15 Burrow Preparations

After Shui Renshu had departed, Bai Lian began her preparations. The burrow she had mentioned to the old man was only inches away from her roots' reach. The burrow was a relatively small one and was currently occupied by a couple dozen fox-tailed gerbils. Compared to the usual foxt-tailed gerbil burrows, housing hundreds of gerbils, this was quite small.

Bai Lian knew about this burrow due to the automatic signals sent by the plants the gerbils had brought to their burrow. Even if a plant were to be split in half, the plant would still be capable of sending signals from either part. Night vision was an ability possessed by all plants, so the dark burrow could not prevent these automatic signals from properly revealing the burrow to Bai Lian.

'I was originally not planning on absorbing any plants until my roots have reached every corner of this forest. However, that was when I thought I would be idle for all these years. Now that there has been changes to my plans, I'll need to absorb certain plant properties early.'

Since revealing the location of the burrow to Shui Renshu, Bai Lian had been pondering over how to discreetly go about absorbing the plants and leaving them completely white. Since she had already revealed the burrow, she planned on finish the preparations before the two children visited her.

Absorbing only a couple plants from a cluster of them would be more noticeable than absorbing the whole cluster. After all, a couple white plants in a cluster of non-white plants of similar appearance may draw out the question of why those couple plants were white. However, if the whole cluster were white, then someone looking for herbs would only conclude it was a different herb. Since, she was not absorbing the plants of the forest on a large scale, the few clusters of white plants would not attract unwanted attention.

Bai Lian observed the plants within the reach of her roots. She decided on five different plants. The moonglare clover, red pythaweed, and stardust aster could be used to create a fragrance that can effectively cover up the scent of blood and rotting. The nightshade vine and violet snakeroot are both poisonous plants that have high affinity with one another. Combing the two poisons would create a more potent and deadly poison.

Although she began absorbing from all five plants, she prioritized the poisonous ones, which would be the first to see usage. Initially, absorbing from the poisonous plants brought great pain due to her lack of affinity with or immunity to poison.

Her fire immunity was useless before the surge of burning pain coursing through her body. After all, she was not truly burning, for there was no changes to the heat of her body. However, she could only describe the pain as burning for her mind unconsciously relived the final memory of her past life where she was eaten away by a raging fire as she succumbed to death. Bai Lian's mind only cleared up when the pain began its gradual recession.

As the sun began to rise, Bai Lian could feel her body take in and integrate the new poisonous properties. A wave of warmth washed over her as changes only noticeable to herself took place.

She continued to absorb the other three plants as she began utilizing her new poisonous properties. Bai Lian's roots began to invade the burrow. The root tips that were poking in through the walls of the burrow, unnoticed by the fox-tailed gerbils, slowly released a poisonous gas.

With the first whiff of the poison, the gerbils were alerted. The gerbils raced for the single exit of the small burrow. However, the moment the exit came within reach, the panicked gerbils were met with a blazing ball of flame. Those directly hit were seared beyond recognition. The sheer heat of the fire sent sensations of pain sparking throughout the bodies of the slower gerbils who were farther away from the burrow exit. They eyed themselves to confirm they were not actually burned.

The gerbils instinctively glanced around their burrow expecting a great fire to break out in their burrow, leaving them with no chance for survival. Panicked over the poison and fire, few gerbils had witnessed it, but immediately after the flames made contact with the gerbils, a ball of water qi, much larger in size than the fire, followed. The gerbils that remained ignorant could only connect the humidity in the burrow with the poisonous gas. As for their wet fur, they paid no heed, unconsciously assuming all the water on them was sweat.

Observing the charred, unrecognizable corpses of their kinsmen, the gerbils were horrified. The average strength of the gerbils was that of a rank 8 spirit warrior. However, their brethrens were reduced to such a state by a single attack. The sight of their unrecognizable kinsmen captured the thoughts of all the remaining gerbils, diminishing their hope with each passing second. Their opponent was clearly not their match. Did they have any other option besides submitting to their deaths?

The poison along with their weakened minds caused the gerbils to collapse one by one as they awaited their impending end. As the last gerbil let out its final breath, Bai Lian felt another flood of warmth, signalling her body was undergoing changes once more.

With her new properties, Bai Lian released a fragrance that would hide the scent of the gerbils' blood and decay. At the same time, she absorbed the lingering poison in the air through her roots.

Her evolutions of this day had brought her a benefit she was not quite expecting. She originally had 11 visual receptors on her body, with none of the being on her roots. With her new changes, visual receptors covered her roots.

'The cause of this mutation should be my continuous root growth efforts. However, the changes had not taken place until now. Perhaps the changes needed a big enough trigger for an evolution to occur before being integrated into my body during the evolution,' theorized Bai Lian.

Her gaze directed itself at the gerbil corpses. The few charred corpses particularly stood out, 'Mm… as expected of the phoenix blood and sunrise water lily. I had suspected fire to be the qi element I have the most affinity with, but to think it would be this strong.' Bai Lian's gaze was tinged with satisfaction. Since absorbing from the sunrise water lily, Bai Lian had only been cultivating without ever gaining combat experience, so this was the first time she had seen the fruits of her labor.

Bai Lian urged her roots to continue their invasion of the burrow, covering the walls and ground of the burrow with roots. Upon feeling satisfaction towards her handiwork, Bai Lian began absorbing the gerbil corpses.