Chapter 121: Harvest! Spiritual Object Thorns
Chapter 121: Chapter 121: Harvest! Spiritual Object Thorns
Zhu Ge had been in a constant state of insight.
Thus, he absorbed the unique skills, instincts, and traits of one animal after another.
Yunjiang was enormous, far more vast and boundless than the Yunjiang Zhu Ge had known during his Mortal Era.
This meant it teemed with an unimaginable number of life forms.
Demon Beasts, Wandering Ghosts, wild gods, Spirit Monsters—all of them became Zhu Ge’s teachers.
Of course, the price for teaching Zhu Ge was, naturally, their lives.
The result was that Zhu Ge was, in fact, fusing all the martial techniques he had learned himself.
What he didn’t know was that his ability to do this was a rarity throughout all of Yunjiang, and even the entire Da Sheng Dynasty.
This was thanks to his past life in an era of information overload, which was what gave him such a perspective.
In contrast, most people in the Da Sheng Dynasty were likely similar to Venerable Rain Swift, the creator of the Xu Family Rain Swift Fist, who forged a Martial Arts Heart after drawing inspiration from just one or two things.
They didn’t consider whether it was powerful or even suitable for them.
For most people, just breaking through to the Second Realm was already a considerable feat.
Take Yu the Scholar, for instance.
Yu the Scholar had lived in the isolated Jianshan Village, his entire perception of the world limited to Red River Prefecture, or perhaps even just Yuan Yang City.
For him, just breaking through to the Second Realm to become a "Scholar" of the Confucian Dao was already an immense struggle.
After all, the village’s previous protector had only been a "Scholar" of that rank, and he had been enough to protect Jianshan Village for decades.
Now, however, Zhu Ge’s perspective guaranteed he would inevitably become stronger than most people.
But it also meant his path to the Second Realm would be far more arduous and perilous.
But he was not afraid. He had survived the Fungus God and the Raincoat Fisherman. He had experienced the unwavering defiance of the Kunpeng, the profound foresight of the Spider, and even the very "existence" of the earth cicada.
All of this had taught him to no longer fear the path forward, even if it was paved with thorns.
"BAM!!!"
As this thought crossed his mind, Zhu Ge struck down the Second Realm tiger before him.
He then deftly tore out its tendons, stripped its hide, removed its bones, and devoured its soul.
Then, his gaze fell upon a thicket of thorns.
Behind the thicket, a fruit glowed with a dark-green halo. It hung from a tiny tree, which was strained taut like a fishing line, struggling to bear the weight.
This was a low-grade Spirit Level fruit, and it had been guarded by the Second Realm tiger.
However, the thorns clearly looked poisonous. Only a fool would try to touch them.
Zhu Ge prepared to simply walk around the thorns and pick the fruit with the dark-green halo.
Zhu Ge wanted this fruit, regardless of whether it was actually Spirit Level.
According to the legacy he had inherited from the old man, this fruit, when crushed and stewed with chicken and certain poisonous insects, could enhance one’s physical strength.
Furthermore, this fruit was cultivable. It was one of the most common fruits in Yunjiang, known as Sour Papaya.
Normally, Sour Papaya was just a common ingredient used with poisonous insects and chicken to create a sort of medicinal stew that was beneficial to the body.
But what Zhu Ge held now was a Spirit Level Sour Papaya.
If he paired it with a few Spirit Level poisonous insects and a chicken that was also a Demon Beast, the effects would be absolutely incredible.
"PLUCK."
As the fruit was plucked, the tiny, taut trunk rapidly withered, turning to dust in seconds.
Zhu Ge paid it no mind, already planning to head back and prepare his Sour Papaya chicken stew.
"Husband, these thorns are also low-grade Spirit Level plants." Just then, Hua Liusha’s roiling red mist emerged from the tiger’s corpse and flowed back into Zhu Ge’s mind.
He generally left the souls of Demon Beasts for Hua Liusha to devour.
"Low-grade Spirit Level?"
Hearing Hua Liusha’s words, Zhu Ge’s eyes lit up, and he immediately turned his gaze back to the thicket.
He had been too far away before and hadn’t noticed the thorns’ aura at all.
Now, hearing what Hua Liusha said, he immediately moved closer.
The clump of thorns was about the size of a sofa. A faint purple tint was visible on the tip of each thorn, a clear sign of poison.
Logically, with his body tempered by the Great Sun Glaze Body, his skin wouldn’t even be broken if he walked right through them.
But the thought of wading into them had never occurred to him.
Who knew the thorns possessed some kind of aura-concealing property, which was why Zhu Ge hadn’t realized they were Spiritual Objects even when standing right in front of them.
’What more is there to say?’
Zhu Ge got straight to work, uprooting the entire thicket.
His flesh, indeed, was not pierced by the thorns.
But that was only because he was special. Any other Demon Beast that touched them would likely die.
The faint outlines of bones in the soil beneath the thicket were proof enough of that.
Zhu Ge planned to take all these thorns back and plant them around his valley.
Then, should any uninvited guests trespass, they could have a taste of the thorns’ excruciating pain.
"Huh? It’s all a single plant?"
As he continued to pull, Zhu Ge discovered that all the thorns were connected.
Although it appeared to have many root systems, the thorns growing from them had fused into a single entity. All the branches were interconnected, like a banyan tree.
That didn’t stop him, though. Zhu Ge uprooted the entire thing and then stroked his chin, studying the patch of earth before him.
"Liusha, do you think... could this be Spirit Soil?"
Zhu Ge stared at the soil, a thoughtful expression in his eyes.
’It’s one thing for an ordinary Sour Papaya to become a Spirit Level one,’ he thought, ’but for the thorns next to it to become Spirit Plants as well...’
’There has to be something special here!’
After all, normal Spirit Plants required a massive amount of Spiritual Qi to grow.
This was why there were rarely many competitors growing near a Spiritual Object.
For example, the three mulberry trees in his valley had been unable to grow large in their cramped space.
"Spirit Soil?"
Hua Liusha was also curious. "Brother, are you saying this soil is most likely Spirit Soil?"
"Even if it’s not Spirit Soil, there has to be something else special here," Zhu Ge said, narrowing his eyes.
’There’s a high probability it’s Spirit Soil. A smaller probability that there’s something else here. And a minuscule probability that it’s because of that Second Realm tiger from just now—its waste acting as fertilizer or something.’
But Second Realm tigers were a dime a dozen, and the one they had just killed was nothing special. Its innate ability was just a tiger’s roar.
’So, the most likely explanation is that there’s something special about this land!’
Since there was a possibility, and no apparent danger, Zhu Ge was naturally going to start digging on the spot.
No sooner said than done!
Zhu Ge and Hua Liusha got to work.
Zhu Ge dug quickly, casually pulling out the thigh bone of a Second Realm Demon Beast to use as a shovel.
Hua Liusha, meanwhile, transformed directly into red mist and seeped into the earth.
A moment later, the red mist rose back out of the soil.
"Find anything?" Zhu Ge asked.
"Brother, I can’t sense anything unusual," Hua Liusha replied.
’Can’t sense anything?’
Zhu Ge nodded and kept digging.
He planned to dig three feet deep, pack all the soil into his Grass Bowl, and take it back. He could set up a control group and run some experiments to see if the soil was useful.
’Better to be safe than sorry!’
"SCRAPE!"
"SCRAPE!"
Zhu Ge dug one shovelful after another. With his strength and stamina, he had soon excavated a large volume of earth.
Just then, however, Zhu Ge suddenly felt something was off.
’This feeling... could it be...?’