Chapter 196: Han Li’s Plan
In a short amount of time, a blue-clothed youth wearing an expression of cold indifference, an elderly Daoist Priest with an entire head of white hair, and an azure-clothed gorgeous young woman walked out in succession. They all reached a tacit understanding and chose different locations to enter the mountainous forest.
Han Li continued to wait for about another quarter of an hour. Seeing that no other people appeared, he performed a last-minute check on the items he had and copying the people before him, chose a direction that n.o.body had yet walked into and silently dived in.
What Han Li didn’t know was that, not long after he entered, the ugly man Zhong Yue that he had seen just yesterday appeared in front of the tunnel. He gazed at the dark road to go up the mountain and coldly laughed a few times; he released ten or so yellow dots that flew into the mountainous forest, then calmly followed after them.
At this time within the forbidden area, near the broken restrictive entrance, the people that the Seven Great Sects had left behind as guards looked worriedly in the direction of the forbidden area. Han Li’s Martial Ancestor Li was one of those people.
However, it could not be known whether he was worried about the success of his own disciples or if he was more worried about losing his bet!
The mood of the other Core Formation Daoist Priest from the Clear Void Sect was not much better! Speaking of which, ever since that Senior Eccentric Qiong from the Masked Moon Sect had forced his way into the bet, he no longer had any self-confidence in the bet that they had made beforehand. In an instant, it became apparent he was somewhat worried about his own gains and losses.
This was not surprising; the blood of a flood dragon’s inner core had been incredibly difficult to obtain. He had basically spent all of his family fortune to obtain it. If he lost it so easily to someone else, even if his attained mental state had been higher, perhaps he would be unable to sleep for a number of years in a row because of heartache!
The Daoist Priest stealthily sized up the only person in this group who had a composed expression: the young female leader Celestial Ni Chang from the Masked Moon Sect.
The sole female in the midst of these seven great Core Formation experts had not revealed any trace of worry ever since the disciples from the Seven Great Sects had entered the forbidden area.
The more the Daoist Priest watched the woman’s smiling appearance, the stronger his anxiety became. When he connected this to strange Senior Qiong’s expression of having a card up his sleeve when making the bet, he felt the blood of the flood dragon’s inner core seemingly fly away from his own pocket and had already become the possession of another!
As he thought this, the concerned expression on his face became even more strong! People who didn’t know this would have truly mistakenly believe that he was deeply worried for the disciples from his sect inside the forbidden area!
After some more time, the Daoist Priest finally could not endure it any longer. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was paying attention, he quietly moved closer to Martial Ancestor Li, asking with a concerned expression, “Martial Ancestor Li, the Yellow Maple Valley disciples that you sent out this time should be pretty talented! Even so, the people from our two sects might really lose to that strange Senior Qiong! Still, this Daoist Priest has some faith in the disciples from the Clear Void Sect that entered the forbidden area!”
“What are you trying to say? Does Daoist brother look down upon our Yellow Maple Valley?” Martial Ancestor Li began to display an expression of displeasure upon hearing this.
“Haha! Of course not, this Daoist Priest just feels a little peculiar about the disciples that the Masked Moon Sect sent out this time. I just can’t feel at ease!” the Daoist Priest laughed, explaining himself with a big smile.
“You’re not the only one! This Li also perceives that something is fishy. In previous times, when have the disciples the Masked Moon Sect sent out been so young? And they are all in male-female pairs! Could it be because they think this trip to the forbidden area is for the brats to play house?” Martial Ancestor Li said sullenly; apparently, he had also been unable to feel at ease concerning this time’s bet.
When the Daoist Priest heard what Martial Ancestor Li said, he incessantly and repeatedly nodded his head, apparently very much in agreement with what he had just said.
“However, this fellow Daoist should be at ease; since Li dared to make this bet, he definitely has some trust in the disciples from his sect. Their strength will definitely not be lower than disciples from your sect,” Martial Ancestor Li said slowly after giving the Daoist Priest a glance filled with deep meaning. His voice contained some heroic spirit.
“Heh heh! Since Benefactor has said this, this Daoist Priest feels much more relieved! Then I will not disturb you any more.” The Daoist Priest’s expression immediately relaxed upon hearing the answer that his heart wanted, and he laughingly took his leave. He returned to his original location and sat down to regain his composure, quietly waiting for the results to come out a few days from now.
Martial Ancestor Li, after following the Daoist priest as he left with his eyes, suddenly snorted softly. Using only a voice that he could hear, he faintly said to himself:
“Fu Yunzi, you old facetious Daoist, don’t think that I wouldn’t know whatever plan you come up with! Aren’t you hoping that our two sects will join hands to triumph over the Masked Moon Sect, only to have your Clear Void Sect come to pressure our Yellow Maple Valley? Heh heh! Although I don’t know what kind of impressive disciples the Clear Void Sect has sent into the forbidden area, but this time our valley has sent out the top three Qi Condensation disciples like a hive of bees. Otherwise, do you think I would have made this bet with you all?”
As Martial Ancestor Li spoke, his face revealed a bit of cunningness; no trace of the concerned expression from before could be found. Clearly, he was also an old fox who kept things hidden.
Han Li naturally did not know of the scheming of the two Core Formation experts outside of the forbidden area; his path was currently being blocked by a brown, ma.s.sive wild boar.
This wild boar, apart from its skin color and huge body size, as well it being many meters tall, appeared to be exactly the same as a normal wild boar.
However, as soon as Han Li saw this beast, he immediately recognized that it was one of the most commonly seen demonic beasts on the ring-shaped mountain, the “Mountain Pus.h.i.+ng Hog”. This demonic beast, other than having rough skin and a slightly larger strength, only knew an innate “Stone Skin Magic”. Its intelligence was also incredibly low, so it would not be hard to deal with.
At this time, the “Mountain Pus.h.i.+ng Boar” huffed deeply a few times, and in a flash of yellow light, its entire body was covered by a s.h.i.+ning white stone armor. In turn, it aggressively charged fiercely in Han Li’s direction.
Han Li’s expression did not change; he stood in the same place and quietly waited for the charging attack of this beast right until it was only about twenty meters away from it. He then waved his hand, and his figure flashed; he had already s.h.i.+fted behind the demonic beast.
“Mountain Pus.h.i.+ng Boar.”
Its truly huge body continued to charge towards the direction Han Li was originally standing in for about ten meters before panting once; then, its entire body, from the tip of its nose to its tail, neatly split into two in one moment, and its multicolored internal organs spilled all over the ground. It had actually been completely cut open by Han Li’s thin thread magic tool!
Han Li retrieved the transparent thread. Glancing at the dead “Mountain Pus.h.i.+ng Boar”, he gently shook his head and immediately jumped on top of a tree to leave this location. This was because he knew that soon the smell of blood from the demonic beast’s corpse would attract a huge wave of demonic beasts with extremely acute senses of smell. It would still be best for him to slip away luckily as early as possible!
It had already been a few hours since Han Li had entered the ring-shaped mountain’s dense forest. However, in this short amount of time, he had unfortunately encountered four demonic beasts.
Of these four, three had been low-level ones, and Han Li naturally slaughtered them in one blow without the slightest bit of courtesy. However, that medium-level Flying Feather Peac.o.c.k had five-colored tail feathers that could independently chase after and injure both people and defenses, causing Han Li’s head to hurt quite a bit. Luckily, although it was cla.s.sified as birdkind, its speed was not actually fast. Thus, afterwards Han Li decided he might as well practice his movement technique, and in one breath he left it behind, disappearing without a trace. It was only in this way that he had avoided this pointless battle.
Today, Han Li incessantly sighed as he leaped around from tree to tree as if he were flying.
Now, he finally knew the extent to which the ring-shaped mountains were populated with demonic beasts.
For the time being, he was still in the outer fringes; the majority of the demonic beasts he had met had been in the low-level and were not too hard to deal with. But in another period of time, when he had entered into the deeper parts of the ring-shaped mountain, perhaps medium or high-level demonic beasts would appear in waves. At that time, other than fleeing in a panic, Han Li was truly unable to think of any other tactic for escaping.
No wonder the amount of information on the hiding locations of these spiritual medicines was so little! Perhaps the disciples who had entered this mountain before had spent the greater half of their energy hiding from these demonic beasts, and the remaining time could only be used to search those seven or eight locations once. However, this was still not enough to guarantee a harvest every time one searched!
“It looks like my chances of gathering enough spiritual medicines is not too high,” Han Li thought with melancholy.
The direction Han Li was currently darting in was the a concealed cave where the “Purple Monkey Flower” grew.
Based on the information, this location shouldn’t have any large value. Because this cave had been harvested once only in the past hundred or more years, the only things inside should be some seedlings close to becoming ripe; there was no way to use them to concoct pills.
“A seedling?” When Han Li thought of this, he couldn’t help but lightly smile for a moment!
What Han Li needed was this seedling that these bystanders would not touch!
The reason why he dared to take the odd risk of entering the forbidden area and why he was so sure that he could s.n.a.t.c.h food from the jaws of a tiger in the midst of all these “experts” to obtain the “spiritual medicines of heaven and earth”! The main reason was that from the start he had set his sights on the yet-to-ripen seedlings! Only in this way could he avoid clas.h.i.+ng with disciples from other sects as much as possible. Then he would be able to run to a few more locations, and gather some more items that were useless in other people’s eyes.
When he took these spiritual medicine seedlings back with him, he could use the green liquid from the mysterious small bottle to hasten their growth. In this way, it was not too different from directly picking ripe spiritual medicines.
Although he had heard from that Martial Uncle Ma that these saplings could not be preserved for too long outside of the forbidden area, only able to survive one to two years or so, this amount of time was already sufficient to accelerate their ripening cycle. After all, in order to be used in the Foundation Establishment Pill, their age did not need to be too great; merely four or five hundred years was sufficient for them to be used to refine the pill.
Now, the only complication was that he didn’t know if the remaining three days were enough for him to harvest enough quant.i.ties of spiritual medicines. Because the locations where the seedlings grew were all over the place, and adding on the fact that he could be obstructed by those demonic beasts along the way or start conflicts with disciples from other sects, Han Li felt unsure about everything.