Chapter 160: Blood Forbidden Trial

After listening, Han Li knew the other party was offering well-intentioned advice, so he could only helplessly give a vague, perfunctory response. He then steered the conversation away and finally asked about the main ingredients for the Foundation Establishment Pill.

"Junior Martial Brother Han wants to know the origin of spiritual herbs like the Jade Marrow Mushroom?" Wu Feng asked in surprise.

"That's right. Martial Brother has been in the sect for so many years, you should know something about it, right?" Han Li asked with great anticipation.

Upon hearing this, Wu Feng pondered for a moment before saying:

"I certainly know a little, but I advise Junior Martial Brother to give up on this idea! That place is not only incomparably dangerous, but under normal circumstances, it is impossible to even approach. Only at specific times and specific locations can one enter with the help of sect elders."

Initially, upon hearing that the other party knew, Han Li felt a surge of joy, but the subsequent words gave him a shock, and he hurriedly pressed for more details.

It turned out that such spiritual herbs had become scarce in the cultivation world long ago, having completely vanished from ordinary places. The only places where they could still be found now were the so-called forbidden grounds.

Since they could be called forbidden grounds by cultivators, these places were naturally extremely dangerous, generally located in remote areas with harsh environments. Some were even nests of demons and monsters that had to be slaughtered to pass through, while others contained ancient forbidden arrays that required strenuous effort to break before there was any hope of entering.

The cultivation sects of Yue Kingdom, such as the Profound Heaven Sect, had obtained their main ingredients for the Foundation Establishment Pill from the latter type of forbidden ground for years. It was a place that had been sealed off by an ancient wind-attribute forbidden array.

The forbidden array there was extremely powerful; originally, with the strength of their cultivation sects, there was no hope of opening it. However, it was later discovered by chance that this forbidden array had a five-day period of weakness every five years. During this period, if several Core Formation stage cultivators worked together to forcefully break the array, they could temporarily open a path, allowing a certain number of people to enter.

But when the path appeared and all cultivators attempted to enter, another unexpected event occurred.

Cultivators above the Foundation Establishment stage were all blocked outside by another strange forbidden array in the inner layer, while those at the Qi Refining stage could enter without any obstruction and even collected a large amount of rare spiritual herbs, bringing them out.

This discovery immediately caused a sensation in the Yue Kingdom cultivation world. Thus, every five years, the seven major cultivation sects would send a batch of disciples below the Foundation Establishment stage into the forbidden ground to collect a large amount of spiritual herbs; naturally, the main ingredients for the Foundation Establishment Pill were the top priority among them.

At the beginning, disciples from various cultivation sects could still act without infringing upon each other. For the selected disciples, this was a great opportunity. But as the spiritual herbs within the forbidden ground gradually became scarce due to years of constant plundering, disputes and violent clashes between sects over a single rare herb began to occur frequently. By a certain time several hundred years ago, disciples had even lost their lives in the fighting.

That loss of life caused the major sects to completely tear off their masks. They simply raised the banner of "the weak are prey to the strong" and "heaven is unkind," encouraging their disciples to rob others, causing the trip to the forbidden ground to be completely stained with blood.

As a result, spiritual herbs gradually decreased, while the fighting within the forbidden ground became more intense and bloodier each time.

In the last hundred years, due to the brutal slaughter, less than one-third of the disciples who entered the forbidden ground could return alive, causing the various sects to lose many elites among their low-tier disciples! This caused the disciples of all sects to start calling the trip to the forbidden ground the "Blood Forbidden Trial," and they began to avoid it, even leading to an awkward situation where no one was willing to go.

As for forcing them to go, that was naturally even less effective.

Because if a disciple was not genuinely entering the forbidden ground to search for herbs, they would certainly just go through the motions, and nine times out of ten, they would find a place to hide and wait until the time was up to return safely.

Such things had not failed to happen, making the upper echelons who sent them furious, yet they were helpless. After all, the person was not willing to go in the first place; if you forced them into such extreme danger, who could you blame!

Thus, with the Yue Kingdom sects coveting spiritual herbs more than ever, yet having very few disciples willing to take the risk, all sects began to recruit disciples for the forbidden ground trip with heavy rewards, linking the spiritual herbs brought out from the forbidden ground to the level of the reward.

Not to mention other sects, let's just talk about the Profound Heaven Sect itself!

Starting from the last few times, the sect had clearly stipulated that any disciple who signed up would receive a mid-tier spirit stone and a spiritual artifact from the sect in advance as encouragement.

Once they truly brought out spiritual herbs from the forbidden ground, the sect would give even more generous rewards based on the quantity and quality of what they brought! From spirit stones to magic tools and spiritual pills, everything was available. Even higher rewards included the sect's secret Foundation Establishment Pill, which was enough to make low-tier disciples risk their lives.

Such high rewards indeed caused a surge of sign-ups in the cultivation sect for a time, but this situation only lasted for two or three times before it completely declined.

The bloody reality made the disciples realize clearly that this heavy reward was not so easy to obtain!

Because when there were no heavy rewards, one-third of the people could survive the competition in the forbidden ground, but after the heavy rewards, less than one-fourth could walk out of the Blood Forbidden Trial alive. Moreover, among the surviving disciples, those who could bring out spiritual herbs were even fewer. Most people, apart from being heavily injured, gained nothing at all, let alone exchanging for a Foundation Establishment Pill.

And it was under these circumstances that Han Li asked Wu Feng about the origin of those few spiritual herbs.

Now, after hearing everything the other party said, Han Li felt nothing but depression in his heart!

He hadn't expected that collecting some herbs would require going to some forbidden ground, and he would have to fight with disciples from other sects before he could escape. Moreover, the survival rate was shockingly low; less than one-fourth of the people could walk out of this so-called "Blood Forbidden Trial."

The risk involved was just too great! He was not some expert; among the low-tier disciples of the Profound Heaven Sect, he was only at an average level.

Therefore, he had neither profound magic power nor mastered powerful spells; the only things he could rely on were those few decent magic tools and a brain that wasn't stupid.

But relying only on these, Han Li could never believe he would definitely become one of the final one-fourth.

Thus, in his annoyance, he couldn't help but ask Wu Feng: Why couldn't the various immortal sects restrain their disciples and share the spiritual herbs together? After all, these herbs were meant to be used to refine Foundation Establishment Pills together, so why bother tearing off their masks and harboring grudges?

As a result, when Wu Feng heard this, he immediately replied with a bitter smile:

"Junior Martial Brother doesn't know, even if the Foundation Establishment Pills are refined together, the distribution of the pills depends entirely on the amount of spiritual herbs provided by each sect, distributed proportionally. Under these circumstances, how could the sects not fight desperately for the spiritual herbs?"

Han Li was speechless for a long time.

Finally, burdened with worries, after clarifying that the next "Blood Forbidden Trial" was in half a year, he left the Scripture Pavilion under the instructions of Senior Martial Brother Wu and returned to the Hundred Herb Garden.

In the following few days, Han Li was listless all day thinking about this matter, repeatedly weighing the pros and cons and the risks involved, trying to force himself to make a wiser choice.

It was very clear that in Yue Kingdom, outside of the forbidden ground, these three spiritual herbs could not be found; otherwise, the seven major immortal sects wouldn't need to fight to the death every five years, weakening themselves internally.

If Han Li didn't want to take this extreme risk, his only hope was that the spiritual herbs could be found elsewhere outside of Yue Kingdom; otherwise, Foundation Establishment would be completely hopeless, and he would become a pile of bones in a hundred years. However, a little thought made it clear that searching for spiritual herbs abroad was even more hopeless, with absolutely no chance at all.

But if he really participated in the "Blood Forbidden Trial," the death rate of more than three-fourths was just too high! The possibility of him dying there was truly shockingly high! This really put Han Li in a dilemma!

Net ===== CHAPTER 161 =====