Chapter 7: Harvesting Herbs

Chapter 7: Harvesting Herbs

"Grace Wang, what's wrong with you? Haven't you learned your lesson after what happened yesterday? And you've brought your teammates with you this time, I see."

"Su Ping, you've been getting quite cocky lately, haven't you? How dare you attack one of our teammates?"

"To think that even a weakling like you would dare to bully our Grace!"

"If we weren't here to protect her, wouldn't you keep attacking her again and again?"

Grace Wang's teammates began taunting him, but Su Ping was indifferent to the verbal assault. "Perhaps you should all stop her from harassing others instead, no?"

"Eh, you dare talk back to us? Grace was giving you face by waiting for you so patiently outside the settlement gates, but you disregarded that and even beat her up! Don't you think you should compensate her for her troubles?"

Grace Wang was Donovan Qin's girlfriend, and Qin Niu, the leader of her team, would naturally defer to her demands to get into Donovan Qin's good books.

"I heard you've killed a large number of Milk Slimes recently, haven't you? You must have quite a few of their cores stored up, then. Hand all those points over, and I'll show you mercy and let you leave."

Su Ping scoffed. "Are you hunters or bandits?"

"So what if we want to rob you? We're showing interest in you, you understand? You should be kneeling on the ground and thanking us for our attention!"

Qin Niu's arrogance quickly attracted a crowd of onlookers.

"Haha, the king of the dumps is dead for sure this time. Remember how he dared to fight back against Grace Wang yesterday? All hunters work in teams, except for useless trash like him that no one wants—and after he attacked Grace Wang, of course she would retaliate with her entire team."

"All her teammates have their mutated gene capacity maxed out, don't they? They're ranked in the hundreds on the gene leaderboard, so surely Su Ping's dead meat now."

Su Ping narrowed his eyes. "Scram."

"Oho? You're really asking for a beating, aren't you?!"

Qin Niu rubbed his thumb and index finger together, as though Su Ping was an ant that he could crush effortlessly. However, just as he spoke, Su Ping made his move. Given the power disparity between him and Qin Niu, no one had expected him to do so.

Pa! Pa! Pa! [Cascade-Wave Resonance]!

Three palm strikes landed on Qin Niu's chest, as fast as lightning, the force so great that it flung his body into the air.

"Captain!" Grace Wang's other teammates snarled as they surrounded Su Ping.

However, Su Ping was already getting ready to leave. He bent his knees slightly, and genetic energy coalesced into waves beneath his feet—[Rippling Walk].

With the additional speed from his mutated-grade Aerowolf's spirit essence, in the blink of an eye, his silhouette became nothing more than a tiny dot in the distance. No one would be able to catch him given his current speed.

Grace Wang clutched her hair and screamed. "Su Ping! Are you going to run off like a coward? Turn around and face me like a man!"

Su Ping wasn't an idiot; why would he waste his time with these fools? In the end, he vanished from sight.

But was Su Ping afraid of them? Of course not. Given the gene fragments he currently had, along with his combat experience, it would have been a piece of cake for him to take them all down. However, he had no intention of revealing his true strength just yet.

His earlier attack had more or less demonstrated some level of competency, but it wasn't anything too shocking. The next stages of his plan required secrecy, so he didn't want to attract attention. It made sense for him to hide his strength.

Clad in translucent white armor, Su Ping rushed toward his first herb-collecting locale.

Herbs were the basic ingredient for spiritual pills and potions. In the wide expanse of the dimensional world grew not only all sorts of strange lifeforms, but also a multitude of plants with unique capabilities. These plants were native to the dimensional world, and their flowers, fruits, and stems all possessed near-miraculous properties.

It had been just about a century since the dimensional world was discovered, and although mankind's understanding of this mysterious region was improving day by day, dimensional herblore was still in its infancy.

It would be at least a decade before the rise of the first pillmasters. The development of strength- and vitality-enhancing potions would take another decade, not to mention the invaluable limit-breaking potions.

Past the first realm of the dimensional world was the second realm, the third realm... in order to improve their chances of survival in ever more dangerous environments, hunters would have to be very familiar with concocting pills and potions.

As a reincarnator, Su Ping's most valuable assets were potion recipes. In order to produce these potions, he would need to collect all manner of herbs and other ingredients. The first location to which Su Ping was headed was the Bloodcrystal Valley.

The valley was home to an enormous colony of Voltaire ants, a type of mutated-grade lifeform. Voltaire Ants' spirit essence would temporarily enhance their users' regeneration abilities, allowing them to recover from injuries at an accelerated rate.

Su Ping needed to obtain an advanced-grade Voltaire Ant's spirit essence because it was one of the few means by which he could enhance his regenerative capabilities. His eventual goal in the first realm of the dimensional world was to challenge formidable enemies and survive in dangerous situations.

Of course, given his current skill level, Su Ping had no intention of challenging any advanced-grade lifeforms, let alone disaster-grade lifeforms. With only ten advanced gene fragments, challenging an advanced-grade lifeform at this stage was akin to committing suicide.

The advanced-grade White Grub that he had risked his life to kill was an abnormally weak existence for advanced-grade lifeforms, and Su Ping would certainly be unable to defeat stronger ones at the moment.

Advanced-grade Voltaire Ants tended to hide deep within the valley, and Su Ping would avoid them if at all possible.

His primary goal for entering the valley was to collect herbs. Of course, if everything were to go smoothly, he'd also collect a number of gene fragments and, ideally, the blood of a mutated Voltaire Ant.

The Bloodcrystal Valley was composed of a number of hill-like structures formed by gigantic red crystals, hence its name. Caves of all sizes were distributed around each hill. By the roof of each cave were a number of red, root-like protrusions, the precise herbs that Su Ping was here to collect.

Known as Blood Petals, they looked more like red icicles than plants. In truth, they were a highly potent herb, as well as one of the main ingredients for Su Ping's Potion #2.

To date, there were two reasons this herb's properties had yet to be discovered, which were the two problems that Su Ping would have to resolve.

First, those cave entrances led into the Voltaire Ants' nests, and he would be attacked as soon as he got close to them. Second, Voltaire Ants were highly territorial and pack-based lifeforms, and an individual Voltaire Ant could quickly summon the entire colony to its aid.

Individually, these Voltaire Ants were about the size of large dogs, but they had a surprising ability to secrete an adhesive liquid that they could shoot at intruders, preventing them from moving. The liquid could even trap and incapacitate advanced-grade hunters, forcing them to either kill the attacking Voltaire ants or wait for support to arrive.

With their superior regenerative capabilities, voltaire ants would not be afraid of attacks from even advanced-grade hunters. Given these circumstances, most hunters would simply avoid the region entirely.

If Su Ping were to attack by force, he would receive nothing more than a quick death, but of course, he had a plan. Rather than entering the valley directly, he climbed up a tall hill neighboring the valley.

From the top of the hill, Su Ping suddenly spread his arms wide, morphed his suit of armor into a glider, activated his Aerowolf spirit essence, and then jumped down. The wind swirled around him, boosting the speed of his descent.

With Su Ping's innate sense of proprioception, as well as the skeins of amorphous matter he could shoot out from his hand to control and orient his descent, Su Ping glided toward a large crystal hill, as agile as a bird.

And as he descended, he reached out into the caves and tore out quite a few bloodpetals. Of course, as he did so, he was subject to a number of scattered attacks, all of which were blocked by his armor.

Without activating [Rippling Walk], it would be very difficult for Voltaire Ants to catch up with him. But after their failed attacks, they immediately began to secrete the adhesive liquid and shoot it at Su Ping.

Su Ping quickly activated [Rippling Walk], avoiding the incoming liquid and swiftly exiting the valley. The pursuing Voltaire ants were left in the dust.

As he stored the blood petals he had grabbed, Su Ping again climbed up the neighboring hill. The fact that he had managed to collect almost thirty stalks of the herb demonstrated the viability of his technique.

However, the coordination of the Voltaire Ants rather 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 or so 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 herb-collecting technique left much to be desired. This time around, given his past experience, he would surely be able to collect more blood petals.