95: Chapter 95 Picking Star Grass

At noon the next day, the summit of Black Wind Cliff was finally beneath his feet.

This cliff was even more precipitous than Liu San had described.

The cliff face was pure obsidian, pitch-black like ink, resembling a wound ripped open from the earth by some immense force.

Almost no vegetation could be seen on the rock wall, save for a few clusters of dark green ferns peeking out from weathered cracks; their fronds were pressed tightly against the cliff by the mountain wind, trembling incessantly.

The cliff was nearly a hundred zhang high. At the bottom was a cold pool, its water a deep, bottomless ink-green.

A thin layer of white cold mist floated on the water's surface, flowing slowly along it; occasionally, the wind would lift a corner, revealing the pitch-black water beneath.

Sunlight struck the pool's surface directly, the reflection blinding. Looking down from the summit, one could only see a shimmering expanse of silvery-white light, unable to discern anything else.

But Jiang Yan could feel that it was right below.

That massive, frigid aura pressed against the edge of his Divine Sense from nearly a hundred zhang away, like a cold, giant boulder submerged at the bottom of the pool, breathing slowly and powerfully.

With every breath, the white mist on the pool's surface expanded and contracted in rhythm with the slight undulations of the water—expanding to cover the entire surface, then retreating toward the center, revealing a ring of ink-green water along the edges.

A Peak First-Order Yao Beast. Its aura was thick, approaching Foundation Establishment, yet it lacked the pressure of a Foundation Establishment Yao Beast that could resonate with Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi.

This Black Water Mysterious Snake was indeed as Liu San had said; it had already stepped half a foot into the threshold of the Second Order, needing only that final push.

Jiang Yan withdrew his gaze and swept it across the cliff wall.

In the middle section of the southeast cliff face, a cluster of ink-colored moss clinging to the obsidian was particularly conspicuous—it was not green, but a pure, inky black. Unlike the black of the cliff itself, the moss's black was matte, like a layer of fine black velvet covering the rock surface.

Three feet below the moss, there was indeed a diagonal crack, about five feet long and of varying width; the widest part could accommodate a person entering sideways, while the narrowest could only allow an arm to reach in.

He quietly probed the crack with his Divine Sense.

Four extremely faint Spiritual Qi fluctuations pulsed slowly deep within the crack, one of which was significantly brighter than the other three.

The frequency of that Spiritual Qi fluctuation was steady and gentle, like a faint heartbeat pulsing rhythmically deep in the crack.

All four star grass plants were there.

He activated his breath-concealment technique. The pitch-black vortex in his Dantian shrank to the extreme, his Spiritual Qi fluctuations were compressed until they were barely perceptible, and the Spiritual Qi luster on his skin faded away entirely, turning him into a stone with no Spiritual Qi reaction within the perception of Divine Sense.

Then, he vaulted over the cliff edge, his wind-ripping claws gripping the rock wall as he began to climb down silently.

The blades of the wind-ripping claws made a faint hissing sound as they pierced the obsidian.

Debris was squeezed out from the edges of the blades and scattered into the abyss by the wind.

With every foot he descended, the frigid aura emitted by the cold pool grew stronger.

The cold was not ordinary; it was a damp cold carrying water-attribute Spiritual Qi, drilling from his pores into the crevices of his bones.

He climbed for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea; his fingertips were already numb from the cold, but his grip on the rock wall never faltered.

Upon reaching the crack, he retrieved a jade box from his Storage Pouch, stepped onto a protruding rock ledge, and squeezed sideways into the crack.

The interior of the crack was slightly more spacious than the entrance, barely enough for one person to stand sideways.

The air was filled with the dry scent of rock powder, mixed with a very faint, fresh herbal fragrance.

The four star grass plants were in a depression three feet away—they were rooted in a thin layer of black soil, which was dust accumulated from years of rock weathering, mixed with rainwater washed down from the cliff top and decaying moss.

The black soil was no thicker than two fingers; stepping on it felt soft and squishy, like walking on cotton.

The largest plant's leaves were the size of a palm, and the dark blue leaf surface was densely covered with silvery-white star spots, numbering no less than a hundred, emitting a faint starlight in the dim crack.

The luster of the star spots was alive, flickering on and off with the faint air currents in the crack, like those distant, twinkling stars in the night sky.

The other three were smaller, the smallest being only the length of a thumb, with sparse star spots on its leaves numbering only a dozen or so, with a medicinal age of probably just a few decades.

He carefully uprooted the largest one first—the root system was intact, and a tiny amount of silvery-white sap seeped from the broken end, glowing faintly in the dim crack.

The medicinal potency was well-preserved. He harvested the remaining three in turn and packed them into jade boxes. The sealing Restriction engraved on the inner wall of the box lids automatically activated, tightly sealing the Spiritual Qi fluctuations of the star grass.

The moment he closed the last jade box, a dull, thunderous roar came from deep within the pool.

It was not the sound of water, but a deep rumble caused by some massive body rolling at the bottom of the pool, like muffled underground thunder exploding upwards from the pool's depths.

The sound bounced between the cliff walls, shaking the black soil in the crack so that it fell in rustles, with a few grains of dirt landing on his shoulder.

Immediately after, the surface of the cold pool exploded.

An ink-green column of water shot into the sky, and the spray was frozen into ice beads by the cold mist in mid-air, pelting the cliff wall with a clattering sound.

Several fist-sized ice beads smashed against the obsidian beside Jiang Yan, shattering into ice dregs, and the splashed ice shards hit the back of his hand, icy and piercing.

A snake head larger than a millstone emerged from beneath the water.

The snake head was pitch-black, with scales as large as shields, each scale's edge gleaming with a dark blue, cold light.

Pool water cascaded down from the gaps between the scales, forming a circular curtain of water beneath the snake's head.

Two emerald vertical pupils shrank into two extremely thin lines under the direct sunlight, and the pupils in the center of the vertical lines were pure pitch-black, as dark as two bottomless wells.

The snake's mouth opened slightly.

Four scimitar-like fangs flipped out from the alveolar ridge, each the length of a forearm, with ink-green venom seeping from the tips.

When the venom dripped onto the water surface, it hissed, and a pungent white smoke rose from the water, spreading across the surface and dyeing that area a turbid, ghastly green.

The Black Water Mysterious Snake had awakened.

It saw the figure in the cliff crack.

Those two emerald vertical pupils slowly lifted, traversing the distance of nearly a hundred zhang, passing through the steaming cold mist and the blinding sunlight, and locked directly onto Jiang Yan's eyes.