Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-170

Lu Ping looked at the black mist that returned behind the rock and finally remembered that this was a peculiar species known as the Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes. Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes only lived around the Million Poisons Pulp, and would always remain within a hundred feet radius from it, otherwise it would be difficult for them to survive.

Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes had a peculiar feature, they couldn’t be detected by a cultivator's divine sense. The Mosquitoes had been living beside the Million Poisons Pulp all year long and as a result, they carried strong toxins on their bodies. These toxins would quietly dismantle any divine sense that touched them, making them undetectable.

Furthermore, the mosquitoes were silent during flight, with most cultivators’ aegis energy unable to even stop the penetration of Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes. This applied to even Enlightened Masters.

This should be the reason why this Enlightened Master had fallen here while harvesting the spirit herb.

Now that he knew it was the Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes, things had gotten much easier. The Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes may seem scary to be able to silently kill Enlightened Masters, but once they were exposed, they may not actually be that powerful anymore.

Lu Ping held a jade talisman in his hand and threw a mid-grade spirit stone in the direction of the spirit herb. The spirit stone landed on the stem of the spirit herb, causing the spirit herb to shake. A black mist suddenly rose from behind the rock and swept towards the direction where the spirit stone had fallen.

When the black mist reached the sky above the spirit herb, seven waves of water suddenly gushed out from the jade talisman in Lu Ping's hand. The waves gradually rose to form seven water vortexes, which spun faster and faster, eventually becoming seven gigantic torrents that surged toward the black mist.

This was Enlightened Master Liu Xuan-Ling's Water Tornado talisman treasure which she had forged back when she was in the Seventh Layer Core Forging Realm!

The huge black mist seemed to be attracted to something within it and rushed straight into the water torrents. As time passed, the blue water was gradually stained with dots of black color. When the Water Tornado’s spell effect ended twenty minutes later, the golden soil was covered with a layer of black powder.

The surviving Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes continued to pounce towards Lu Ping, but a red fire rose on his hands. After forming a hand seal, the red fire suddenly transformed into a wave of flames and slowly burned the mosquitoes into ashes.

Lu Ping looked at the red Scarlet Ibis Fire in his hand, its power was far from the Azure Spirit Fire. It took so long to burn this small group of Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes, if it was the Azure Spirit Fire, the mosquitoes would be long gone within a few seconds.

Lu Ping didn’t know why the Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes were guarding these several spirit herbs, but out of caution, he took another piece of mid-grade spirit stone and threw it at the spirit herbs again. After confirming there were no more Blood-Thorn Mosquitoes, only then did he feel confident and bold enough to harvest these nine unknown spirit herbs that were definitely over 3,000 years old.

It had been six hours since Lu Ping entered the core region, he still had another two more hours left. The snake trio were already struggling to resist the poisonous fog, but Lu Ping was still attracted to the Million Poisons Pulp behind the rock.

He cautiously walked around the rock in front of him, and smelt a strange fragrance. Lu Ping immediately got nervous, but after realizing that the fragrance was not poisonous, he calmed down.

Taking another few steps forward, a golden pool that was three feet in circumference, appeared in front of him.

Lu Ping sucked in a breath of cold air, he couldn’t believe that there was actually such a large pool of Million Poisons Pulp. Not only that, but he had never heard of any Million Poisons Pulp that was golden in color.

In the pool, a mass of golden liquid would slowly rise from the pool every so often and evaporate into golden mist. Lu Ping immediately knew this was the source of the Sullied Golden Fog.

The Million Poisons Pulp was a special kind of spiritual pulp that could only be formed under the accumulation of countless kinds of highly poisonous things. Hence, the Million Poisons Pulp was actually a condensation of countless types of ominous energy. These ominous energies were also known as the "Million Poisons Ominous Essence".

The ominous energies weren’t difficult to collect, one just had to gather dozens of poisons, mix them together, and extract the ominous energies out from the mixture.

However, in order to form pure Million Poisons Ominous Essence, thousands of poisons were needed. Furthermore, it would take tens of centuries to condense the Million Poisons Ominous Essence into a small pool of Million Poisons Pulp.

However, such a large pool of Million Poisons Pulp that was purely gold in color like this one here, was unheard of. Perhaps, it could only happen in the Heaven of Seven Stars’ Canyon of Sullied Gold which had the perfect environment and enough time.

Lu Ping wondered how he could take away such a large pool of Million Poisons Pulp. This pure ominous energy was necessary for the cultivation of a certain technique in the [North Ocean Wave Listening Scripture].

Lu Ping placed a Crystal Jade Bottle on the ground and performed the [Water Manipulation Art], controlling a stream of Million Poisons Pulp from the pool and stored it inside.

During the process, Lu Ping's arcane energy was constantly corroded by the Million Poisons Pulp.

He hurriedly increased the flow of his arcane energy, and finally maintained a balance between the flow of his arcane energy and the rate of corrosion from the Million Poisons Pulp.

A moment later, he managed to store the Million Poisons Pulp into the Crystal Jade Bottle. But after one second, the Crystal Jade Bottle vaporized into a cloud of smoke and the Million Poisons Pulp spilled onto the ground, evaporating into a golden fog and dispersing in the air.

Lu Ping looked at the scene helplessly.

For a moment, he thought about cultivating the [Water Sky Curtain] right here to absorb the Million Poisons Pulp. However, the cultivation of a new technique could not be done overnight and required a variety of preparations. He only had two hours which was far from enough.

Lu Ping was at a loss when he suddenly realized the Million Poisons Pulp had many large lapis lazuli. He took a large lapis lazuli in his hands, and observed it carefully using his divine sense. He found that this large lapis lazuli was just an ordinary stone used by mortals to build their houses.

Lu Ping hollowed out the inside of the lapis lazuli to make a lapis lazuli bottle, then used his arcane energy again to carry a ball of Million Poisons Pulp into the lapis lazuli bottle. To his surprise, he found that the Million Poisons Pulp did not corrode the bottle but was slowly turning into golden fog and evaporating.

Lu Ping made a bottle cover with the lapis lazuli and sealed the mouth of the bottle firmly. Then, he made nine more huge lapis lazuli bottles and filled them all with the Million Poisons Pulp. Once he had taken enough for himself to cultivate, he stopped.

Just as Lu Ping was about to leave, a fist-sized cloud of colorless liquid suddenly gushed up from the bottom of the pool. The colorless liquid rolled back and forth above the surface of the Million Poisons Pulp, but didn’t mix with it.

When the colorless liquid appeared, the golden fog in the surroundings was attracted to it and started flowing towards it. At the same time, Lu Ping's divine sense also discovered that the ominous energies in the canyon were flowing towards the colorless liquid.

These ominous energies were the Million Poisons Ominous Essence, but just had a low concentration and were not pure enough.

However, when all the Million Poisons Ominous Essence gathered above the small pool, they formed a golden cloud. Moments later, the golden cloud started raining and golden raindrops dropped into the small pool.

Lu Ping looked carefully and was shocked to find what the golden cloud was raining was actually Million Poisons Pulp.

There were only dozens of raindrops before the golden cloud was exhausted. The pool of Million Poisons Pulp gained roughly half the amount of what Lu Ping had taken in his lapis lazuli bottle.

It seemed that this was the self-generating function of the Million Poisons Pulp, but obviously this process couldn’t be completed within a short time.

However, Lu Ping looked at the colorless liquid and became ecstatic.

Born from a highly poisonous pulp, having a sense of spirituality, and capable of automatically adjusting the amount of Million Poisons Pulp. This colorless liquid was definitely a kind of heaven-and-earth spirit water. Furthermore, this spirit water was hidden in the rare golden Million Poisons Pulp, this meant that its grade would surely be high as well.

Lu Ping slowly cast the [Water Manipulation Art] to move the heaven-and-earth spirit water, but he faintly felt a resistance from the spirit water.

The resistance proved that this was indeed spirit water, making him extremely happy.

He increased his arcane energy, intending to take in all of the spirit water, but found that the spirit water suddenly split into two parts. One part was only one-third of the original size and was controlled by Lu Ping's [Water Manipulation Art].

Lu Ping stored this small ball of spirit water into a lapis lazuli bottle and mixed it with the Million Poisons Pulp inside. He found that the spirit water seemed to be less active when around the Million Poisons Pulp. On the other hand, the Million Poisons Pulp stopped evaporating into golden fog with the spirit water present.

Lu Ping looked at the big boulder that was blocking the small pool of water and thought of an idea. He used the Verdant Dawn Sword to hollow the boulder and poured all ten bottles of Million Poisons Pulp inside.

The small ball of spirit water rolled in the boulder tank and regained some vitality. Lu Ping didn’t have to worry about the Million Poisons Pulp evaporating anymore.

He looked back and found that the larger ball of spirit water had sunk to the bottom of the pool.

Lu Ping also found that the golden fog around had become much thinner, and the corrosion effect on his [Water Sky Curtain] had also weakened.

Lu Ping pondered. It seemed that this heaven-and-earth spirit water and Million Poisons Pulp had a mutually reinforcing relationship.

As the Million Poisons Pulp nourished the heaven-and-earth spirit water, the spirit water helped the Million Poisons Pulp gather Million Poisons Ominous Essence whilst also restraining the Million Poisons Ominous Essence from spreading outside the Canyon of Sullied Gold.

Lu Ping quickly explored the region and found several skeletons all belonging to Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters. Many of the skeletons had been turned over, but these traces had varying lengths of time, and there was no newly turned layer of soil on the ground.

It seemed that there were many cultivators who entered the core region in the past. However, these skeletons had been around for too long. Even if there were mystic treasures and other treasures, they would have long been corroded by the Sullied Golden Fog.

Lu Ping wanted to continue looking for more spirit herbs, but the snake trio had reached their limits and his arcane energy was also depleting, so he had to quickly exit the core region.

As soon as Lu Ping exited the golden region, the snake trio fell into a deep sleep. Lu Ping carefully checked their situation. It turned out that they had exhausted too much of their arcane energy; he estimated that it would take tens of days for them to recover.

This also meant that he wouldn’t be able to enter the core region anymore, unless of course he could use the Million Poisons Pulp to enhance his [Water Sky Curtain]. However, this wasn’t something that could be done easily.

Left with no choice, Lu Ping could only start making his way out of the canyon.

Although the snake trio had lost a lot of vitality, they had absorbed a large amount of Sullied Golden Fog which contained pure Million Poisons Ominous Essence.

Hence, if the snake trio could fully absorb and refine the Million Poisons Ominous Essence, their innate poisons would undoubtedly see a huge enhancement. This trip was definitely beneficial for their future cultivation.

But what exactly was the situation outside of the Canyon of Sullied Gold at this time?