silence and murderous air left behind by a great battle.
Suddenly, Ye Yun's gaze sharpened slightly as he keenly caught a faint yet exceptionally pure, unusual scent. It didn't come from blood, nor from rotting plants, but from something... sweet and fragrant, brimming with life and containing a strange energy?
The scent was extremely faint, mingling with the heavy stench of blood. Had his senses not been far sharper than an ordinary person's, he would hardly have noticed it.
He abruptly raised his head, his keen gaze piercing the dense canopy above, where the trees blocked almost all light. The branches and leaves of towering ancient trees overlapped in layers, casting deep shadows beneath the afterglow of the setting sun.
Yet, right at the very top, on a natural "platform" formed by several thick, interlocking branches, a glimpse of something deeply alluring flashed through a gap between enormous leaves stirred by the wind—a deep crimson, like congealed blood!
"Hm?" Ye Yun's heart stirred, and he didn't hesitate for a moment. He lightly tapped the ground with his toes, Essence Qi coursing through his body as he rose as lightly as a weightless feather.
He didn't shoot straight into the sky. Instead, he used an exquisitely subtle lightness skill, tapping his toes against the rough tree trunks in rapid succession. Each push was noiseless and light, yet astonishingly swift.
After a few bounds among the towering trees, he had climbed to a height of nearly a hundred meters, where he landed steadily on an enormous horizontal branch that would take several people to encircle.
The view opened up before him. Beneath his feet stretched a canopy like a green ocean, while in the distance the setting sun melted into gold, staining the sky a splendid orange-red.
Beside where Ye Yun had landed, at the junction between the trunk and a massive branch of the towering ancient tree, another peculiar plant had miraculously taken root!
The little tree was barely three feet tall, its entire body a warm, jade-like green. Its gnarled branches seemed to have weathered countless years.
Rather than sinking into the soil, its roots wound like spirit snakes, burrowing deep into the crevices of the ancient tree's thick branch below. There, they drew nourishment from the great tree and the Essence Qi drifting through the world. Three fruits, each about the size of a thumb, hung from its slender branches!
The three fruits were perfectly round and plump, their surfaces a deep, crystalline red, as though carved from the purest rubies! Their skins were as thin as cicada wings, and one could faintly make out the rich, golden-red juice flowing within them like syrup.
An exceptionally pure, strangely sweet fragrance wafted from the fruits, invigorating anyone who breathed it in and making the Essence Qi within their body stir faintly.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves and fell upon the fruits, refracting into a dreamlike, hazy glow. Their beauty was breathtaking!
"Vermilion Essence Fruits! And they're... parasitic Vermilion Essence Fruits!" Even Ye Yun, normally so composed, couldn't help narrowing his pupils. An uncontrollable surge of delight welled up within him.
He had read about this rare treasure of heaven and earth in a surviving ancient text.
Vermilion Essence Fruits were precious medicines born from the wonders of heaven and earth, exceedingly rare. But the kind before him was even more unusual—a variant of the Vermilion Essence Fruit, the parasitic Vermilion Essence Fruit!
Unable to grow independently in soil, it had to cling to a towering ancient tree at least a thousand years old, feeding on the tree's essence and the Essence Qi of heaven and earth. Only after a full sixty years of nurturing would it ripen and bear fruit! Each time it ripened, it bore no more than five fruits. It was a true treasure that could only be chanced upon, never sought!
Its worth was beyond the measure of gold or silver! It was said that a single ripe Vermilion Essence Fruit could fetch ten thousand gold at a top-tier auction—and often, even money couldn't buy one! There was only one reason: its effects were too heaven-defying!
For ordinary martial artists who could not yet sense Essence Qi, a single Vermilion Essence Fruit offered up to a fifty percent chance of opening the bridge between heaven and earth, drawing Qi into the body, and stepping straight into the long-dreamed-of ranks of martial artists!
For martial artists who had already entered those ranks, it was an unparalleled treasure for tempering the body, strengthening their foundations, and purifying their Essence Qi. It could even help them break through a bottleneck and directly advance by a minor cultivation level! The pure power it contained was gentle yet immense, with virtually no side effects!
Ye Yun's gaze swept over the little tree, and a trace of doubt crossed his mind. "The text said it bears five fruits when ripe... Why are there only three here?"
He immediately calmed his thoughts and warily surveyed his surroundings. Before long, beneath the branch where the little tree had taken root, he spotted several enormous, tough, blue-black snake skins in a hollow between the boughs, half-hidden by a huge leaf. A faint demonic aura still clung to their edges, matching the aura of the blue-scaled Giant Snake below!
Everything suddenly made sense! No wonder a Second-Order Demonic Beast like the blue-scaled Giant Snake, which shouldn't have been living in this part of the Sunset Mountains, had appeared here. It had discovered this parasitic Vermilion Essence Fruit tree, which was about to ripen, and had settled in to guard it, waiting for the fruit!
It must have swallowed two of the fruits as they ripened, using their immense, pure power to break through its limits and become a Second-Order Demonic Beast! And the remaining three had become Ye Yun's unexpected windfall!
The snipe and the clam fought, and the fisherman reaped the reward!
Ye Yun didn't hesitate any longer. Carefully, he took out three prepared jade boxes, made specifically for storing precious medicinal ingredients.
He handled the fruits gently, as if they were priceless treasures. Using a special jade knife, he cut the three glistening red Vermilion Essence Fruits from their branches, each with a short piece of stem still attached. He placed them in the boxes one by one, swiftly sealed them, and pasted on talismans to prevent their Essence Qi from escaping.
Only after finishing did he let out a long breath. He tucked the jade boxes safely against his body, then stood atop the giant tree's branch a hundred meters above the ground, looking down at the forest below, like a miniature landscape, and at Yan Xiao Liu, still bent over the snake carcass. A surge of indescribable exhilaration rose within him.
The setting sun's final rays fell upon him, outlining his tall, confident figure. He lightly tapped the branch with his toes, and his body drifted downward like a roc spreading its wings. His robes snapped in the evening breeze as he descended with effortless grace, landing steadily beside Yan Xiao Liu.
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