Chapter 101 – Spirit Poison Gra.s.s
The Black Silk Threads continued to expand in the air above, as they engulfed the devils in the vicinity, and then they returned to Bi Fan’s body.
Once they returned to the Yin Yang Lotus, the Lotus’ seeds started extracting the energy from their kills. Two more seeds sprouted in the Lotus’ core, and quickly grew big enough to be mistaken for peanuts.
But even then, these two new seeds weren’t as mature, as the two seeds which had sprouted earlier at the time of the Anomaly in the Devil’s Territory, which were now almost the size of man’s thumb.
Quite a few of the devils were still alive, and were still engaged in combat with Bi Fan’s party, but the Black Silk Threads didn’t vanquish them just yet, probably to allow the four of them to train a bit.
Fortunately, the Black Silk Threads had managed to make their presence unknown to them, since they had only wiped off the devils on the outer periphery, owing to which the remaining devils didn’t flee.
Two hours pa.s.sed in a flash, and the Black Silk Threads swung into action once again, devouring the remaining devils in the vicinity.
Once they returned to Bi Fan’s body, the Yin Yang Lotus’s seeds saw further maturity, but a relatively marginal one.
It was a while before the four of them returned to their senses, with Lone Leaf being the last to retune his mind.
“We’re all okay! And my mental state is even better than it was before! If I take the Ogre flower petals now, I’ll surely be able to make the breakthrough with ease.” Lone Leaf was pleasantly surprised to be alive.
w.a.n.g Zhong raised his doubts: “It’s really strange. Every time we encounter devils, we are able to outlast them. On top of that, we don’t even kill them, they just leave us be. Why are the devils being so kind to us?”
“Once we are trapped in their illusions, there is no way of identifying what really goes on in reality, but as long as everyone is alright, I’d just say that I’m fine with it.” Bi Fan said.
Blue Dragon agreed with Bi Fan: “Brother Bi Fan is right, why think so much about the devils. And now that they seem to have left us alone, we should expand the range of our search, and try to find the Panacea that they might have been guarding…”
The four of them separated from each other, and got to work.
Bi Fan had taught them some basic methods of identifying herbs, since he figured that it’s better if everyone was capable of looking for valuable items, than just him alone.
But they were completely unaware of the location of the herb, so they continued to search around casually, and then gradually expanded the reach of their search.
They had been searching for a long time, but hadn’t been unable to locate anything of value, which is when Bi Fan suddenly thought of the Marten.
The Marten had a special love for herbs, and was quite good at locating them. So if there was anything precious in the vicinity, then he would surely be able to locate it.
Bi Fan called the three of his friends up, and introduced them to the Marten.
“Wow, that’s an actual Marten! Brother Bi Fan, that’s so amazing! How did you manage to acquire such an amazing pet, and why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Lone Leaf was amazed.
Bi Fan realized that it must have been a pretty huge shock for his friend, and was feeling a bit numb from his reaction.
This was the first time that even w.a.n.g Zhong had seen the Marten, so naturally, even he was quite overjoyed, and simply couldn’t wait to hold the Marten in his hands.
Unfortunately, the Marten paid no attention to his desires, and simply ignored his advances.
The Marten seemed quite disheartened, which was obvious from the unhappy look he was wearing on his face.
Bi Fan promptly took out an herb, smiled and said: “Greedy, it looks quite delicious.”
The Marten saw the herbs, and his mood transformed in an instant. He quickly grabbed the herb, and started gobbling it up.
Bi Fan gave the Marten three more herbs in quick succession: “Come on, keep eating, you’ve got work to do.”
“This is such a pretty Marten; he’ll be an absolute killer with the ladies.” Lone Leaf envied: “Brother Bi Fan, can I please have him?”
“Well, you’ll have to talk to him about it.” Bi Fan laughed.
Lone Leaf decided to try and tempt the Marten: “Marten, if you follow me, I’ll give you your favorite meal every day. Your life will be like a fairy-tale.”
The Marten stared blankly at Lone Leaf, blinked a few times, and shook his head in confusion.
Blue Dragon had met the Marten a long time ago, during their venture with Jing Feng, so he was obviously aware of the Marten’s loyalty. He knew that tempting the little guy wasn’t going to work out, so naturally, he couldn’t help laughing as he watched Lone Leaf persuade the Marten.
“Brother Dragon, why are you laughing, don’t you want a Marten to pick up all the pretty girls?” Lone Leaf asked in a gloomy tone.
Blue Dragon continued to smile: “Been there, done that. Persuading him isn’t going to work; he only follows Brother Bi Fan. You really won’t be able to tempt him.”
“d.a.m.n it Brother, you could have just said that before. I wasted so much time on this.” Lone Leaf was a little short on breath after all the jumping around.
Blue Dragon replied: “If you hadn’t tried it personally, would you have believed me?”
“No.” Lone Leaf knew that he wouldn’t have.
As the Marten finished his meal, Bi Fan said: “Alright Greedy, get to work.”
“Brother Bi Fan, that’s so inhuman of you. Marten, if you follow me, I’ll never boss you around.” Lone Leaf, apparently, still hadn’t given up.
The Marten ‘creaked’ in excitement, not because of Lone Leaf’s words, but because he was being asked to search for more Panaceas.
The Marten was extremely fond of Panacea, and was very sensitive to their presence.
The Marten little nose sniffed around for a while, as he wandered around in circles. A short while later, it appeared as if he had already guessed the direction.
The Marten galloped on all cylinders, and four of them followed after him.
As they made their way through the woods, the Marten led them to a dead tree in the forest, before he stopped.
This tree was so huge in size, that it would take almost ten men to encircle its bark completely. The tree had already dried out, and even had huge cavity in its core.
From within the cavity, a few devils flew out to confront the four of them.
However, these devils were barely a handful in number, and were quite weak in strength. They didn’t pose even the slightest of threats to the four of them, as they quickly wiped them out.
“Creak….” The Marten was standing against the tree, and was pointing at the hole in its trunk.
“Oh no, it seems that we will need to go inside the hole in that tree.” Bi Fan seemed a little disheartened.
w.a.n.g Zhong said: “As long as there is something good down there, I really don’t mind taking the risk.”
“Whatever is down there, is powerful enough to attract so many devils; not the most reliable way to estimate its value…” Blue Dragon reasoned: “But it’s worth the risk.”
Even Blue Dragon was a bit itchy, not because he was interested herbs, but because he simply wanted to exchange them for a large amount of money.
“Good! Then we will all go in together, but since we don’t know what’s down there, we will need to be extra cautious.” Bi Fan said.
They entered into the tree’s hole, and even though the four of them entered at the same time, the s.p.a.ce didn’t seem crowded at all.
They could see from within the s.p.a.ce they were in, that there was a channel which was slanting downwards into the ground.
Bi Fan and his companions proceeded downwards through the corridor, with the Marten leading the way all along.
The Marten was very skillful and agile, so Bi Fan was a.s.sured that he’d be able to dodge any uncertain dangers they might face along the way.
Soon, they had managed to reach the end of the tree’s limit, but the channel hadn’t ended yet, and seemed to lead to a, rather deep, underground cave.
The four of them were a bit wary of entering the cave since an odd devil, or two, kept flying out of the cave, which is why they were convinced that the cave would eventually lead to the devils’ nest.
“There’s certainly a Panacea down there, but I have no idea what kind of Panacea can grow even underground.” Lone Leaf said.
Blue Dragon laughed: “Let’s keep going, there’s a Panacea on the line here.”
After a while, they eventually reached the end of the cavern and found themselves standing inside a rather s.p.a.cious hall. This hall was home to a lot of devils, but the four of them finished the job quite quickly.
“Wow, that’s a lot of herbs!” Blue Dragon cried out, as he ran past everyone. He quickly plucked some of the herbs, and started identifying their grade using the methods that Bi Fan had taught him.
Bi Fan exclaimed: “That’s poisonous, be careful.”
“What!” Blue Dragon was shocked for a second, and he quickly receded away from the spot: “It’s a toxic herb?”
He looked at the large patch of the herbs with a depressed look on his face, but didn’t dare to touch any again.
The Marten didn’t really care much; he had already pulled out a few of them, and was already stuffing them in his mouth.
Bi Fan said: “That’s spirit poison gra.s.s. It’s a very powerful and poisonous herb. Its direct effect on a human can cause a very severe poisoning, which can be very difficult to cure.”
Blue Dragon was even more shocked now: “Oh, lucky me, I didn’t get any on me.”
“Spirit Poison gra.s.s is not poisonous in its raw state; the poison is extracted from it, and then synthesized. There’s no need to be that scared of it.” Bi Fan laughed.
“Holy grandmother, Brother Bi Fan. You really scared me there.” Blue Dragon roared.
w.a.n.g Zhong laughed: “Who told you go running around like a monkey.”
“That’s right. Let’s hope this one remains in your memory for a while, so you don’t make any rash decisions in the future.” Lone Leaf agreed.
Blue Dragon said: “I was almost scared to death. Don’t do that again.”