Chapter 703: Golden Essence Fruit
Chapter 703: Golden Essence Fruit
Taken aback, Xiao Chen said, “Stop speaking such nonsense. Is the Netherworld Flower mature yet or not?”
Xiao Chen had seen too many ruthless people; he felt that he did not have enough trump cards. He would feel more secure only if he could improve the power of his Taiji Yinyang Flame Diagram.
Ao Jiao nimbly moved her fingers, flashing hand seals in the rain of light. She said in frustration, Why are you in such a rush? If you keep prodding me, I’ll trample on this broken flower.
Naturally, Xiao Chen did not believe that Ao Jiao would do that. He smiled and said, “Very well, I’ll stop rushing you. Just tell me how much more time it needs.”
At most, another three days.
“Ka ca!”
A saber light flashed and blood splashed out. With some effort, Xiao Chen killed a venomous python more than two hundred meters long.
After extracting the Demonic Core, he did not bother to collect anything else from the venomous snake’s corpse. Venomous pythons no older than two hundred years old were not worth very much.
Xiao Chen circulated his Vital Qi and casually kicked aside the venomous python’s corpse. Then, a red fruit appeared before him.
He bent over and gently picked the fruit. A careful check revealed that the fruit had golden spots on it, so he could not help his disappointment.
This fruit was called a Golden Essence Fruit, which unfortunately was a type of poisonous fruit. However, it was still worth quite a lot to cultivators practicing the poison arts or people who refined poisons.
An ordinary Golden Essence Fruit could sell for thirty thousand Superior Grade Spirit Stones. However, aside from this, Xiao Chen had no use for it.
The Golden Essence Fruit and the Earth Essence Fruit looked almost identical; they were very difficult to differentiate from each other. So every one of these fruits had to be personally inspected unless it was an Earth Essence Fruit of advanced age. The overflowing Spiritual Energy would render the need for inspection moot.
After leaving Shui Lingling, the ten fruits that Xiao Chen found using his Spiritual Sense were all Golden Essence Fruits. His luck was pretty bad.
“There is another similar fruit about five kilometers to the north. I hope that it is not another Golden Essence Fruit.”
With Xiao Chen’s Spiritual Sense, he was more efficient at searching for fruits than cultivators who relied on their perception.
Logically, if his luck was not bad, his harvest should surpass that of others.
Xiao Chen pushed off the murky waters and moved like a windborne leaf, drifting towards the front. The pitfall-filled marsh did not affect him at all.
After the time to brew a pot of tea, he arrived at his destination. However, the situation this time was slightly challenging. There were two Black Horned Venomous Snakes that were almost two hundred and fifty meters long.
“It looks like there is a good chance here.”
Xiao Chen smiled faintly and did not retreat as a result of the difficulty. Instead, it inflamed his fighting spirit.
“Chi! Chi!”
The two Black Horned Venomous Snakes had already seen Xiao Chen from a distance. Their bodies slithered along the surface of the marsh as they quickly swam towards him, looking like they were flying.
When the two Black Horned Venomous Snakes arrived within five hundred meters of Xiao Chen, they opened their jaws and spat out two dense clouds of poison gas towards him.
Trifling tricks! Xiao Chen circulated his Vital Qi, and his blood surged. Then, he clenched his fists and poured the energy into them. When the time came, he exploded out.
“Bang! Bang!”
Two strong gusts of wind appeared in the air and blew away the poison gas, thinning it to the point where it was not a threat at all.
The poison gas dispersed, but the two Black Horned Venomous Snakes charged over. As they rose into the air, they tossed up large clumps of mud. Then, two huge tails swept towards Xiao Chen together.
The tails contained a puissant force. Everywhere they passed, the air buzzed, setting space atremble.
Xiao Chen remained very calm as he summoned his Lunar Shadow Saber to his left hand. Then, he slowly circulated his Quintessence for Dragon Subduing Slash’s second move—Soaring Dragon.
He did not move, carefully observing and simulating the movements of the two huge tails, predicting their future actions and other possible angles of attack.
A strong wind blew, making Xiao Chen’s clothes and hair flutter. In the next moment, the two huge tails were already right before him.
The dragon hides in the depths; the gentleman plans before acting. It is just not taking action for now. When it moves, the clouds of the nine heavens will scatter as it rushes up to the sky in one breath!
A dragon roared endlessly, sounding majestic and mighty. Xiao Chen’s blood surged.
Dragon-shaped energy rose up from his dantian and exited through the Tianmen Acupoint on his head. Then, it enveloped his entire body.
His vision sharpened. The two snake tails flying over appeared slow to his eyes. He could now clearly see all the tiny particles floating in the air.
Xiao Chen’s senses improved to the point where he could feel the breath and pulse of heaven and earth. With one saber strike, he could merge with heaven and earth, easily shattering the two two-hundred-and-fifty-meter-long venomous snakes.
However, such a fantastic feeling only lasted for a negligible instant. Xiao Chen simply could not capture that moment. By the time he recovered his wits, it was gone.
“I failed again.”
Xiao Chen shook his head slightly and continued circulating his Quintessence. Then, he took one step forward and turned into a True Dragon. When he stepped out, a long crack appeared on the mucky ground of the marsh.
“Bang!”
Murky water and mud shot up from the crack, forming a sputtering screen. This screen was incredibly sharp. The instant it shot up into the sky, it chopped off the two tails, sending blood spurting out.
A resplendent purple saber light flared, and Xiao Chen soared into the air like he was a True Dragon, zooming into the sky in one breath. A dragon image flickered on his saber and merged with it.
The saber light chopped down, splitting the two Black Horned Venomous Snakes in half to thrash heavily on the ground.
When seen from a distance, all this looked like a True Dragon, previously in hibernation, soared into the sky and rushed through the clouds.
Xiao Chen sheathed his saber and looked at the two Black Horned Venomous Snake corpses on the ground. Then he entered deep thought. The might of Soaring Dragon is indeed formidable.
However, I always fail to catch hold of that fantastic feeling. Nevertheless, I managed to bring out twenty percent of Soaring Dragon’s might earlier.
I should just take my time. Perhaps during experiential training of life and death, I will succeed in truly catching hold of that feeling. Let’s take a look at that strange fruit first.
Xiao Chen slowly drifted down with some anticipation. Then, he landed behind the strange fruit that had overwhelming Spiritual Energy.
“Strange, I distinctly felt the energy fluctuations of a Heaven Ranked Martial Technique earlier. Why did it suddenly disappear?”
Two figures came flying over from a distance. They quickly looked around, looking for traces of people.
For one to use a Heaven Ranked Martial Technique, there must have been an intense battle. This was the best opportunity to take advantage of the situation. These people usually did such things. So when they felt the fluctuations, they immediately rushed over.
These two people wore elegant embroidered clothes. One was tall and the other was short. Their clothes had a goshawk embroidered on their chest, the clan emblem of the Tianwu Domain’s Ximen Clan.
The tall youth looked around and discovered Xiao Chen. They quickly rushed over and asked sternly, “Brat, what happened here? Tell us everything now.”
Xiao Chen was just a Medial Grade Martial Monarch. These two did not think that he was the one who executed the Heaven Ranked Martial Technique. Because their advantage of cultivation, their tones were impolite and arrogant.
The Ximen Clan was one of the Tianwu Domain’s four great clans. They had a Martial Emperor ruling over them. These two had good talents for cultivation as well. So they did have the capital to be arrogant.
Xiao Chen was currently bending over to pick the fruit. He ignored the question from the two behind him and continued what he was doing.
After plucking the fruit, he inspected it. Then, he revealed a smile of joy. After ten failures, he finally obtained an Earth Essence Fruit.
Furthermore, this Earth Essence Fruit had reached a certain age, a hundred years old. Given Xiao Chen’s cultivation, consuming it would increase his cultivation by ten percent, saving him a lot of time.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Are you mute?”
When the short youth saw Xiao Chen ignoring them, he immediately got angry. Unexpectedly, a Medial Grade Martial Monarch dared to put on airs with them.
Xiao Chen unhurriedly placed the Earth Essence Fruit into his Universe Ring. Then, he turned around and said, “Everything is normal; nothing major happened.”
The tall youth stood slightly to the side. From his angle, he had seen the silhouette of the Earth Essence Fruit. His eyes immediately lit up, and he said excitedly, “Earth Essence Fruit! What did you just put away? Show it to us.”
When the short youth heard the words Earth Essence Fruit, a greedy look immediately flashed in his eyes. He could not help taking a step forward and saying, “What is that? Take it out for us brothers to see. We will buy all strange fruits at a high price.”
Xiao Chen smiled faintly and waved his hand. Then, the Earth Essence Fruit appeared on his palm. It emitted an enticing Spiritual Energy, and the turbid air became much fresher.
“A one-hundred-year-old Earth Essence Fruit!”
Overt looks of greed appeared in the faces of the two Ximen Clan cultivators. They wished they could immediately snatch it from Xiao Chen.
“Sou! Sou! Sou!”
Figures flashed in the air, all looking around, doing the same thing as the two Ximen Clan cultivators had.
These were cultivators who had felt the fluctuations of a Heaven Ranked Martial Technique nearby. So they quickly flew over. However, they were slower than the two Ximen Clan cultivators.
Soon, someone noticed Xiao Chen’s situation. However, no one felt surprised; they only gave him compassionate looks.
The Ximen Clan cultivators had nearly the same attitude as Ximen Bao—arrogant, despotic, and regardless of others. Since they saw the Earth Essence Fruit, Xiao Chen could only be counted as unlucky.
“He he, a one-hundred-year-old Earth Essence Fruit. That is a good thing. Unexpectedly, a Medial Grade Martial Monarch managed to obtain it.”
“So what? He still ran into Ximen Yuan and Ximen Jian. He only ended up giving himself trouble.”
“Strange, how did this brat find the Earth Essence Fruit? The venomous pythons guarding the Earth Essence Fruits are not that easy to deal with.”
“Most likely, a peak expert passed by and casually executed a Heaven Ranked Martial Technique, killing the venomous python. Then, he managed to benefit from it.”
Since they did not find the intense battle that they expected, the cultivators who arrived felt disappointed. However, there was something interesting to watch, a nice change from the tedium of hunting for treasures.
The crowd watched avidly, anticipating the expression of this white-robed cultivator when he gave away his Earth Essence Fruit.
The short youth, Ximen Jian, suppressed the greed in his eyes and took a step forward. He said extremely solemnly, “Brat, you got lucky running into us. This is a strange fruit with poison. It is not worth anything.
“However, I cultivate the poison arts and happen to require it. I will buy it for a hundred thousand Superior Grade Spirit Stones.”
Xiao Chen calmly looked at Ximen Jian and asked indifferently, “Do you think I believe what you said?”
Ximen Jian did not care. He smiled sinisterly. “Sometimes, it is better to be more stupid. If you are too smart, you will only bring pain down on yourself for nothing.”
“Bang!”
A loud report rang out. The moment Ximen Jian finished speaking, Xiao Chen, who had been storing power for a long time, soared into the air with an Azure Dragon image underneath him.