Chapter Fourteen: Strange Grass

  The sky gradually filled with clouds and fog, and the Sky Crack Valley brightened up. The scope of the divine map's reflection, which had unknowingly expanded to its 50-li limit, made Yu Cai extremely happy. This proved that it wasn't a permanent decline, but rather an accidental change that only occurred in the unique environment of the Sky Crack Valley.

  One sleepless night, and in a state of high tension, Yu Ji's eyes were bloodshot, but his spirit was extremely exhilarated. Just a moment ago, those nocturnal beasts had fallen silent, now it was his turn to take action.

  Picking shrimp whisker grass is a hard job, even if Yu Cixiu has made progress and the shrimp whisker grass can be picked up easily, it's still like that. After working for half a day, when the summer heat passes through the layers of clouds and affects this place, Yu Cixiu only picked a few hundred roots. The birds and beasts in the valley passed by three or five times, and Yu Cixiu had to hide first, which was even more hard work.

  After another long period of time, the heroic spirit that Yu Cijian had cultivated at night was almost exhausted in this dull and monotonous work. He began to understand why the masters in the White Day Temple, each with their own skills, still had to hire ordinary people to do this kind of work...

  Day and night doing this kind of nonsense, still mending a fart road, growing a bird's nest!

  At this time, a fishy smell rolled over from the clouds and fog. He let out a sigh of sorrow, his body shape sank, and he dived towards the hiding place that had been arranged long ago.

  Just as he hid, the sound of flapping wings started. Yu Jin glanced out and saw that it was a type of flying ape with fleshy wings that had landed on the slope, which he had seen yesterday. Although they had fleshy wings, they could only glide for a short time and generally lived in the upper layers of the valley. Compared to those terrifying beasts that left a deep impression on him, they were not too difficult to deal with.

  This flying lemur looks like it's been injured, its grey fur stained with blood, and its expression is listless. Yet, it seems to have come here with a strong sense of purpose. After landing, it doesn't look around, but instead directly searches for a spot on the ground, stretches out its front limbs, and starts digging.

  There was a blank area where no shrimp whisker grass grew, and Yu Ci wasn't afraid that the beast would damage the medicinal herbs. Instead, he developed a strong curiosity. From this angle, he couldn't see what was under the flying gibbon's paws, so he simply used the Shang Shen Tu to bring up a viewpoint that was almost identical to the flying gibbon's, and took a look at what this guy was doing.

  The flying squirrel's claws were sharp and quickly dug several feet deep, exposing the roots of the pine tree below. The creature separated the roots and expertly pulled out a worm-like thing, not even bothering to wipe off the dirt, and stuffed it directly into its mouth. After chewing for a few moments, it swallowed.

  Perhaps this "earthworm" really has medicinal effects, after Flying Ape swallowed it, his spirit was lifted, and with a loud cry, he spread his wings and soared away on the strong wind.

  Yu Ci stared blankly. Some time ago, he used the Divine Sight to observe the surrounding terrain, and it was meticulous in every detail. This "earthworm" he naturally saw too, but at that time, he didn't pay attention to it. But looking at this "earthworm" on Fei Yuan's fingertips, he realized that it wasn't an earthworm at all, nor was it a living thing, but rather a medicinal herb that looked extremely like an insect.

  He had seen medicinal caterpillar fungi before, but this thing was quite different. The grass stem was too realistic, except that it wouldn't twist and turn, its entire body resembled a crawling insect like an earthworm, and on its surface, there was even a layer of fine scales that emitted a delicate luster unique to living creatures.

  If you magnify it several times and say that this thing is a long snake or an eel, Yu Ci might also believe it.

  Uh, wait, eel... fish?

  He still remembered the words of that drunken medicine collector from two days ago: "The White Day Palace can create a medicinal liquid, and if you soak a large amount of shrimp whisker grass in it, the one with the best quality and most intact will have the possibility of being revived. The revived shrimp whisker grass will absorb all the vitality of its kind onto itself and transform into a new type of medicinal herb... That medicinal herb is called..."

  Dragon's Beard!

  Yu Cai jumped out from her hiding place and ran to the soil layer dug by Fei Yuan, carefully examining it. However, there was only one plant in this area as well, which had been chewed down by Fei Yuan, leaving no remaining parts.

  Yu Ci certainly couldn't cut the grass stalk out of the distant flying gibbon's belly, but he had the Shengu Tu, in which the topography around the slope was presented to him in the most detailed and complete way amidst the undulating green light.

  After a careful search, he soon had a harvest. The slope above was gone, but under the surrounding cliffs, there were indeed seven or eight plants. And if you look further away, at about the same depth level, about four miles apart, he even found another place where shrimp whisker grass grew, and there were three to five similar medicinal herbs.

  However, these herbs all grow in deeper rock crevices, and some are even locked deep within several feet of thick rock. This is quite normal; if the herb has an excellent medicinal effect, those that grow in sunny spots would have been dug up clean by the creatures in the valley long ago. Only these more deeply hidden plants can survive.

  Yu Cijiang let out a long sigh, he had to thank the Shenguang Tongjian and the Shenguangtu, otherwise, these plants would have been right under his feet and he wouldn't have even discovered them, not to mention confirming their exact location. But just thinking about digging them up was going to be a lot of hard work.

  He shouted and directly unsheathed the Jiuyang Fu Sword. If it was really the Yulóng Grass, then what did that little bit of consumed energy count for?

  The sun sets and the moon rises, the sun rises and the moon sets, and nearly twenty hours have passed in the blink of an eye. During this time, Yu Ji has used all his skills to dig out one deep hole after another on the hard iron cliff, digging up the medicinal herbs that grow among them.

  It's not an easy task, the surrounding cliffs are as hard as iron, and it's difficult to get started. The roots inside are tangled and complicated, and if you're not careful, you'll get hurt. In a day and a half, Yu Ci completely gave up on the shrimp grass and devoted himself to taking out the eight medicinal herbs near the slope. As for the new location four miles away, he hadn't even had time to start yet.

  It was during the excavation process that he discovered a special property of the medicinal herb: within an area of about half an acre around where it grew, there would be no existence of any shrimp whisker grass, while other plants could grow freely. In connection with the news heard earlier, it is likely that this herb absorbs the vitality of other shrimp whisker grasses to fertilize itself, resulting in this phenomenon.

  In this way, the herb is three-tenths more effective than Fish Dragon Grass.

  Yu Ci did not mix the medicinal herbs with the shrimp whisker grass, but instead carefully cleared out Yan Dao's stone box and placed the eight stalks of medicinal herbs inside.

  After finishing all these things, the slope nearby was already a mess. Yu Ci had been blasting the stone wall during this period of time, and the sound really got louder, attracting the attention of many fierce beasts. He thought for a moment, and simply abandoned the remaining thousands of shrimp whisker grasses, temporarily moving them to that newly discovered medicinal herb spot four miles away to avoid the storm.

  The new medicinal herb picking point is much more difficult than Bi Po, and it's hard to find a stable fulcrum. Fortunately, Yu Ci has been excavating the cliff wall for several days and has made some progress, using a larger crack on the cliff wall to chisel out a recess that can barely accommodate a person, finally having a place to land.

  But on second thought, this place is actually more secluded than the slope over there.

  The quality of the shrimp grass here is not very good, but Yu Ci is more concerned about the suspected fish dragon grass. He took out the Shengu Tu again and re-examined it carefully, confirming the location one by one. Just as he was about to start work, he suddenly discovered that on the side edge of the Shengu Tu, the light and shadow were changing in a way that was clearly unusual.

  He concentrated his attention and saw a familiar face.

  When that man's face appeared clearly in the mirror, Yu Ji cursed: Bald thief!

  In the divine picture, it was indeed the monk who had secretly calculated him two days ago but was counterattacked by him. Yu Ci still doesn't know his name and title to this day, only referring to him as "Venomous Snake", thus calling him Venomous Snake Monk.

  The monk did not know that in the distant Sky Crack Valley, someone was recklessly sizing him up and speaking ill of him. Now, he was harming people again, but this time he had the upper hand.

  His opponent was a young man in white, who seemed clumsy and had no power to fight back. However, whenever he was in danger, a golden light would appear around his body and fly away, causing the poisonous snakes and monks to be wary of it, giving the young man a chance to escape.

  Two men chased each other from the top of the cliff to the bottom, and then fought on the precipice of the Sky Crack Valley. At this time, their feet were suspended in mid-air for thousands of feet, and a single misstep would lead to eternal doom. Not only did they need to test their skills, but also their courage. The young man was no match for the cunning of the poisonous snake monk, and he first became fearful, never expecting that the monk would suddenly swing his large sleeve, and five or six sharp green stars shot out, flying towards him.

  The young man was clearly shocked, his body already stiffened, instinctively shrinking back, but forgetting that he was already on the edge of a precipice, one foot stepped into empty space, and with a cry of alarm, he plummeted downwards, the green starlight also missing him by a hair's breadth.

  All this was within the grasp of the poisonous snake and the monk. The monk let out a faint smile, his large sleeves fluttered again, and several dark green starlight points were absorbed by his long tongue, then retracted back. His body slid down along the precipice, his hand chopped towards the young man's chest, seemingly still intending to capture him alive.

  At this moment, the young man suddenly came up with a fierce momentum, shouting loudly, and the golden light around his body reappeared, transforming into a long rainbow that chopped down. The monk was also startled, transforming his claws into chops, and struck the young man's chest with a powerful palm, borrowing some force to let go, but the golden light couldn't be withdrawn, making a "zhēng" sound as it deeply stabbed into the cliff wall, revealing its true form - a two-foot-long golden knife.

  Although the monk dodged quickly, his face had already been torn open by the knife's aura, and the blood was very chilling. The monk was overjoyed, and didn't care about the young man anymore. He rushed forward to pull out the golden knife, held it in his hand for a while, then suddenly looked up at the sky and laughed loudly. Although the sound couldn't be transmitted through the divine diagram, the image alone was enough to prove that the golden knife must be an extraordinary treasure.

  Yu Ci let out a "hmmph" and couldn't help but look down on the poisonous snake and the monk's behavior. She also couldn't help but feel sorry for the young man who had fallen into the clouds. The young man's cultivation wasn't actually much worse than the monk's, it was just that he had lost his nerve, using only 30% of his full strength, and relying too heavily on that golden knife, which ultimately led to him losing his weapon and his life... Hmm?

  As shown in the divine diagram, after the young man fell, there was a period of rapid descent at first, but after falling over a hundred feet, the speed suddenly slowed down, like a weightless leaf, floating gently downwards.

  At first, Yu Ci thought it was just a young man pretending to be dead, but soon he discovered that the person had really fainted. The reason for this situation seemed to be that the clothes on his body were also an unusual treasure, automatically protecting its master. However, in the treacherous land of Tian Lie Valley, even if this person couldn't be shaken to death, he would eventually be swallowed up by the ferocious birds and beasts surrounding him.

  Watching this scene, Yu Ci thought for a moment, suddenly stood up and rushed out of the hiding place.

  "Alright, consider yourself lucky!"

  Yu Ci is not a reckless person. If that young man hadn't had the precious clothes to protect his body and had fallen directly from a height of ten thousand feet, even a god would have been crushed into a meat pie. At that time, the young man was passing over Yu Ci's head, and he wouldn't have reached out to help; but now the situation is different, with the divine map in hand, running ten miles in the Sky Crack Valley is just a matter of breaking a sweat, yet it can save a life, why not do it?

  Half a time later, Yu Ci carried the young man who was still in a coma back to the slope where he had been staying earlier, and only here was a decent place to settle down.

  He ruthlessly slammed the young man to the ground, and this time it was not light. The young man let out a low hum even in his daze. From Yu Ci's angle of view, this young man was so young that he looked almost too tender, although his face was filled with the fear of death, but still had an air of innocence, probably no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. At this age, he could only be called a teenager.

  Leaving aside his pathetic combat abilities, just looking at his cultivation level is enough to make Yu Ci want to bang her head against the wall. However, what really makes Yu Ci unable to bear it is:

  "This little guy... is simply stunning!"

  Let clicks, collections and red tickets knock me out!