At 5:30 in the morning, Fang Ren's cellphone alarm began to ring. After turning off the alarm, he gently woke up the Mu Huanqing in his arms.
"What's up, Ah Ran?" Mu Huanqing rubbed her eyes, still bleary.
"Let's go watch the sunrise, how about that?" Fang Ren said with a smile.
"The sunrise... What's so good about that?" Mu Huanqing was sowhat puzzled.
"Watching it alone might not be that special, but it becos very aningful when the two of us watch it together," Fang Ren explained.
After that, the two of them put on their jackets and walked out of the small tent, then sat quietly on a secluded large rock at the top of the mountain, waiting for the sun to rise.
Mu Huanqing, still sowhat groggy, leaned on Fang Ren's shoulder. She really didn't understand what was so good about a sunrise. In Battlefield One, day and night, moonlight and sunlight, today or tomorrow, there wasn't much difference.
As the sky began to brighten, Mu Huanqing's sleepiness faded quite a bit. The mont the warm sun peeked over the horizon, she watched the small grass behind them sway gently in the breeze. Aside from the two of them, all was quiet. Suddenly, she felt an unusual warmth in her heart.
Unconsciously, she wrapped her arms around Fang Ren's arm and leaned closer to him.
Life as an ordinary person... it's wonderful.
No need to worry about losing one's life fighting Void Monsters, no post-war exhaustion so severe it makes one feel better off dead, and no constant fear of the next Void Beast's arrival.
But because of that, she felt that the warriors stationed at Battlefield One were really having a tough ti.
If given another chance to possess Cultivation powers, she would still choose to go to battle without hesitation, for the peace of more humans, to reduce the casualties among the iron-blooded soldiers of Battlefield One.
It's just... she really didn't want to part with the boy beside her now.
—How can one have the best of both worlds in this life?
The warm sun continued its slow ascent in the sky. Mu Huanqing sat there quietly, hoping that this mont of peace could last forever.
...
After another picnic, all the senior students began to descend the mountain. It's said that going up the mountain is easy, but coming down is hard, and it was true—many students fell or twisted their ankles halfway down.
By noon, all the students had returned to the mountainside. Many were curious about Wang Shuai's experiences and went to the waterfall to check out the scene, including several instructors.
"The crisscrossing marks on the ground don't seem to be caused by True Qi; there's no scent of any attribute of True Qi," an instructor said, frowning at the marks on the ground.
"There's only Wang Shuai's Wood attribute True Qi here. How did the culprit use the Green Snake Seal?"
Another teacher spoke up after a mont of silence, "I think these marks also prove that the culprit isn't one of our students. Although the injuries on Wang Shuai were caused by the Green Snake Seal, it's clear that the culprit isn't skilled in Wood attribute True Qi.
Perhaps the thod used was to reflect Wang Shuai's Cultivation Technique back at him and then fra it as a deadly dispute among the students."
"Reflecting a Cultivation Technique? Does such an ability really exist?"
"With the vastness of this world, nothing is strange. Every mber of the Nightfall Organization is very mysterious; who knows what special abilities they might have?"
An afternoon of analysis led to no conclusions but convinced many people that the Nightfall Organization was responsible, and even an instructor took out his phone and called Wang Shuai's father, Director Wang, to warn him to be extra cautious in the coming days, as he might be targeted by the Nightfall Organization.
This made Jian Qi'er stomp her feet in frustration—the fra-up was just too big, the bla laid on them was darker than the na of their Nightfall Organization.
By the afternoon, the students began to take the public bus back to school, but Fang Ren spoke to an instructor from his class and took a taxi back with Mu Huanqing instead.
Once ho, Mu Huanqing felt a bit tired, so she lay down on the bed and started to watch a soap opera.
Fang Ren also took the opportunity to step out into the yard, taking out several small Red Grasses he had picked on the mountain and found a handy spot to start a small fire under the Small Furnace.
Since this stuff attracted the grey Spiritual Root in his body, it must certainly be a very precious Alchemy ingredient.
However, to find out what specific effects the Red Grass he had never seen before had, Fang Ren would need to conduct many experints and even try eating it himself.
Since the dawn of the Cultivation Era two hundred years ago, the developnt of elixirs has depended on countless Alchemists tasting herbs and going through nurous trials to finally determine its value, turning them into elixirs with various effects.
Although the thod seed crude, it was the only way, given that there still wasn't anything in the world capable of analyzing the properties of dicinal ingredients.
"This stuff is so spicy, looks like I need to add so White Snake Bamboo to neutralize it; otherwise, I really can't swallow it."
Fang Ren waited for the water temperature in the furnace to rise, examining the Red Grass in his hand. Apart from its color, it really wasn't much different from ordinary grass. He couldn't understand why his body's gray Spiritual Root was interested in it and whether eating it would cause growth.
Whoosh—
While he was examining the Red Grass, suddenly, a gray tendril flew out from within his body and snatched the grass from his hand, ready to devour it.
"Hey! You little rascal, stop!"
Fang Ren imdiately slapped the tendril on the head, and the tendril stopped its actions. The energetic twig began to curl up slowly and gradually loosened its grip on the Red Grass, appearing almost aggrieved.
"Bro, I still need this thing. I'll feed you sothing else later."
Fang Ren saw the branch behaving and took the little grass from its branch, gently stroking its head with his hand. The branch was very obedient, not snatching anything from him as it laid alongside the ground, stretching toward the edge of the Small Furnace.
It was as if the branch had eyes, watching Fang Ren refine the elixir.
Seeing its spiritual appearance, Fang Ren didn't pay too much attention to it, as elixir refinent required his full focus at the mont.
Seeing that the water temperature was about right, he first placed the White Snake Bamboo into it, and after roughly two to three minutes, he used small tongs to take it out before throwing the Red Grass in.
About 10 minutes later, Fang Ren took the Red Grass out of the Small Furnace. Its color hadn't changed, but the water in the furnace had turned blood red.
"It should be edible now," he mused.
Fang Ren tasted the grass with the tip of his tongue and found the spicy flavor manageable, then he started to chew it directly.
As he chewed, his brow furrowed—it was still very spicy, but not to the point of being unswallowable.
While he was chewing, the little branch kept pointing at him as if it were watching him eat, giving the impression that it was craving.
After tasting it a few more tis and realizing that it had no other flavor apart from the spiciness, Fang Ren swallowed it in one gulp.
No sooner had the red grass entered his body than he felt a dry heat throughout his ridians, as if red-hot steel wires were threading through him.
"Dammit," he cursed through clenched teeth, not daring to make any other movent and imdiately closed his eyes to focus intently on the changes within his body.
In his consciousness, he perceived that the originally slender lines of True Qi in his body were widening with the increase of the dry heat, nearing the size of a normal cultivator's, but then stopped abruptly.
As the changes in his veins ceased, so did the hot sensation within him.
Sitting on the ground, Fang Ren started to draw a preliminary conclusion about the substance: it expanded True Qi channels, allowing for smoother True Qi flow.
What a miraculous thing!
However, the flow lines of his veins were still slightly smaller than those of an average cultivator; he needed to eat one more to bring his ridians up to the standard of a normal practitioner.
Putting other thoughts aside, he decided to exploit its effects first.
Just as he was about to throw another Red Grass into the furnace, the little branch on the ground climbed onto his hand. It didn't snatch the grass from him but seed to prevent him from continuing to eat Red Grass.
"What's wrong?" Fang Ren looked puzzled.
The little branch twirled in place as if pondering how to explain, and suddenly, it contracted into Fang Ren's body. Imdiately after, Fang Ren felt a trendous pulling force detaching from his body.
Ssssh—
By the ti he realized what was happening, a huge gray tree had appeared before him!
"Bro, don't just co out like that, what if soone sees you?" Seeing it erge, Fang Ren quickly checked the surroundings of the courtyard. After making sure no one was there, he ran back and spoke with an exasperated face.
The tree didn't respond to his words but pointed a small branch at the Red Grass in his hand, then to his mouth, and then its massive body twisted slightly.
"Are you saying I shouldn't eat this stuff?" Fang Ren furrowed his brow.
The tree's branch pointed once more at the Red Grass in his hand, then at its own trunk, its large body shaking back and forth as if nodding.
"What? You want to eat and won't let ?" Fang Ren got angry when he saw this. This tree was way too overbearing—it had eaten tens of thousands of them yesterday, and now he couldn't even eat two.
No sooner had he finished his sentence than the tree extended a branch and absorbed the Red Grass from his hand, leaving not a trace within a second!
Fang Ren was furious. This tree was too stubborn, snatching things from its master! And now it was even acting haughty with him!
But on second thought, he was helpless. If not for this tree yesterday, he might have been the one turned into a vegetative human at the hospital today.
"Next ti you want to eat sothing, just give a heads up, alright?"
While Fang Ren was still looking helpless, the gray tree suddenly extended a branch that connected to his abdon, flashing with red light, continuing to transmit into him.
"This..."
Fang Ren felt the changes inside his body and was dumbfounded. His ridians were expanding again, but without that fiery pain, only a warm sensation.
"Directly extracting the effects of the dicinal material and removing all the impurities? It has this ability!?"
Fang Ren was stunned. The tree's abilities were outrageous.
To know, refining elixirs of extrely high purity required the removal of so impurities from the materials, but since the beginning of the Cultivation Era, there had been no thod to completely clear the dicinal materials of their chaotically mixed components. But this tree could...
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