17 JOURNEY TO THE SNAKE MOUNTAIN (PART 1)

As Tara left River Territory, she had bruises over her hands while saving An Ren; her heart was disturbed thinking about An Ren and the cruelty of Yun Jyusen and his friends. She had anger in her heart regarding them, but soon she calmed herself and soon retained her focus once again. Eastern Yin Creek Region was three days distance away from River Territory, she read the route on the map and memorized the contents; there were three territories in between the 'Eastern Yin Creek Region', such as Snake mountain, Magma lake, Scorpion cave and finally 'Eastern Yin Creek Region'. She traveled through the forest while facing the hot sun, she was perspiring and she was thinking about Ashu, "what he will be doing now?"

She further thought that "now everyone has been separated to different locations and here I was being happy after meeting An Ren, that we will be able to smooth sail through this competition, but this competition is far more treacherous than I had thought; sister had said correctly to hide ourself unless we have the power to overcome our opponents. This Yun Jyusen is very conceited, he thinks that my sister's team is of losers, I will definitely teach him a lesson during this competition; I tolerated myself being ridiculed, but I can't bear my sister to be humiliated, I need to be stronger and increase my cultivation during this trip to 'Eastern Yin Creek Region'. It was 2nd day of her competition and she was trying her best to reach Snake mountain; the contents of the map said about snake mountain that this snake mountain actually doesn't have anything to do with snakes, but the shape of the mountain was zig-zag and there was ravine of snake shape in between two snake mountains where a river was flowing.

Tara pulled herself and crossed the wooden bridge over River Territory while the wooden bridge was in very dilapidated condition, but still, she carefully crossed it while chanting Budddha's name in her heart and successfully entered other area of the forest. She moved forward at a very fast pace because she wanted to reach Snake mountain before evening because the forest area becomes more dangerous at night, therefore for her safety she wanted to reach as early as possible.

As Tara was moving in the forest, she heard few noises from far, but as she came closer, she found that participants were fighting among themselves for a Liliputian plant which was very helpful for beginner 'Tempered Body Realm' cultivator; there were four participants, but 6 stalks of Liliputian plant, therefore they were fighting for those two extra stalks. All four wanted to have two extra stalks, hence they decided to have a match among them; these 6 stalks of Liliputian plant were growing on a huge boulder and as these participants were battling among themselves, Tara hid in bushes and slowly crawled towards that huge boulder while camouflaging herself perfectly in the ambiance. Her breath was steady and other participants mind was diverted in their battle; she stealthily stood up and took out her sword and uprooted those 6 stalks while making the negligible sound. As soon as Tara kept those 6 stalks in her storage ring, she crawled once again and came back near bushes while stealthily leaving that area.

Tara's mother Lady Lin Bao had taught her that stealing is a bad habit and its wrong to steal from others, but here in this condition, her act was not stealing rather taking benefit of opportunity; those 6 stalks of Liliputian plant during that situation were still attached to boulder and therefore it was not their property rather Medicine Valley's. As Tara left that region, after sometime fighting stopped and there were shouts of anger echoing in that area. Tara paced forward rapidly to not get discovered otherwise a fight would be unavoidable and in her current situation it was not good for her at all; she soon left that region and found a small empty cavern. She felt it was a nice place to retreat, hence she sat inside and camouflaged cavern from outside; after sitting inside cavern, she thought, "How do I convert these 6 Liliputian plant stalk into a medicinal pellet called, Liliput pill; this pill can help me in my breakthrough of beginner stages of 'Tempered Body Realm' smoothly." As Tara was thinking about alchemy issue, her flame mark on her forehead ignited and two techniques emerged in her mind; first was an alchemy technique called 'Lotus hands' and second was a flame technique called, 'Nirvana salvation'.

As Tara already had a Nirvana flame seed from her childhood which was transferred to her from her biological parents with the help of an 'Ancient Ceremony', later her 'Nirvana flame seed' transformed into 'Nirvana flame'. She searched through chants of scripture in her mind and analysed both techniques, Lotus hands and Nirvana Salvation. Lotus hands technique, was an alchemy technique which was used as an alchemy refining technique to transform all medicinal plants into pills, but she remembered chants of beginners stage i.e., she can only make medicines of basic levels from 'Tempered Body Realm' to 'Foundation Establishment Realm'. Nirvana Salvation technique, was a technique to control flames and to purify alchemy materials; she also only remembered chants of beginners level for this technique and she finally understood the process of using these techniques to purify medicinal plants, alchemy materials and transform them into medicinal pills. She memorised those chants, then she further put those stalks of Liliput plant into her hand and soon started to chant mantras of Lotus hand technique and Nirvana flame technique; these stalks started to burn and black flames appeared in her hand, these black flames were Nirvana flames. She used Lotus hand technique to separate stalks and filter them, she further adjusted flames by Nirvana Salvation technique, but her techniques were not powerful due to her cultivation being lower. She was exhausted due to her Spirit qi being completely absorbed, but she continued to take High-grade Mortal Pills and continued her persistence; finally, Tara's efforts paid off and she was able to purify stalks of Liliput plant, but she was not able to transform them into pills, rather she purified them into powder successfully.

After perspiring profusely, Tara rested for one hour to recover herself and sat once again to resume her cultivation retreat; she immediately gulped 1st stalk powder and immediately after taking 'Liliput powder', Tara's body started to heat up and she felt perspiration all over her body. Her body started to strengthened automatically itself, but she felt something was missing in her body; Tara felt that she needed more 'Liliput powder' to breakthrough herself to 3rd stage of 'Tempered Body Realm', she immediately took one more stalk of 'Liliput Powder' while intensity of heat and tensile strength increased in her body and soon she heard a sound of 'crack' in her body and there was a discharge of black gas from her body; looking back to her body, she found herself at 3rd stage of 'Tempered Body Realm'.

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