All at once, the faintest rustle came from behind him. If his hearing had not been exceptionally sharp, he would never have noticed it. He pretended not to, but quietly glanced back and immediately spotted a green snake lying in the grass eighty zhang away. Its eyes gleamed with a cold light as it stared fixedly at him.
Though Yan Chihuo had only glanced at it, he immediately realized that the snake was a monster whose cultivation had reached the early Body Tempering Stage. It was weak, but with the advantage of the terrain, it had a good chance of ambushing a cultivator at the middle stage of Body Tempering.
Yan Chihuo twisted around and used Earth Shrinking Step, appearing before the snake in an instant. The snake had been plotting how to launch its ambush, never expecting Yan Chihuo to come straight to it instead.
The snake opened its mouth and spat out a stream of venom. Yan Chihuo spread his hand, and a thin layer of soft, five-colored sand appeared before him: the Five Poison Cloud Smoke Cover. The venom landed on the cover, seeped into it, and disappeared.
When Yan Chihuo had used Earth Shrinking Step just now, killing the snake would have been as easy as turning over his hand. He had refrained from striking at once only because he wanted to test whether the Five Poison Cloud Smoke Cover could absorb the snake's venom.
Seeing that its venom was useless, the snake realized its opponent was no easy prey and turned to flee. Yan Chihuo swung his long sword, sending a streak of Sword Qi tearing through the grass and plants. The snake abruptly darted diagonally aside, but just after dodging the Sword Qi, it saw a flash of swordlight—Yan Chihuo's blade was already upon it.
Unable to dodge, it could only spit out another stream of venom. The Five Poison Cloud Smoke Cover blocked it again, while the snake's huge head was sliced off and sent flying more than ten zhang. Blood gushed from its neck, and its long body hit the ground, writhing back and forth. This snake was even fiercer than the one Yan Chihuo had encountered before joining the sect, but now it posed not the slightest threat to him.
He removed the snake's venom sac and promptly left. But the early Body Tempering Stage snake's venom was too weak to do more than slightly suppress the poison of the Demon Immortal Fruit inside him. Yan Chihuo still had to find the mutant Red-Scaled Poison Python.
Half a day passed. Yan Chihuo had gone more than two hundred li into Snow Dragon Ridge, yet he still had not seen the Red-Scaled Poison Python. As he rounded a mountain hollow, he spotted a man and two women lying ahead.
Yan Chihuo couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath. Their bodies were covered in rotting flesh and oozing yellow fluid, their faces unrecognizable. A few shattered pieces of Talisman Artifact lay beside them.
He first looked around, and only after finding nothing amiss did he approach. He had barely examined them when the flesh on their bodies rapidly liquefied, exposing their bones. A short while later, even the bones had dissolved completely.
What a vicious poison! Yan Chihuo's expression grew grave. Judging by how quickly the bodies were dissolving, whatever monster or cultivator had attacked them could not have gone far.
He grew even more cautious and looked over the ground again, then picked up a fragment not far from his foot. It was neither stone nor wood, about the size of his palm and more than three inches thick. It had clearly been broken in a violent collision.
Yan Chihuo examined it for a moment and recognized it as a fragment of Wood Cloud Stone. He was familiar with the Forbidden Cloud Pattern on the Talisman Artifact, too: it was the Stone Armor Art.
Wood Cloud Stone is both light and hard. Judging from this fragment, the person who crafted the Talisman Artifact was quite skilled. It must have been a rare defensive artifact, yet the enemy still managed to smash it. That shows just how powerful their attack was.
He looked at the edges of the fragment. They were jagged and uneven, so it clearly had not been damaged by a sharp blade. It had probably been smashed by a heavy Talisman Artifact such as a hammer or chain—or by a monster's body.
At this thought, he paused. If a monster smashed it with its body, then there's an eighty percent chance it was the Red-Scaled Poison Python. I'm just too late. I missed the chance to see whether these three corpses had Storage Rings.
Though monsters had awakened their intelligence, those at the Body Tempering Stage did not yet know to remove Storage Rings. So if these three had been killed by a monster, their Storage Rings would probably still be there. But he had arrived too late; even if there had been any, the poison would have dissolved them.
He started to leave, but a patch of greenery in the grass caught his eye: a plant more than two chi tall, bearing several red flowers and heart-shaped leaves.
His spirits lifted. It was Jade Ginseng. He had never expected to find one here. Though Jade Ginseng was not the purpose of his trip, he still had to return with three of them.
He walked over and carefully dug up the Jade Ginseng with his long sword. It was pale yellow and seemed almost transparent, truly resembling a piece of fine jade.
There were three kinds of Jade Ginseng. White Jade Ginseng was generally around fifty years old and the least valuable, usually worth about seven or eight Jade Crystals. It was the kind required by the Merit Pavilion.
Next was Yellow Jade Ginseng, which could reach a hundred years in age and was far more valuable; it would take at least a hundred Jade Crystals to buy one. The last kind was Red Jade Ginseng, at least two hundred years old and worth no less than three or four hundred Jade Crystals. If it reached a thousand years, it would take two or three thousand Jade Crystals to get one.
Yan Chihuo had intended to use this Jade Ginseng for his task, but since it turned out to be Yellow Jade Ginseng, there was no way he would hand it over. He took a Jade Box from inside his robe, placed the Yellow Jade Ginseng inside, and put it into his Storage Ring before continuing on.
Along the way, he saw several more corpses. Unlike the previous three, these bore signs of having been bitten by wild animals. They had clearly been injured by wild beasts or monsters. They were all cultivators, too, but none had Storage Rings on them. He had no idea whether someone had taken them or whether the monsters had killed them.
Yan Chihuo was certain these people had died at the hands of cultivators. There was not a single item related to cultivation among their belongings, only a few fragments of shattered Talisman Artifacts.
Night fell. Yan Chihuo casually caught a wild rabbit for dinner, then leaned against a large tree to rest. Before long, he fell asleep. His hearing was extraordinary; any disturbance would certainly wake him. That was one benefit of the Abnormality in his eyes and ears.
Deep in the night, everything was pitch-black. A faint rustling came from the grass as a green lizard crept toward Yan Chihuo. The sound came from its limbs rubbing against the weeds. When it was thirty zhang away, he suddenly opened his eyes. His body flashed, and he appeared beside the lizard, bringing his sword down hard.
The lizard opened its mouth and spat out a whirlwind, which rushed to meet the blow. A faint sharpness stirred within the wind as the lizard shifted to the side.
It was a wind-attribute monster! The whirlwind it spat out was called Whirlwind Art, a low-level wind-attribute spell used to attack enemies. Wind-attribute cultivators also had a defensive spell called Wind Sensing Art. It could both defend and detect enemies, sensing their presence and discerning their attacks so the user could evade them in advance. Its effective range was ten zhang.
Before you continue