Chapter 8: Reaping Riches
Chapter 8: Reaping Riches
Amidst the howling winds, Su Ping again leapt down from the hill. This time, by the time Su Ping escaped from the valley, he had over a hundred stalks of blood petal in his backpack.
Su Ping had spent a significant amount of time preparing for this collection attempt, so he would obviously grab everything he could.
Because the properties of the blood petals had yet to be discovered and because no one had figured out how to efficiently harvest them, there had to be over ten thousand stalks in this valley alone.
Given Su Ping's current harvesting rate, even if he collected a hundred stalks each time, it would take over a hundred glides for him to collect them all. Su Ping gave himself a week to do all this.
It seemed as though the backpack he was using wouldn't be sufficient anymore. Once he returned to the district, he would have to take a short detour to the nearby swamplands to hunt some potbellied toads for their spirit essence.
These blood petals were a necessary ingredient for Su Ping, so he had even devised a series of backup plans if his original harvesting method had failed.
Unfortunately, there would always be variables he couldn't account for. On his tenth descent, a vibrating croak reverberated through the valley.
The next moment, a blood-red shadow rushed out from its depths. Its body was as large as a carriage, its limbs were powerful, and its eyes glowed with a fierce crimson light.
"An Advanced-grade Voltaire Ant!"
Su Ping's face turned pale. He activated his Aerowolf spirit essence immediately, then rushed toward the valley exit. He was fast, but the advanced-grade Voltaire Ant's attack was even faster!
A stream of adhesive liquid shot toward Su Ping, too quick for him to react. The moment the liquid had been released, Su Ping had had a premonition of danger and had tried to dodge the blow. However, by the time his body began to move, the liquid had already reached him, adhering him to the ground.
The advanced-grade Voltaire Ant closed in rapidly, its large tongue lashing out toward Su Ping's immobilized form.
Fortunately, Su Ping swiftly activated his Rippling Walk, freeing himself from the adhesive liquid, and deftly exited the valley, leaving the pursuing Voltaire Ants behind.
As he stored the blood petals he had gathered, Su Ping climbed up the neighboring hill. Collecting almost thirty stalks of the herb demonstrated the viability of his technique.
However, the coordination of the Voltaire Ants surprised him. He had only expected attacks from a few individuals, not the entire colony.
Given these unexpected circumstances, Su Ping didn't dare to repeat his maneuver immediately. Instead, he closely scrutinized the behavior of the Voltaire ants.
After expelling the intruder, they quickly returned to their individual nests. And by the time half an hour had passed, the entire valley was as peaceful as it had initially been.
Su Ping stood up, stretched, and prepared for his second descent. His first time through, his harvesting technique left much to be desired. This time around, given his past experience, he would surely be able to collect more blood petals.
The dangerous encounter with the Voltaire Ants had temporarily halted Su Ping's harvest. Despite the setback, he remained determined. Once the advanced-grade Voltaire ants returned to their nests, he would certainly continue harvesting these blood pellets. Without risk, there was no reward. These blood pets would be a second source of wealth for him, and he wasn't about to give up on them so easily.
Since he wasn't able to gather more bloodpetals at the moment, Su Ping headed toward the swamplands.
During this period of time, he collected a few herbs that were easily found all over the region and hunted a few more lifeforms to fill up his gene capacity.
A giant swamp, shaped somewhat like a prayer mat, lay at the heart of the swamplands. It was the natural habitat of the potbellied toads, regular-grade lifeforms beloved by most hunters. Their spirit essence was particularly useful, and almost every hunter who entered the dimensional world would get their hands on a few.
Su Ping immediately spotted a potbellied toad peeking its black head out of the surface of the swamp. Although the toads were commonplace, their spirit essence was particularly difficult to obtain for two reasons.
First, regular-grade lifeforms didn't have a high probability of condensing Spirit Essence. Second, the swamp was a very difficult terrain to fight in, and there were quite a number of other lifeforms around—some mutated-grade, and a few even advanced-grade.
Even those hunters who had reached their mutated gene threshold wouldn't dare to charge straight in.
Hunting the swamp's potbellied toads required more than brute strength. For others, this might have been a problem, but for the reincarnated Su Ping, this was a trivial issue to solve.
While traveling to the region, Su Ping had already worked out a plan. He started a small fire by a clearing near the swamp, where he began to roast a one-eyed pheasant that he had caught not too far from the area.
A salivating scent spread throughout the swamp, and all the potbellied toads began to croak as they smelled it. Unfortunately, they quieted down the moment they swam to the edge of the swamp, as if forcing themselves to resist the temptation.
Su Ping had expected this. He retrieved what looked like a four-leaf clover from his backpack, crushed it, and then spread the pieces over the roasting pheasant. When crushed and roasted, this plant would release a curious smoke that would attract all frog-type lifeforms close by.
A blue fog, barely visible to the naked eye, spread out from the fire and into the swamp. When it reached the potbellied toads, they immediately rushed out of the swamp toward the direction of the scent. They were surprisingly large, about half the size of an adult male.
As soon as the potbellied toad at the very front saw the smoke wafting from the one-eyed pheasant, it immediately opened its mouth, attempting to snare the pheasant with its tongue.
Of course, Su Ping would stop it from doing so. With a few waves of his sword, all the potbellied toads that had tried to stick their tongues out found them severed.
The next moment, Su Ping activated his Aerowolf spirit essence and charged toward them.
[Cascade-Wave Resonance]—each palm strike struck with the force of a tidal wave, and the potbellied toads that were unfortunate enough to be caught in the attack all collapsed.
The toads' only real danger came from their long, sticky tongues, as well as their ability to stuff just about anything down their throat. However, given the large disparity between their strength and Su Ping's, he had nothing to fear.
As the smoke continued wafting around the swamp, more and more toads began to surface. In a flurry of blows, Su Ping swept through the toads like a sickle through wheat. It took a dozen kills and as many shattered spirit essences with relatively useless capabilities before Su Ping finally obtained his first potbellied-toad spirit essence.
[Spirit Essence designation: storage-type (spatial).]
Upon activating
The Spirit Essence, a miniature pouch, appeared in Su Ping's hand. The pouch possessed the property of spatial miniaturization; although it wasn't much larger than his hand, it could store up to a truckload's worth of space.
However, even that wasn't enough; the pouch would fill up after storing a dozen toad carcasses. Su Ping couldn't be satisfied with just one such pouch. Since he was at the swamp already, he might as well get a full dozen.
The blue smoke continued attracting toads, and Su Ping began his slaughter in earnest, wishing that he had a multi-target offensive technique. With his palm attack and his blade, another dozen toads lost their lives, producing one more spirit essence.
Just as Su Ping was about to pocket the Spirit Essence, however, a mutated-grade potbellied toad, about twice the size of a regular one, appeared from the swamp. Su Ping was hoping for exactly such an opportunity; after all, it meant that he would soon be able to have a mutated-grade potbellied-toad spirit essence.
The resulting mutated pouch would be at least three times the size of a regular one. If he could obtain multiple copies of it, he wouldn't have to worry about storage space ever again.
He activated [Calm Waters], flung a few toad carcasses toward the mutated toad, and followed up with a blow from Galewind. As he circulated his genetic energy, his blade took on a pale blue sheen, and he reached the toad in an instant.
He had obstructed the mutated toad's vision with the carcasses of the regular-grade toads, and that momentary distraction was sufficient for Su Ping to approach. By the time it sensed danger, a pale blue longsword had already impaled its head. The mutated-grade potbellied toad slumped to death without even having time to croak.
As Su Ping smashed a regular-grade potbellied-toad Spirit Essence to pieces, a Spirit Essence condensed over the mutated toad's carcass. He'd acquired its spirit essence!
With that spirit essence in hand, Su Ping began slaughtering the other toads even more quickly. Countless toads that jumped out of the swamp fell to his blade.
After another ten minutes, when the smoke finally dissipated, the potbellied toads stopped splashing out of the swamp. During the ten-minute bonanza, Su Ping had obtained thirteen regular-grade and two mutated-grade Spirit Essences, a large haul by any standard.