Five days

"This horse really has a mind of its own."

Lin Shan reached out and patted the horse's back.

The black horse did not resist. It merely snorted.

"Let's go." By then, Xia Xuan and Zhao Xiao An had each led out a horse as well. "We can only search inside the barrier. Most of the anomalies inside have been marked, so there shouldn't be any danger."

Lin Shan had barely climbed onto its back, and had not even shouted "Giddyup," when the black horse started running after the horses ahead on its own.

The horses were fast, no slower than a car traveling at forty miles an hour on Earth. At a full gallop, all he could hear was the wind rushing past.

They reached the edge of the barrier after just twenty minutes. The horses slowed down then, settling into a walk.

Lin Shan observed his surroundings. This was a vast valley, its floor covered with all sorts of plants that looked like weeds to him.

Zhao Xiao An began searching the ground for the medicinal herbs she needed, while Xia Xuan rode around the valley nearby, looking as though she was patrolling, or perhaps searching for something.

Bored out of his mind, Lin Shan found a comfortable spot to lie down and practice his heart light abilities. After taking the potion, heart light had become an almost instinctive gift, but he still had to develop its various applications himself.

So far, there were two ways to use it: one was to shield his body, and the other was to shape it. Heart light could change into various forms at his will to attack. The drawback was that he could not defend while attacking, nor attack while defending.

As he used it, Lin Shan discovered that heart light had a finite amount of spirituality. Its true form was merely a mass of pale golden light. No matter how he kneaded or reshaped it, the size of its forms was limited by that total amount.

The only way to increase his maximum spirituality was to wait for his body to slowly digest the potion. There seemed to be no other method.

The heart light sequence had not granted him any special abilities. Rather than saying he had advanced to Sequence 9, it would be more accurate to say he had mastered a weapon called "Sequence 9-Heart Light."

Suddenly, an inexplicable conjecture arose in his heart. The ninth sequence of the specter physique is called "Blood Wings." Could that also be some kind of weapon called "Blood Wings"?

Lin Shan felt his guess was quite plausible. Perhaps advancing through the sequences simply meant taking up weapons called sequences to arm oneself.

An unknown amount of time passed.

"Move over!" Zhao Xiao An walked up and nudged him with her foot, grumbling, "You've crushed a perfectly good isatis root plant. Who knows whether it'll survive being transplanted now?"

"Huh?" A little bewildered, Lin Shan sat up and looked beneath him. "This is isatis root?"

"If you hadn't told me, I'd have thought it was a little banana tree..." He had deliberately snapped it off to cushion himself. Its leaves were large and thick, keeping the ground from digging into him.

With a look of regret, Zhao Xiao An said:

"It might not actually be called isatis root, but its medicinal properties are the same, so that's what we'll call it. This one won't survive, though."

"A few months ago, there were far more medicinal herbs here. A whole swath died after winter set in. There aren't many left that we can transplant now."

"Are we still looking?" Lin Shan asked.

He glanced up at the sun. It was almost directly overhead. Noon had arrived before he knew it.

"Let's go, let's go. Get Xia Xuan. We're heading back for lunch."

"All right."

They reached the spot where the horses were tethered. A silk bundle lay there, bulging with Zhao Xiao An's morning harvest.

Seeing that Xia Xuan was not there, Zhao Xiao An took out a wooden whistle and blew hard. Its shrill sound rang through the valley. Before long, another whistle sounded from the other side-Xia Xuan's reply.

A moment later, Xia Xuan came galloping over on her horse, apparently carrying something in her hand.

Only when she drew closer could he see that it was a long-eared rabbit. It was about the same size as a rabbit on Earth, but its spirituality was no weaker than that of the chicken Lin Shan had caught last time, and even seemed a shade stronger. It far surpassed the cows he had seen yesterday and the horse beneath him.

Looking at the rabbit before him, Lin Shan reached another tentative conclusion: among animals in the ash fog world that looked the same as those on Earth, the larger their bodies, the weaker their spirituality, while smaller ones had stronger spirituality.

Then he looked at Xia Xuan. Her face was bruised and swollen. Clearly, catching this long-eared rabbit had put her through plenty of suffering. Her spirituality was weaker than the rabbit's, so he had no idea how she had managed to catch it.

"Xia Xuan, what happened to you? Come here, let me put some medicine on you. This is a good chance to test how well it reduces swelling."

Seeing Xia Xuan's injuries, Zhao Xiao An took a wooden box from her pocket, twisted off the lid, and scooped out some thick ointment to spread over Xia Xuan's face.

"Look, I caught a wabbit." After the medicine had been applied, Xia Xuan raised the rabbit in her hand.

"Pfft, hahaha..." Zhao Xiao An could not hold back her laughter. The way Xia Xuan sounded now was simply too much.

Seeing Zhao Xiao An laughing at her, Xia Xuan's face darkened. She stopped talking to her and turned to Lin Shan instead.

"This wabbit's spirituality is too strong. Once it wecovers, I won't be able to hold it. You'd better take it."

Lin Shan nodded and took the long-eared rabbit from Xia Xuan. Held by its ears, it was still throwing punches in midair.

Xia Xuan had exhausted its spirituality, so it was now no different from an ordinary rabbit.

Spirituality was a complicated term that encompassed many things. Among transcendent beings, it represented both the size of one's mana bar and one's strength. A creature's maximum spirituality largely determined how powerful it was.

Moreover, spirituality could be depleted. It was constantly consumed during use and confrontation. So far, the only way Lin Shan knew to recover it was to let it replenish naturally over time.

All of this was conjecture on Lin Shan's part. He could not be certain whether his deductions were correct. Putting those thoughts aside, he mounted his horse and rode toward camp. Along the way, the rabbit in his hand struggled several times, but he easily subdued it each time.

Twenty minutes later.

By the time they returned to camp, Luo He had already prepared lunch. Everyone in camp had clearly assigned duties, and Luo He had always been responsible for their meals.

Lunch was simple: gray steamed buns and a soup of green leaves, with a little grease floating on top. Lin Shan took a sip. The soup tasted faintly salty, giving him the feeling of something too tasteless to enjoy yet too valuable to throw away.

Even the cleverest cook could not make a meal without rice. No matter how skilled a chef was, they could not make anything delicious under these conditions.

Just then, a male member of the Cat Clan who had been eating nearby came over to Lin Shan and spoke in broken Huaxia Language.

"My name is Weiyi. Hewwo, pioneer of the Human Race."

Lin Shan smiled and replied, "Hello. My name is Lin Shan."

Weiyi said earnestly, "I hope our Cat Clan and the Human Race can forge a deep friendship."

"That is exactly what I hope to see," Lin Shan replied.

After exchanging greetings, the Cat Clan member named Weiyi said nothing more and returned to his seat.

Lin Shan quietly asked Zhang Zhonghua beside him, "Have you been to the Cat Clan?"

"No. We've never left the barrier, and we don't have the strength to go outside it. It's always the Cat Clan who come to us. These Cat Clan people brought supplies, then stayed to learn the Huaxia Language from Yan Ruxin. You'd be better off asking Yan Ruxin about the Cat Clan. She knows the most," Zhang Zhonghua answered softly.

Lin Shan nodded, planning to find some time to ask Yan Ruxin about the Cat Clan. There were five Cat Clan members present, all of them transcendent. Three had antlers on their heads, so their abilities probably allowed them to transform into deer, just like the Green-Robed Cat Girl. The other two's abilities were unknown.

After eating and drinking his fill, he stayed in camp all afternoon without going anywhere, occasionally chatting with others to learn more about the current situation.

Just like that, five days slipped by, each one spent lazing around like a salted fish.

Tonight, he would go face the Specter Thread Fish again. The day after tomorrow, he would set out for the Purple Soul Flower Forest. Advancing would take half a year, and during those six months, he could begin considering a second sequence.