by Dragon King
The lights in these three sects were lit, and many disciples traveled between the palaces on top of swords. The scene looked very lively. However, no one dared to get close to the Herb King Valley which belonged to Herb King Master; it was the forbidden area of the sects.
Hao Ren and Zhao Yanzi drew two rays of red lights as they flew over the three sects and rushed into the valley.
A dozen blue voice transmission notes were at the entrance of the valley, and most of them were messages seeking elixir pills.
Also, dozens of thumb rings that were found by over ten sects on Sixth Heaven were placed at the entrance of the valley and waited to be collected.
Hao Ren brought Xie Yujia to the entrance of the valley and saw cultivators waiting respectfully with all sorts of thumb rings in front of him.
Thumb rings were considered rare dharma treasures in the cultivation sects, and these sects on Sixth Heaven tried very hard and only found these thumb rings.
There were still a few pieces that weren’t good, and the sects didn’t dare to submit them; they were afraid that they might offend the Herb King Master in some way.
Hao Ren appeared at the entrance of the valley, released more than a dozen sword energies, and gathered the thumb rings in his palm.
Those cultivators who were ordered to stay at the valley entrance raised their heads, and they were surprised to see the ‘senior disciple’ of the Herb King Master.
“If there’s anything better than your thumb ring at the moment, just replace it,” Hao Ren said to Xie Yujia.
“It’s fine. The one you gave me works well.” Xie Yujia lowered her head slightly and said shyly.
She saw the thumb ring that Hao Ren gave her as an engagement ring, and its meaning was more significant. Even if other thumb rings were better, she still liked the red thumb ring that Hao Ren gave her more.
Hao Ren knew her thoughts and smiled helplessly. Xie Yujia was too frugal; she was even very simple and plain when it came to dharma treasures.
Since Xie Yujia didn’t pick, Hao Ren decided to pick it for her.
After lightning energy flashed, more than half of the thumb rings broke into pieces.
The cultivators who stood at the entrance were shocked when they saw Hao Ren destroying those thumb rings immediately.
Out of the remaining four thumb rings, two of them were made of jade, one was made of bamboo, and the other one was made of some metallic materials.
Hao Ren threw these four thumb rings in the air and shot four sword energies at them.
The sword energies hit the thumb rings, and two of them broke instantly. If they didn’t have any firmness, they were not suitable for Xie Yujia.
The remaining two thumb rings were put on Hao Ren’s fingers by the sword energies.
The five elemental nature essence suddenly looped in and out of the two thumb rings, and they shined colorfully. Hao Ren instantly injected 500 strands of nature essence into them, and the left thumb ring burst into pieces.
The right one rotated on Hao Ren’s fingertip and made a humming noise.
Those cultivators at the entrance were completely dumbfounded. These thumb rings took them a lot of effort to find, but they were shattered into pieces by Hao Ren in an instant.
Especially the last broken thumb ring was shattered into pieces by Hao Ren’s nature essence.
“What kind of explosive force is that! If that nature essence was put inside someone’s body, the consequence would be unimaginable!” they thought to themselves.
Hao Ren grabbed the bamboo thumb ring and put it in Xie Yujia’s palm. “Try it for yourself.”
Xie Yujia was stunned by Hao Ren’s way of testing dharma treasures as well. The thumb rings that all seemed great were instantly evaluated.
Xie Yujia put on the bamboo thumb ring and used her nature essence, and this thumb ring glowed with a brown color and covered her. Xie Yujia grabbed the demonic bow pendant on her neck and shook her finger. The pendant turned into the demonic bow that was one meter long, and three sharp arrows appeared in her palm and shot toward the sky.
The three arrows that were shot out contained some brown spots, and their speed seemed to be faster.
Hao Ren looked at the oblique indentations on the bamboo thumb ring, and they seemed to be for archery.
“This bamboo ring was found by my master in an ancient cultivator’s cave. Other than this thumb ring, we also found a copy of Sky Archery Scroll.”
One of the cultivators was afraid that Hao Ren was dissatisfied with this thumb ring, so he took half a step up and said.
“Um.” Hao Ren nodded.
Hao Ren didn’t say anything, but this cultivator took out a copy of the technique and put it in Hao Ren’s hand.
Hao Ren flipped through the pages, knowing that this ancient book indeed recorded archery techniques. It seemed like the cultivator who used this technique was also an archer, and it was a coincidence that this sect’s master found the ring and the technique.
Other cultivators looked at each other and couldn’t do anything. The thumb rings they found weren’t good enough, and they didn’t have rare techniques to hand in.
Xie Yujia used the Spells’ Origin Note Scroll and lightened up the red thumb ring on her finger as well.
A red light glowed around her and formed a defensive energy sphere.
The red thumb ring with a smooth surface seemed to be a defensive dharma treasure. It was an accessory that can protect the finger, but it wasn’t for archery.
Hao Ren hit it with a sword energy, and this red energy sphere only shook for a bit but didn’t break. He was standing beside Xie Yujia right now; if the attack was from a distance, Xie Yujia had enough time to fight back.
With both offense and defense, Xie Yujia was like a tank…
With the help of the Ruyi Cloth, Xie Yujia’s position would be drifting. It seemed like she would be great at controlling the tempo of battles from now on.
693 Duan Yao Is at the Nascent Soul Realm?
“Then, we’ll keep this,” Hao Ren said.
Like Xie Yujia’s demonic bow, this thumb ring that was made of bamboo was also a dharma treasure on ancient cultivators, and they matched each other well.
As to the red thumb ring that Hao Ren gave to her, it could create an energy sphere so that she could shoot arrows without being disturbed.
“Ok…” Xie Yujia also realized that she could shoot better and faster with this bamboo thumb ring. This unique tool was quite useful.
She put away the demonic bow and took out an essence-unlocking note from her bracelet and handed it to the cultivator who brought her the bamboo thumb ring and the technique. All other cultivators were quite envious of this young man.
Since the others also brought her thumb rings, Xie Yujia gave each of them a foundation establishment pill as consolation rewards.
The sects on Sixth Heaven didn’t lack foundation establishment pills, but level 4 foundation establishment pills made by Herb King Master were better than those made by their own sects.
With the pills, these cultivators could at least report back to their sects.
Hao Ren waved his hand, and the golden boat carried him and Xie Yujia back into the valley.
The Herb King Master was mysterious. After seeing the ‘senior disciple’ going back, these cultivators from Six Heaven didn’t dare to linger around and left one by one.
The cultivator who got the essence-unlocking note ran the fastest since this note meant the recovery of one more Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in his sect. His sect felt like it a good deal to trade the thumb ring and the archery technique for an essence-unlocking note. After all, the thumb ring and the archery technique were not very useful to the sect!
While the sects on Sixth Heaven were searching for the rare spiritual herbs, they also sent people to the three small sects around Ethereal Summit to get information about the needs of the Herb King Master.
When Hao Ren came back to the valley with Xie Yujia, the snow
lion cubs were barking with hunger.
They followed Little White and gnawed at its fur, and some even crawled under its belly.
“Come here! Come here…” Xie Yujia landed on the ground and beckoned to them.
The snow lion cubs rolled to her feet like snowballs and hugged her feet, begging for attention.
“These are for you…”
Xie Yujia tossed out more than a dozen elixir pills, and the cubs immediately dropped to the ground to get them.
Hao Ren rubbed them one by one and found that two of them had reached level 1; it showed that the level 3 elixir pills had easily improved their physiques.
It must be noted that level 3 elixir pills were not common stock in the cultivation sects, and even elders couldn’t take one level 3 elixir pill each day.
Besides, the nature essence intensity at Ethereal Summit was much more abundant than the Snow Lion Cave on land. Thus, it was no wonder that these snow lion cubs grew faster than ordinary snow lions.
Zhao Yanzi was taking care of the spiritual herbs. When she saw Xie Yujia feeding the snow lion cubs, she ran over to pet them.
Hum… The golden shield ran out of Hao Ren’s necklace suddenly. It had taken Hao Ren’s necklace as its bedroom, coming and going at its will.
As a spatial dharma treasure, the necklace could store all kinds of stuff with nature essence, but it couldn’t lock in supreme spiritual treasures.
Seeing the golden shield spinning in the valley, Hao Ren immediately shot out a sword energy and shouted, “Get out!”
With the newly built array formation, the nature essence in Ethereal Summit had just gotten abundant after days of accumulation, and Hao Ren didn’t want the golden shield to suck the nature essence dry!
After flying around the valley twice, the golden shield shot out several golden lights morosely before flying out of Ethereal Summit and toward Sixth Heaven.
Ordinary cultivators would want to keep the supreme spiritual treasures close by and would never kick them out like Hao Ren. However, Hao Ren knew the golden shield well, and he knew that it would come back at its own will; that was why he didn’t allow it to run wild in his territory.
He gave Little White total freedom, and he did the same with the golden shield. As long as they did their jobs when they were needed, Hao Ren’s didn’t care about other things.
Bang! The golden shield broke the array formation between Fifth Heaven and Sixth Heaven, rushed into the beautiful Sixth Heaven, and sucked in nature essence as it shivered in excitement.
After passing the Heavenly Tribulation, it required a tremendous amount of nature essence to solidify its realm, which was why it had gotten exhausted after defeating the Demon-Conquering Vajra which was one level lower.
Suddenly, the clouds surged, and the world changed colors on Sixth Heaven.
It was night time, and the various masters who had been cultivating in seclusion felt something was wrong and rushed out of the back mountains.
They saw a black object with radiant light around it sucking in things around it crazily.
If Yue Yang and Hao Zhonghua saw this sight, they would be astonished to see a small black hole!
The masters could clearly feel the thinning of the nature essence on Sixth Heaven!
When they were worried that the nature essence on Sixth Heaven might run out, the black object stopped eating.
Pu… The black object suddenly ‘spat’ out a lot of things.
Debris, dried leaves, mud… All those things filled up a valley!
While emitting golden light, this treasure flew slowing toward Fifth Heaven.
“A spiritual treasure is appearing in the world!” The masters who were standing on the mountains of their sects were tempted. Although the masters who were still at the Core Formation Realm didn’t dare to make a move, the ones who had recovered their Nascent Soul Realms chased after the radiant dharma treasure without hesitation.
It was risky to tame such a spiritual treasure, but it would be a great helper to them if they could tame it successfully!
Usually, the spiritual treasures were the most vulnerable when they first appear in the world and would take the first cultivator they saw as their owners!
When the golden shield shot back to Fifth Heaven, the Nascent Soul Realm masters followed it.
After sucking in a sufficient amount of nature essence, the golden shield was speedy, and the Nascent Soul Realm masters chased after it with their top speeds.
Most of the cultivators couldn’t see a spiritual treasure all their lives. If they had the opportunity to tame a spiritual treasure successfully, it would change their fates completely. With the spiritual treasure, not only would their sect become the No.1 Sect on Sixth Heaven, but the cultivators themselves had the chance to charge at the Soul Formation Realm!
The golden shield spun and disappeared into a valley.
The masters were about to follow in when they realized that the terrain was quite familiar. They immediately stopped flying since they recognized that it was Herb King Master’s Ethereal Summit!
“The spiritual treasure belongs to the Herb King Master, and it was released to Sixth Heaven to absorb nature essence!”
These masters from Sixth Heaven flew around Ethereal Summit a few times and left.
If it were another Nascent Soul Realm master who had released the supreme spiritual treasure to suck nature essence on Sixth Heaven, these masters would have joined forces and asked that master to hand out the supreme spiritual treasure.
However, they couldn’t afford to mess with the Herb King Master!
They rushed out in the middle of the night, and now they had to return with resentment.
With lights flowing on its black surface, the golden shield shot into the valley and laid on a rock lazily.
It realized that the days with Hao Ren were indeed comfortable. Otherwise, the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators would have chased it until dawn after it sucked in so much nature essence from Sixth Heaven. There might be a chance where those masters had supreme techniques and could capture it successfully.
However, after it entered Hao Ren’s valley, none of the Nascent Soul Realm masters dared to follow.
The golden shield spat out a wave of nature essence and began to absorb the treasure soul of the Demon-Conquering Vajra that it had taken in. If it could completely absorb the treasure soul, its golden lights could break treasures, which would be an awesome feature.
The supreme spiritual treasures were very hard working since they didn’t want to be killed instantly by more powerful treasures.
In this perspective, the golden shield was more driven than Little White.
After glancing at the golden shield which looked like a rusted iron plate, Hao Ren drew out the Ruyi Cloth and handed it to Xie Yujia along with the control technique.
“When you have time, study them and see how to use it,” Hao Ren said.
“Ok.” Xie Yujia lowered her head and read the paper that Hao Ren handed to her.
Counting the demonic bow that Hao Ren had given to her previously, she now had a total of four dharma treasures.
“Zi, are you going to break through?” Hao Ren looked down and asked Zhao Yanzi who was playing with the snow lion cubs in the meadow.
With Zi’s attitude, she wasn’t a diligent cultivator and had lost her drive especially after she had left Xie Yujia behind in terms of cultivation.
“I know!” Zhao Yanzi jumped up, feeling a bit sulky after seeing Hao Ren giving a white cloth to Xie Yujia. Even though she felt like that white cloth wasn’t valuable, she was still a little jealous.
“Duan Yao has reached the Nascent Soul Realm,” Hao Ren said.
“Nascent Soul Realm…” Dumbfounded, Zhao Yanzi replied after a few seconds, “You’re lying!”
When Duan Yao left Hao Ren’s home, she was only at low-tier Core Formation Realm. That was why Zhao Yanzi didn’t believe Hao Ren.
Beside them, Xie Yujia was surprised when Hao Ren said
that Duan Yao had reached the Nascent Soul Realm. However, she was more considerate than Zhao Yanzi and wondered how Hao Ren knew about Duan Yao. After all, the latter had left with Lady Zhen.
If Hao Ren hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed that Duan Yao had reached the Nascent Soul Realm. He wished that Duan Yao could come to land again to stimulate Zhao Yanzi and prove his honesty.
Remembering that Duan Yao had beaten the souls out of the big demon kings, Hao Ren felt like she obtained an extraordinary presence.
If he didn’t cultivate hard, he probably would be no match for her.
“Ok! I will cultivate to break through to a higher realm!”
Zhao Yanzi didn’t believe that Duan Yao had reached the Nascent Soul Realm. But hearing Hao Ren mentioning the latter’s name, she got competitive.
After she had dinner with Zhao Kuo who tutored her for a while, she was confident that she could break into the Core Formation Realm. Remembering that Duan Yao was at the Core Formation Realm while she was only at the Foundation Establishment Realm, Zhao Yanzi was determined to catch up to Duan Yao.
“Hohoho… Good nephew, you think about my disciple this much? I wonder if you want to take Yao from me.” Lady Zhen’s voice suddenly sounded.
Then, the array formation was torn open, and Lady Zhen landed in the valley with Duan Yao whose pretty face looked cold.
694 Return
Duan Yao’s face looked stiff as if Hao Ren owed her hundreds of yuan.
“I was going to go to Sky Mountain Sect with Yao and came to visit you on our way.” Lady Zhen’s beautiful eyes curved as she smiled. “Nephew, since you are here, I will entrust Yao to you.”
Hao Ren looked at Lady Zhen, surprised that they showed up just when he was talking about them.
Zhao Yanzi blinked in confusion and looked at Lady Zhen warily, wondering if Lady Zhen meant to push Duan Yao to Hao Ren.
She then glanced at Duan Yao again and was astonished to find that the latter was releasing the aura of the Nascent Soul Realm!
“Hohoho… Little Girl, this is the thing that I promised you.” With a laugh, Lady Zhen tossed out a small traditional dress at Zhao Yanzi, and it dashed out like a flash of colorful light.