Just then.
The Dragonblood Scarlet-Gold Ganoderma on the sheer cliff trembled lightly.
The last green marking at its tip rapidly faded, and the entire spirit herb turned a dazzling dark gold as its rich medicinal fragrance erupted in full.
The herb had matured.
The two savage beasts locked in a vicious struggle froze simultaneously.
The next instant, the berserker bear released its massive claws, and the giant python wrenched its body free. Both enormous creatures lunged toward the cliff, each desperate to get there first.
"The herb is mine!"
The berserker bear shattered the ground beneath its feet and shot forward like a cannonball fired from its barrel.
The giant python reacted even faster. The two fleshy wings on its back beat frantically, whipping up a gale as it skimmed the ground. Its jaws gaped wide, snapping straight at the cliff.
But before their claws and fangs could touch the spirit herb.
The space in front of the cliff twisted without warning.
A slender, fair-skinned human hand reached calmly out of the void.
A Jade Knife slid across the rock face with a faint crack.
The entire Dragonblood Scarlet-Gold Ganoderma, along with a three-foot-square chunk of surrounding rock, vanished into thin air right before the two savage beasts.
The air suddenly fell silent.
Its mouth hanging open, the berserker bear forcibly halted its charge, its immense body plowing two furrows dozens of yards long through the ground.
The giant python's jaws stopped three inches from the cliff, catching nothing but a mouthful of hard stone fragments.
The two eighth-rank magical beasts froze in place, then turned their heads in unison toward the top of the cliff.
On a jutting stone ledge, a young human man in plain white robes leisurely tucked an enormous Jade Box into his Storage Ring.
The