With the appearance of the king kong giant ape, Xiang Shaoyun’s danger abruptly came to an end. Xiang Shaoyun did not immediately leave the area. Observing the situation from afar, he watched as both the king kong giant ape and the Mad Lion Hunting Group rampaged, causing tremors spreading over a thousand miles.
The devastating destructive power, simply put, was all the fault of these people. Luckily for Xiang Shaoyun, he had witnessed many powerhouses in the past. Tremors of this scale meant nothing to him.
“This is the perfect time to search for the Earth Star Spring!” Xiang Shaoyun’s expression slowly turned joyful. As such, he began quickly making his way for the mountain peak. Naturally, he wouldn’t be so daring as to directly charge into the middle of all the fighting. Instead, he changed direction, taking another path leading to the springs.
Not long after, Xiang Shaoyun reached the other side of the mountain. However, what he saw was a huge waterfall crashing down right in front of him.
“If I want to get to the Earth Star Spring, do I need to go through this waterfall? That shouldn’t be the case, right?” Xiang Shaoyun pondered to himself.
This waterfall was quite wide. Furthermore, the sheer pressure and speed at which the water rushed down was not something he could think of withstanding even with his body. Just as Xiang Shaoyun was grieving over his conundrum, a sound that made his mood do a 180 turn came from behind him.
“Meow!”
This was Little White’s trademark meow. The moment Xiang Shaoyun left his daze, he found Little White happily leaping into his embrace.
“Little White, you’re alright! Haha, this is great!” Xiang Shaoyun ecstatically laughed, hugging Little White tightly. After failing to find him after such a long period of time, Xiang Shaoyun thought that something had happened to Little White, leaving him worried sick. After finding out that he was fine, a lot of Xiang Shaoyun’s worries just seemed to fly away.
To Xiang Shaoyun, Little White was worth more than a thousand Earth Star Springs. Leaping out of his embrace, Little White bit firmly onto Xiang Shaoyun’s pants, pointing in a direction with one of his front paws, as if telling Xiang Shaoyun to head in that direction.
Xiang Shaoyun was stunned. After pondering the situation for a while, he felt like he had nothing to lose and went in the direction specified by Little White. The area was filled with wild grass, making it difficult for people to make out where they were heading.
Xiang Shaoyun remained alert, Golden Wolf Sword in hand just in case anything occurred. After a short while, the two of them made it past the tightly clustered grass. Upon examining his surroundings, Xiang Shaoyun found a cave a thin person could barely squeeze into.
This cave was near the edge of the waterfall. Had Little White not been there to lead the way, Xiang Shaoyun would never have noticed its presence. If anybody else had been in Xiang Shaoyun’s shoes, that person would’ve found it difficult to get across. The cave was just too unnoticeable.
“Could there be some sort of amazing treasure here?” On the verge of salivating, Xiang Shaoyun grinned with excitement.
Xiang Shaoyun did not blindly rush in. Instead, he carefully examined the environment around the cave. After confirming that there had not been a monstrous beast there for a long time, he then led Little White into the cave. The floor of the cave was wet and slippery, and numerous flora was growing, showing signs that the cave was probably naturally formed.
The cave was pitch-black inside, severely impairing his way forward. Without much consideration, he activated his gift of insight, instantly making the path ahead much more discernible.
“I wonder why I was naturally born with the gifts of visualization and insight. Maybe one day, I’ll cultivate eyes that are able to discern everything!” Xiang Shaoyun cheerfully thought to himself.
Xiang Shaoyun did not think too deeply about the matter but continued to make his way farther into the cave. Inside, he found that the wild grasses were growing rather substantially, and there were even some grasses without any practical use emitting faint medicinal scents. This was a sign that an old medicine was forming. Furthermore, he could feel that the spiritual qi inside the cave was extremely vibrant, as if he had arrived at a paradise on earth.
“Could this possibly be…the location of the Earth Star Spring?!” Xiang Shaoyun could not help exclaiming to himself upon discovering this phenomenon. He had already known long ago that the Earth Star Spring was somewhere around this area. Although the location indicated on the map was not here, it did not mean that the Earth Star Spring was definitely not located here. The cave could be another way leading to the spring!
Just as Xiang Shaoyun was about to quicken his steps, he noticed Little White in a corner furiously trying to dig something out of the ground.
“Little White, in the future, before you eat any old medicines in the future, could you let me have a look first? This is a blood mushroom around 200 years old! It can replenish one’s vitality and has considerable efficacy in healing wounds.” Xiang Shaoyun smiled helplessly as he watched Little White swallow the old medicine.
Before now, he would not have even taken a second glance at old medicines. However, his circumstances were different from in the past. Any random stalk of old medicine was now extremely important to him.
Obeying Xiang Shaoyun’s words, Little White ran forward, digging out yet another old medicine from the ground and bringing it to Xiang Shaoyun.
“Another stalk of old medicine!” Xiang Shaoyun joyfully looked at this blood mushroom; it was about the same age as the previous one. Keeping the blood mushroom safely, Xiang Shaoyun continued his journey. Very quickly, he found numerous blood mushrooms growing together as well as a blood mushroom king more than 300 years old!
“Low-grade spirit medicine: blood mushroom king! The Earth Star Spring must be right ahead! Otherwise, why would there be so many blood mushrooms growing here?” Xiang Shaoyun grew increasingly crazed by the second. He quickly stuffed a blood mushroom down his throat, replenishing the vitality he had lost that day before doing anything else.
Xiang Shaoyun then left the area, not plucking any of the other blood mushrooms. After all, it would not be too late to pluck them on his way back. Right now, his topmost priority was to reach the Earth Star Springs.
The blood mushroom was worthy of its reputation as an old medicine specially for replenishing vitality. Right after Xiang Shaoyun had consumed the blood mushroom, he could feel his blood within him pulsing with much more vigour compared to before, slowly healing back to its optimal state, leaving him feeling extremely relaxed. As he was about to head deeper into the cave, he heard Little White meowing for him at the side. Heading to where Little White was, he found an extremely long bone lodged into the ground.
“Is—Is this snake bone?! No…why would a snake have footprints? Could this be…a snake transforming into a flood snake?” Xiang Shaoyun muttered to himself as he carefully examined the scene.
Xiang Shaoyun finally understood why there were numerous blood mushrooms growing in the cave. A flood snake had probably died here in the past, letting its blood seep into the ground. blood mushrooms grew as a result of that.
Examining the bones more carefully, Xiang Shaoyun found that the flood snake was close to ten meters long, most certainly an existence that was at least a Great Demon. Luckily for him, the flood snake was already dead. Otherwise, he would be dead without a doubt.
As Xiang Shaoyun reached the end of the beast’s skeleton, he found a bead roughly the size of a toe lodged into the top of its skeleton.
“Demonic core!” Xiang Shaoyun lightly gasped.
As he was about to go and retrieve it personally, Little White leapt like an arrow at the skull, swallowing the core in one go.
“F*ck! You damned brat! Aren’t you afraid of the energy inside going wild?!” Xiang Shaoyun could not hold back a curse.
Demonic cores could only be produced by demonic beasts at the Demon King level. If a normal beast were to swallow the core, their innards would be ravaged by the sheer power inside the core, causing them to explode.
Only Great Demons and above would dare to swallow such a core to aid them in raising their strength as well as in forming their own beast core. With how young Little White was, swallowing the core would probably do him more harm than good!
Xiang Shaoyun rushed forward and prepared to lift Little White up, forcing him to spit out the beast core.
“Roar!”
Out of the blue, a ferocious roar came from the throat of Little White as his body enlarged all of a sudden.