Chapter 21 - Nether Devouring Flower (9)

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Upon hearing Bai Fuah's words, Arthur unconsciously lessened his pace by a great deal.

This action was obviously noticed by Bai Fuah, he lightly smiled and said, "If you want to give up, now is just about the right time to do so."

Arthur did not reply and continued walking forwards.

He indeed has thoughts of backing up now since he was truly fearful of what is coming up once they reached the core of this forest.

However, his greedy mind kept pushing him and telling him that there is a great treasure hidden within this forest. Although it might be impossible for something like that to happen in this almost decayed spiritual area, he still listened to his mind and marched forwards.

Keeping in his mind that he might greatly regret this decision, he would still firmly resolve himself after seeing the outcome no matter how bad it is. The pressure of his declining family and his poor talent is just that great.

With his current strength, it would be incredibly difficult for Arthur to obtain any treasures that would quickly raise his strength by a great deal. So he could only take risks. Now, such a mysterious place suddenly appeared before him, not only that but there is an extremely good chance that there might be a treasure being born, or perhaps it was already born and is just waiting for someone to come and take them.

Most treasures are incredibly difficult to find. If they weren't, then treasures wouldn't be called treasures, they might be called cabbages if that were ever the case. So, if a martial artist was to discover a treasure, then that is their own good fate and luck.

If Arthur passed by a place where a supreme treasure is possibly being kept because of his faint-heartedness, wouldn't that be the greatest joke played by himself?

Based on his current knowledge, spiritual flowers evolve from sucking the spiritual energy from other spiritual species. If his inference doesn't lie to him, then the potential treasure being kept in this forest might be a spiritual fruit of some sort.

Spiritual fruits could be eaten by a martial artist, there are many various types of spiritual fruits and their uses are also numerous. However, all of them have a common similarity, and that is to improve a martial artist's cultivation!

Moreover, that supposed spiritual fruit sucked the spiritual energy of this forest by over half.

It had to be known that cultivating in a spiritual area would be beneficial to a cultivator. And for the two of them who were currently inside such an environment, Bai Fuah was barely the only one who could actually gain something from it, however, it is already sufficient to prove this point and thus it can't be wrong.

Now, for a spiritual fruit to absorb the energy of this spiritual area. It is both unbelievable and thunder-clapping to the ears. A spiritual fruit might not even be eight inches in size, to compress the spiritual energy of this tens of kilometers wide forest to a mere eight-inch fruit, what kind of concept was that?!

Not only would it be the purest fruit in maybe the whole continent, but it would also have an exhaustible amount of Genesis Energy that even the city mayor of White Alyssum City, the strongest martial artist in that area, might take several hundred years to refine.

After thinking this, Arthur completely removed the weakness in his heart and brimmed with excitement. He was already full of anticipation and regained his composure.

However, it seems that Arthur was the only one thinking along these lines.

Actually, these kinds of thoughts also flashed through Bai Fuah's mind. However, he almost instantly rejected this idea because...

It was too unrealistic.

Not only was it unrealistic, but it was also impossible to happen. Even if he died ten thousand times over, he would still not admit that such a thing would ever exist.

Genesis Energy is independent and singular. Although martial artists could absorb and store it in their body, freely controlling and manipulating them is extremely difficult. And while it is indeed in the categories of "difficult", it is not something that could be achieved even when you pour thousands of your effort. It is because it is only a step away from the realm of impossibility.

And to compress a massive amount of Genesis Energy into a tiny fruit. One does not even need to think to realize how insane a concept was that.

It would defy common sense and the beliefs of many people.

Bai Fuah was one of these many people, that's why he immediately disregarded this idea.

This thought process only lasted for a few seconds before Bai Fuah became vigilant again.

His senses were still raised to the limits and would occasionally glance at Arthur. His hands never left the sword's hilt and his posture was fixed to a pre-fighting position.

From time to time he would use a bit of his Genesis Energy to scan his surroundings for any abnormalities.

His consumption of Genesis Energy was minuscule but he was actually having a hard time restoring it back. Hence, he would only use it again once his Genesis Energy recovers to the maximum again.

Everything he did was cautious and done in an orderly fashion. If there were someone who was paying attention to him, then they would probably not even think that this is his first time stepping in the wild.

Arthur said that he was hungry so they stopped by a nearby tree. Earlier, several corpses of beasts that were speculated to be fighting amongst themselves until their deaths were happily poked at by Arthur and took some of the clean parts of their corpses and decided to bring it along with him.

In front of them is exactly that, slowly being roasted by a small fire with stacked branches found around the area.

In normal times, even the branch of a random tree inside a spiritual area would be incredibly hard for a mortal to break. That was because they were tempered by the spiritual energy flowing throughout the forest, therefore, it would take some effort to break them.

However, now that the spiritual energy is gone, they were no different from and were even weaker than a normal branch. Hence, it didn't exert any arduous task for the two of them to burn the branches.

The meat of beasts is hard to chew but they were beneficial to the martial artist who is still at the stage of tempering their body.

The nutrients inside would loosen up the various meridians of a martial artist making it easier for them to break through the last stage of the Body Strengthening Realm.

Even some of the few wealthy families in White Alyssum City would find it hard to consistently provide their upper disciples a meat of a Superior Body Stage beast. So Arthur didn't hold back and bit the living soul out of this precious meat.

It's a pity that Arthur's pockets weren't large enough, otherwise, he would have taken all the corpses earlier and brought it home.

The two of them didn't exchange much words during their little break. Arthur thought of starting a conversation with Bai Fuah but he didn't after a few thoughts. He was a smart boy and he knew that there are certain dangers in talking with someone in a place where you have to keep full vigilance of, disturbing Bai Fuah by this time is a bit careless.

After a few minutes of satisfying their stomachs. They were now prepared to leave.

By this time, it was almost dawn and the beauty of the flowers would be much more mesmerizing at this point in time. However, inside this deathly forest, there wasn't the slightest bit of beauty to be viewed, it was as if a great undead army would soon rise underneath this gray colored land.

"We do not know much about this land. It's best if we completely avoid any potential risks. So, before the moon centers itself above, we will leave."

Arthur nodded rather hesitantly. Although he really wanted to say that there should be no problem going deeper and longer, he didn't really have much confidence. He knows what kindness is and what is not. Bai Fuah accompanying him here is already a favor that he would not forget, being overly greedy is not favorable to him as of now.

For an hour, they slowly kept walking and soon, just a mere hundred steps separated them from the core part of this forest. If this were an ordinary spiritual area, even Arthur might feel the pureness of the spiritual energy in this area, he would feel every many parts of his body being slowly tempered by the energy, the sensation it would give was similar to bathing at a divine spring in a holy land. Not a single moment could be wasted, but even if it was, the spiritual energy would still stubbornly temper their body.

However, there wasn't anything similar happening to him. Although he expected it, he was still left disappointed. This spiritual area should be quite high in the lower spiritual areas, reaching this deep into the forest should already be quite a rare feat for them. Because in normal times, many stronger beasts would gather to enjoy the pure spiritual energy here.

Soon, only a short ten steps separated them from the core of this forest. Bai Fuah raised his senses to the utmost limit and was ready to take Arthur away anytime.

Five...

Four...

By this time, it was already hard for Arthur to conceal his nervousness as a bead of sweat traveled from his side of the face down to his chin.

"Little brother Arthur, quickly get behind me."

Arthur did what he was told and slid over to Bai Fuah's side. His hands now gripped the short dagger on his back to provide some sense of safety.

Both of them were tense, afraid of what's going to appear underneath their eyes. Based on the distance of the roar that they heard earlier, it should have originated around here, thus, another reason for them to tense up more.

Finally, they took one last deep breath and stepped over the core area of the forest.

Even though the forest is dyed gray like a lifeless withered leaf. They still recognized the core part of this spiritual area by the gigantic trees that measure up to a two hundred meters. That's basically twice the size of the normal height of the trees one can encounter. Therefore, it's fairly easy to recognize the core area.

Upon stepping here, both of them did not stop and continued onwards. This time they did not walk straight but circled around it.

They didn't encounter any beasts as they proceeded before but it doesn't mean that it's the same here. The roar from earlier can be a proof to that. If they still continued straight then that is no different from a sheep amongst feral wolves.

Dawn had arrived but there were still no signs of lifeforms around which made Bai Fuah frown.

"This place is just too strange.", he muttered. With things coming this far, even he would find it a slight pity to not find just what kind of a phenomenon is happening with this spiritual area. He made a conceptual argument within himself on whether or not he should use his large-scale perception skill.

However, once he used this, it would consume a quarter of his total Genesis Energy. If he were to do that and they suddenly encountered a beast that is on his level, then he would surely be at a great disadvantage and both he and Arthur would be in grave danger.

Gritting his teeth with his eyes emitting a firm resolution, he activated the large-scale perception skill that covered almost a kilometer of the area with him as the center.

He felt his head going slightly dizzy upon seeing so many things at once abruptly. Since they do not know what they are looking for, Bai Fuah randomly searched the area, looking for unusualities.

This continued for a hundred breaths of time. Within this period, Arthur obviously noticed Bai Fuah's actions and barely guessed what he was doing.

All of a sudden, Arthur saw Bai Fuah stop walking so he bumped into him which startled him, "Senior Brother Bai Fuah? What's wrong?"

Bai Fuah did not respond, his expression was distorted and it was evident that he was struggling.

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Author:

Haha! Starting from here, all future chapters will have at least a 2.1k word count. Also, all updates will be posted on my patreon, so do take note of that.

Obviously, you do not know what I am babbling about, after the 22nd chapter, surely you will understand .