Chapter 214: The Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice
Although Jiang Chen was curious, he wasn’t impulsive. He really wanted to charge out of the wall and make it to the side of the chasm to take a good look. But reason told him that unless he had the strength of old tutor Ye and was able to subdue all the spirit creatures, he’d be torn to pieces by all the spirit creatures if he walked out like that.
Although it was quite dreary, he could only wait patiently. After all, these hundreds of spirit creatures obviously hadn’t waited only a day or two.
Although some spirit creatures would occasionally interact, most of them remained solitary.
It was apparent that the world of spirit creatures was different from the world of humans. They rarely formed groups and cliques.
“Damn it, I was here the earliest and I have been here more than twenty friggin’ days. How much longer do I have to wait before it appears?” A spirit creature complained anxiously.
“What’s the point of coming early? The Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice flowers has seven seeds at most. There’s so many of us here now that there’ll definitely be a massacre later.”
“Then we’ll kill each other! Who’s afraid of that?”
“The first one to die will be those in the mid rank spirit realms. I’m a flippin’ advanced rank spirit creature and my battle strength is at least in the top ten. I’m going to get a seed of the Lotus of Fire and Ice no matter what anyone says this time!”
“Ai, that depends on where the seeds appear. If they appear in a bad place, what then?”
“I’ll take it from whoever gets it then!”
“Spare the effort. Everyone’s thinking the same thing, but it’ll still be the strongest spirit creatures who will remain laughing in the end.”
It was a good thing that Jiang Chen understood the beast language and he could comprehend the communication between them, even though such interactions were exceedingly few.
However, he still obtained some useful information from these snippets.
“The Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice?”
Jiang Chen wasn’t unfamiliar with this name. It was precisely because he was familiar with it that he felt very surprised. The maze realm had something like that?
The Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice was an item of incredible existence.
Once spirit power was awakened in it, it’d be saint rank at the very least, and that was only the start. Most Lotuses could reach earth rank or even heaven rank when they matured.
Jiang Chen had even occasionally heard of Lotuses evolving to the divine rank in his previous life.
With Jiang Chen’s knowledge of the maze realm, the strongest spirit creature here was at most of the saint rank. Since even the spirit creatures wouldn’t be stronger than saint rank, something on the level of the Betwitching Lotus of Fire and Ice shouldn’t have appeared here at all. After all, the difference between ranks was simply too great.
“Can it be that there’s another secret in the maze realm?” Jiang Chen guessed as he began to speculate.
He’d been familiar with the Lotus in his past life and he knew that as long as spirit power awakened in the Lotus, it would have the ability to materialize itself.
In addition, the most precious thing about the Lotus wasn’t its seeds.
The most precious thing about it was the spirit of its essence – the Flaming Heart of Ice.
As long as its essence wasn’t destroyed, it wouldn’t be harmed even if the body of the Lotus was destroyed. It’d reborn again after a while.
The Flaming Heart of Ice was usually concealed quite thoroughly within the depths of the earth. The Lotus protected its Heart with utmost care.
This was because the Heart itself was like a baby, without any ability to attack and extremely fragile. Once it was discovered by enemies and attacked, it would have no defensive capabilities whatsoever.
However, the battle capabilities of the Lotus itself were incredibly frightening.
The Lotus was formed by the powers of ice and fire. The horrifying strength formed by such frightening mysteries would rank it at least in the top ten plant spirits in the world.
To think about it for a moment, in all the planes of existence and all the worlds, the attacking power of the Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice could rank in the top ten. This was definitely not an undeserved title.
“I wonder to what level has this Lotus evolved to? If it’s only a spirit rank, it won’t be able to handle all the spirit creatures looking at it coveteously, even with its strong attack power. If it’s at the saint rank, then even though there are a lot of spirit creatures, they may still fall in the end… ”
Jiang Chen mused.
Although he also knew that a seed from the Lotus of Ice and Fire would help him proceed more smoothly and faster on his path in the spirit realm, the Lotus seed was only a spirit fruit of one time use. It’d be gone after taking it and refining it.
Although it could help a spirit realm practitioner breakthrough a bottleneck, it would be nothing after one use.
Therefore, as good as this item was, it wasn’t worth for Jiang Chen to take such a risk and attempt to steal the seed in front of all the spirit creatures. Regardless of whether or not he’d be able to avoid the attacks from the Lotus, the spirit creatures wouldn’t be able to stomach a human stealing food that was near their mouths.
“Although this Lotus is nice, it’s not worth putting my life on the line.” Jiang Chen’s appetite and ambitions were much greater than these spirit creatures.
“With all these spirit creatures hovering, if that Lotus gets distracted and spends all its energies on these spirit creatures, there may actually be an opportunity for me!”
Jiang Chen had his advantages. His knowledge of the Lotus was much greater than the spirit creatures.
The spirit creatures were gunning for the seeds, yet Jiang Chen’s goal was the spirit essence of the Lotus, the Flaming Heart of Ice!
If he could refine the Flaming Heart of Ice and meld it into his spirit ocean, Jiang Chen would receive the arts of the Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice. This kind of encounter was something that countless numbers of Lotus seeds would be unable to match up to.
The seed of the Lotus was just that, a seed.
Yet, the Flaming Heart of Ice was the true distillment of the Lotus’ essence.
“Ole Gold, listen to my commands later.” Jiang Chen told the Goldbiter Rat King.
The Rat King seemed to discern the impulsiveness of taking a risk in Jiang Chen’s slightly crazed eyes. It spoke a bit timidly, “Young master Chen, what do you want to do? You’re not thinking of going out and fighting these spirit creatures?”
JIang Chen chuckled, “Fighting them? That thing is nothing to me. Listen to my commands later on and dig further into the ground.”
“And do what?”
The Rat King was about to say something when Jiang Chen suddenly said lowly, “Don’t speak. Don’t open your mouth, and don’t circulate any spirit power!”
Jiang Chen’s face had suddenly changed and turned extremely grave.
His Psychic’s Head was deployed to the maximum when he suddenly felt an extreme tremor through the surface of the depths of the chasm.
These tremors weren’t typical tremors. It felt like countless numbers of large hands were continuously reaching out of the depths of the chasm.
“It’s the Lotus, it’s starting to emerge from the ground!”
This notion flashed through Jiang Chen’s heart.
Indeed, great changes occurred in the perimeter of the chasm after a while. It was occasionally bone piercingly cold, and at times incredibly hot.
“It’s the two elemental powers of the Lotus intersecting and exerting themselves!”
Jiang Chen also knew that Lotus was born with two elemental attributes, one was extreme cold and the other was extreme heat. These two usually conflicting powers coexisted in perfect harmony in the Lotus. It was precisely because of the combination of these two powers that the Lotus’ attacking abilities were ranked in the top ten amongst all planes of existence.
“Why is it suddenly hot and cold?”
“Yeah, this is really uncanny. Is the Lotus about to emerge?”
“It’s got to be, it’s got to be!”
At this moment — bam!
An enormous bang rocked the chasm, making the earth tremble and walls shake.
Hundreds of vines erupted out of the chasm in the next second. Each vine was as thick as the thighs of the spirit creatures.
The green vines changed at a speed noticeable to the human eye. All sorts of embryonic lotuses began to form on the vines.
The embryonic forms of the lotuses went through a cycle of the four seasons within the span of a breath with extreme speed.
Enormous lotuses had formed on all of the vines after a few breaths. Each of these lotuses were as large as a bull.
These lotuses were either a brilliant, flaming red or an icy, frosty blue.
Each lotus was uncannily beautiful and they exuded a tempting presence.
The lotuses slowly flowered and produced seeds above them.
All of the spirit creatures were green with envy at this point.
“It’s the seed! Get it!”
“Go! Whoever gets to it first gets it!”
All the spirit creatures made their move in that instant, rushing to each of the flowering lotuses with the speed of an arrow. Their goal was only one, and that was the Lotus’ seed.
More than a hundred Lotuses had suddenly appeared. These spirit creatures almost didn’t need to fight amongst each other. Almost each one could obtain one seed.
Jiang Chen used the Psychic’s Head to observe the scene through the wall. He was privately astonished. This scene was too bizarre.
The Lotus had abruptly blossomed so many flowers. It was obvious to see how strong its essence was.
Only a strong spirit essence could give rise to such strong life. Although this Lotus didn’t display power to the point of making one despair, Jiang Chen still felt that something was wrong here. With the Lotus’ character, it wouldn’t allow its seeds to be so easily taken by the spirit creatures.
“What’s going on here? There’s around a hundred spirit creatures here and they can all obtain a seed? This scene is a bit too harmonious, isn’t it?”
Jiang Chen suddenly felt that this scene wasn’t as simple as it appeared.
Indeed. A spirit creature abruptly cried out, “No!”
The spirit creature had landed on top of the lotus as it was enveloped by the enormous lotus. The petals actually acted like a lips, first opening and then closing, swallowing the spirit creature into it.
Jiang Chen was startled, “That’s it! This must be the case. The Lotus is tempting the spirit creatures to it and then trapping them, absorbing their spirit power and catalyzing its own evolution!”
When he understood this, Jiang Chen suddenly felt waves of fear about the Lotus’ intelligence.
He was also quite glad that he hadn’t rushed out like these spirit creatures to fight over the seeds. His fate at this moment would most likely be like these spirit creatures, already having become the spirit creature’s fertilizer?