Chapter 68 – War Preparations (5)

After a whole day, Lu Ping finally finished establishing his cave-dwelling. The sun was already setting and the sunlight sprinkled on Huang Li Island like a layer of golden silk.

Lu Ping watched the darkening sky and couldn’t wait for the night to arrive. He was looking forward to making the trip to Emerald Sea Spirit Snake’s lair and looting the wealth within.

How many years has it been since he was this poor? He recalled a long time back when he was still in the early layers of the Blood Refining Realm.

When night finally arrived, a black-robed man was flying a small skiff above the calm sea. It wasn’t windy but the small skiff’s speed was incredibly fast. Like a flash of shadow in the dark night, it was almost impossible to notice.

In Xuan Ling Sect’s territory, the black-robed man met a team of disciples patrolling the nearby seas. Fortunately, this area was remote and considered desolate. If not for the current tense situation, the Xuan Ling Sect disciples most likely wouldn’t even patrol this area.

As they were all in the Blood Refining Realm, the black-robed man easily avoided them.

After traveling a few dozen miles into the sea territory of Xuan Ling Sect, the black-robed man suddenly stopped and hovered above the calm waters. He took out a charm glimmering with faint silver lights and appeared happy, as if his target had been found.

The black-robed man was undoubtedly Lu Ping. In his hands was the parent charm of the Parent-Child Warning Charms. During his first sojourn to the Emerald Sea Spirit Snake’s lair, he’d left a child charm outside as a location beacon.

Lu Ping cast a water-repelling spell on himself and dove straight down into the waters. This time, he was able to easily reach the seabed. Not only was the immense water pressure no longer an issue, but because of his pure water cultivation method, being surrounded by water made him feel like home.

Lu Ping felt he should have been a water fairy, that he was born to live in the water. He’d just been living on land for too long, so he needed some time to adjust himself. However, the natural affection he had towards water was something that could never be erased.

Even when it was pitch-black on the seabed, Lu Ping had no problems at all. By tracking the Warning Charm, he easily found the lair.

Almost a year had passed, and the Emerald Sea Spirit Snake’s carcass was still well-preserved. The domineering aura of its Blood Condensation Realm’s cultivation base, as well as the residual prestige from its noble blood, had prevented the nearby sea creatures from coming close.

Lu Ping was familiar with how to handle the Emerald Sea Spirit Snake’s carcass. In a few moments, he separated its meat, skin, bones, and organs. At the same time, he collected a Third Layer Blood Condensation Realm Condensed Blood Bead from its carcass.

The carcass was initially coiled in front of the entrance of an underwater cave. After Lu Ping handled the body, he made his way towards the now unblocked entrance while vigilantly casting the Flying Swallow Sword in front of him.

The Emerald Sea Spirit Snake’s lair was not randomly chosen. The passage into the underwater cave was incredibly long, and it slanted upwards diagonally. Lu Ping traveled almost half a mile into the passage before he finally saw a faint light at the end.

As he drew closer, Lu Ping grew more cautious. When he arrived, he first exuded his divine sense into the cave to check for safety. Then, he flew out from the passage and entered the cave.

Lu Ping immediately noticed the high-intensity spiritual energy in the air. Feeling overjoyed, he wondered if there was a spirit vein in the cave. He carefully measured the spiritual energy and found that its intensity was almost as high as the mini spirit vein in Sheng Tao’s spirit herb garden.

He looked around and inspected the lair. It seemed to be located on an island in the middle of the sea. It was smaller than Lu Ping’s cave-dwelling, but still big enough for two mature Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes.

The entrance he came through was at the center of the lair. Many plants grew on the sides, including some spirit herbs that could be used to concoct Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets. There were roughly a dozen more spirit herbs but only less than ten were mature and ready to use.

Lu Ping looked around for the spirit vein and eventually found it behind a huge boulder on the northern corner of the lair.

The huge boulder was placed in front of a rock wall. From afar, it looked as though the boulder was part of the rock wall. But when Lu Ping walked closer, he realized there was actually a space behind the huge boulder and the rock wall. He felt the spiritual energy emanating from this space.

Lu Ping squeezed past the boulder and found a hidden hole. At the center was more than a dozen 500-year-old spirit herbs. They were flattened outwards from the center like a nest, with three crystal-white snake eggs glowing with radiant white lights like pearls.

Although these three snake eggs looked glamorous, Lu Ping’s divine sense told him that the life force in the eggs were gradually faltering. Clearly, even with a continuous supply of spiritual energy and nourishment from the spirit herbs, the eggs still couldn’t escape the fate of death.

That is, if Lu Ping hadn’t found them!

Ever since he learned the status of the Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes in the monster race, he’d had his eyes on their lair, even willing to sneak into Xuan Ling Sect’s territory despite the tense situation. The biggest reason for this was because he was hoping to find the Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes’ eggs. And when Lu Ping finally saw them, the excitement in his heart was beyond words.

He carefully held the snake eggs in his hands. Then, he meticulously injected his arcane energy into them according to the method of incubating monster eggs described in [Sheng Tao’s Travelogue]. At once,, he could clearly feel the life force gradually revitalizing inside of the eggs.

After that, Lu Ping harvested the 500-year spirit herbs in the hole and carefully stored them inside jade boxes before sealing the jade boxes with spirit-concealing charms.

Normally, the 500-year-old spirit herbs were necessary to concoct Blood Condensation Realm pellets. Naturally, Lu Ping was careful when harvesting them.

In the process, Lu Ping also found more than a dozen mid-grade spirit stones in the nest. Clearly, they were placed there by the Emerald Sea Spirit Snakes.

In most cases, monsters rarely used interspatial pouches prior to the stage of Core Forging Realm as they couldn’t morph into their humanoid forms by then. They usually stored their wealth in the space inside of their stomachs.

However, these mid-grade spirit stones were specifically left in the nest of snake eggs. Lu Ping could tell just how precious the eggs were to the Emerald Sea Spirit Snake parents. However, he didn’t hesitate to loot the spirit stones for himself either. After all, he was really poor now!

After that, Lu Ping walked around the lair and harvested every spirit herb he could find. In addition to the ones he harvested in the nest, he found a total of twenty-three 500-year-old spirit herbs and more than fifty other spirit herbs that could be used to concoct Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets.

But Lu Ping chose not to harvest those that had yet to grow to maturity. When he got the chance, he planned on migrating the spirit vein to his cave-dwelling on Huang Li Island. By then, he would return to harvest the rest of the spirit herbs.

These spirit herbs were a huge windfall, but since Lu Ping was determined to pick up alchemy, these spirit herbs were destined to be wasted in his hands. He wouldn’t sell them for a single spirit stone.

Other than that, there were a few veins of copper ore scattered around the lair. This was Scarlet Copper, a type of spirit material suitable to forge fire element mystic instruments. The quantity of Scarlet Copper in the lair was barely enough to forge a mid-grade mystic instrument.