Chapter 196: Let’s Talk About the Split in Profits Before We Cooperate
“What’s wrong?” Dan Fei was slightly surprised to see Jiang Chen’s sudden out-of-character performance.
Jiang Chen said in a low voice, “There’s a spirit rank spirit animal ahead, and more than one.”
“Is that true?” A look of surprise shot out of Dan Fei’s eyes when she heard Jiang Chen’s words. She hastened to ask, “You can sense them? How far away are they? Are their young with them?”
Jiang Chen furrowed his brow in contemplation and smoothed it out slightly after a long while, “They’re already gone. No young, all adult spirit rank creatures.”
“Oh, no young? What a pity.” Disappointment flashed across Dan Fei’s beautiful features.
“I think you’ve gone crazy in your desire for a baby spirit animal? Even if there was one, how would you steal it? Do you want to be attacked by a crowd of spirit animals?”
Dan Fei stuck out her tongue as she chuckled, “How can one get the tiger’s cubs besides going into the tiger’s caves?” Some risk has to be taken in order to obtain the baby spirit animal.”
Whenever this woman spoke of a baby spirit animal, her limpid eyes would s.h.i.+ne with a fervent ardent light that was definitely not present normally.
This expression was as though a landlord or an old moneybag was looking at a pile of gold, silver, and jewelry with s.h.i.+ning eyes.
“This woman is normally refined and demure but she’s actually this frightening when she goes mad.” Jiang Chen solemnly warned himself that he’d have to control this woman’s impulses. Otherwise, if she lost control and barged into a spirit creature’s abode without second thoughts, she really could might very well cause both of them to lose their lives.
A spirit rank spirit creature had a pure bloodline.
Sometimes, the rules of the world were wondrous. Whether it was human pract.i.tioners or in spirit animals, the purer a bloodline was, the more powerful their strength, but the weaker their reproductive abilities
For spirit creatures with pure bloodlines, their shortest reproductive cycle was ten or twenty years. Those with longer cycles could reach thirty to fifty years. There were even some spirit creatures who could only have a chance to progenate once every hundred years.
Therefore, in the spirit creature world, if you touched the young of a spirit creature that was in its reproductive cycle or feeding its young, that would be worse than making a move against the creature itself.
Once a spirit creature discovered that its young had been stolen, the vehemence of its revenge would be on quite an insane level.
It was because of this consideration that Jiang Chen kept warning himself that he must carefully control Dan Fei’s impulses.
After they walked for a day, they saw that night was slowly falling. There happened to be a patch of boulders up ahead. The enormous rocks were naturally embedded into the gentle slope, forming a unique scene.
“Let’s spend the night here. It’s a rough and jagged mountain area up ahead. The unending mountain ranges will likely greatly complicate the situation.” Jiang Chen raised a suggestion.
Truthfully, he was already mentally prepared for Dan Fei’s refusal. What he hadn’t thought that was Dan Fei actually nodded, “Then let’s rest here for the night.”
This maze realm was odd indeed. Temperatures were high during the day, but there was quite a nip in the air when the mountain wind blew at night.
Jiang Chen was alright since his clothing could fend off a bit of the cold. Dan Fei’s outfit had absolutely no coverings for the section between her thighs and calves. She wrapped her arms around her legs as she curled up, burying her head between her legs and trying her best to ward off this bone piercing cold air.
Who knew that this cold air would become worse as the night went on?
Towards the end, even Jiang Chen couldn’t help but circulate the spirit power within his body to warm himself. He took a look at Dan Fei only to see her quailing in the wind, her body starting to s.h.i.+ver and shudder.
However, Dan Fei had a stiff upper lip. She didn’t make a sound although it was very cold.
Jiang Chen suddenly seemed to remember that there was some equipment in the storage ring that had been prepared by Gouyu. He’d paid no attention to it at the time and just thrown it all inside.
He opened it to see that Gouyu had been quite thorough with her preparations. There was even a wool blanket inside!
Jiang Chen took out the blanket and walked in front of Dan Fei, throwing it around her with an easy wave of his hand. “Cover yourself up. Speak up if you’re cold, you’re almost turning into a quail with all your s.h.i.+vering.”
Jiang Chen shook his head and returned to where he had been sitting. He dug out a long robe and wore it backwards in front of him. He leaned against a large rock and slowly sank into meditation again.
The night wasn’t actually that peaceful. Jiang Chen sensed spirit creatures pa.s.s by several times while he was meditating, sometimes close by, sometimes far away.
The ones that were close flew past them a mere five hundred meters away.
Jiang Chen almost wanted to wake Dan Fei up a few times and leave this place where trouble was apt to find them. However, he restrained himself in the end. If these spirit creatures appeared so commonly, then one of them would find them sooner or later.
However, these spirit creatures never tarried when they pa.s.sed by. They were obviously completely uninterested in human flesh and blood.
“Just what’s going on to cause these spirit creatures to appear so frequently?” Jiang Chen couldn’t understand it, but he didn’t dare to relax his guard.
The night finally pa.s.sed. When the morning rays shone on the hillside, the cold air of the night was immediately dispelled and it returned to a comfortable temperature.
Jiang Chen opened his eyes to see that Dan Fei had already prepared breakfast.
The woman had obviously come prepared, she’d prepared a sumptuous feast. Jiang Chen walked over and helped himself unceremoniously.
Dan Fei handed over a cup of juice from an unknown fruit and said softly, “Thank you for your blanket.”
“Then I should thank you for your breakfast?” Jiang Chen smiled lazily and gulped down the juice in one swallow. “We head west today. Perhaps, we can really find you a baby spirit animal if we’re lucky!”
Jiang Chen wasn’t joking. There had been at least seven or eight spirit rank beasts coming from the northwest direction in the last day and night, quickly heading south.
Although he didn’t know what was happening in the south, there must be a reason for all these spirit beasts leaving their homes. Their rear would surely be weakly defended if they had all left.
Perhaps, the two of them could truly take advantage of this opportunity to swoop in when the spirit creatures’ homes were empty.
However, this opportunity had to be grasped at the right time. Otherwise, they’d be in for a world of trouble when the spirit beasts returned.
Of course, it was an unknown factor whether or not there were any young spirit beasts that those spirit creatures that had left.
When Dan Fei heard the words baby spirit animal, her eyes lit up, “Jiang Chen, do you have any suggestions?”
“Seven or eight spirit creatures moved swiftly towards the south in the last day and night. I speculate that something must have surely happened in the south, or is about to happen. These beasts came from the northwestern direction, and so I’m guessing that their homes should be in that area. If we are careful and travel towards the northwest, perhaps we really will run into a spirit animal home with cubs in it if we’re lucky?”
Dan Fei’s eyes gleamed, “Jiang Chen, this is a good idea. Were there really seven or eight spirit creatures that pa.s.sed by yesterday?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t sense them.”
“I only sensed two of them.” Dan Fei responded honestly, the light of delight s.h.i.+ning out from her beautiful eyes. “Jiang Chen, to think that your consciousness is this strong and this sensitive. It looks like I’ve asked the right person when I recruited you!”
“Stop kissing up to me. We agreed that if there really are baby spirit animals, it’s yours if there’s only one. If there are extras, the rest are all mine.” Jiang Chen brought up his conditions.
Dan Fei started, “What do you want with baby spirit animals?”
Jiang Chen laughed easily, “Why can’t I want them since you guys want them? If I recall correctly, my knowledge of spirit animals should be stronger than both of yours.”
Dan Fei was at a loss for words.
She thought momentarily and then nodded, “How about this? The first one is mine, the second is yours. If there’s a third, it’s still yours. The fourth is mine and so on and so forth. Apart from the first one, all the odd numbered ones are yours and even numbered ones are mine. How about that?”
Dan Fei didn’t want to suffer losses, and so, she emphasized a certain sentence after making her proposal, “Don’t haggle if you’re a man. Don’t forget, I was the one who paid for your entrance fee!”
Jiang Chen was speechless. This woman really was unwilling to come up short in anything.
Although Jiang Chen had accepted Dan Fei’s invitation for the Autumn Hunt, he also had a certain goal in this trip.
His goal was a spirit rank creature.
Whether it was alive or dead, they were all Jiang Chen’s targets.
Having entered the spirit realm, he was well aware of how important the cores of a spirit rank spirit creature were. The ones of mortal ranks creatures were worthless, but the ones of spirit rank creatures couldn’t be mentioned in the same breath.
The cores of a spirit rank creature embodied rich spirit power. They were the nutritious supplements that all pract.i.tioners most yearned for. The cores were some of the best items to help shape the spirit ocean and raise spirit power.
However, Jiang Chen still possessed a bit of a gentlemanly demeanor and he couldn’t contest every inch of land when he saw that Dan Fei was so serious. He could only take one step back. “Remember, I’ll hold you to your words. Otherwise, if it comes down to it, you won’t obtain even one baby spirit animal.”
Dan Fei giggled, “You brat, am I someone to turn hostile like that?”
“Perhaps you’re not, but you change into a completely different person when you mention baby spirit animals, like you’ve gone crazy. We should specify terms clearly at first and use a great deal of courtesy later in making this agreement.”
Dan Fei’s fair and clear jade hands plucked at a few strands of hair that the wind had blown into disarray, but she wasn’t the slightest bit infuriated by Jiang Chen’s words.
The two of them ate breakfast, packed up and set off on their way again.
“Jiang Chen, I have a method of observing baby spirit animals. Add to that your extraordinary sensing skills, that makes our cooperation flawless without a trace.” Dan Fei was in high spirits.
However, Jiang Chen wasn’t as optimistic as her. Putting aside the matter of whether or not the spirit creatures who’d left had babies, wouldn’t they have companions guarding their homes if they did?
Although these spirit animals were at the initial or even mid spirit rank, their battle strength was quite astonis.h.i.+ng.
Particularly when they were protecting their young, their strong battle strength would increase explosively.
Therefore, ordinary adventurers would rather fight humans of equal strength rather than face an enraged spirit creature.
The two of them actually did find two spirit creature homes using the method that Dan Fei had mentioned. However, there were no babies in their homes.
Although there were some good items in their lairs, some spirit rank flowers, gra.s.s, and medicine, Dan Fei was heartily disinterested in all of them since there were no baby spirit animals.
Although Jiang Chen was thoroughly disinterested in the mortal rank cores, he took everything that was in the spirit rank, even if it was just flowers and gra.s.s.
“Heh heh, Jiang Chen, I thought you viewed money like dirt.” Dan Fei finally found an opportunity to make a dig at Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen rolled his eyes. “Sister Dan Fei, the level of your venomous tongue is simply too inferior. If you want to make me feel the bite of sarcasm, you’ll have to work on your skills.”
Dan Fei was immediately struck dumb. She discovered that this man was invincible when he wanted to be shameless.