Chapter 177

Until a moment ago, Ganyu suddenly exclaimed, pointing at a red fruit growing in the soil not far away.

The rich spiritual energy it radiated was as conspicuous as a candle in the dark of night.

It was incredibly alluring.

Everyone instantly confirmed that this was definitely a spiritual fruit.

And it didn't look like a low-grade one, either.

A profit to be made!

Thinking of this, the group immediately became excited.

But given they still had some sense of caution, no one rushed forward rashly; instead, they carefully observed the surroundings for a long time.

Confirming there was no other movement, not even any animals, they then cautiously crept toward it.

Along the way, Xiaoyue and Venti did not forget to set up a formation to conceal their aura.

Jiang Yan was actually quite satisfied with this; it counted as basic operational procedure.

But after that, it was basically a complete mess.

They didn't even use their divine sense, the most important investigative tool for a cultivator, relying entirely on their eyes.

The group looked very serious and vigilant, but in reality, they were full of holes.

They still hadn't shifted their mindset.

They only thought that demonic beasts were visible, or hidden in the grass.

As they moved forward, they were only busy beating the grass to scare the snakes.

This kind of operation would make any cultivator worry.

In the sky, underground, the spiritual fruit itself...

These were all potential danger zones.

They were even beating the grass to scare the snakes on their own, thinking they might draw out hidden demonic beasts in advance.

But why didn't they think about the fact that some demonic beasts are plants themselves!

These demonic beasts are naturally lazy and usually sleep.

Beating the grass to scare the snakes actually woke them up; what kind of situation was that?

Fortunately, this was only the border of the Ten Thousand Demon Mountain Range, and there were no such insidious demonic beasts yet.

There were even no formations or traps around this spiritual fruit.

They were lucky.

However, when it came to formations, Jiang Yan felt a bit worried.

They knew to set up a formation before picking a spiritual fruit, so why didn't they consider whether there were any inherent formations around the fruit?

At a glance, it was full of holes.

Jiang Yan sighed, but considering this was their first time exploring a secret realm, he didn't say anything.

Once they learned their lesson, they would know what to do next time.

The group cautiously crept toward the spiritual fruit, and only when they truly stood before it did they breathe a sigh of relief.

Keqing smiled and looked at the spiritual fruit in front of her, saying:

"Ganyu's luck is still the best. We searched for so long and couldn't find it, but Ganyu saw the spiritual fruit at a glance."

Ganyu pursed her lips and smiled, shaking her head:

"Not at all, I was just following everyone's route."

"But the Sect Master isn't here now, and we don't know what this spiritual fruit is or how to pick it."

After saying this, Ganyu looked at the spiritual fruit in front of her with some worry.

"It looks like the grade should be quite high, at least much higher than Star Spirit Grass."

Ningguang pondered for a moment and looked at Lisa:

"Lisa, didn't your basic alchemy manual mention how to identify spiritual herbs?"

Hearing this, Lisa shrugged.

"It did."

"Then hurry up and identify it."

Keqing urged, and Lisa said helplessly:

"It says that to identify spiritual herbs, you need to go to the Scripture Pavilion to borrow the details of spiritual herbs in the cultivation world."

"..."

The group was silent for a moment, then moved past the topic.

Venti scratched his head and muttered:

"In any case, let's pick it using the method the Sect Master taught us before."

"What if it gets wasted?"

Alice asked back.

Seeing these strange fruits now, she was wondering if they would be like Ginseng Fruit.

"Probably not, right?"

Ganyu said uncertainly:

"The Sect Master said that spiritual herbs requiring special picking techniques are all of quite high grade."

"Although this fruit looks like it's not a low grade, it's only compared to Star Spirit Grass."

"Since it grows on the border of the Ten Thousand Demon Mountain Range and there are no demonic beasts around, it shouldn't be very precious, right?"

"Of course, this is just my intuition, everyone can think about it again."

As soon as she finished speaking, everyone looked at each other and said decisively:

"Then let's pick it like that!"

"Eh?"

Ganyu was a bit dazed.

"Don't you want to consider it more?"

"No need to consider."

Ningguang joked:

"Ganyu, your luck is so good; your intuition is clearly the correct answer."

Everyone nodded in deep agreement.

Ganyu felt a bit shy and didn't say anything more.

Zhongli glanced at Xiao, who walked over cautiously.

Because they didn't know whether to pick just the fruit or the roots beneath it as well.

Simply put, Xiao directly swung his spear and dug out a large patch of soil.

He then wrapped the spiritual fruit in true essence.

After finishing all this, Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, turned back to look at Zhongli, and said softly:

"First Seat, the spiritual fruit has already..."

Before he could finish, a nameless sense of lethality instantly surged into his heart.

Xiao's scalp tingled, but his body was completely unable to move.

"Xiao!"

Zhongli exclaimed, but Venti, standing at his side, instantly flew out his precious sword and struck away the streak of light that was speeding toward them.

Zhongli also reacted, speeding to stand in front of Xiao, and said in a deep voice:

"Back off!"

Xiao reacted and hurriedly retreated behind Zhongli while clutching the spiritual fruit.

The purple streak of light circled around once and landed on a tree branch.

At this moment, everyone finally saw clearly what it was.

It was huge, but hiding in the even taller tree canopy, it was completely invisible.

Its body was pitch black, it had four claws, and the tail feathers on its back were three meters long.

A pair of wings spread out, and purple-black light flickered from time to time.

The wingspan was probably nearly ten meters, making it a genuine behemoth.

The most bizarre thing was that it looked like both a beast and a bird.