Chapter 54: Wild Chicken Vine on the Precipice

In a stone cave on a sheer cliff, Qin Anyu and the other three practiced cultivation for a day and a half before continuing their journey.

After undergoing another round of body refinement, everyone felt they had made significant progress and grew confident that their combat prowess was a notch stronger than before. Therefore, instead of walking along the base of the mountain, they climbed to the cliff top and crossed over the mountain.

When descending the mountain, they saw the battlefield they had heard about the day before. It was gruesome.

From the halfway point down to the valley floor, they saw more than twenty corpses, all belonging to the group of people from the Universal Heaven Sect.

Do not ask how they knew, because they had seen them before—that exact batch of people who ran down the slope and then ran back up. More than half of them were laid out right here.

Qin Youqin asked affectionately, "Eldest Young Master, it seems their opponents were also very powerful. Not a single one of them died."

Qin Anyu ruffled her hair. "How do you know not a single one died? Couldn't the others have taken their bodies away?"

Qin Youqin blinked. "Oh, right. Why didn't I think of that?"

Qin Anyu laughed heartily. "That's because you didn't think about it, and there's no need for you to think about such things."

She looked up at him and asked, "Why?"

He patted the top of her head. "Because this young master is invincible and will lead you to conquer one realm after another."

Seeing so many mangled and bloody corpses, Qin Wushuang was somewhat dazed and stood there blankly. Qin Lingxue, however, was flipping over the corpses one by one, trying to find something on them, while muttering incessantly, "No storage rings, no intact weapons. They've been cleaned out, not a single thing left."

Qin Anyu walked over to her and said, "Little sister, stop looking. Look at these corpses—they've all been rummaged through, which means the other party has already cleaned the place out completely."

Qin Lingxue said with utter indignation, "Twenty-six Qi Refining realm cultivators! How could they have cleaned the place out so thoroughly?"

Qin Anyu asked, "From the scene as it is now, have you discovered anything?"

Qin Lingxue looked up at him. "What?"

"Bundles. They were all carrying bundles before, but not a single one is left now."

Qin Youqin let out a sound of sudden realization. "That's right! I also felt something was off, but it turned out to be the bundles. The winning side must have been pressed for time, unable to inspect everything carefully, so they simply took all the bundles."

Qin Anyu pointed at the tall mountain ahead. "That mountain is the border between the Song State and the Dali State. Therefore, the victorious cultivator faction worried about reinforcements from Dali State or the Universal Heaven Sect, so they had to make it a quick battle and a quick decision. They struck, finished the job, packed up, and left immediately."

Regarding these seemingly simple questions, Qin Anyu had nothing better to do anyway, so he patiently explained them.

Comparatively speaking, they had all grown up in greenhouses and had never experienced such a scene. Experience was precisely like this; one needed to see it, hear it, and only then be able to draw inferences about other cases from one instance.

As they climbed to the halfway point of the mountain marking the border between the two countries, Qin Youqin pointed at a distant precipice and said, "Eldest Young Master, there is a stone cave over there. Inside lives a huge snake, about the same size as the Qi Refining realm snakes in the secret realm."

Qin Anyu looked in the direction of her finger and indeed spotted a stone cave. Although he didn't see the snake she mentioned, he noticed a clump of vines at the cave entrance blooming with small golden flowers. His heart stirred slightly. "Could this be a Rooster Vine?"

The Rooster Vine should originally have been called the Leaf-Stimulating Vine, with overlapping leaves that would tightly contract when facing external aggression, wrapping themselves together securely into a ball resembling pages of a book, hence the original name, though it slowly evolved into the Rooster Vine over time.

Flowers, fruits, leaves, vines, and roots could all be used as medicine. The flowers and fruits benefited spiritual soul cultivation, while the leaves, vines, and roots helped affinity with the wood element and strengthened tendons, with the roots also aiding affinity with the earth element.

Curiously, as a terrestrial plant, its flowers surprisingly possessed an affinity for the water element, and its stems an affinity for the fire element—properties that other medicinal herbs did not possess. Because of these characteristics, it was hailed as the most peculiar medicinal herb, impossible to procure on the market. If discovered in the wild, no seeds were ever left behind, and it would invariably trigger a fierce battle for contention.

However, it could still be found in the medicinal gardens of some major powers, but due to the difficulty of cultivation and extremely harsh growing conditions, it never flowed into the market.

If this truly was one, the harvest would be immense. They could dispense with Ox-Tendon Grass and Bone-Covering Tendons, as those two were merely substitutes for the Rooster Vine, and even combined, their effects were inferior to it.

Even if it wasn't, killing a Qi Refining realm snake to eat its snake meat would still be quite wonderful.

"Let's go take a look."

Seeing him turn and walk in that direction, Qin Wushuang's lips twitched, but in the end, he made no sound and followed at the rear of the group.

Walking closer to the sheer cliff, they found it truly was a Rooster Vine—the flowers, the leaves, and the vines were unmistakable; there was no faking it. However, getting their hands on it would not be easy.

The cliff was nearly a hundred zhang high, and the cave entrance was right in the middle. Apart from that clump of Rooster Vines at the cave entrance, everywhere else featured only sparse, crooked-necked trees, with the largest diameter not exceeding five inches and a height not exceeding five chi.

Qin Youqin asked, "There is clearly a snake in there, but how did it get in? Doesn't it need to eat?"

Qin Wushuang said, "Perhaps you saw wrong."

Qin Lingxue immediately retorted, "There's no way I'm wrong. Look below the cave entrance—so many small holes. It's obvious someone tried to climb up."

Qin Wushuang immediately asked back, "Climb up for what? To see if there are treasures in that cave? Even if someone went to look, why do the holes stop five chi from the cave entrance? I think those small holes, just like all the other small caves, were formed naturally."

Seeing that it truly was a Rooster Vine, Qin Anyu's blood ran somewhat hot. He hadn't expected to discover this kind of medicinal herb here, and it was even of the early Human grade.

Such a fine medicinal herb must be acquired!

Hearing Qin Wushuang speak thus, he said calmly, "There might not necessarily be anything *in* the cave, but there is definitely something *at* the cave entrance."

Qin Youqin asked, "Eldest Young Master, do you mean that clump of vines at the cave entrance is a treasure?"

Qin Anyu nodded, explaining the characteristics and uses of the Rooster Vine to them. "Therefore, we must dig up this herb by the roots today. But don't rush; let's first go to the base of the stone cliff and see if there are any others."

The Rooster Vine was extremely difficult to cultivate and thus exceptionally rare. If they could acquire some seeds and obtain a living-creature space in the future, they would be able to plant some themselves.

The four of them arrived at the base of the sheer cliff and were instantly shocked by the scene before their eyes.

At the base of the cliff was a giant pit, and beside the giant pit was a large cave. Both the pit floor and the cave entrance were packed with snakes, so dense that it made one's scalp tingle.

There were mortal-grade, Qi-Nourishing realm, and Qi-Refining realm snakes, piled layer upon layer, crisscrossing one another, with countless snake tongues darting out into the air.

Among the numerous snakes stood two Rooster Vines roughly three hundred years old, along with a dozen or so younger ones.

Qin Wushuang felt his legs trembling. "Brother, let's leave. Let's not dig the ones on top or the ones below. I can see it now: if we climb up, we'll either be eaten by the snake inside or fall right back down into this pit. It's death either way. No wonder that Rooster Vine could survive so long and evolve into a Human-grade medicinal herb."

Qin Anyu said calmly, "Taking just one of these two Rooster Vines is worth dozens of early Human-grade medicinal herbs, and the one above is worth dozens of advanced Human-grade ones, while offering even better effects. Why not take them?"

Qin Lingxue chimed in, "Second brother, we are cultivators now, and cultivators must strive. They're just some snakes, nothing to be afraid of. At worst, we'll kill them all."

Qin Wushuang felt they couldn't possibly kill them all, but felt too embarrassed to speak up again.

After observing intently up and down for a long while, Qin Anyu said, "We will first use smoke to drive away the majority of the snakes, and then kill the few that attack us. Let's divide the labor now: I will fetch water, and you all gather dry firewood. Don't make it all dry firewood; we also need to gather some damp ones."

Qin Youqin immediately responded, "I know, it's to create smoke to drive the snakes away."

Seeing that she understood his purpose, Qin Anyu said nothing more and immediately they split up to act.