Chapter 113: Golden Spirit Ear
After a short while, all the disciples had finally fallen out of the gray ball of light. They gathered together according to their respective sects.
At this time, from within the gray ball of light came Nun Leng Yue’s ice-cold voice, “Listen well, due to Fellow Mu Rong’s treasure, we can increase the time before the entrance collapses by quite some time. It should be enough to stay in the secret realm for one and a half months before having to return here. Remember that you only have half a month more. When the time comes and you arrive late, then you will forever be stuck here.”
When Nun Leng Yue’s voice faded, the gray ball of light was shrouded by a layer of silence and went back to spinning.
“Juniors, listen up, we should discuss how we shall operate. Originally, according to Martial Uncle’s plan, if the secret realm is small, then it’s best if we move together in order to avoid attacks from other sects. If this secret realm is large enough, then we will split up in order to utilize the fastest speed to retrieve enough resources.” Yang Qian’s gaze swept over Liu Ming and the others as he indifferently spoke.
“Hehe, this secret realm has such rich Yuan Qi that it’s area is clearly not that small. Thus we should naturally do things on our own. At the very least, I will definitely not go with anyone else!” Feng Chan, the messy-haired Refining Corpse Faction disciple, laughed as he spoke.
“I concur with this way of thinking. I don’t want to be slowed down by the weaklings who managed to enter our group through luck. This sort of Natural Secret Realm is something that may only be encountered once in a few thousand years. There’s absolutely no way that I will waste such a heavenly bestowed opportunity.” Min Shou also sneered as he spoke.
As for the weaklings he was referring to, no one knew who he was talking about.
Although they didn’t say anything, the expression on Qian Hui Niang, Jia Lan, Gao Chong, and the others faces revealed similar thoughts.
“Very good, since all of you Juniors have this thought, we shall split up and move. Your life and death is in your own hands. However, in this period of time, if you encounter another one of us in trouble, you must still immediately provide assistance.” Yang Qian declined to express his opinion as he nodded his head.
At this time, the other sects’ disciples seemed to have also finished deliberating. Instantly, under an unknown person’s lead, everyone split apart and rushed to the nearby areas. Some people sprinted into the jungle while others called on their clouds to ride into the depths of the grassland to begin searching.
However, everyone who performed the Soaring Sky Technique did not dare fly any higher than a hundred feet off the ground.
It seemed that no one was very stupid, since they all realized that flying too high in this sort of a dangerous area was almost the same to suicide.
Seeing the situation unfold in front of him, Feng Chan let out a wild laugh and rushed toward the jungle as black gas began floating around his body.
Min Shou and Gao Chong didn’t say anything else and followed.
Yang Qian, Qian Hui Niang, and the others called on their respective gray clouds and flew toward the depths of the grassland.
In the blink of an eye, the only people who remained in the original location were Liu Ming, Shi Chuan, and Jia Lan.
“Junior should be a bit more careful; I am going to leave first.”
Shi Chuan gave a warning to Liu Ming before flying into the air. Based on the direction he was headed, it astonishingly was the path that Yang Qian, the strongest discipline of the Barbarian Ghost Sect, had flown in.
Jia Lan looked at Liu Ming and smiled before turning around and floating toward the jungle.
Liu Ming raised his head and looked at the sky. He looked behind him at the few remaining disciples before calling on his gray cloud. He then flew toward the jungle.
However a moment later, when he arrived at the jungle’s edge, he suddenly changed directions and rapidly flew along the border of the jungle.
Of the remaining people, each person chose a path to take and left.
Just like this, Liu Ming rode his gray cloud while using a Method Compass to draw out a map of his path. Simultaneously, he carefully examined the surrounding environment.
The jungle clearly covered quite a large area, calling it a forest was probably more accurate.
He flew for an hour without stopping but had yet to see the end of the forest. Unexpectedly, the journey was abnormally peaceful and aside from a few unknown small insects, he didn’t see any other animals appear.
Liu Ming began questioning if he should continue heading forward.
According to the plan in his heart, he was already quite far away from the others who entered the jungle. As long as he was careful, in the short ensuing amount of time, he shouldn’t bump into any other disciples.
Just as Liu Ming was pondering, a wave of explosions was heard. At first, it was only a soft sound but it quickly became a loud rumble.
Startled, Liu Ming turned his head toward the grassland. On the distant, green horizon, a red wind wall, so long that its ends were not in sight, had appeared at an unknown time. Moreover, it rapidly emitted loud noises as it came closer to the jungle.
Liu Ming’s face darkened and without any hesitation, he turned and flew into the jungle.
Although he didn’t know what the red wind wall was, he knew that it wasn’t anything good. He further didn’t know if other disciples with horrible luck had fallen prey to it.
If this were the case, then he could only wish them good fortune in getting out.
The forest was littered with two hundred to three hundred feet tall ancient trees.
When Liu Ming entered the forest, he instantly mitigated the Soaring Sky Technique. He turned his hand around and performed the Lighten Technique on himself before floating between the trees.
In a short while, he managed to come a few kilometers deep in the forest before finally slowing down his pace and observing his surroundings.
It was unclear how long this forest had remained untouched by people. In between the trees were countless unnamed coiled black and green vines. On the ground, dead tree leaves over a few feet long lay sprawled out. The lower half had completely transformed into ooze while the upper half was still the dead leaf’s original form.
The overhead of this entire forest was covered by a canopy that consisted of layers upon layers of fertile branches and leaves. Only a small amount of sunshine broke through, which caused the lower levels to be abnormally gloomy.
Liu Ming’s eyes flashed before he tore off a nearby dried up vine. Using twenty percent of his strength, he was unexpectedly unable to tear it off. This couldn’t help but cause him to express surprise.
He meticulously examined the vines again. He then wrapped his five fingers around them and used half of his strength.
“Peng!”
This time, the vine responded by disintegrating in his hand.
Liu Ming shook his head and immediately began to ignore these items as he continued to float along.
After moving for the time it takes to have a meal, Liu Ming’s expression suddenly changed. His figure slowed as he unexpectedly floated down onto a thick layer of dead leaves. After a quick movement, he appeared in front of a withered tree with only half its tree trunk remaining.
The upper half of this tree had been completely obliterated for an unknown reason and the lower half of the tree was comprised of abnormally shriveled bark of yellow color. Not even a trace of life was present.
Liu Ming had no interest in this tree and his gaze was completely focused on a small black and red fungus that had its back to the sun. It seemed to be similar to a regular fungus, except its edge contained shiny golden-lined circles that emitted a captivating fragrance.
Liu Ming brought his hand up to his bosom and fished out a light silver thick book. On its surface was written six large words, “All Inclusive Guide to Spirit Objects”; he proceeded to flip through it.
This book was specially distributed by the Barbarian Ghost Sect Leader to the top ten disciples. This was done before they left the sect, to avoid missing out out on any precious resources.
After all, they were disciples who didn’t specialize in picking medicine plants. Although they knew a bit about spirit objects and materials, they were mainly only normal goods. As for the legendary Heaven and Earth Spirit Objects, they naturally had not had a previous encounter with them.
Equipped with this book, they only had to take a quick glance beforehand to gain a slight impression of the objects, so when they came across familiar items, they could accurately recognize the item with the help of the pictures.
This “All Inclusive Guide to Spirit Objects” not only contained spirit medicines and plants, but also had many legendary rare resources and a few difficult to categorize Heaven and Earth Spirit Objects.
When his finger paused, the pages immediately stopped turning.
“It really is a Golden Spirit Ear. This item is a supplementary material to concocting a few high level Spirit Pills; in the external world, it’s very rare. This small piece should fetch a price of nearly a thousand Spirit Stones.” Liu Ming looked at the picture on the guide before looking at the Spirit Object on the tree trunk. He couldn’t help but mutter to himself in an excited voice.
Subsequently, he retrieved a small wooden case from his body and used his other hand to flip it open. In it astonishingly appeared a short cyan sword.
His wrist shook slightly and a ray of cyan light flashed; the Golden Spirit Ear and the small chunk of rotten wood proceeded to fall off. They fell into the wooden case that had been prepared earlier.
Liu Ming covered the wooden case with the Sumeru handkerchief and it quickly shrunk into a small soybean-sized object. He then put it in his bosom and proceeded to search the nearby area once more.
Ultimately, two hours later, he found another two Golden Spirit Ears on two adjacent withered trees. Among the two pieces, one of them was about the same size as the one he already collected while the other was about three to four times the size.
Thus, it could be said that in a short span of time, he had acquired five thousand to six thousand Spirit Stones.
This naturally caused Liu Ming to feel rather satisfied.
He knew that if he were to continue searching in a larger area he would definitely find others to harvest, but he suppressed this excitatory urge and left this area. He continued to move ahead.
Despite the Golden Spirit Ear having a large price tag with it, it wasn’t worth it to spend most of his time searching for it.
After all, the time he had in the secret realm was limited and he still had to find the secret realm’s true treasures.
Just like this, Liu Ming followed a particular direction in the forest and continued his journey. On the way, if he encountered spirit medicines and spirit plants, he would instantly look around for more before leaving once again when he lacked results.
Not much later, his Sumeru handkerchief had seven or eight more distinct spirit plants. Among them, a few did not have the same value as the Golden Spirit Ear while others were even more precious than the Golden Spirit Ear; his harvest was quite good.
Suddenly, in the middle of moving, Liu Ming’s figure suddenly froze and he stopped on top of a certain large tree. He stared at a nearby large tree’s branch.
What greeted him on the end of that arm thick branch astonishingly was a gray velvety small animal corpse. A small portion of its body had already vanished without a trace but the remaining portion was still dripping fresh blood.
Simultaneously, the stench of blood covered the nearby area; this animal clearly had died not too long ago.
Although Liu Ming had already known that there would definitely be animals in this sort of a large Natural Secret Realm, this scene still couldn’t help but cause his heart to jump.