76 That Snake was easy

He was cursing up a storm when he realised when he realised what exactly he was fighting up against. He hadn't planned for this to happen but he guessed that he had to roll with it. This was the only Qi Beast that stayed behind whenever the other two went out to catch their food or drink water from the river. It usually just hung around in the open area, sunbathing its entire body.

Ye Xiu never realised what it actually was because it never moved and it had always been coiled up. Ye Xiu continued to watch as a massive snake slithered on the floor as he disturbed its sleep by moving closer towards it. He realised that when the snake was coiled up it did not do justice on what its actual size and length it was.

Ye Xiu wasn't scared of snakes in general but he was certainly surprised and shocked by the size of the snake. Even if he had watched numerous videos on the largest snakes in his previous world, it definitely had nothing on the size that this snake had on them. He tried to compare the sizes but it seemed that this was going to be the largest snake that he had ever seen.

He had no idea on how to fight this particular Qi Beast and felt that the best possible solution to the problem was to kill it with fire. He literally set his hand on flames using fire Qi and looked at it. He was having second thoughts. 'For some reason, this doesn't feel like a smart idea.' He had a feeling that doing something as foolish as lighting the snake on fire would not go well for him. He cut off the Qi supply to his hand and the flames vanished.

He stood there thinking about what he should do to try and kill the massive behemoth of a snake. He knew that he probably had around about an entire hour before the other two Qi Beasts came back since it usually takes them an hour and a half before they get back. Ye Xiu had plenty of time to kill the snake if he knew how to deal with it. He mulled over the species of the snake before being able to conclude which particular snake species it was.

'This snake is usually a Grade 1 Qi Beast so it has to be strong in order for it to become a Grade 3 Qi Beast. The species doesn't really have much going for them besides having a poison that is generated naturally in their body and a poisonous gas that they could release to incapacitate enemies. Besides that, the majority of the species had high affinity to only wood QI but variations and mutations do occur so I wouldn't bet on that.'

He knew that the poison would probably be a problem for him since he had no way to tell what kind of poison that it would generate since it had become a Grade 3 Qi Beast. He could only hope that the pills and elixirs that he had would counteract the poison. He did have high hopes for his pills and elixirs to counter the poison since it would be able to neutralise poisons underneath the 4th Grade.

Ye Xiu no longer had no many seeds so he wouldn't be able to restrain the snake though that would've been a futile effort since the snake's size meant that it was powerful and would be able to break through the vines easily. He knew how strong his vines could be and it definitely wouldn't be able to handle something that looked to be over twenty metres long.

He circled around the area that the snake was still sleeping in. He wasn't sure if the snake was actually taking a nap or whether it was just sunbathing. He set up a few traps that could possibly come in handy for a later fight. He might as well do something if he wasn't going to engage the snake immediately.

Once he managed to set up some rudimentary traps that were unlikely to do anything but annoy and slow down the Qi Beasts. If it were for the two other QI Beasts it would only slow them but Ye Xiu believed that because the snake was so big, it could only move at a fast speed during the first attack. Most big snakes had that problem and most of their faster attacks were from surprise attacks. If it wasn't a surprise attack they usually used their entire body to constrict their prey to death before devouring it.

Ye Xiu was definitely not planning to be constricted so his multiple traps focused on having the snake having to manoeuvre its entire body to get to him. The snake was relatively thick as well so it wouldn't be able to pass through certain areas and would make it difficult for the snake to even leave after it gets trapped.

He stood atop of a tree branch and noticed that his time had dwindled down to less than thirty minutes. He took out a bottle from his dimensional storage and his katana before jumping down. Ye Xiu landed on the ground quietly since he had learnt how to keep silent after needing to hide from the numerous Qi Beasts that roamed around the forest before. Though he landed on the ground silently, the snake started to stir from its position and its large forked tongue could be seen flickering out of its mouth.

When Ye Xiu saw the tongue flickering out, he already knew that the snake had already noticed him since it had never tasted his scent before. He quickly moved with his katana in hand and jumped in the air to try to attack the coiled body. He wasn't directly attacking the head because he knew that the snake would immediately lunge and Ye Xiu didn't think that he would like to fight against the snake's fangs.

The katana sliced into the snake's body easily due to his combination of fire and metal Qi. He pulled the blade out immediately and jumped away as the snake's head moved towards his direction. His attack had immediately cauterized the wound since the snake could release poisonous gas from anyway on its body as long as its mouth was open or if it had any open wounds which would passively release the gas.

What he was trying to currently do was make the snake become angry enough so that he could start to bait it towards his traps. If at any moment of the battle, the snake opens its mouth to try and bite him he would immediately throw a little surprise into its waiting mouth.

His little surprise comprised of a seed of a plant that they had managed to stumble across during one of the annual auctions that they had in the city and another plant that had an effect that they wanted. They got the first seed for a reasonable price since it was only the seeds of a plant. They had only managed to successfully create a single seed that was prepared to be used in a battle whilst the other seeds that they had bought had been placed into the Dimension for it to grow.

The second plant was one that they had managed to find in the wilderness during their first mission. With Shang Yang's and Ye Xiu's effort, they had managed to successfully combine the two plants' effects into one so that they would have both the effects. They named the plant 'Silverthorn Rose.' They named it for the appearance that it took when it was fully grown but the name itself didn't reveal what it was able to do.

They had registered the new plant at one of the Herbalist Greenhouses where it was then added to the plant compendium. The Herbalist Greenhouse that they registered the new plant it wasn't even surprised by the registration since numerous plants were registered often. People often experimented so it wasn't unknown for the same plants to have the same name.

Since the list of plants and herb was updated so often, many of those in the occupations that require the knowledge had to keep up to date so that they know of the new species and to be aware that it existed. The registration of the plant required the bare minimum of the appearance of the plant and then the name. No further information was required since it was up to the discretion of the finder to reveal what they had. The cultivator world was harsh and not everybody would give up their secrets that easily.

When the 'Silverthorn Rose' is fully grown, blade-like thorns grow all over the petals and stem, slicing anybody's hands up if they dared to touch it. If enough fire Qi is inserted into the plant, it explodes and sends the thorns as an omnidirectional attack. Ye Xiu had the inspiration to try and create this particular plant was due to the bombs that contained shrapnel in his previous world. They caused huge amounts of damage to the surrounding and that was what the plant was designed for besides for defensive purposes.

He was going to have the seed grown into maturity before throwing it into the snake's mouth together with a Qi needle infused with fire Qi that would insert the fire Qi into the plant before exploding. The rose itself when combined with numerous others could become a 'Silverthorn Rose Bush' but Ye Xiu didn't have the time or materials necessary for that. Ye Xiu had a way to prevent the rose from injuring him and it was what he was counting on so he could hold it and throw it.

Ye Xiu knew that throwing a plant would barely work since air resistance would work against it and it would probably fall down to the ground due to the wind currents and gravity which was why the needle was there to push it into the snake's mouth. It would require elaborate timing so that the snake wouldn't close its jaw in time.

The snake had started to follow Ye Xiu into the forested area where he had his traps set up. They weren't much but with a huge amount of vines barring the way of the thick snake that had no other way to get past the obstacle than to open its jaw to bite its way through the obstacle. Ye Xiu was waiting for that exact moment to send the rose together with his needle.

Ye Xiu didn't mind ruining the snake's body because it would only be a portion of the body. He was going to simply sell it in an auction since he thought that the massive body would fetch a huge price. Surprisingly, the snake didn't even use Qi to remove obstacles in the entire fight which made Ye Xiu's job much easier than he had expected.

Ye Xiu attested the lack of Qi usage to the snake not being warm enough. Since it was a cold-blooded creature it would move slower and react slower which is why it probably didn't use Qi consciously and instead used it to enhance the poison that is housed inside of the body.

After the rose was inside the snake, the snake started to release as much poisonous gas as it could into the surroundings whilst it did something that was intriguing and disgusting to Ye Xiu. The snake was inhaling the poisonous gas that was emitted into itself and Ye Xiu was watching the situation within the beast since the poisonous gas itself contained Qi. Ye Xiu guessed that the snake was trying its best to remove the rose but it was already too late.

The snake stopped moving entirely after the thorns were sent everywhere inside of its body. Multiple thorns had actually penetrated the snake's brain.

Ye Xiu was actually doubting whether his dimensional storage rings could handle the size of the snake but remembered that Shang Yang had gifted him a pendant that had a much bigger space than the rings he had. Immediately using the pendant to store the body, he ran out of the area like a startled deer and returning to his camp.

'Two more. Just two more to go.' He sat down and took out the snake's body so he could remove the thorns from it. He was actually going to open the snake's jaw and climb inside of it to remove them. He had a bunch of neutralisation elixirs so he felt that he was safe.