Chapter 272: To the Victor Go the Spoils
Song Jiulai recognized the fruit.
A Feiling Fruit.
The main ingredient for the Heart Firming Pill.
However, the Heart Firming Pill was a rare type of Elixir Pill, something a small sect would be unlikely to possess.
The refining pill recipe was also not in the hands of any small sect, so it wasn’t a common item.
Yet Lü Rufeng and Yi Tianhe didn’t move. The two of them hadn’t even gotten too close to the Feiling Fruit.
To avoid being discovered by Lü Rufeng, Song Jiulai only released her Divine Sense from a distance, while Lai Cai rapidly moved closer.
It moved silently, attracting no one’s attention.
It crept up behind Lü Rufeng and lay quietly in the dirt, almost blending in completely.
Meanwhile, Lü Rufeng and Yi Tianhe were completely oblivious.
Suddenly, Song Jiulai could hear them with perfect clarity.
"That vile beast is definitely guarding the bottom of this Cold Pool. If it doesn’t come out, this Feiling Fruit will be hard to get."
It was Lü Rufeng’s voice.
Song Jiulai raised an eyebrow, finally getting a real sense of just how useful Lai Cai was.
’It has no Spiritual Energy, yet it can silently approach Cultivators and even let me hear their conversations. What kind of heaven-defying ability is this?’
’I just don’t know what level of Cultivator it’s effective against.’
’For now, it seems to work on the Foundation Establishment Stage, at least.’
’Thinking about it, that five hundred energy points I spent back then were totally worth it!’
Yi Tianhe said in a low voice, "Senior Brother, it was raised by the Tang Valley Master, after all. We should be more careful with our words here in Tang Valley, don’t you think?"
"Hmph." Lü Rufeng ignored her advice. "This weirdo Tang Valley Master... We made a deal with him, and this Feiling Fruit is what we came for. But no, we still have to go through this bullshit test. Just wait until I kill this vile beast—"
Before he could finish, he started walking toward the edge of the pool.
A frigid aura blasted up from under his feet, and his legs almost instantly went numb.
Lü Rufeng immediately circulated his mental method to warm his body and resist the Cold Pool’s frigid assault.
The moment his foot touched the water.
"ROAR—"
A muffled roar echoed from the bottom of the pool.
The next second, the agile form of a snow-white spiritual beast appeared on the pool’s surface.
The spiritual beast resembled a leopard, about two meters tall and three meters long. Its entire body was pure white, even its eyes.
On its head stood three enormous ice crystals.
The instant it broke the surface, the spiritual beast shot an Ice Breath at Lü Rufeng.
Lü Rufeng executed a Cultivation Technique and vanished. The Ice Breath instantly transformed the spot where he had been standing, and more than ten meters behind it, into a path of pristine white ice.
The speed was incredible.
The pure white spiritual beast trod on the water as if it were solid ground, its eyes fixed on Lü Rufeng and Yi Tianhe with hostility.
Lü Rufeng seemed surprised when he saw the spiritual beast. "A Fourth Rank Snow Spirit Leopard."
As he spoke, a hint of greed crept into his voice. "The Master of Tang Valley actually managed to find a Snow Spirit Leopard, a rare sight in Yunzhou."
Thanks to his comment, Song Jiulai now knew what a Snow Spirit Leopard was.
The records on spiritual beasts mentioned the Snow Spirit Leopard, but only with a vague description and no pictures.
Snow Spirit Leopards were a relatively rare Spirit Beast Species. Legend had it they were children of ice and snow; if they stayed in one place for a long time, they could turn the surroundings into an Extreme Ice Land. They also had a beneficial effect on Ice Element spirit materials, greatly increasing the appearance rate of High-level Ice Element Spiritual Materials.
Although the Snow Spirit Leopard species could only reach the Seventh Rank at best, their ability had led to them being hunted to near extinction on the Yunzhou Continent, with the Beast Taming Sect holding a monopoly.
There were no antitrust laws here.
Furthermore, because Snow Spirit Leopards were extremely difficult to breed, the Beast Taming Sect didn’t sell theirs either.
Seeing a Snow Spirit Leopard anywhere else was harder than ascending to the heavens.
If the Master of Tang Valley wasn’t from the Beast Taming Sect, then possessing a Snow Spirit Leopard like this spoke volumes about his extraordinary strength.
Even someone like Lü Rufeng was tempted.
’This Snow Spirit Leopard is only Fourth Rank, but if I could take it back...’
Unfortunately, the thought was fleeting.
With Snow Spirit Leopards, their strength was always a factor to consider.
’Before I was injured, it might have been possible,’ he thought. ’But I’m severely wounded now. I’m not sure I can capture it alive.’
The Master of Tang Valley didn’t just allow people to pick Spirit Grass; if you had the strength, you could also take a spiritual beast, provided it submitted to you.
But with such an extraordinarily powerful master, how could they ever willingly submit to another?
A vicious glint flashed in Lü Rufeng’s eyes.
’If we can’t have it, then we’ll destroy it!’
But after one look at him, the Snow Spirit Leopard vanished without a moment’s hesitation, leaving only a faint, blurry white afterimage.
It rushed straight for Lü Rufeng.
Frost crystallized in the Snow Spirit Leopard’s wake.
Lü Rufeng and Yi Tianhe immediately split up.
Yi Tianhe summoned the Jade Flute Song Jiulai had seen before. As she played it, the resulting sound waves had a noticeably wider range and a brighter tone.
This was clearly the true power of her Magic Treasure.
Last time in the Secret Realm, both of them had been forced to suppress their strength.
Song Jiulai had just focused on listening closely...
...when suddenly: "GLRBLRBLRBL—"
It sounded like someone was choking on water.
She looked closely and saw that Lai Cai, having seen the Snow Spirit Leopard and Lü Rufeng’s group start to fight, had been caught in the spreading frost.
In an apparent panic, instead of running back to Song Jiulai, it dove straight to the bottom of the pool!
"Lai Cai!!"
Song Jiulai screamed internally: ’Why are you in such a hurry to get yourself killed?! Lai Cai, the family can’t be without you! If you die, this family—’
Before she could finish, the system tutted. "Does it look like it’s in trouble?"
Sure enough, besides the GLRBLRBL sound, after Lai Cai entered the pool, it turned out to have a hidden talent—it could swim!
Completely unaffected by the pool’s icy cold, it started wagging its scorpion tail under the water like a propeller and zipped toward the Feiling Fruit.
Song Jiulai was stunned.
The two people and one beast fighting over there were completely unaware that a little scorpion was fishing in troubled waters.
Cultivators trusted their intuition too much, and combined with how bizarre the scorpion was, they somehow failed to notice that under the calm surface of the water, the little scorpion’s tail was wagging fast enough to leave afterimages.
When Lai Cai got close to the Feiling Fruit, Song Jiulai was thrilled, thinking she had found a new use for it.
Then she realized Lai Cai was just circling the plant’s underwater root system, unable to figure out how to carry away a Feiling Fruit that was three times its own size.
And if it shook the Feiling Fruit, the people over there, no matter how distracted, would notice something was wrong.
Song Jiulai quickly called out to it. ’Don’t move yet. Just wait.’
Since Lai Cai was unaffected by the cold water, Song Jiulai had to figure out how to seize the right moment to make her move.
’Last time, Lü Rufeng and Yi Tianhe tried to steal my Black Gold Glaze Grass. Now, I’m going to steal their Feiling Fruit—no, wait. This thing is growing out in the open, not inside the Supreme Mysterious Sect’s grounds.’
’What am I saying, "steal"?’
’To put it more elegantly, it belongs to the worthy!’