“Ready to go?” Akata said.

Peizhi Xiuying looked at him with admiration and fear. She noticed how he instantly slaughtered the Lunar Bear and collected the blood as soon as he saw the innate ability of it. That kind of strength was abnormal for a Grade 3 cultivator. It may even be on the level of Grade 5.

“Yeah… I’m ready to go.” She managed to squeeze out. Akata looked at her confused and then went along walking.

‘She’s acting weird. I wonder what’s wrong with her. Maybe she’s tired, I haven’t seen her fight like that in a while so she could just be out of energy.’ He thought to himself. ‘We should probably set up camp then and rest.’

“We should set camp up and rest our minds and body. It’s important to stay in top shape when in here.” Akata spoke out.

“Yea… Yeah! You’re right we should probably rest our minds and body. Ahaha.” Peizhi Xiuying rubbed the back of her head and let out a laugh. The laugh sounded forced though.

Akata sighed inside and shook his head. After an hour of walking they set up camp. Akata avoided anymore skirmishes with the beasts as he didn’t want it to affect Peizhi Xiuying. After setting up camp they pulled out the blood they collected and began to refine and absorb it.

Akata carefully absorbed his blood and thoroughly looked through its secrets. He saw the memories of the two bears and what innate abilities they had. ‘It’s interesting how beasts are born with innate abilities, whereas mortals have to obtain them. I guess this is just the difference between beasts and mortal.’

As he was thinking this he came to another thought. ‘Then what is the difference between plants and mortals? Could plants have something they are special at?’ After a bit of thinking he went back to concentrating on the blood.

The blood contained many secrets in it. The bears that they faced were about thirty years old, which to the bears was still young. All three of them were actually siblings. The bears were capable of reaching the 8th Grade of the Docile Rank which is pretty strong for a beast. They hunted in packs to make living in the forest much easier. Akata looked through all the memories and knowledge of the bears.

‘What is this?’ He stumbled upon a memory of the bear that he had beheaded and found something interesting. ‘That’s the Five Elements Rose! And it’s close by too! I can’t start searching until I finish absorbing this blood so let’s finish this first.’

He quickly went through all the memories and moved on the other secrets of the blood. There he found the innate ability of the Lunar Bear. ‘This ability is called Lunar Force. What? I can’t train in this ability? Ugh… all that work for nothing. At least I’ll get to add another bloodline on top of mine.’ He mentally shook his head and began absorbing the rest of the blood.

It took fairly quickly for Akata to absorb the blood since it only came from two beasts. Once he finished he jumped up and a smile ran across his face. Peizhi Xiuying had been finished absorbing the blood since she couldn’t look through any of its secrets or memories. She watched as Akata jumped up and headed her way.

“Peizhi Xiuying I’ve found the Five Elements Rose.” He said with a wide grin on his face. He wanted to spread the good news to her.

Peizhi Xiuying’s mouth gaped open and she jumped up too. “You did what?! How?!” She asked very curious as to his answer.

“Haha it was in the memories of that bear I killed. From the looks of it the rose should contain the elements of metal, water, yin, yang, and air. Oh and there’s more than one too. Hehe.” Akata was truly happy with his discovery. The flowers they were searching for were considered rare yet he was able to find two easily.

“Yin and yang elements?! Where at? Is it close by then?” Peizhi Xiuying asked, no longer able to contain her excitement. If she could get her hands on this flower then her vine would experience a major change.

“It is close by, in fact it shouldn’t take us more than an hour to get there even if we just walked.” Of course Akata was just as excited as Peizhi Xiuying was. He wanted to learn more about plants now that he discovered that they could cultivate too.

Together they rushed off in the direction that Akata had seen the flower. Their spirits were enlivened as they came closer to the destination.

Soon they could see a patch of flowers in the distance. Each flower had five different colors on them. In this grove of flowers the elements in the area were in turmoil. Wind swayed, water fell from nowhere, fire could be seen burning some distant plants, earth cracked in some places, and lightning crackled in the air.

When they arrived at the grove tens of different colored flowers could be seen. Peizhi Xiuying immediately laid her eyes on one flower however.

“Elements containing metal, water, air, yin, and yang. I can’t believe it. This specific type of flower is even rarer than the others.” Her eyes were shining and her mouth was gaped open. She really couldn’t believe that she was laying her eyes on this flower in front of her. Originally when she set out to find this flower she didn’t even imagine finding one with yin and yang properties, especially together.

Separately yin and yang could be seen as powerful elements to control. But together they were on a whole other class of their own. It was truly good fortune to come across this.

Peizhi Xiuying flashed an incantation gesture sending out her Grand Life Vine to circle around the rose. “Absorb!” The vine coiled around the rose and made a droning sound. “This Five Elements Rose has the colors of gold, blue, green, black, and white signifying that it has metal, water, air, yin, and yang as its elements respectively.” As she was speaking the color from the Five Elements Rose began to fade away into the vine.

As the colors faded away winds would stir, water would crash, metal would form, and light and darkness would descend. It was as if the rose was struggling to keep its color. Peizhi Xiuying gave a cold snort. “Humph. Pipe down!” She flashed another incantation gesture and pointed to the rose which trembled and lost even more of its color.

Soon the rose was completely white. It looked completely lifeless as it stood there. The Grand Life Vine flashed with different colors momentarily but then dimmed down. All was still but Peizhi Xiuying knew it wasn’t over.

She flashed another incantation gesture and pointed to the completely white rose once more. “Seize!” She yelled. The rose trembled and swayed along with the vine which was still coiled around it. Instantly a multicolored mote of light flew out of the rose and was absorbed by the vine.

The vine’s aura immediately exploded outward causing the wild elements in the area to be dispersed momentarily. The vine then turned into water, then metal, and wind. After that the vine turned completely black and then white. It had completely absorbed the five elements of the rose.

The Five Elements Rose then trembled greatly and finally turned into dust which floated into the air. Peizhi Xiuying flashed another incantation gesture and pointed at her vine. “Integrate.” She said softly. The vine stopped trembling. “Bloom.” Instantly the vine sprouted white buds on its tendrils. When the buds bloomed there were three different flowers, a lotus, a lily, and a rose.

With a look of satisfaction she sat down to recover her energy. Even as she closed her eyes and meditated to recover her energy she had a smile on her face.

Akata stood to the side watching all this happen, a look of amazement on his face. He quietly made the decision to study on plants and flowers once he got back to the sect. He looked out to the patch of Five Elements Roses and caught sight of one particular flower.

The flower had five colors like the rest of them. Red, black, azure, gold, and violet. It was normal save for one color. ‘Violet?’ Akata thought to himself as he strode forth toward the rose. Peizhi Xiuying was in her own little world so she didn’t notice Akata.

‘Violet is the color for the chaos element. An element that holds many more secrets and is more profound than even yin and yang. I don’t even see any other roses with a violet color. Is this the only one?’ He thought as he made his way closer to the rose.

He bent over to inspect the rose closer. As he inspected it he noticed something strange about it. ‘None of the elements are affecting the area. This would be a great flower to study when I get back.’ He thought to himself. He plucked the rose and put it in his bag.

Even though he held many things in his bag, it was special. The bag he carried could alter space and time which brought him many benefits. It was given to him by Third Elder as a gift. The bag could hold many things inside and also slow down time to a great degree. In fact the flower would survive longer in his bag than it would planted in the ground without any interference.

‘That should do it.’ He said to himself with satisfaction.

All of a sudden his face changed and he sent his fist out behind him. As soon as he did a dagger collided with it and fell with a ‘clank’.

Akata didn’t waste time as he rushed over to stand by Peizhi Xiuying, who had immediately opened her eyes to see what was going on. “What’s happening?!” She asked. She had just been in the middle of meditation and when she opened her eyes Akata was right beside her.

“We’re being ambushed by somebody. Though I actually think I’m the one they’re after.” He said with his nature sense spreading out. “I think that because even though you were just in the middle of meditation and unaware of your surroundings they didn’t attack you first. So whoever it is must be after me.” Akata’s eyes were darting around the area looking for any signs of moevemt.

“I would like to tell you to get away and leave me so that you’ll be safe but we’re in the middle ring and there are beasts here that are probably stronger than the people ambushing me. My fault but you’re going to have to stay by my side.” Akata said with helplessness.

“Mn. Don’t worry about it. I’ll help you deal with whoever dared to attack you. They’ll learn not to mess with my Akata.” As she spoke her voice grew colder and colder to the point where Akata almost didn’t recognize it.

Peizhi Xiuying flashed an incantation gesture, “Grand Life Vine!” and waved her hand out in front of her. The vines lashed out in front of her and the trees that had just been there were now toppled to the ground. She then waved her hand around her as the forest then fell to the ground clearing the view.

The moonlight was able to shine down on them now and illuminate the area. All was quiet and the sounds of beasts couldn’t even be heard.

“Whoever it is that is ambushing us has to at least be at the 3rd Grade since they made it into the middle ring. There’s probably more than one too so be careful.” Akata said to Peizhi Xiuying.

However she didn’t respond back and instead flashed another incantation gesture. Her Grand Life Vine grew to twenty meters and four more tendrils sprouted from the ground. She now had five tendrils of vines waving in the air. “Bud.” Instantly many white buds grew from the vine causing a boundless life force to spring up.

Her eyes darted across the area, killing intent seen within, until they stopped in a particular direction. She pointed her hand in that direction and two of her vines flew over there at a blazingly fast speed.

Akata noticed something over there too a bit earlier than Peizhi Xiuying did but he didn’t react in before her. He saw her send her vine in that direction and was astonished. ‘How could she sense over there at about the same time as me? And what is up with her mood? Is this the same Peizhi Xiuying from before?’ He thought to himself.

But as he thought he sensed something else inching closer to them from behind. He turned around and was about to strike out when he heard a blood curdling scream.

“AAARGH!”