Chapter 3
Chapter 3.
Lounging around and eating spiritual fruits was practically part of my daily routine.
“So what is this thing? Wasn't it just a juicy peach or something?”
Of course, every time I ate one, I did feel like it gave me a little more vitality.
[Baby Jiaolong: But aren't all spiritual fruits like that?]
-I honestly don't know.
└SunshineIsThisWorld: Put down what you're holding right now. Don't leave a bite mark in it! And don't take another bite!!
Their reaction was pretty intense.
Was this thing really that precious?
Come to think of it, what realm was this guy in?
└Baby Jiaolong: /SunshineIsThisWorld's realm!
[Yao Immortal Gallery: You cannot view the realm of an entity higher than yourself.]
“Tsk.”
Damn this strength-based hierarchy.
Anyway, it seemed Sunshine the Yao Immortal was leagues above me.
[Baby Jiaolong: So what is this thing?]
The reply came instantly.
└SunshineIsThisWorld: Purple Heart Grass Fruit.
Purple Heart Grass Fruit (紫心草果)?
└Yao Immortal (66.66): That's a Purple Heart Grass Fruit? I've only heard of it; this is my first time seeing one.
└Yao Immortal (333.3): I hear they're hard to find in the Lower Realm. Sunshine Yao probably knows more about them.
It seemed the others had heard of the spiritual fruit. I waited a moment, and Sunshine Yao replied.
└SunshineIsThisWorld: Purple Heart Grass Fruit only grows in extremely rare environments with specific spiritual veins and yao veins. Even if those conditions are met, it has to keep absorbing lightning qi to grow, so most people never get to see one.
Was it really that rare?
I kept munching on the spiritual fruit.
If it was that good, then I should eat it. There were plenty of spiritual fruits anyway.
Even if I ate them all, they grew back again in no time.
There was no particular need to save them.
└Yao Immortal (178.1): So what does it do, in the end? If it grows in such a special environment, it must have good effects too.
Just like Yao Immortal (178.1) said, that was what I was curious about.
Okay, I get that it's rare.
But what does it do?
└SunshineIsThisWorld: It has various effects, but its best-known one is that it can detoxify murderous poison.
Murderous poison (殺毒)?
└Baby Jiaolong: Like the killing intent or murderous thoughts that come from killing someone?
└Yao Immortal (178.1): Yeah.
└Yao Immortal (12.12): It can detoxify murderous poison...? Baby Jiaolong, sell it to me. I'll pay whatever you ask!
└HumansSuck: Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!
└Black Wind: Sell it to me. I'll even give you that concealment art I told you about recently!
└LotsaTails: You think you can get a Purple Heart Grass Fruit for a lousy Tier 3 concealment art? Don't be ridiculous, kid! Sell it to me. I'll buy it for ten top-grade spirit stones!
I wondered why they were so desperate, but then I realized they had good reason.
Yao immortals and human cultivators walking the path of the Dao had no choice but to kill, whether they wanted to or not.
It made little difference whether they were killing yao beasts or humans. The more they killed, the stronger their murderous aura became, and before long it turned into murderous poison that accumulated inside them.
At that point, I understood.
‘Come to think of it, wasn’t there an arc in some xianxia story where the protagonist’s murderous aura got so strong that he had to find a cultivation method to suppress it?’
It definitely happened, since it even appeared in a work called the xianxia textbook.
Anyway.
“Is there nothing you can do once murderous poison builds up?”
I searched the Yao Immortal Gallery for murderous poison and found all sorts of posts.
[Yao Immortal (9.12): I'm going first because of murderous poison.]
-I can't bring myself to advance my realm because of the murderous poison, so I'm going first. I'm probably the first one to die of old age on the Yao Immortal Gallery. Don't kill so many humans, everyone. They kept swarming over like a pack of dogs, so every time they showed up, I killed them all. Now I've accumulated so much murderous poison that I can't even face a heavenly tribulation. The three Yao Venerables said they'd help me, so we gathered and tried to withstand it, but we failed.
└Black Wind: Three Yao Venerables? Was it the Great Heavenly Annihilation Tribulation?
└Yao Immortal (9.12): Yeah.
└TurtleTurtle: ... May you be reborn in paradise.
“What the hell is the Great Heavenly Annihilation Tribulation?”
I searched it up, and apparently it was a suuuuuuper powerful heavenly tribulation sent by the Heavenly Dao.
From what I heard, no yao beast had ever survived it.
Most yao beasts were more likely to die from a heavenly tribulation than from old age.
‘To begin with, humans and yao beasts are different.’
The power of their heavenly tribulations was on another level, too.
Yao beasts lived without fearing anything in the world, except for one thing.
They feared the Heavenly Dao's tribulations.
Unlike humans, yao beasts disrupted the Heavenly Dao just by existing.
They were struck by heavenly tribulations just for being alive.
“That's so unfair.”
Anyway, even an ordinary heavenly tribulation might kill them, but if murderous poison built up, the Heavenly Dao would see it and go, Huh? You've been killing? That's an extra offense. Then it would drop a Great Heavenly Annihilation Tribulation on them, and they'd just get torn to pieces and die.
Just thinking about it made my legs go weak and my scales tremble.
You might say, “Then just don't kill anyone,” but...
“A yao beast can't live like that.”
The life of a yao beast was one where human cultivators picked fights with you even if you just sat still.
And it's not just humans, either.
Yao beasts preyed on other yao beasts, too.
From the start, yao beasts had less affection for their own kind than humans did.
When humans killed each other, they tried to be discreet and stab each other in the back, but yao beasts just threw a punch the moment they met.
‘Who the hell are you? Think you're somebody?’ They'd start by punching you in the face. If you were evenly matched, they'd go, ‘Okay, you're kinda strong,’ and leave. If you seemed weak, they'd say, ‘You little shit, you don't know your place?’ and eat you.
They only seemed nice because I could see their posts on the Yao Immortal Gallery. If I met them in person, they'd obviously peel off my skin and turn my eyeballs, inner core, and bones into magical artifacts or pills.
The life of a yao beast was one where you couldn't trust a soul.
“Anyway. So this is a spiritual fruit that gets rid of murderous poison?”
The Yao Immortals, already worked into a frenzy, began flooding my post with replies.
[Replies +95]
For them, the Purple Heart Grass Fruit was a lifeline that could save them from certain death.
Of course, it was better to make it into a pill than to eat it as is, but I didn't need to worry about that.
I turned my head while lying down.
My home.
The spirit trees in my cave abode each bore a different kind of spiritual fruit, and one of them bore Purple Heart Grass Fruit.
It was sweeter and tastier than peaches, so I'd eaten quite a few. Only five were left.
There were other spiritual fruits, too, but...
‘It'd be better to find out what those are one at a time.’
The Yao Immortal Gallery had exploded over just this one spiritual fruit.
I had at least enough sense to realize what that meant.
Every single spirit tree in my home—the cave abode where I hatched—was no ordinary tree. If I posted on the Yao Immortal Gallery to ask what they all were, the Yao Immortals would start getting greedy.
What the hell is that guy doing with so many precious things?
Where are you? I took a divination and you're over that way, huh? Should I go catch you? They might come looking to roast and eat a jiaolong.
“From what they say about planes, there's a good chance they're in a different Lower Realm... but you never know. Yeah, no! Absolutely not.”
There were Three Thousand Great Daos in xianxia.
The paths of the Dao branching off from them were endless, and the world was full of absurd arts and techniques.
They might use some secret art or yao magic I didn't know about to find me.
They might even use a forbidden art by sacrificing a part of their own life.
I should avoid advertising that I had something so precious.
“First... I'll try selling just one.”
Still, since I'd stirred things up, it should be fine to sell one or two.
[Baby Jiaolong: But how do I sell this?]
-I've got two Purple Heart Grass Fruits left, so I thought I'd try selling just two... Where do I sell them?
A reply came right away.
└SunshineIsThisWorld: You can auction it at the Yao Mirror Pavilion, but could you just sell one to me? You can sell it directly, too!
└Black Wind: I'll buy it for thirty top-grade spirit stones and the concealment art!! Please sell it to me!
└Yao Immortal (12.12): There are so many sinful Yao Immortals. The Heavenly Dao must have it rough.
└Yao Immortal (66.66): [Yao Immortal (12.12)] Don't you need one?
└Yao Immortal (12.12): I'm refreshing the Yao Mirror Pavilion right now. Don't talk to me.
└Yao Immortal (66.66): ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└LotsaTails: Sell it to me! Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
└TurtleTurtle: How much are you asking?
└Abracadabra: If you sell it to me, I'll raise you all the way to Yao King. I won't neglect you; I'll take good care of your eggs and everything.
The reaction was so much hotter than I'd expected that it was almost overwhelming. It was intense enough to make me wonder if a furious Yao Immortal might track me down.
“I don't know... In times like this, an auction is the way to go.”
As long as I had spirit stones, I figured I could handle my cultivation on my own.
[Seller: Baby Jiaolong]
Item: [Unranked] Purple Heart Grass Fruit.
Requirement: Starting bid of 1 top-grade spirit stone.
Ding.
With the notification that the listing had gone up, I started browsing the Yao Mirror Pavilion.
Why hadn't I known the Yao Immortal Gallery had a marketplace? When I looked it up, I found it was a feature that only unlocked at the Yao Knot realm.
Yao Flower couldn't use it anyway, since they didn't have enough spiritual sense or yao energy to support it.
“I see. Shall I take a look around?”
Browsing was free.
It only consumed spiritual sense and yao energy, but my spiritual sense had long since grown to over forty zhang after I advanced to the Yao Knot realm.
[Seller: Golden-Winged Roc]
Item: [Tier 3, Mid Grade] Thousand-Li Wind-Thunder Wings.
Requirement: 200 mid-grade spirit stones.
Description: A flying treasure made by processing the wing fragments of the Golden-Winged Roc, once ruler of the skies. It can flee or pursue someone for thousands of li in an instant, but consumes an enormous amount of essence blood.
[Seller: White-Haired Yoma]
Item: [Tier 4, Low Grade] Diagram of the White Bone Blood-Transforming Formation.
Requirement: 70 top-grade spirit stones.
Description: A diagram for a demonic formation that can be set up around a cave or territory. It drains the blood and qi of human cultivators or low-grade yao beasts that trespass into its domain and converts them into one's own inner core.
[Seller: Yao Immortal (588.5)]
Item: [Unranked] Nameless Yao Art.
Requirement: 10 low-grade spirit stones.
Description: A Yao Art salvaged from the ruins of some ancient relic, with most of its writing erased. The Yao Mirror Pavilion can't decipher it either.
Swish, swish.
I looked around, but nothing in particular caught my eye.
Everything seemed way too grand for me to use.
I could probably use something like the Thousand-Li Wind-Thunder Wings now that I'd reached Tier 3, but the fact that it consumed essence blood was a drawback.
Unlike yao energy, essence blood didn't recover easily. It greatly depleted one's vitality, and if you couldn't recover it, you might be left with lifelong aftereffects.
‘If I think of it as having another means of saving my life, it might not be so bad... But let's look around a little more.’
But no matter how much I looked, there was nothing suitable.
The truth was that I didn't yet have the eye to tell what was good and what wasn't.
I turned off the Yao Mirror Pavilion, flopped onto my back, and pondered.
“First... I do need to go outside.”
My cave abode was safe, and it had spiritual fruits and spiritual food that I could eat for a hundred years without getting tired of them, but I'd hit a bottleneck with just that.
Since I couldn't continue my cultivation this way, it was the right time to go outside, broaden my horizons, and learn about the world.
‘Buying a Yao Art from the Yao Immortal Gallery and cultivating it wouldn't be a bad idea... but I can't stay here forever.’
It was scary, but I had to go out if I wanted to cultivate. For some reason, I hadn't undergone a heavenly tribulation by the time I reached Yao Knot, but I was starting to get a feeling.
I had a sense of it.
Soon, I'd face the first heavenly tribulation for a yao beast.
The First Tribulation, that is.
If I faced a heavenly tribulation without any preparation, it would damage not only my body but my inner core as well.
If my inner core was damaged, a yao beast could die suddenly, and with my current abilities, there'd be no way to recover.
“Even if I know xianxia inside and out, I don't know much about yao beasts.”
A cultivation method different from humans.
Now that I had become a yao beast with a different nature, I thought I should learn about it.
The Yao Immortal Gallery didn't have even that kind of basic information.
Even if I asked them for help, there would still be things I had to figure out myself.
In the end, I had to leave my cave abode.
There was no changing that.
“Then I'd better prepare.”
I opened the Yao Mirror Pavilion again.
As I fed it my spiritual sense, I saw the auction I'd listed on the Yao Mirror Pavilion slowly nearing its end.
“The Yao Immortals were making a fuss, but surely the price hadn't gone up that much. I started at one top-grade spirit stone...”
At least fifty.
Or maybe thirty.
“Huh?”
That thought had been arrogant.
[The Purple Heart Grass Fruit has been sold for 330 top-grade spirit stones.]
[The item has been sent to the winner (HumansSuck)'s storage pouch.]
“HumansSuck, you little... Just how many people have you killed?”
But 330 top-grade spirit stones! The corners of my mouth kept creeping upward all on their own.