A drop of earthen-colored liquid and a drop of bluish-jade liquid suddenly coalesced within Linley’s central dantian.
And then, more and more drops of liquid began to form, as one drop turned into ten, and ten drops turned into a hundred, a thousand…
The biggest difference between a magus of the sixth and the seventh ranks was this – the condensation of mageforce into liquid form!
54
Returning to the Foggy Valley
Beneath him was a roiling, watery white mist. Standing at the precipice of the cliff, there was simply no way to see the bottom.
Straight chisel in hand, Linley was peering down into the Foggy Valley. Linley had spent three thousand gold coins to purchase a new straight chisel, and in terms of sharpness, it even exceeded the black dagger that Linley had previously used. After all, to Linley, the straight chisel was more suited to his hand than daggers.
Linley had already been inside the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts for over a month and a half. He felt that right now, he was at the peak of his strength, in the best possible condition.
A dense layer of earth-elemental essence began to swirl around Linley as Linley softly chanted the words a magical spell. Finally, it formed a seemingly simple set of armor, but if one took a closer look at it, one would find that the material it was formed from looked very much like jadestone, with the only difference being that this jadestone armor emanated earth elemental essence.
Earth-style spell of the seventh rank – Earthguard armor (Jadestone level).
A magus of the seventh rank was far more powerful than a magus of the sixth rank. The power of their defensive spells alone multiplied tenfold.
“Now, if I run into those Dragonhawks again, just using my jadestone armor, I’ll be able to easily handle their blows.” Linley felt very confident. Next, Linley began to mutter the words to a wind-element spell. Air began to swirl about Linley’s body, until finally, Linley was lifted up into the air and began to drift into the Foggy Valley.
Linley was actually quite confident when it came to investigating the Foggy Valley.
“I now have both jadestone armor and the Soaring Technique. In addition, my physical fitness level is that of a warrior of the fourth rank. When aided still further by a Supersonic spell of the seventh rank… survival should not be a problem.” Linley slowly made his way through the Foggy Valley, not at all rushing.
This was because…
Of the Blueheart Grass!
Blueheart Grass was extremely important to Linley. Aside from procuring Blueheart Grass, Linley was also extremely curious as to why so many magical beasts were all living here, especially given that they all belonged to different categories of beasts.
“Boss, be careful. Don’t forget how you were almost hunted down last time.” Bebe mentally reminded him.
“Don’t worry.”
The further down Linley flew, the greater the gap between the two cliffs grew. Clearly, this valley was astonishingly large. Within the misty fog, Linley flew very carefully while inspecting his surroundings. Bebe was also watching with extreme caution. Both of them were looking to find more Blueheart Grass.
The first target Linley aimed at was naturally the place where he had seen the Blueheart Grass last time, when he had not had the chance to gather it.
Hugging the cliff, Linley proceeded forward with caution.
“Boss, I see Blueheart Grass. It’s right there!” Bebe’s eyes were very sharp. Linley took a look as well, and his eyes instantly lit up.
The grass blades were green, but a faint current of blue emanated and flowed throughout them.
“There aren’t any Green Tattooed Pythons, are there?” Linley didn’t dare to be too rash. Although he no longer feared the Green Tattooed Python, once he began to fight with one, many other magical beasts would most likely be drawn here as well. He definitely didn’t have sufficient confidence in dealing with an army of magical beasts.
As the Green Tattooed Python was green in color, it was very easy to miss it in the surrounding green vines, so Linley had to be absolutely careful.
After closely inspecting his surroundings and verifying that there were no Green Tattooed Pythons nearby, Linley carefully flew closer.
Gathering the Blueheart Grass, Linley once more felt its icy cold in his hands. A hint of a smile appeared on Linley’s face. This chilling sensation was proof that this grass was indeed Blueheart Grass. Linley carefully stored it inside his backpack, and then continued to make his way forward in search of more.
“Growl…”
“Shriiiiek…”
All sorts of howls from magical beasts emanated from below. Their wild, mixed roars caused Linley’s heart to quiver. Those howling sounds came from below. Just judging from the roars alone, there must be an enormous number of magical beasts below!
Peering through the thinning white fog, Linley could now vaguely make out the rich grassland below.
“Boss, be careful. I don’t want to be attacked and chased and flee in all directions,” Bebe reminded.
“I know.” Linley was at maximum alertness, and his eyes constantly scanned his surroundings, especially the green vines near the cliff walls. Linley was very much concerned that a Green Tattooed Python might be hiding amidst the vines. Being discovered by a single magical beast was the same as being discovered by all of them.
“Dragonhawk.” Linley discovered that far away, a large, flying magical beast was lazily soaring through the air. Hurriedly, Linley flew away from it.
Fortunately, the valley was filled with white fog, causing distant objects to have only a faint silhouette. The Dragonhawk was huge and easy to notice, but Linley was comparatively much smaller. Naturally, he had something of an advantage in this regard.
“Shriek, shriek!” Suddenly, a series of strange howls could be heard, and even worse, the howls were heading in Linley’s direction.
“Not good.” Linley’s facial expression changed.
Linley, who had been in close contact with Dragonhawks before, knew that this was the call of a Dragonhawk. Looking in the direction of the origin of the noise, he saw the hazy outlines of roughly two or three dozen giant Dragonhawks flying in his direction.
The Dragonhawks were simply too huge in size. Twenty or thirty of them flying in a row made for a formation that blotted out the sun and covered the skies.
With so many Dragonhawks present, there was virtually nowhere Linley could hide.
Right now, Linley had three choices. The first was to do battle with these Dragonhawks. The second was to fly up and flee for his life. The third… was to fly down, deep into the belly of the mountain.
“Whoosh!”
Without hesitating at all, Linley immediately threw himself downwards, blazing his way through the white mist. In the space of a breath, Linley had transformed himself into an arrow, shooting himself into the middle of the grassy plains. And then, not moving in the slightest, he threw himself face-down, hiding in the grass.
Linley carefully began to crawl to the edge of the plains. At the edge of the grass, he peered out, carefully assessing the valley.
This was an enormous valley, filled with rivers as well as huge grassy fields, appearing like a pristine utopia. But, this pristine utopia was filled with countless gigantic crawling creatures.
Two stories tall, and thirty meters long, with rocky, stone-like carapaces, each scale the size of half a person.
The relevant information immediately sprang to Linley’s mind. “Landwyrm. Magical beast of the sixth rank. Fire element.”
“If there were only one Landwyrm, it wouldn’t be much of a threat, but…” Linley scanned the area. “There’s over a hundred Landwyrms here. If a hundred Landwyrms all attacked, there’d be no way to block them.”
“But they aren’t fast enough. To me, they shouldn’t pose much of a threat.” Linley looked towards the other magical beasts.
Within the valley, Landwyrms only made up a small part of the total magical beast population. T
here were also a large number of… Velocidragons. Velocidragons were not pack animals, and so most of them were spaced out in various places in the valley. At the same time, the skies were filled with Dragonhawks. If one looked carefully, within the various grassy plains, gigantic boas could also be seen slithering about.
And these were just what Linley could see at a glance.
“Just from that short glance, I can at least be sure that this valley runs from east to west. In the north, I can just barely make out the cliff walls.” Linley turned his head and looked back. From the west, he could also see the cliff walls. It was only the cliff walls to the east that he could not see clearly.
Especially that east-west running river, which was continuously flowing to the east.
“Bebe, you be careful too.” Linley executed the supporting wind-style Supersonic spell, and then carefully made his way through the grass. There were many grassy areas within this valley, possibly because all the magical beasts here were carnivores which did not eat grass.
While carefully making his way forward, Linley suddenly noticed something.
“What an extremely high density of natural elemental essence. The density of the natural elemental essence here is at least six or seven times higher than in the outside world.” Upon entering the valley, Linley was extremely keyed up, and actually hadn’t notice this fact until now.
“I wonder what has caused this place to have such a high elemental density.”
Linley carefully crawled eastwards through the valley. Landwyrms, Velocidragons, Green Tattooed Pythons, and Dragonhawks were all exceedingly large creatures. Thus, the little speck which was Linley, in comparison to them, wasn’t very visible at all.
“This valley is really long!”
After crawling nearly twenty kilometers eastwards, Linley still hadn’t come to the end of the Valley. At the same time, Linley had discovered some new magical beast packs.
Magical beast of the sixth rank, Winged Pegasus. Magical beast of the seventh rank, Thunderwing Pegasus.
All sorts of pegasi were flying about in the air, while others slowly walked about in the valley, eating the grass.
“Boss, there’s all sorts of underbrush here. How should we get across?” Bebe was worried.
Linley was starting to frown as well. The underbrush in front of him was all over the place, and it rose up half the length of his leg.
“The distance on the ground is too long. There’s no way to crawl through there. I’ll have to go by air.” Linley carefully backed up about a few hundred meters, as far away from the pegasi flocks as possible, and then exercised the Soaring Technique.
“Whoosh!”
Directly soaring into the air, Linley immediately scurried into the dense white fog. Within the dense white fog, only occasionally would a pegasus draw near. After all, pegasi were fairly small and didn’t take up too much space, thus when they did draw near, Linley could dodge them.
Carefully flying eastwards, Linley kept close to the southern wall while carefully inspecting the cliffs for Blueheart Grass. But as Linley continued going forward, he began to frown again.
“Aside from that first patch of Blueheart Grass, I haven’t found any more at all.” Linley was starting to grow impatient.
But Linley continued flying eastwards. After flying roughly ten kilometers, Linley noticed that he was seeing pegasi more frequently in the upper reaches, and so he once again descended to the valley floor.
“Linley, there’s all sorts of magical beasts here. Many of the creatures here normally never travel in packs, such as the Velocidragon or the Black Bear, or the agile Dragoncat.” Doehring Cowart wafted out of the ring, appearing by Linley’s side as they went forward together.
Linley carefully snuck forwards, while Doehring Cowart leisurely walked with him.
“Ah!”
As though struck by lightning, Linley suddenly halted and stood there stupidly. Roughly fifty meters ahead of Linley, in a knoll of grass with a diameter of roughly seven or eight meters, there was one patch of green-colored grass after another.
The fact that the grass was green was not a surprise. What mattered was…these grassy patches all emanated a blue aura.
“Blueheart Grass. All of it is Blueheart Grass!”
At this moment, Linley’s very heartbeat stopped. Heavens. A single patch of Blueheart Grass was worth tens of thousands of gold coins, and it would be considered a priceless item that would rarely even be seen on the market. But fifty meters in front of him, within that seven- or eight-meter wide patch of grass, there were at least a hundred patches of Blueheart Grass.
“So much! I could grab them seven or eight at a time!” Linley sucked in a deep breath.
Doehring Cowart’s eyes lit up. “Linley, for the purposes of drinking live dragon’s blood, four or five patches of Blueheart Grass would most likely be enough. To have so much Blueheart Grass in one place is inconceivable. However… the area around the Blueheart Grass is empty, with no place to hide. How will you get there?”
Perhaps Blueheart Grass was inimical to normal grass.
In a thirtymeter area around the Blueheart Grass, there wasn’t a single blade of normal grass.
“There aren’t too many magical beasts around here, and the ones that are here are not pack beasts. They’re scattered all over the place.” Linley carefully observed the large cluster of Blueheart Grass and also the surrounding area. “There’re only seven magical beasts located near the Blueheart Grass. As long as I move fast enough, I shouldn’t have any problems escaping with my life.”
Linley forced himself to calm down, letting himself reach his maximum state of readiness.
“Boss, are you stupid? Have you forgotten about me, Bebe?” Bebe suddenly said to Linley mentally.
Linley started. Turning to look at Bebe, he saw Bebe delightedly winked at him. “Boss, my speed is much faster than yours, and my body is much smaller as well. How about I go do the gathering? There won’t be any problems at all. All you have to do is open your backpack and wait to get the grass.”
“Whoosh!”
Transforming into a black blur, in the blink of an eye, Bebe scurried into the middle of the grassy patch, and then using his sharp little claws, Bebe began agilely and voraciously digging up all the Blueheart Grass. As his little claws danced, that grassy patch became totally empty quite quickly, while next to Bebe, there was now a pile of Blueheart Grass that was almost as tall as Bebe himself was.
55
Forbidden Skies
Still lying down in the middle of the grass, Linley held his breath as he watched. “That mound must have at least fifty or sixty patches of Blueheart Grass.” Linley forcibly tamped down on the wild joy he was feeling. But the thing which astonished Linley the most was…
Bebe seemed to feel that wasn’t enough, and continued to pull out more and more Blueheart Grass.
“Will Bebe be able to carry that huge mound over with those two small claws of his?” Linley was growing confused. He immediately reached out to Bebe mentally. “Bebe, that’s enough. Get back here.”
Bebe raised his head and glanced at Linley, then wrinkled his cute little nose. “No rush. There’s a lot more to go.”
Right at this moment, a Velocidragon which was drinking water by a nearby river just so happened to look over in his direction. Its gaze falling upon Bebe, it clearly noticed him, and it rose from the water, snorting out a plume of smoke as it fixed its icy cold gaze upon the little Shadowmouse.
“Not good.” Linley’s heart immediately tightened.
If Bebe began an all-out battle with the Velocidragon, perhaps even more magical beasts might be attracted here. By then, the situation would become even worse.
Bebe also noticed the Velocidragon. Upon seeing it, Bebe seemed to be terrified, and immediately hid near the Blueheart Grass, ‘trembling’.
“Growl…” The Velocidragon let out a satisfied roar, and then immediately lay back down again and continued to drink water from the r
iver.
“What a big stupid lump. It’s so easy to fool it.” Bebe delightedly spoke to Linley mentally.
At this moment, Linley didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He hadn’t expected little Bebe to ‘feign weakness’. Linley knew very well that a year and a half ago, Bebe had been capable of forcing a Velocidragon to flee. After another year and a half of growth, Bebe should now be even stronger.
Bebe definitely had no fear of a Velocidragon.
But Bebe was also very smart. He knew that if he caused too much of a ruckus, Linley would be easily exposed.
Humans!
Magical beasts were very antagonistic towards humans.
In the eyes of that Velocidragon, Bebe was nothing more than an extremely small and weak magical beast. Seeing how terrified Bebe was, it naturally wouldn’t bother to kill him. After all, the Velocidragon knew that amongst Shadowmice, only the lowest level mice had black fur.
But the Velocidragon had no idea that one of his ‘comrades’ had been mauled quite badly by little Bebe.
“Formidable.” Linley gave Bebe a big thumb’s up.
Bebe laughed delightedly. “Naturally. I, Bebe, am an extremely intelligent Shadowmouse.” Taking a look at the large pile of Blueheart Grass next to him, Bebe suddenly expanded his body size dramatically, from twenty centimeters to nearly half a meter.
Now that his size had increased, Bebe was able to easily use his two large paws to press the pile of Blueheart Grass against his chest. Then, with a flex of his legs…
Whoosh!
Bebe suddenly landed in the grass, directly next to Linley.
“Boss. All in all, there’s 160 clumps of Blueheart Grass here. Having me, Bebe, take action was the perfect, flawless plan.” Bebe arrogantly puffed out his little chest.
Linley lovingly rubbed Bebe’s little head, and then put all of the Blueheart Grass into his backpack.
“Let’s keep going. I’m growing more and more curious about this valley.” Linley’s eyes shone as he looked east. “For this valley to have so many magical beasts, and also to have such a thick density of elemental essence… mmm, I feel like the elemental density here is even higher than when we first came down. The elemental essence density here is about ten times higher than in the outside world.”
Coiling Dragon_Book 1 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 48
