บท 8: The Spider King Plant
บรรณาธิการ: Hitesh_
Looking at the two Poison Sawed Tooth Tiger's corpses on the ground, Liu Tao took a deep breath, "One last demonic beast to go, hopefully everything will go well."
Ye Chen relaxedly replied, "No worries, everything will be alright."
In the battles before, the red clothed girl Tao Qing did not contribute much because Ye Chen was just way too dominating with his sword. With an over eager face, she asked, "What kind of sword arts are you training in and how did you train your sword arts? Could you perhaps teach me?"
Liu Tao frowned because of his junior sister Tao's forthrightness, and said immediately: "Don't be ridiculous Sister Tao, how could sword arts be taught?" In the various kingdoms, manuals and skills were very strictly regulated, even teachers would not teach everything to the disciples, not to mention two strangers who just met.
However, they did not expect Ye Chen's answer. "Actually, there really isn't much to teach. If you practice the basic sword movements a hundred times a day, you will see the same improvements I had in a month."
"Really?" Tao Qing didn't believe him.
Ye Chen gave her a smile, and did not explain.
In the cave, the Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tiger was shockingly huge, even the size of its head was as big as a water tank. Its huge bright eyes locked onto the intruders with a bloody murderous intent.
"Begin!" The blue robed Liu Tao ran in, throwing four palm movements towards the monster. Palm lights as bright as the snow quickly followed. These beams of force light convulsed midair as they poured irresistibly out like ocean water, and landed on the beast's body. The monster grunted with pain from Liu Tao's attack. The beast snorted in anger at being forced to retreat, as it suddenly belched out of its mouth a large cloud of purple poisonous smoke sparking with flames.
Liu Tao's eyes widened as he was caught off guard, immediately accumulating all the Qi in his body into his hands. Slowly, a black screen of light condensed in front of his hands. The purple poisonous smoke roiled and exploded once it came into contact with the black light. Liu Tao grunted as he was pushed back by the concussive force of the explosion, his hands starting to get numb. Seeing this, the rest of the group stood stock still frightened, before turning to run out as quickly as they could.
At that moment, Ye Chen jumped out, his great steel sword already in mid swing towards the monster's still open mouth. The tip of his sword slowly cut open the monster's head as easy as cutting a piece of tofu.
The monster never expected such a sharp sword. As it suddenly realized the danger, it tried to retreat quickly but it was too late. Its head tilted, without any breath left.
"It died?" When Liu Tao saw that Ye Chen didn't follow the plan of stopping its movement by attacking its leg, he thought Ye Chen must have forgotten about it. But he truly did not expect that with just one sword movement, Ye Chen would have slain the monster. How ridiculous was Ye Chen!
After shaking the blood off the sword, Ye Chen slowly sheathed his sword and said: "Thank you. When the monster ejected that poisonous cloud, it delayed for a second, and in addition, it had a huge inherent flaw. In its mouth, there is a place the size of a cup lid which connects directly to the brain that could be easily pierced."
The rest of the group had already come back after seeing the death of the giant demonic beast. The twin brother Ye Wu was impressed, "That really is quite amazing that you could find the deadly flaw after killing just two Poisonous Sawed Tooth monsters."
Ye Chen replied, "A swordsman must be able to find the flaws in the enemy."
"Haha... well, it doesn't matter, we have killed all of the Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tigers now." Tao Qing chuckled.
After harvesting the demonic beast, they began to explore the cave. The cave itself was not that deep, only measuring about thirty meters. With a torch in his hand, Liu Tao gasped at what he saw, "It is not Poison Heart Plant, it is a Spider King Plant!"
"What? The Spider King plant? Brother Liu, are you sure about this?" Yang Wen turned in surprise.
Liu Tao confirmed: "The Poison Heart plant is supposed to be a deep purple color like an orchid. But the Spider King plant is black, the tip of each leaf like a leg of a poisonous spider. I am sure!"
After hearing Liu Tao, even Ye Chen who was usually quite calm couldn't help his heartbeat quicken. Although the Poison Heart plant was very valuable and was quite helpful for some poison artists with their trainings as a rare medicinal ingredient, it could only be sold for about two to three thousand silvers. In comparison, the Spider King plant was much more rare, mere Mortal Realm practitioners like them would not usually be able to see such a plant. Not only was it a crucial ingredient to many miracle medicines or extremely beneficial to poison art training. But most importantly, there was a poison art movement called "Thousand Spiders Palm" which required the Spider King plant in order to master it. If any poison artists knew they had it, they wouldn't hesitate to hand over at least ten thousand silvers, and of course, they were more likely to kill for it.
Tao Qing said: "Brother Liu, it is too dark here, I cannot see anything."
"Right, let's go outside."
Liu Tao carefully dug out the Spider King plant and walked out of the cave.
In the brighter environment, the group finally saw the Spider King plant for the first time.
The plant was about seven inches tall, with seven leaves in total, its stalk was ink black and faintly reflected the light. On the tip of the plant, there was something which looked like a black spider sitting in wait there. If you just took a glance at it, you would not be able to tell if it was alive or not.
"This is the Spider King Plant? It's so creepy!" The twin brothers commented.
Liu Tao seemed to remember something, "When I joined the Hall of Golden Light, I was lucky to witness the eldest master receive a Spider King Plant just like this one. I never expected that I would hold one myself one day."
Wang Haichuan stared at the plant and licked his lips, said: "One Spider King plant could sell for at least ten thousand silvers, split between the six of us is one thousand six hundred and sixty-six silvers each which is more than half of my yearly income."
The statement shook Liu Tao out of his reverie as he turned and said to Ye Chen: "Brother Ye, we are in different martial schools, and it may be quite difficult to contact you, not to mention it would take a while to sell the materials from the poisonous saw tooth tiger and the plant. How about I just give you your share of the money now?"
Ye Chen was actually not interested in the Spider King plant and readily agreed with Liu Tao's idea.
"Great, those two normal Poisonous Sawed Tooth Tigers are valued about two thousand silvers, that huge one would value one thousand and five hundred silvers, plus another ten thousand silvers for the Spider King Plant, all equaling thirteen thousand five hundred silvers. After splitting between the six of us, it would be two thousand two hundred and fifty silvers which is two hundred and twenty five gold. Here is a one hundred gold note and a ten gold note for you. Brother Wang, Brother Yang and Sister Yao, you guys get the rest of the money for Brother Ye now."
The rest of the group spent a lot of effort, but they were still short of fifty gold, hence had to use some of the body parts from the monsters instead.
Putting away all the money and the materials, Ye Chen suddenly heard something, and whispered: "We have company."
Putting away the jade box which contained the Spider King plant, Liu Tao yelled: "I am Liu Tao, disciple of the Hall of Golden Light. Reveal yourselves please."
"Haha, the Hall of Golden Light, that small infamous institution?" There were noises coming from the bushes, as a bunch of muscular men came out of the forest. The leader looked very ugly with a small half of his scalp missing, resulting in an extremely horrifying sight.
"Bullshit!" Wang Haichuan was mad.
The ugly man suddenly looked even more scary, full of murderous vibe.
Liu Tao knew they didn't come in peace, they were probably a group of wanted criminals, and his face didn't look so good at this moment, "How could we help you?"
"Haha, we are a bit tight with money lately, it would be nice if you guys would show us some respect, if you know what I mean."
Liu Tao frowned, "we don't have much money on us, but we could give you the demonic beast body, which should be worth a few thousand silvers!" He couldn't be sure about their cultivation levels, but if he was right, they would be at least Mortal Realm Rank 10. If they were to fight, besides him, no one would survive, not even Ye Chen.
The ugly man was furious, "Are you deaf or blind? Do we look like beggars? A few thousand silvers!? Leave the Spider King plant and get out of here now before I change my mind! Oh right, and that little girl too, I need something to relieve my anger."
The men started to laugh.
Tao Qing turned pale, her teeth biting the lower lips.
Liu Tao tried to retrain his anger: "Good sir, you must be joking, right?"
"Good Sir? Do I look like I am joking? I am counting to ten, if you don't do what I ask, then don't blame me for what happens next." The ugly man grabbed the sword on his back.
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