Chapter 59 - Burial Ground

Screee.

Ao.

Stalks of medicine fell against Tian Longmeng and Yama Mengyuan's combined culling, their screams proving futile. Because of the fight earlier, an incomparable number of medicines were thrown out of the ground. This land then became a treasure cove.

The medicine tried to dig back into the ground once more but found difficulty since they were considerably damaged by the shockwaves of battle. It was nigh impossible for them to escape a fully energized Tian Longmeng and Yama Mengyuan. They preyed on these helpless medicines like harbingers of death.

Some medicines were still able to muster the energy to escape. Tian Longmeng did not bother to hunt the escaped ones. After all, there was plenty above ground already. They spent an hour on their leisure hunt.

Yama Mengyuan calculated their loot. "Just shy of 800 jins of medicine; all of good quality as well, not bad."

They collected all sorts of medicine, from healing and auxiliary, to ones that they could not identify. If any of the others were to see this grand pile of treasure, they would certainly drown in their own saliva.

Tian Longmeng took that into consideration as his forehead creased. "How are we going to carry all of these?"

Yama Mengyuan nodded understandingly; however, her answer was rather quick, contrary to Tian Longmeng's expectations. "Here is your answer." She wagged a ring that was on her finger.

Tian Longmeng stared at her puzzled, which led her to surprise. She muttered to herself. "You know about body cultivation but not storage rings?"

Now, she truly thought that Tian Longmeng was a strange case. However, she had other things to think about. "This is a spatio-temporal storage ring; we just call it a storage ring though. These things come in other forms like void bags and the like, but they all have one use, storing things in a spatial zone inscribed in the ring. Depending on the quality, the amount of space available can be increased and time can even be slowed as well in there."

"Lucky for us, I just so happen to have a really good one that can hold 5 million jins. Pretty impressive, aren't I?" She began gloating.

These storage rings amazed Tian Longmeng. He never knew that there were items widespread that could do the same storage function like the Ark can. This reaffirmed his zeal to visit the outside world even more.

Yama Mengyuan stopped gloating after she realized that it was not generating a reaction from Tian Longmeng. "Hello? You're still there?" She smiled, taking Tian Longmeng's flustered face as an answer.

For Tian Longmeng, he stormed away, leaving her behind to catch up. As he was taking out his anger on the hunt, he thought about the cool loner persona that he built crumbling before his eyes and felt like crying.

As the sun went down on another day, they were stopped by a disgusting stench trailing from a hill over the northeast. They noticed the gradual change in the soil's colour to something grey and the half rotting animal corpses.

"I have a strong feeling that this is some graveyard or burial ground." Yama Mengyuan advised Tian Longmeng to be cautious while they mounted the hill. It was common for burial grounds to be filled with malignant essence resonating from the decaying corpses and rotting medicines; hence she also advised Tian Longmeng against any intake of the essence.

Despite this, they entered because another thing that people knew about burial grounds was there would be some treasure here since this malignant essence was nutritious for numerous types of medicine and artifacts. Yama Mengyuan hoped that they could catch a real treasure here instead of settling for regular medicines.

They surveyed the place, cautious for anything. They came for treasures but no amount of treasures could replace a life.

Grr. They swung their heads to the west where the sound originated, arming themselves for the worse. Not soon after, a grey wolf emerged from the moulding trees; except, it was missing a large chunk of flesh by its stomach. Its half-corroded bones could barely contain anything anymore, leaving what was left of its organs trailing like greasy, purple tubes.

"That is a corpse wolf. Just like regular wolves, but they died somewhere around here and were animated by the malignant essence. They are not too smart so a little taunt should do the trick." Yama Mengyuan signalled Tian Longmeng to take the front while she fell back.

The corpse wolf's eyes glistened like glass marbles. It was probably the most alive thing about it.

Tian Longmeng stared in the wolf's eyes, readying himself for an attack. He paid special attention to the mucus dripping from its jaws. He could easily tell that whatever it is, it is not something that he would like to experience.

Rawr. It greedily lunged its jaws at Tian Longmeng. It showed no hesitation, signifying that it did not consider that Yama Mengyuan was just a couple feet away. This was already a stark difference from a living grey wolf who would not even consider attacking without a pack.

Tian Longmeng leaned backwards just in time to avoid Yama Mengyuan's knives. They pinned the corpse wolf onto a moulding tree. Despite its desperate struggles and growling, it could not break free from the knives.

Yama Mengyuan moved before Tian Longmeng and fanned him away. "I will advise you to move, this place will get a little hot." With that she snapped her fingers.

Like a spark, flames erupted from the base of the tree, setting the wolf on fire. It seemed fire was extremely effective against these types of beasts since the wolf released ear-splitting howls as it struggled madly. Unfortunately, its activities came to a quick halt after burning for a couple minutes.

Yama Mengyuan located a cave opening in this distance where the corpse wolf came from. She drew her knives from the ashes. Despite being under constant flames, they had no burn marks or sooth attached to it. This was a testament to how high quality these knives were.

"Found somewhere interesting, you want to check it out?" She already started walking toward the cave without waiting for Tian Longmeng's answer.

Tian Longmeng stopped her. "How did you cause those flames?"

"Huh?" Wide-eyed, Yama Mengyuan came to a complete stop.

"Oh, that. It was just a Spark Flint Pill. Just break it and the shards will burst into flames." She caught herself but Tian Longmeng did notice her unnatural pause. He decided to follow her inside the cave, but he could not quite shake the idea that there was no pill in her hand at the time.