Chapter 369: Nine Twist Spirit Plant
Translator: 3heryl Editor: Hitesh_
As the head of the beast pack was about to die, the smoke around its body suddenly exploded brutally, and the small pieces of flesh shot out into the distance. Soon, these small chunks of flesh started to project white smoke. Once the smoke had been poured out, the flesh started to shrivel, until eventually disappearing into the air.
"This smoke is not that simple. It could slowly seep through into the solid rock." Ye Chen activated his soul power, and immediately realized how different the smoke was.
Boooom!
Right after Ye Chen finished his sentence, all of the beasts under the ground all rushed out and attacked towards Ye Chen. The sound that it created sounded like the whole earth was moving.
Grand elder Chen and Liu Mei were both shocked. How could this be? Although the battle sound was not that loud, it should only attract most of the nearby beasts. How come so many beasts attacked out altogether? It was like they all knew where they were.
"Perhaps it was because of the smoke?"
Liu Mei was still in shock.
"This place is not suitable to stay for longer. Let's leave this place first."
Green Lotus Zhen Yuan cut through the mud and stone as Ye Chen led the two southward. Although there were relatively fewer beasts in that direction, there were still more than fifty of them. These beasts were in groups of five and kept a certain distance between each group.
"Kill!"
After reaching the Late Astral Reaching Realm, Ye Chen's attacking power had increased drastically. An unbreakable power appeared as he waved his sword casually, killing all of the beasts despite the leaders being present.
Liu Mei helped on the side as she performed her Wind Whip Art. The shadow of her whip looked like snakes, strangling one beast after another, forbidding them from gathering together. Although Grand elder Chen was not as dominant as Ye Chen in terms of attacking power, he was rather powerful against the remaining weaker beasts. With the three working as a team, they managed to make out a way by force.
"Should we go up?"
After escaping out of the beasts' encirclement, Grand elder Chen talked to Ye Chen through zhen yuan.
Ye Chen shook his head, "No rush! Although it would seem to be quite a good idea, I am not sure if the situation up there would be as good as we assume it to be. We should kill the beasts down here first to a certain amount. Only then would we still have time to go up there."
"Kill these beasts?" Liu Mei was shocked at what she heard.
"Under the ground, there is a limitation on soul power scanning. If the beasts wanted to surround us, it would be quite hard. On the contrary, we could throw attacks and switch places."
After hearing him, Liu Mei and grand elder Chen finally got his plan. They both exchanged a look and forced a smile. Before, they were both struggling about where to escape to, and had not realized that Ye Chen had already come up with a solution. It seemed like the level of power decided the perspectives of dealing with problems indeed.
Killing beasts would require a certain level of power. Ye Chen had the advantage of having his soul, power which covered ten times more ground than the beasts. It was something that would allow him to have the upper hand.
"Eh? There are three groups of beasts gathered together here."
A smile flashed across Ye Chen's face as his Blue Wood Sword sliced through and a huge Green Lotus blossomed.
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! …
In the next second, countless green colored sword qi appeared from Ye Chen's body like the spikes of a hedgehog, attacking the enemies ahead. Without any power to fight back, the three groups of beasts drowned in the sword qi ocean and ended up being full of wounds.
"Let's go!"
After killing all of the beasts with one attack, Ye Chen immediately changed his location.
…
With the same method, they had taken out four hundred beasts within three days of time, which included three leaders of the beasts.
"Now, we can go up now!"
Putting his Blue Wood Sword back into his scabbard, Ye Chen stepped on the rocks and shot out towards the surface of the ground.
Crack!
The ground had been pushed open, and the three appeared in the midair.
"Grand elder Ye, should we go check out the stone forest since we have no way of going out right now anyways?" Grand elder Chen said.
Ye Chen nodded. Of course, there was a possibility that there would be a huge number of beasts there, but at the same time, Ye Chen's attacking power had increased drastically as well. He was almost unbeatable within the Astral Reaching Realm. Even if it were a one on one with top-level beasts, he had nothing to be afraid of. In the worst case scenario, he could still make it out through the ground. Therefore, there was no harm in exploring the stone forest.
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!
The three flew towards the stone forest.
Ye Chen did not know exactly how big the stone forest was, since all of the rocks here were the size of a mountain, shining with a grey light.
The three entered the stone forest silently.
"Do not release your spirit power." Ye Chen said with his zhen yuan.
Liu Mei raised his head, "Right. The spirit power scan would attract the beasts' attention."
The rocks flew by the three as they managed to dodge the detection of the beasts, which put them in a more relaxed mood.
They were not afraid of one or two beasts. What they were afraid of would be groups of beasts attacking them at the same time. After all, in that case, no matter how many Astral Reaching Realm paragons were there, they would all be killed within seconds.
After about one hour, the three reached the deeper parts of the stone forest.
"Eh? There are some medicinal plants!"
Grand elder Chen focused at a spot on the ground. In a less noticeable corner, there was a white leafy plant with a blue flower. It was the size of a palm, and the tiny veins on the stalks were very noticeable like human's meridians.
"It is the meridian training flower. I cannot believe we can come across one here. It could sell for up to five thousand mid rank soul stones. If it were able to be cooked with other valuable medicines, it would cost more than thirty thousand mid rank stones. People would be willing to pay more if there was one available, which is very rare."
Liu Mei almost yelled out.
Even Ye Chen was intrigued. He was not sure about what exactly the effect would be, but he had heard about it before. The human meridians were very important, but they were extremely fragile. If they were blocked in any way, the attacking power of the warrior would not be brought out fully. If the meridians were damaged, then it would be a disastrous disadvantage for the warriors, and very hard to recover. However, with one Meridian Training Flower, the warrior could repair the damaged meridians in a short period of time. Not only that, it could also strengthen them to a horrifying degree.
"Haha… Sorry, finders, keepers. Right?" Grand Elder Chen was the first one to discover the plant. So, he made a gesture and moved the plant out of the ground, into his hand.
Ye Chen said lightly, "There would be a lot of treasurable plants, so we should make a rule, which would be, of course, whoever finds the treasure gets to keep it. What do you guys think?"
"Hehe, I have no problems with that." Liu Mei agreed.
Of course, Grand elder Chen would not have a problem with it, since judging on power, Ye Chen was the strongest, and this rule was obviously benefiting Liu Mei and him. Otherwise, if Ye Chen decided to be a bully and take the treasures away, then they could do nothing but run.
Ye Chen took a mental note on what the plant looked like, and secretly released his soul power, spreading out in the area.
His soul power was more powerful than mental power, and would be really hard to detect. When they were under the ground, he had used it as an advantage and killed a huge number of beasts.
Soon, Ye Chen had found two of those plants, flying towards where they were growing.
"Ah… Grand elder Ye is full of luck."
Grand elder Chen just thought that Ye Chen had a great eyesight. He would never think that he had found them through his soul power.
Ye Chen did not want to explain it to him neither.
…
Meridian Training Flower, three Four Leaf Plant, Seven Star Blue…
There were plenty of different kinds of great medicinal plants. Within half a day, the three had all gotten three to four different kinds. Among them, the less valuable ones would still cost one thousand mid rank soul stones, and the highest ones would have to be the Seven Star Blue, which would be the main ingredient for making the Earth Astral Pellet.
The Earth Astral Pellet could increase the Early Astral Reaching Realm warriors' total zhen yuan quantity, which also had a certain effect for Mid and Late Astral Reaching Realm warriors. If there were enough of the pellets, it would be possible for a Late Astral Reaching Realm warrior to reach to the peak level within a short amount of time.
With one Seven Star Blue, about ten Earth Astral Pellet could be made.
Without soul power, Grand elder Chen and Liu Mei had gotten less than thirty percent of what Ye Chen got, which was already a result of Ye Chen slacking off for them.
"Mhm? What kind of spirit plant is this? There seems to be some kind of pure hint of soul attached to it."
Ye Chen's pupils focused. Soul was the essence of a person. If one's body were wounded, then it could be healed. But, if one's soul were damaged, then it would be disastrous damage. Therefore, medicinal spirit plants containing a hint of soul would no doubt be an extremely valuable plant.
Shoo!
His body turned into black smoke, disappearing in front of the others' eyes.
Liu Mei was curious as she said: "Perhaps he had found something?" There was no trace of beasts in the stone forest. The three had already used their spirit power to scan through the forest. Right then, seeing that Ye Chen flew away without saying anything, they thought that he had found something valuable.
"Let's go there too." Said grand elder Chen.
There was a smooth rock in the deep part of the forest, ten meters high and ten meters wide. On top of it, two one-inch-tall crystalline spirit plants were growing. The stalk part of the plants were rather twisted. If observed carefully, it would not be hard to notice that there were nine twists on each stalk. On the top part of the stalk were six crystalline leaves which carried a hint of blackness. Being surrounded by the leaves, a pile of unknown object grew within, which looked both like the fruit and the flower of the plant. The surface of the object was made up of rice-sized grains. It looked rather colorful.
"This is the Nine Twist Spirit Plant! Oh my god! It really exists." If it were not because Ye Chen was standing right next to it, Grand elder Chen would actually think about stealing it.
"Huh? What is that? Do you mind elaborating?"
Ye Chen turned his head to look at the other two.
Grand elder Chen said, "The Nine Twist Spirit Plant is extremely rare. You can swallow it directly and expand your lifespan by nine years. It can also improve the core of a human body, the soul. The increasing lifespan part is not that intriguing, but the enhancement of the soul is something that every Sea of Souls Realm warrior wants. You have to know that the more powerful the soul, the stronger the mind power could be. In other words, if the soul was powerful enough, then the potential of one's warrior spirit would be stronger. Besides this, it would be extremely difficult to improve one's warrior spirit. Also, the effect of strengthening soul would matter more and more in training later on, and it would even be more important than one's cultivation even."
"I see. The relationship between the soul and the mentality is exactly as I suspected." Ye Chen had already realized that there was a special relationship between the soul and the mentality. Now that he heard what grand elder Chen had said, his theory had finally been confirmed.
Without hesitation, he directly lifted up the whole rock and put it into his mid rank storage ring along with the plants, since the mid rank ring was ten times bigger than the low rank one, which was just enough to fit in the ten by ten meters rock.
Grand elder Chen looked envious. Although he was still a long way to go until the limitation of his lifespan, but no one would see the plant and not be intrigued.