Chapter 585: Benefits
Little White understood its assignment well. Its job was to distract the python so that its master could harvest the herb.
As soon as it made sure that the python had seen it, Little White ran like the devil was chasing it.
The python seemed to feel challenged and it took off after the white tiger immediately.
The other contract beasts followed behind it to block it in case it realized it had been tricked and turned back before the immortal herb was harvested.
Thus, Chu Miao and her group were left behind.
Without wasting a single second, Chu Miao took out a small shovel from the space ring on her finger and squatted next to the herb.
To harvest such precious herbs, care must be taken to make sure that it wasn’t damaged.
If even a small part of it was bruised, whether it was the petals or the roots, it would become either useless or its effects would be reduced.
Therefore, Chu Miao had to be extra careful when digging out the herb and couldn’t be distracted.
She carefully peeled away the layers of soul around the herb from the outside to avoid hitting a root and causing damage.
The process was painfully slow but nothing good came easy.
Chu Miao never heard of this herb when she was in the Immortal Realm but that was probably because she never needed it.
After all, she was born in the Immortal Realm and started cultivating immortal qi at a young age. She never needed to convert it, so she knew nothing about herbs that could cultivate spiritual energy.
She noticed that the flowers of the spirit changing elixir contained a total of forty-eight petals.
Half of them were black and the other half white.
In this case, if it was used to transform the spiritual energy of cultivators to immortal qi, it could be used by twenty-four people.
Chu Miao wondered where such a precious herb had come from.
Did the Chu family also predict this or was there another reason the herb grew there?
Anyway, it didn’t matter for now where the herb came from, it was more important to harvest it first and leave that place.
As she worked carefully but fast, sounds of a battle came from a distance.
It seemed that the python had realized it was tricked and wanted to come back to fight for its herb.
Chu Miao sped up her digging and after ten minutes, the herb finally came free from the soil with every part intact.
Chu Miao immediately put the herb in a jade box and used her consciousness to put it away in the warehouse.
Since nothing in there changed as if time was suspended, it didn’t matter even if the herb was left out in the open.
"Okay, let’s go. Recall your spirit beasts into the contract space. Don’t let them get hurt in this kind of environment."
As Chu Miao spoke, she had already summoned Little White back to her contract space.
The others followed suit and recalled their spirit beasts as well.
The python was left at the scene of the battle baffled by the events taking place.
It couldn’t find its opponents and by the time it came back to its senses, Chu Miao and her group were long gone. And so was the immortal herb.
"Black Tortoise, why did that immortal herb grow there? Was it planted?" Chu Hao couldn’t curb his curiosity and eventually asked.
However, he wasn’t the only one who wanted to know.
In fact, Chu Miao wanted to know even more.
"No, this immortal herb is very rare and needs specific conditions for growth.
If even the slightest requirement wasn’t met, it wouldn’t grow." Black tortoise replied.
"Then what are its conditions for growth?" Chu Miao asked.
"The environment must be very cold and the soil must contain divine earth. No water is needed for its growth, but spirit dew helps in its maturity. The herb isn’t planted. When all the requirements are met, it is formed from the essence of heaven and earth. That’s why it’s so rare."
Listening to Black tortoise, Chu Miao understood just how rare the herb was.
No wonder she had never heard of it.
For this herb to grow, the requirements were nearly impossible to meet.
She was grateful to the Chu family ancestors for making this Soul Ring.
It took the group six days to cross the cold zone.
When the plants around them began to turn green again and the temperature climbed, they felt as if they had just walked through the valley of death.
Keeping themselves from freezing into stones from inside out these past few days had been the most difficult challenge they had faced since they became cultivators.
"Let’s find a place to rest and recover. Everyone is tired and out of energy." Ye Xuan ordered and his brothers dispersed to look for the perfect spot to camp.
After fifteen minutes, they came back and Gu Fan said he had found a cave.
He led everyone there and they were surprised to find that it was a large cave.
However, it didn’t seem to have been inhabited for a long time.
They cleaned briefly before placing chairs around to rest.
When they began meditating, only then did the group realize the benefits they had gained from walking across the cold zone those six days.
They realized that their spiritual energy had become so pure it was unbelievable.
It was also denser and their dantian had expanded.
What was even more incredible was that the rate of absorbing spiritual energy was twice as fast as before.
So, now if it took someone two months to advance by a small realm, now it would only take a month.
Because they had also absorbed so many crystal cores over the last six days, the amount of immortal qi mixed with their spiritual energy was also more noticeable.
Now, when it came to converting spiritual energy to immortal qi, it wouldn’t be too challenging as long as they had that spirit changing elixir.