Chapter 199 : Hair Growth Powder
Without the Ghost-faced Blood Bats causing trouble, collecting the Ice Realm Dragon Flame Flowers suddenly became much easier. With more people participating this time, it took only a few hours before the group collected all ten specimens and handed them to Jianbing.
When the white tiger received the collected ten Ice Realm Dragon Flame Flowers, the system prompt immediately sounded in her ears: "Ding, congratulations to Host for completing the mission, collecting Ice Realm Dragon Flame Flowers (10/10), rewarding 500 points."
It was ridiculous. For these Ice Realm Dragon Flame Flowers, she had traveled thousands of miles, had her points completely cleared out, and Senior Sister had suffered greatly—yet in the end, she earned only 500 points. Even knowing that these flowers would ultimately be given to Senior Sister and that such beautiful flowers suited her well, Jiang Mo still felt deceived by the system.
The system wasn't particularly enthusiastic either, remaining rather deflated, as it had indirectly been fired because of this matter.
Nevertheless, completing the task was still a good thing, at least resolving one concern. However, when the white tiger put away the Ice Realm Dragon Flame Flowers, returned to the surface with everyone, and then moved Senior Sister out, she discovered that the situation was even more troublesome than she had imagined.
What the white tiger revealed was still that blood-tinged block of ice, with Yun Qingyue still encased within. The past few days seemed to have brought no change to her condition. Seeing this scene, everyone's hearts sank. Bai Xu attempted to examine her injuries with his divine sense but was blocked. In the end, they had to choose to break the ice first, then directly check her pulse for diagnosis.
But they were stuck at the first step. The layer of ice surrounding Yun Qingyue was extraordinarily solid, with ordinary knife cutting and fire melting proving basically useless. The cultivators did have more violent methods, but they feared hurting the person inside. After discussion, they decided to let Bai Xu control his strange fire to melt the ice.
Bai Xu's strange fire was considerably inferior to the one in the magma pool—it was newly formed and still far from developing consciousness. This was why he had been able to tame it at the Golden Core stage, and by now he could control it as easily as his own limbs. Despite this, the white tiger didn't dare let this strange fire approach, fearing that its energy might disrupt the balance within Yun Qingyue's body.
It was only at this point that everyone learned that Yun Qingyue, with her ice spiritual roots, had suffered from a strange fire entering her body!
Everyone exchanged glances, their expressions extremely grave. Su Hao spoke first: "Ice and fire are opposing forces, and that strange fire had even developed consciousness. I fear Junior Sister Yun may be..." He didn't finish his sentence as he met Jianbing's intense stare, so he slightly modified his words: "I fear it may hinder her cultivation."
It was more than just a hindrance—the fact that she was still alive now was already surprising. But judging from this layer of ice, Yun Qingyue's body must contain some kind of ice-attribute treasure that could temporarily suppress the strange fire; otherwise, being burned to ashes by strange fire was a common occurrence. They had no intention of investigating that treasure, but the situation truly seemed thorny.
The white tiger found these people's words quite unpleasant and didn't care to participate in their discussion. She extended her claws and began gently scraping at the ice block. The effect was decent—at least compared to ordinary swords and magical weapons, her claws were much sharper, and she could better control the direction and force. Before long, claw marks appeared on the ice surface.
Seeing this, everyone stopped talking and watched as Jianbing gradually excavated Yun Qingyue from the ice block.
The ice-encased Yun Qingyue looked quite disheveled. The strange fire entering her body had burned her robes to tatters, and the blood that had seeped out from her damaged meridians had stained her snow-white robes crimson. After cleaning away the bloodstains, Yun Qingyue's beautiful face was revealed, deathly pale and bloodless. If not for everyone's keen perception, they might have thought she was a corpse.
While helping to arrange things, the white tiger took a special look and found that Senior Sister's hair tips were jet black—the whiteness she had seen earlier truly was an illusion.
She reduced her size, returning to her cub form, and tentatively extended her paw to touch Senior Sister's face, finding the temperature under her paw identical to the ice block from before. She waited, and waited some more, before finally detecting a barely perceptible warmth, not even certain if it was from her own body heat.
Seeing this, the system offered reassurance: "Don't worry, Host. Senior Sister will be fine."
The little white tiger withdrew her paw, hoping that was true, then turned to Bai Xu and said: "Please check her injuries."
Bai Xu nodded, stepped forward, and took Yun Qingyue's wrist, placing his fingertips on her pulse—a cultivator's pulse-taking differed from that of mortal doctors. They would inject a trace of spiritual energy into the other person's body, then follow the meridians for a complete circuit, thus examining most of the person's injuries. However, normal people were typically sensitive to and rejected foreign spiritual energy, so successfully conducting an examination required some skill.
Fortunately, Bai Xu possessed such skill. Though he had fire spiritual roots and his body contained fire spiritual energy, when he injected a trace of spiritual energy into Yun Qingyue's body, it immediately transformed into ice spiritual energy identical to Yun Qingyue's own.
Normally, such a disguise would be convincing enough not to trigger the other person's instinctive alertness and counterattack. But as soon as Bai Xu's spiritual energy entered her body, it was immediately surrounded by a mass of ice spiritual energy, which delivered an unhesitating counterattack, almost causing him to suffer backlash. Even though Bai Xu withdrew his hand quickly, he still felt his spiritual energy churning from the impact.
"What happened?" Su Hao and the others asked with concern.
Bai Xu used his cultivation technique to suppress the agitated spiritual energy, then shook his head, his expression serious to the point of looking unpleasant: "It's not good. As soon as my spiritual energy entered Junior Sister's meridians, it immediately met with counterattack. I didn't have time to investigate further. But from the brief glimpse, I discovered that the ice spiritual energy in her body is too concentrated, almost blocking her meridians. And her meridians, likely due to the strange fire's burning, are completely devastated."
This was truly not good news. Su Hao and the others were both shocked and curious upon hearing it: "Is it just ice spiritual energy? What about the strange fire? And will the meridian injuries affect Junior Sister's future cultivation?"
The path of cultivation involves continuously perfecting oneself, starting with washing marrow and tempering bones, and proceeding step by step to refine oneself to perfection. Even the slightest flaw could affect one's future path. Though it might not be apparent at lower cultivation levels, as one's cultivation deepened, those minor flaws could become the greatest obstacles on one's path, ultimately resulting in stagnation and the exhaustion of one's lifespan.
All cultivators understood this principle, and Bai Xu naturally knew the severity. Hearing the question, he shook his head again: "I didn't see the strange fire, but Junior Sister's meridians are severely damaged. I don't dare easily disrupt the balance in her body, and I fear it will take a considerable amount of time to gradually recover."
When a cultivator described time as "considerable," it likely meant a decade or more.
༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺
Regarding Yun Qingyue's injuries, apart from refining a few batches of meridian-repairing pills, Bai Xu was nearly helpless. Fortunately, after the little white tiger's reminder, everyone also noticed that Yun Qingyue's injuries were indeed recovering at an imperceptibly slow pace.
Slow as it was, Yun Qingyue's life was not in danger, which put everyone's minds at ease.
While Bai Xu was helpless regarding Yun Qingyue's injuries, preparing a batch of hair growth powder for Jianbing, as promised earlier, was something he could accomplish with ease—after shrinking, Jianbing without her fluffy fur looked even smaller and more pitiful, barely larger than a cat. It was one thing for them to see her like this, but what if outsiders saw her? Wouldn't that damage Jianbing's dignity?
Well, outsiders You Yi and Ruan Le had already seen her, and the curly-haired tiger cub indeed had little dignity to speak of.
The little white tiger ignored everyone's varying gazes, squatting beside the alchemy furnace and watching as Bai Xu took out the spiritual herbs he would use one by one. Finally finding an opportunity, she spoke up: "Um, about that hair growth powder... could you make two more batches for me?"
Bai Xu, who had previously feared Jianbing might become angry from embarrassment, now gave her a complex look, seeing the little tiger awkwardly raising her paw to scratch her ear.
Truthfully, no divine beast would casually lose fur and become bald. Every scale and hair on a divine beast's body contained their cultivation, making them difficult to damage and extremely precious. But the Jianbing before them was still a cub, and moreover, a cub that loved to show off by enlarging her body. With insufficient cultivation and spiritual energy, her fur naturally wasn't as resilient.
Bai Xu sighed and took out two more portions of materials, not forgetting to advise Jianbing: "Jianbing should focus on cultivating diligently in the future and avoid showing off too much. If this continues, it won't just be a matter of losing some fur."
Hearing this, the system added in her consciousness: "What, will Host completely turn into a bald tiger?"
The little white tiger heard this and immediately ground her teeth in annoyance, though unfortunately, she couldn't hit the system.
Bai Xu didn't wait for the little white tiger's response and didn't mind. Just as he was about to begin refining, his gaze suddenly shifted to Bei Luo nearby. With a carelessly trimmed short haircut, Bei Luo still appeared carefree, seemingly unconcerned about his appearance. After some thought, Bai Xu prepared one more portion of materials, planning to refine another batch of hair growth powder.
Hair growth powder wasn't a high-grade spiritual medicine. Since it was mass-produced for the Spirit Beast Garden, it was quite easy to refine. A medicinal pill that any alchemist could refine was naturally something Bai Xu, as the senior disciple of Mount Qionghua, could create with ease.
In just a moment, a batch of hair growth powder was ready, and the little white tiger was naturally the first to try it.
She remembered that back in the Spirit Beast Garden, Senior Sister had specially prepared an ointment when applying medicine to the little white tiger, but this time there was no Senior Sister to apply the medicine for her. Additionally, since the little white tiger wasn't bald this time, but simply wanted her burned, shortened fur to regrow and become fluffy again, Bai Xu thought for a moment before taking out a wooden basin, pouring in spiritual liquid mixed with the hair growth powder, allowing her to simply take a bath in it.
The hair growth powder refined by Bai Xu was highly effective, even better than what she had requested in the Spirit Beast Garden. While soaking in the spiritual liquid, the little white tiger could clearly feel her fur rapidly growing.
Before long, black and white tiger fur began floating around the small tiger cub in the water.
Tan Xin came over for a look and reminded her: "Jianbing, you can get out now. If you soak any longer, your fur will grow too long."
Hearing this, the little white tiger immediately left the wooden basin. The moment she left the basin, her body emitted a dazzling golden light. Even though Tan Xin's cultivation was not low, he was forced to close his eyes and turn away, his vision temporarily whitened... This was the little white tiger's intentional act. By the time everyone's vision recovered, she was completely dry without a drop of water, and her fur had dried as well.
No one saw the appearance of the soaked tiger, but looking at the little white tiger's regrown fur, Bei Luo, with his straightforward personality, asked: "Jianbing, why is your fur still curly? Was it permed by the strange fire?"