Chapter 118, Ambush and Soul Heart Fruit

Translator: Raznick

 

Within the forest, the Wolf-bear, which had been happily devouring a honeycomb, instantly stood alert, its gaze fixed on the direction from which the cry came.

 

A blue-black double-pronged artifact was held in the old man’s hands, and at this moment, he was staring at the wolf-bear with a look of surprise.

 

Roar!

 

As if sensing ill intent and perceiving the newcomer’s hostility, the Wolf-bear dropped the honeycomb and let out an angry roar.

 

Then, a blue-black aura burst forth from its body, and it pounced towards the blue-clad elder like a whirlwind.

 

Its speed was astonishing, unlike that of a bear known for its clumsiness; it was more akin to that of a swift wolf demon.

 

This was the Wolf-bear, an anomaly amongst bears.

 

However, since the blue-clad elder dared to appear, it proved that he was confident in victory.

 

He hurled the double-pronged artifact with great force, aiming it straight at the pouncing Wolf-bear.

 

He then reached out and patted his waist, retrieving a storage bag, and summoned a blue ring artifact, causing it to float above his head, releasing a circle of blue light that enveloped him.

 

The wolf bear swatted the incoming artifact with its palm.

 

It attempted to connect with the pole, but a blast of frigid, bluish-white energy erupted from within, instantly encasing its upper body in ice.

 

The pole then spun and viciously pierced its throat.

 

Pfft!

 

Two jets of crimson blood gushed from the wound on the Wolf-bear’s throat.

 

Its remaining paw desperately grabbed the pole and yanked it out.

 

But at that moment, an eight-sided golden hammer appeared above its head and crashed down.

 

Roar!

 

At a crucial moment, a roar erupted from the Wolf-bear’s mouth.

 

Accompanying it was a swirling vortex of dark blue.

 

The dark blue whirlwind spewed from the Wolf-bear’s mouth, instantly deflecting the eight-sided golden hammer artifact and sending it crashing into the nearby mountainside, creating a large pit.

 

Having avoided the terrifying blow meant to crush its skull, the Wolf-bear recognized the enemy’s strength and immediately turned to flee.

 

“You beast, where do you think you’re going!”

 

The elder in blue robes wouldn’t let his prey escape and let out a shout, once again urging the pole to relentlessly stab at the Wolf-bear.

 

This time, the wolf bear recognized the danger and didn’t dare to let its body come into contact with the pole, directly releasing a glimmer of blue light to form a Wind Shield surrounding itself, deflecting the pole’s attack.

 

The flying pole wasn’t an ordinary artifact; Wolf-bear’s Wind Shield simply couldn’t withstand two strikes before shattering.

 

Combined with the hammering of the eight-sided golden hammer artifact, Wolf-bear’s escape was quite turbulent.

 

Ultimately, it barely reached three hundred meters before being struck in the head by the eight-sided golden hammer artifact, instantly killing it!

 

Because Wolf-bear’s heart was best taken while still warm, immediately after its demise, the elderly man hurried over to open its chest and retrieve its heart.

 

What he didn’t know was that at the moment he opened Wolf-bear’s body, Zhou Chun, who had been hiding in the shadows for some time, finally decided to act.

 

This was Zhou Chun’s first time preparing to attack someone who hadn’t shown malice towards him.

 

He had struggled and hesitated beforehand.

 

But in the end, he decided to act.

 

His reason for acting was very simple: since one chose to participate in this competitive group trial, it was as if one had signed a life-and-death contract.

 

In this trial, if one was killed, it was nobody’s fault; one could only blame oneself for being too greedy!

 

If he thought this, so could others!

 

Therefore, he acted.

 

Zhou Chun didn’t act unless he was going all out.

 

He simultaneously slapped his waist storage bag and spirit beast pouch, instantly releasing a Silver Thunder Python and summoning the Shooting Moon Edge.

 

The fluctuation of spiritual power behind him startled the elderly man who was plucking out a Wolf-bear’s heart. He hastily rolled away like a lazy donkey, and a blue protective shield instantly appeared around him.

 

This reaction displayed his extensive experience in preventing sneak attacks.

 

Unfortunately, his reaction, though not bad, was somewhat lacking.

 

He saw the silver-black circular artifact in Zhou Chun’s hand fly out, splitting the air with incredible speed, and striking the blue protective shield surrounding the elderly man.

 

This blow caused the blue protective shield to be covered in cracks, on the verge of shattering.

 

Then, a snake-shaped lightning bolt descended upon the protective shield, breaking through it and striking the elderly man.

 

They made him dizzy.

 

When his mind regained clarity, it was just in time to see the rotating silver-black circular artifact coming back around to loop his head.

 

After killing the elderly man, Zhou Chun headed straight for the Wolf-bear’s corpse.

 

Simultaneously learning from the experience, he released the Rock Turtle, letting it and the Silver Thunder Python serve as guards.

 

Soon after, a Wolf-bear’s heart, still radiating heat, was dug out by Zhou Chun and then frozen and sealed on the spot using the ice-binding technique and placed inside a jade box.

 

Having done this, Zhou Chun signaled the Rock Turtle and Silver Thunder Python to share the remaining wolf bear’s corpse, and he himself went to collect the belongings of the elderly man.

 

The belongings were simple, merely the three superior first-grade artifacts that he had already displayed, as well as some harvested herbs within the storage bag, and talismans and pills prepared for this journey.

 

There was also a Heaven Spirit Order.

 

But even these items were quite valuable.

 

That two-pronged flying pole that could release cold air to freeze enemies—it was truly a rare treasure.

 

In terms of value, Zhou Chun’s Shooting Moon Edge couldn’t compare to this item.

 

So Zhou Chun hesitated for a moment before deciding to bind it on the spot.

 

With his current cultivation, binding such an artifact wouldn’t take more than a day.

 

And he believed that waiting that extra day was completely worthwhile.

 

Having made that decision, Zhou Chun first took the items and the Wolf-bear’s remaining corpse away from the scene, then found a remote place in the mountains to quietly bind the flying pole artifact.

 

By the second day, Zhou Chun completed the artifact binding, familiarized himself with the artifact, and then set off again with the Silver Thunder Python.

 

At the same time, as Zhou Chun completed the trial’s first kill and obtained a Heaven Spirit Order, other cultivators participating in this group trial also had quite a haul.

 

A man in yellow robes used a blue sword that looked like a blue dragon as he controlled it, and the sword light swallowed and fought with a white ice python in the pool.

 

Although that ice python wasn’t a second-grade demon beast, it was only a little short of becoming one.

 

And the cold pool was its home ground, with the coldness there supporting its mystical ice arts, increasing its power by almost a third. Two Twelfth Layer of Qi Refining Stage cultivators might not be its match.

 

But the man in yellow robes completely suppressed it with a single sword, showing just how strong he was.

 

After a long fight between the python and the man, the man in yellow robes cast a powerful sword technique to kill, successfully piercing the python’s vital point and beheading the beast.

 

The Ice Python perished, and the spiritual treasure it guarded, the Hundred-Year Ice Lotus, became the prize.

 

The poor Ice Python. If it had been given a few more decades, allowing the Hundred-Year Ice Lotus in the cold pool to age over two hundred years, it could have swallowed the treasure and successfully evolved into an average demon beast.

 

Meanwhile, in another mountain valley, a white-haired crone was locked in fierce combat with a black-clad man.

 

She had originally discovered a Solomon’s seal over three hundred years old and killed a superior first-grade demon beast that had occupied the valley.

 

She hadn’t expected that the commotion from killing the demon beast would attract a black-clad man, and they began to quarrel over the Solomon’s seal.

 

Of course, the Solomon’s seal was merely the catalyst; the real reason that drove the pair to fight to the death was the treasures in each other’s possession and a Heaven Spirit Order.

 

In fact, many of the cultivators participating in the Heaven Spirit Trial had something different from Zhou Chun.

 

That was, they didn’t have a guaranteed Foundation Establishment. This prompted them to gamble on their chances here.

 

If they could gather some rare herbs, or if they could kill a few more competitors and seize their treasures, after exiting, they could rely on these gains to increase their chance of Foundation Establishment.

 

Therefore, encounters with life-or-death consequences were common here.

 

After a brief clash, the white-haired crone ended up victorious, relying on her superior skills.

 

However, though she had killed her opponent, she had also been wounded, leaving it uncertain whether she could reach the end.

 

In another stretch of woodland, two white-haired elders were actually teaming up to confront a group of blue-haired apes.

 

Those blue-haired ape beasts’ faces were ferocious, appearing like corpses that had risen from the dead with bristling fur and a dark blue-black hue.

 

They had a peculiar name, Pale Ghost Ape.

 

This group of Pale Ghost Apes numbered around fifteen, with five of them being superior first-grade demon beasts. Even the two white-haired elders, working together, could not defeat the troop of apes and were forced to flee, being chased out of the forest.

 

But observing the bitterness in their eyes as they left, it was evident that they would not easily give up.

 

Zhou Chun, though he had not witnessed these events happening throughout the Trial Grounds, could generally deduce what had transpired.

 

Following his own surprise attack and killing of a fellow competitor, he was exceptionally cautious on his subsequent path, afraid of being ambushed himself.

 

Because he still had to slay demon beasts and gather herbs, Zhou Chun’s pace was not fast, and sometimes he would even detour to find herbs.

 

He did not wish to arrive too early near that tall tower, as it would be easy for others to profit from his clashes with others.

 

Moreover, concerning the act of collecting seven Heaven Spirit Orders to enter the tower, Zhou Chun had not explicitly planned to do so.

 

His purpose in coming to the Trial Grounds was primarily to satisfy his curiosity and, incidentally, to see whether he could achieve some exceptional outcomes.

 

This outcome could be a treasure selected after entering the tower, or it could be some rare herbs gathered outside, without restriction to a single object.

 

Thus, on the fourth day of entering the group trial, Zhou Chun was still twenty miles from the mountain peak where the tower was situated.

 

Not counting the day he spent binding an artifact, Zhou Chun’s gains over these three days were quite substantial.

 

Just the herbs and materials suitable for alchemy that he had gathered were worth seven or eight hundred spirit coins.

 

He also harvested more than ten eggs from a pregnant iron-backed centipede demon beast he had slain, each egg valued at three or four hundred spirit coins.

 

With these gains in hand, Zhou Chun was even less hasty about heading toward the mountain peak where the tower was situated.

 

This day, as Zhou Chun passed by a stretch of woodland, he suddenly felt a flicker of Divine Sense and looked sharply at a cyan-black bird flying across the sky.

 

The cyan-black bird was about the size of a carrier pigeon, with a faint fluctuation of spiritual energy upon its body, proving that it was not an ordinary bird but a demonic bird.

 

If an ordinary cultivator unaware of the situation were to see this demonic bird, they might not give it much thought.

 

But Zhou Chun recognized the cyan-black bird as a Cyan-tailed Wind Swallow, a type of demonic bird that enjoyed living in groups and was unlikely to travel alone.

 

More importantly, this type of demonic bird was easily tamed by cultivators to become a scouting spirit pet.

 

Given this, Zhou Chun felt that the Cyan-tailed Wind Swallow he saw was likely a cultivator’s spirit pet, and it had likely already detected him and was on its way back to report the news to its master.

 

However, even if it had detected this, Zhou Chun was now too late to intervene and eliminate it.

 

[This trial ground is not without flying demonic birds; the person dares to let an inexperienced Cyan-tailed Wind Swallow come out for scouting, indicating they are nearby and shouldn’t be more than two miles away!]

 

Thoughts spun in his mind; Zhou Chun felt that it would be better to calm his mind and respond appropriately than to panic and flee.

 

Now it seemed that he was in the light, while his opponent was in the dark.

 

But in reality, he already knew he had been exposed to his opponent’s line of sight and was prepared for it.

 

If his opponent were to truly come and hunt him, who would hunt whom was uncertain!

 

Having realized this, he calmed his mind and continued to advance along the predetermined plan, not even retracting the Silver Thunder Python that was clearing the path ahead.

 

However, what Zhou Chun didn’t expect was that the master of the Cyan-tailed Wind Swallow had no intention of ambushing him.

 

Very soon, it proactively made a commotion, attracting his attention.

 

“Please wait!”

 

From the forest to Zhou Chun’s left, a sudden shout rang out.

 

Then, a gray-clad elderly cultivator appeared in his line of sight.

 

The elderly cultivator waved his arms, halting only when he had fully entered Zhou Chun’s view.

 

This unusual behavior caused Zhou Chun to momentarily pause.

 

Unsure of the other’s intentions, he cautiously probed his surroundings with Divine Sense and his gaze while speaking in a measured tone, “What is it that you want?”

 

Hearing his words, the gray-clad elderly cultivator immediately waved his hands in response, “I dare not ask for anything, but I have a fortuitous opportunity that I wish to share with Fellow Daoist!”

 

A shared opportunity?

 

Zhou Chun truly froze, almost suspecting the other was joking.

 

His gaze fell on the elderly cultivator, and his eyes gradually turned cold.

 

His tone was incredibly frigid: “Are you jesting? This is not a place for random claims; surely you don’t think I am so foolish as to believe a competitor would share an opportunity with me?”

 

Hearing him, the elderly cultivator repeatedly shook his head, “No, no, Fellow Daoist, that is a great misunderstanding!

 

“Although we are competitors, who says competitors cannot cooperate to acquire treasure?

 

“Before a truly valuable treasure, even two cultivators with deep-seated animosity can temporarily set aside their hatred to cooperate, let alone people like us who have no animosity at all?”

 

He spoke repeatedly of opportunity and treasure, words that stirred the heart.

 

Zhou Chun saw this, and although he didn’t believe the other party would genuinely cooperate with him, he couldn’t help but feel curious.

 

He immediately followed the flow of the conversation and asked, “Oh, a real treasure? What kind of treasure would make you believe that I would lower my guard and cooperate with you?”

 

The old man in grey robes was waiting for him to say that.

 

Immediately, he looked at him with confidence and spoke three words.

 

“Heart Soul Fruit!”