Chapter 184: Mysterious Herb
Yi Yun gripped the Thousand Army Saber tightly. With all of his energy surging throughout his body, he was like a cheetah poised to strike any moment.
Yi Yun’s surroundings had changed! The cliff that was originally there had disappeared and it was replaced with a cemetery!
There were tombstones after tombstones. These ancient and crumbling tombstones were similar to the scene that greeted Yi Yun when he first came into this world.
How did this happen?
Ever since coming to this world, Yi Yun had seen the terrifying strength of experts, the grand divine cities and all sorts of weird plants and beasts.
Many things had challenged Yi Yun’s knowledge, opening up his imagination.
But no matter how much his imagination had been opened, Yi Yun had never seen such a strange event. This was his first time!
One second he was at the top of a cliff, the next second he was here. Did he encounter a space-time tunnel?
Suddenly, the graves in front of Yi Yun broke open. Corpses began crawling out of the graves.
These corpses all wore tattered clothes and their eyes were dull. They gave off a feeling of death.
Yi Yun felt his scalp tingle. This sort of thing had exceeded his knowledge!
Upon seeing Yi Yun, the corpses’ eyes started glowing red. It was as if Yi Yun’s body attracted them.
They roared and charged towards Yi Yun!
Yi Yun’s blood was surging. Feeling a burst of energy within his body, he decided to ignore the strange encounter and begin killing whatever faced him!
“Cha!”
The Thousand Army Saber slashed forwards and the seven foot long blade traveled through the air. The three corpses in front of Yi Yun were all split into two!
Metal was like tofu when facing the Thousand Army Saber, what was rotting flesh compared to metal?
Yi Yun charged forward. He began swinging the Thousand Army Saber in all directions. Any simple slash could even split a horse apart; hence, every slash cut down three or four corpses!
The sharp blade moved without restraint and corpse after corpse was swept away, sending black blood splattering everywhere.
This feeling was not much different than cutting a watermelon!
But, even more corpses started to appear from the graves. About 4-5 corpses emerged from each tombstone. Sometimes, even more than ten.
These corpses seemed to be unending no matter how many he killed.
Yi Yun’s saber was already covered in blood and rotting flesh. His blade turned extremely greasy, but there seemed to be no end to this slaughter.
Wait…
Suddenly, an idea flashed in Yi Yun’s mind. The chaotic environment seemed to suddenly quieten down.
Time became oddly slow, and Yi Yun’s mind turned clear.
From the herb-picking on the cliff to this graveyard, then meeting this endless outpour of corpses, he had to constantly kill.
All these changes were very strange.
This abnormal matter must be due to a demon!
Yi Yun shivered. He looked at his surroundings. While the corpses charged towards him relentlessly, upon closer inspection, those corpses…
Strangely, Yi Yun felt a sense of deja vu.
These corpses… looked familiar?
“Puah!”
A rotting corpse swiped at Yi Yun, but Yi Yun helplessly watched. He did not draw out his saber nor did he avoid it…
This swipe went through Yi Yun’s body!
Pain!
Extreme pain.
But Yi Yun seemed bewitched. He just stood there regardless of his chest being pulled apart by the corpses. Instead, he closed his eyes.
His spiritual energy interfaced with the Purple Crystal and when Yi Yun opened his eyes again, his vision turned white.
When all he could see was energy, there were no illusions, only the truth!
The corpses had all disappeared. In fact, they never existed!
All of that was just an illusion.
Why did it seem familiar? That was because in Yi Yun’s past life, he had seen such rotting corpses crawl out from graves, attacking the main character of a movie he saw.
This graveyard scene was a common troupe.
This memory had been resurfaced from within Yi Yun’s mind, turning it into an illusion that attacked Yi Yun!
Hence, it was because Yi Yun was seeing something from his memories that made it look so familiar.
But, why did this happen?
Who created all these illusions?
The Tai Ah Divine City’s herb mountain would seal the entrance once a cultivator entered, preventing others from entering.
Then… was it caused by the Blood Yang Flower?
No, it can’t be. In the ‘Divine wilderness’ book, there were detailed descriptions of the Blood Yang Flower, and it did not have such an ability.
The Blood Yang Flower’s ability was to grow out its leaves to absorb the Yang Qi when it was safe. When danger approached, they would pull back their leaves and hide themselves.
This was a very simple ability, and probably was not even called an ability. Spiritual herbs were inferior to desolate beasts. Those beast general or beast king-ranked desolate beasts could easily destroy a tribe, and a primordial species beast could even destroy a city.
But a spiritual herb was not as dangerous.
Even the highest ranked spiritual herbs were helpless after having been picked. Their fate was to be thrown into an elixir furnace.
The problem was that picking high ranked spiritual herbs was not an easy feat!
If it was not the Blood Yang Flower that caused the illusions, then what was it?
Yi Yun pushed his spiritual energy to its maximum and the vision from the Purple Crystal turned clearer!
Without all the distractions present, Yi Yun finally saw it. In his energy vision, he could see two energy blobs.
One was bigger and it was the size of a wash basin. It was blood-red in color and it seemed to burn like a flame. The energy belonged to the Blood Yang Flower!
Previously, when Yi Yun was about to pluck the Blood Yang Flower, just before he touched it, he had suddenly be transported to the graveyard, where he met the endless stream of corpses.
And not far from the Blood Yang Flower, there was a tiny energy light that shocked Yi Yun.
That energy blob was like a rod, it was about a foot long and as thick as a wrist.
Its energy was extremely obscure. Compared to the Blood Yang Flower, it was much dimmer, but this dim energy light made Yi Yun jump!
The pureness of the energy within it was beyond Yi Yun’s imagination!
Only the energy that Yi Yun drew out from the chimera in the Wilderness Divine Hall was comparable to it.
What is this?
Similar in pureness to a primordial essence, could it be…
A thought suddenly flashed through Yi Yun’s mind. This thought made his heart race and his breaths shorten.
Could it be a primordial herb?
Above the Heaven-ranked herbs, there were primordial herbs, immortal herbs, primal herbs and other different strains of divine medicine.
These precious herbs would even make a human sage covet them!
In the Tai Ah Divine City, the Divine City’s Elders will occasionally leave the Tai Ah Divine City to search for herbs in the herb mountain. At their level, Heaven, Earth, Mystic, Yellow-ranked herbs were all useless. Naturally, they only searched for primordial herbs!
Primordial herbs were difficult to pick. But for the Divine City’s Elders, with their cultivation level and methods, as long as they found a primordial herb, they would definitely be able to get it.
The crux of the issue is… they couldn’t find any!
Even in the Tai Ah Divine City herb mountain, there were too few primordial herbs. They may find one with luck, but not by searching for it!
And the important point is, primordial herbs had a spirit within them. Their ways were to hide themselves and confuse the enemy. So someone might not even know it was one when they passed by it!
Human sages had keen senses. Even people with absolute talent at sensing, like Zhong Yi, could not compare to human sages.
The problem was, when a human sage entered a herb mountain, the primordial herb would hide far away, preventing the human sage from finding or picking it.
And it is this reason that made it difficult for a human sage to pick a primordial herb!
Different ideas flashed within Yi Yun’s mind as his heart raced!
Calm down! I need to calm down!
Yi Yun told himself that. He knew that he was faced with a great opportunity.
If he could pick that herb, there would be great benefits awaiting him!
But picking that herb was easier said than done!
Yi Yun’s cultivation was too weak. A human sage may easily pick such treasured herbs, but it will be extremely difficult for him!
However, having a low cultivation level had its benefits!
Since the primordial herb had a spirit, it probably had a certain amount of intelligence and could tell the strength of a herb-picker.
It was because he was weak, that it did not take Yi Yun seriously, daring to appear in front of Yi Yun and even using its magic to confuse and tease Yi Yun.
If Yi Yun was a human sage, it would have moved far away. Trying to use this magic on a human sage was courting death.
By taking him lightly, it gave Yi Yun his greatest advantage!
Of course, the primordial herb did not know that Yi Yun could use the Purple Crystal to accurately pinpoint its location.
“What should I do?” Yi Yun racked his brains.
He did not look at the primordial herb anymore. Since it had formed a spirit, if he were to keep looking at it, it would realize that and be on the alert.
“I shall pretend I can’t find its location and I will give the matter further thought!”
With this decision, Yi Yun pretended to be within the illusion, and dazed around, unable to distinguish North from South.
At the same time, Yi Yun maintained the energy vision. At the corner of his eye, he was secretly observing the primordial herb.
Yi Yun realized that the primordial herb was nearby swaying around, as if it was watching a good show.
This rascal!
How could Yi Yun feel good being teased by a herb?
Oh?
Yi Yun suddenly realized that the Blood Yang Flower had quietly shifted its position into a very secluded mountain corner. It had tunneled much deeper into the ground this time round.
It suddenly dawned on Yi Yun. The primordial herb had used the illusion to confuse him, to prevent him from stealing the Blood Yang Flower.
The moment he wanted to pluck the Blood Yang Flower, the primordial herb appeared. It was obviously not a coincidence.
Maybe it was protecting the Blood Yang Flower. Or it could even be that the primordial had accidentally found this Blood Yang Flower and it was planning to nurture the fruit before absorbing it.
Some primordial herbs would nurture high-ranked herbs before stealing their energy essence to aid their own growth!
This was similar to some primordial beasts who protect a spiritual plant for thousands of years. When the spiritual plant blossomed, the primordial beast would swallow it.
Yi Yun suspected that this was the situation with the primordial herb!