Chapter 778 - 699: Reaching the Peak 98
Fortunately, no second group of adventurers discovered this sizeable red thorn forest, so everyone could take their time digging. It’s well known that it’s not good if two teams of adventurers encounter each other in a thorn forest. There are only so many blood sandstones in one thorn forest; monopolizing them is definitely better than sharing.
Often, when a thorn forest is found, if two adventurer teams discover it together, it invariably leads to a fierce battle. Since the Blood Mist Desert is a lawless area, such battles often become life-and-death struggles.
The group including Shuangshuang had all come straight from the battlefield and were definitely not afraid to kill. However, having experienced war with the Demon Clan, they truly didn’t want to engage in internecine conflict with fellow humans.
They had just come from a battlefield where they protected all humans and living beings and were genuinely unwilling to kill the humans they had protected not so long ago. The absence of another adventurer team was indeed the best scenario.
After discovering a thorn forest, whether you can harvest blood sandstones is still a matter of luck. If no other adventurers have excavated the red thorn forest, naturally, the harvest would be substantial. But if an adventurer team had previously dug it up, one might well return empty-handed. At best, with luck, one might find a few stones left behind by the previous diggers.
Because the red thorns have a very strong life force, even if they were uprooted the day before, they would soon re-root within two days. Therefore, even if a red thorn forest is found, it’s impossible to confirm if it’s been excavated before.
Luckily, after digging for a while, Shuangshuang sensed several blood sandstones below. Thousand Silk Entanglement swept into the sand and effortlessly extracted four or five blood sandstones each the size of a fingertip.
Finding blood sandstones without digging deeply proved that there were many blood sandstones below, untouched by others. Having entered the Blood Mist Desert for over half a year, they never expected to find blood sandstones yet ended up discovering such a treasure. It was truly a pleasant surprise.
The group continued excavating this red thorn forest for three months. Actually, it was mainly because the extreme heat and cold in the Blood Mist Desert, which couldn’t be resisted even with spiritual power, didn’t allow them to dig ceaselessly; they had to work intermittently, which consumed three months.
The group turned the entire red thorn forest inside out and ended up with quite a lot of blood sandstones. The largest were the size of a human head, while the smallest were fingertip-sized. When all the sandstones were piled together, they formed a large mound more than thirty meters high.
Such a large amount of blood sandstones was another sky-high wealth. No one expected that there would be so many blood sandstones beneath this not so large thorn forest.
Everyone, including Fei Hu and Bai Sheng, divided all the blood sandstones evenly and placed them into their respective high-level storage stones. Having gained such large unexpected wealth, everyone was excited and decided to have a feast once more, along with a good rest.
Of course, they needed to first leave the thorn forest they had dug for three months to avoid running into other adventurer teams that might come by. Seeing a place dug up like this, even an idiot would know there must have been blood sandstones inside. To avoid complications, everyone thought it was best to leave early.
Shuangshuang piloted the Flying Heaven Palace, flying at full speed for half a day and only stopped after confirming they had left the thorn forest far behind. The Flying Heaven Palace halted mid-air, and Shuangshuang decided this was the place. After all, the scenery outside was all the same — blood mist and flying sand — nothing worth looking at.
While Shuangshuang concentrated on swiftly piloting the Flying Heaven Palace, Feiyu, Bai Sheng, and Lu Tianyi had already prepared a variety of food, including two giant scorpion pincers they roasted. The rich aroma enticingly wafted through the air, stirring appetites.
A slice of fragrant scorpion meat was placed on a plate. Shuangshuang picked up her chopsticks, and before she could bring a piece to her mouth, Lu Tianyi suddenly exclaimed, while looking closely at the sandy ground outside the Flying Heaven Palace, "Everyone, look quickly; isn’t that woman almost buried by the sand the one who came to us for food that day?"
Shuangshuang got up and leaned over the edge of the Flying Heaven Palace, and sure enough, she saw on a sand dune someone nearly swallowed by quicksand, leaving only a head exposed. After looking closely, it was indeed that highly recognizable enchanting beauty.
Thousand Silk Entanglement darted out from Shuangshuang’s side and quickly returned, pulling the woman who had been buried in the sand dune into the Flying Heaven Palace, dropping her in the palace courtyard.
Upon close inspection, everyone realized how dire the situation of this once enchanting woman had become. Her clothing, already thin, was now so torn it barely covered her.
Her once flawless skin, as smooth as fine white porcelain, was covered with various terrifying wounds. Her face was as pale as paper, with two fatal penetrating injuries on her chest, and her palm and collarbone had been pierced by something, leaving horrifying wounds.
The woman’s eyes remained tightly shut, her breathing weak and intermittent, as if she could die at any moment. Clearly, during the time apart from them, she had endured inhumane torture.
Shuangshuang took out a top-quality healing pill and let the woman ingest it. Under the action of the healing pill, the wounds on the woman’s body healed rapidly, soon disappearing completely.
Although the wounds vanished, the woman still did not wake up and lay there with eyes tightly shut, showing no sign of consciousness.
The healing pill Shuangshuang administered was of high grade, capable of treating external and internal injuries, even bringing someone back from the brink of death. Not waking after ingesting it indicated the only possibility that the woman’s Spirit Mansion Meridian was injured, rendering the pill ineffective.
Thinking this, Shuangshuang placed her hand on the woman’s Spirit Mansion position, focusing intently, as a thread of spiritual energy entered the woman’s body to investigate her Spirit Mansion Meridian.
This investigation revealed just how dire the situation was: the spiritual energy in the meridians was depleted, and the Spirit Mansion was covered in sores, with enormous wounds everywhere, nearing the breaking point.
In the verge-of-breaking Spirit Mansion, only a thread-like spiritual energy struggled along the woman’s cultivation technique. Unfortunately, the spiritual energy was too scarce, unable to prevent the Spirit Mansion from shattering. If they didn’t quickly help stabilize the Spirit Mansion, the woman would surely die.
Helping her stabilize the Spirit Mansion wasn’t simple; it required Shuangshuang to infuse her spiritual energy little by little into the woman’s Spirit Mansion, nurturing the woman’s thread-like spiritual energy and allowing it to circulate along her cultivation technique gradually, thus slowly repairing the Spirit Mansion.
Simply put, Shuangshuang had to treat her cultivated spiritual energy as nourishment for the woman’s spiritual energy. Thankfully, spiritual energy could be endlessly cultivated as long as the Spirit Mansion was intact, posing no loss to Shuangshuang.