Chapter 642: Harvest (Part 2)

As soon as they entered the medicinal garden gate, Chuhe True Person's voice sounded: "Eh? This scent, it's like Ghost-Glow Grass, but something is not quite right! Hurry and take a look!"

Little Wei Yuan remained calm, first surveying the surrounding environment.

The medicinal garden was not large but was extremely exquisite. The land within the garden was neatly divided into nine sections, each about several dozen acres in size.

Each section was planted with a medicinal herb shaped like rice, its grains resembling pearls and emitting a soft light. The growth progress of the herbs in each section varied, clearly indicating a rotational harvest.

The central section had the most concentrated nether energy, causing black mist to rise continuously from the ground. This medicinal field was about several dozen acres in size, with only one herb planted per acre.

These several dozen herbs were already a foot tall, with thick stalks like small trees. The fruits they bore were the size of bowls, and the nether light they emitted illuminated the surroundings, dreamlike and illusory.

Wu Li said with a touch of pride, "Everything planted in this medicinal garden is Ghost-Glow Grass. This grass condenses the essence of the Nether Cold Realm and is truly a rare and supreme Yin treasure herb. The eight surrounding sections are harvested in rotation, one every twenty years.

The central section was planted when the garden was first opened, over four hundred years ago. This place was built on the spring eye of the Nether Spring, and with a great array gathering energy, the growth speed is seven times that of the outside world. Therefore, these several dozen Ghost-Glow Grasses all have nearly three thousand years of fire-refining!"

Chuhe True Person immediately said, "This grass has an affinity with me!"

Sun Yu chimed in, "Reading by the light of midnight, this grass is perfect for a lamp!"

Xu Henshui also refused to yield: "It looks very similar to my Dharma Form!"

Little Wei Yuan spent a great deal of effort to appease the uncles, promising two stalks to each, and specifically promising ten stalks to Chuhe True Person.

Chuhe True Person did not want the herbs for his own use, but to raise them. As long as a spiritual herb was cared for long enough, it would appear in Chuhe True Person's Mind-Reflection World, adding spirituality to the old Daoist.

Wu Li naturally did not know that the cultivators inside the umbrella had already divided up these thousand-year spiritual plants, and he led Little Wei Yuan to the other medicinal gardens. The herbs planted in those gardens were diverse, with varying quality, but each had a few thousand-year spiritual herbs.

After visiting the medicinal gardens, Little Wei Yuan asked, "Since your master had made arrangements long ago, why didn't he take these spiritual herbs with him?"

Wu Li replied, "Transplanting is no different from cutting them off. The master had been with these herbs for hundreds of years and couldn't bear to see them damaged, so he left them all here to let fate decide."

"What level does that medicinal garden with seven times the growth speed rank in the Nether Realm?"

Wu Li said, "The master was always quite proud of it and often mentioned it with a smile; I imagine it must be quite good."

Little Wei Yuan nodded, his expression calm, without making much of a comment.

After seeing the medicinal gardens, the group headed to the storehouse. Most of the space in the storehouse was empty, leaving only materials of low value that were bulky and heavy. The valuable items in the storehouse had already been taken by Shu Li, leaving only the materials still growing in the cultivation rooms and medicinal gardens.

The final stop was the Scripture Hall.

This was where Shu Li stored and collected various scriptures and classics, quite large in scale. Little Wei Yuan entered and saw that most of the books on the shelves were still there, with only the bookshelves in the innermost cultivation area having been emptied.

The bookshelves here were exceptionally tall, each row having four tiers, each tier five feet high. Most of the books placed on them were made of animal skin or bone, the large ones being four feet tall and the small ones over two feet. Little Wei Yuan walked among them, feeling as small as a kitten.

As Little Wei Yuan passed a bookshelf, one, two, three, four, or even five or six Dharma Form warriors suddenly appeared behind him. By the time Little Wei Yuan rounded the bookshelf, dozens of Dharma Form warriors were standing behind him.

They each stood before a row of bookshelves, picking up books to study earnestly.

Shu Li had collected classics for hundreds of years, and among them were surely many useful pieces of knowledge. Little Wei Yuan planned to store them all in the Human World's Fireworks first and organize and analyze them slowly later.

It was just that the materials for Shu Li's own lineage of cultivation were already gone; he had taken all those classics away some time ago and sent them to the real world.

Little Wei Yuan suddenly saw a book still lying on the desk, opened to a certain page, looking as if it had just been read. Little Wei Yuan sat down at the desk; the chair was exceptionally large, enough for three Wei Yuans to sit side-by-side; clearly, this was where Shu Li sat daily.

However, sitting in Shu Li's chair, Little Wei Yuan's head was just level with the desk, making it impossible to read. Little Wei Yuan sat motionless, and a pale red sword energy flashed, cutting off the four legs of the desk. The table instantly lowered by two feet, just right for Little Wei Yuan to see the book.

But the book on the desk was three feet tall and one and a half feet wide, still very inconvenient to flip through.

Little Wei Yuan sat motionless, and the book stood up before him on its own, flipping open the cover by itself.

Wu Li stood to the side, his attitude becoming increasingly cautious. This new master seemed difficult to deal with.

The cover of this book was made of the skin of an unknown spiritual beast, half an inch thick, feeling cool to the touch and very comfortable. The pages inside were nearly transparent, made of an extremely strange material, and one could even see some veins and fibers.

Little Wei Yuan felt the material of the pages was very familiar. After a moment of thought, he recalled its origin: it was refined from the wings of magic flies.

As Little Wei Yuan's spiritual sense probed in, an image of a magic fly appeared on the page, and then it flew out of the page, circling and flying above.

Large swaths of Shaman text appeared on the page: Magic Fly. This creature did not originally exist in this realm; it was born after the Qi of the Heavenly Abyss eroded this realm and is not a sentient being. This creature likes to live in groups and feeds on nether energy and spiritual energy; wherever it passes, all things perish.

The wings of this creature can be removed and refined into various magic objects, best for making books, which can be preserved for a thousand years without rotting. The abdomen is full of toxins, which can be used to refine poison. The mandibles are extremely hard and can crush metal and stone; after polishing, they can be made into heavy arrowheads. The legs are useless, but if enough are collected, they can be refined into shell magic treasures to avoid fly plagues.

After the magic fly, there was a magic creature shaped like a centipede. The book also detailed its origin and focused on the uses of its various body parts.

Little Wei Yuan watched quietly, and before he knew it, an hour had passed. The book recorded all kinds of monsters and demons in the Nether Cold Realm, and most recorded their uses.

(End of chapter)

The cultivators of the Profound Heaven Sect also probed with their spiritual sense from the umbrella, each watching with rapt attention.

Finally, flipping to the last page, Little Wei Yuan was still somewhat unsatisfied. Through this book, he had a deeper understanding of the Nether Cold Realm and also learned the difference between monsters and demons.

According to the classification in this book, monsters are living beings naturally produced in the Nether Cold Realm. Not only the Nether Cold Realm is like this, but the Wild Realm and Wind Realm are also the same. Demons are formed by the infiltration of Qi from the Heavenly Abyss eroding the realm.

Demons are strange and varied, have no ability to reproduce, and mostly like to devour and destroy, making them impossible to communicate with. The author of this book believes that many demons are like puppets that can act on their own and cannot be considered living beings at all, but there are many similarities between them and living beings when it comes to refining.

Heavenly Abyss?

Little Wei Yuan searched his memory and felt he had never heard of such a place. But judging from the description in the book, it seemed to be an extremely terrifying world, where just the infiltration of Qi could give birth to terrifying magic creatures like magic flies that could cause natural disasters.

After finishing the book, Little Wei Yuan felt inexplicably heavy-hearted, with an indescribable sense of oppression. Clearly, Shu Li had intentionally left this book here for him to read.

Recalling Shu Li's well-made arrangements, Little Wei Yuan felt increasingly strange. He turned to Wu Li and asked, "Does your master have any other words for you to pass on to me?"

Wu Li said, "The master said that you still have many hidden means, and with his current strength, he definitely cannot stop you, so it is better to hand everything here over to you."

Little Wei Yuan's unease grew stronger.

At this moment, a layer of cyan light emerged, crossing Little Wei Yuan and Wu Li, continuing to spread into the distance. This was the newly born realm, which had already expanded to this place, covering the great hall and replacing Shu Li's state.

The state's spiritual pivot began to dissipate, and the state power in all places gradually regressed into primitive nether energy, returning to the Nether Realm.

Wu Li suddenly shivered, his eyes and complexion changing slightly, and he said to Little Wei Yuan, "The master's state has been destroyed, and the restriction he placed on me has also disappeared. I just remembered that there is one extremely important place I haven't taken you to see yet. It is very, very... important."

For some reason, Little Wei Yuan suddenly felt that Wu Li's smile was filled with strangeness and distortion.

But Little Wei Yuan remained calm on the surface and said indifferently, "What place? Let's hear it."

"The Heavenly Abyss."

(End of chapter)