Yan Li had been marching in the opposite direction for hours before finally stopping to catch his breath.

With a flip of his palm, the King Kong Ape's core appeared in his hand.

Generally, the fourth-level creature's core was much more precious than the third-level one; and to put things into perspective, it was worth at least a hundred credit points.

After all these hectic events, exhaustion finally kicked in, so Yan Li decided to take a break in the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce, where time preceded five times slower than in the outside world and Yan Li could almost stay as long as he wanted.

Six hours later, Yan Li was back in his peak state to absorb the Mixed Yuan elements from the King Kong Ape's core then.

“Oh G.o.d, this is insane! It's like having five third-level cores combined together!”

Yan Li was still happily dazed after absorbing the Mixed Yuan elements inside the ape's core, weighing the possibility of hunting for more fourth-level creatures to kill.

If people knew what he was thinking, they would be totally deeming him crazy: A Ningyuan realm pract.i.tioner trying to take on a fourth-level creature? Don't be funny!

Walking out of the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce, Yan Li immediately started to search for the fourth-level creatures' whereabouts.

It had been mentioned before that creatures all had a strong sense of territory, and the more powerful a creature was, the bigger its territory would be. So if you did not find too many traces left by other low-level creatures in a specific area, then you were likely to be greeted by some really scary creature here.

This was exactly how Yan Lin located the fourth-level creatures.

“What is this smell?” Amidst the searching, a faint fragrance caught the attention of Yan Li, who instantly thought of Magic Herbs in his head.

It was known that, aside from practicing, martial artists could also improve their skills by taking elixir pills, which were produced by elixir makers using Magic Herbs and sometimes with the addition of creatures' blood or cores.

There were two kinds of Magic Herbs: One was the natural Magic Herb, which was edible even without being purified but could be slightly less effective this way. The other was the extracted Magic Herb, which, as the name suggested, must be purified and detoxicated by the elixir maker before people could eat it.

Aside from that, normally, the longer it took for an herb to grow, the more potent and effective it would be; and only those that would take over ten years to grow could be determined as Magic Herbs.

Yan Li followed the scent all the way to the entrance of a small valley, where that smell became even stronger.

Where there was treasure, there must be a guardian creature lurking around.

So, making sure to be alter and sharp, Yan Li walked into the valley with his sword in hand.

The path was narrow but not too long, so he was able to reach the end pretty soon, when all the while the fragrance grew more and more distinct.

“A cave!” Sweeping around this area, Yan Li was quick to notice a weed-covered cave on the mountain slope.

“That must be where the herb is!”

With a tap of his foot, Yan Li jumped up from the ground, reaching for the edge of the cave and then holding on to it, his whole body dangling underneath.

His ears shot up, ready to pick up any noise coming out of the cave.

A faint hissing sound echoed in the cave and Yan Li was certain that there must be a snake-like creature holding down the fort.

Since the herb gave off such a strong scent, it was definitely over a hundred years old now, which made its guardian creature at least a fourth-level one.

He did manage to kill the fourth-level King Kong Ape, but that was more because he took advantage of the environment and the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce, as well as battling his a.s.s off to somehow make that happen. Now it was a totally different story, since the snake would obviously get the upper hand here in the cave if something happened, so Yan Li must think of a way to lure it out, or else he would stand no chance this time.

“Got it!” Sometimes Yan Li had to admit that having three souls inside him did make him a little smarter than others.

Thrusting the Wushuang Sword into the stone wall beside him, Yan Li cut out a football-sized rock and threw it as hard as he could into the cave, using the Zhen vigor.

The rock hit the wall of the cave with a loud bang.

Then, an eerie sizzling sound rang off, followed by a whiff of blood and the giant head of the snake, whose slant eyes shot off chilling glows.

Confused, the snake found nothing there and could only retreat back to the cave.

However, Yan Li, witnessing it, was stunned speechless inside the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce.

He saw that snake through the mirror, which was neither a third-level nor a fourth-level, but instead a fifth-level serpent, the equivalent of a Xuan realm master and something Yan Li most definitely wound not want to mess with.

But then again, if the herb was guarded by a fifth-level creature, then it would be arguably more precious than he had thought it was.

Exiting the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce. Yan Li again cut out two rocks from the stone wall and dumped them into the cave—this time aiming at the serpent.

Irritated, the creature leapt out again and was disappointed once more to find nothing there.

Since he could not fight the serpent head-on, he would be bugging it; and once it left the cave, Yan Li would seize the opportunity to go get the herb.

The Zhen vigor infused rocks were thrown into the cave one after another, and every time the serpent peaked its head out and was met by nothing but air, it got annoyed a bit more.

Sometimes, it would just flat-out wait at the entrance for Yan Li to show up, but was let down eventually.

After four straight hours of hide-and-seek, the serpent became wary of Yan Li's hara.s.sment and was practically impervious when getting hit by the rock again, since it could not even leave a scratch on its scales.

“You stupid snake! Here, take my rocks!” Seeing the serpent getting bored of this little game, Yan Li called out and threw two more rocks into the cave, using the Mixed Yuan vigor this time instead of the thunder-element vigor.

Now the serpent got hopping mad because if the rocks thrown at it before were more like tickling, this time it really hurt.

The serpent thrusted out faster than ever before, yet was still greeted with nothing.

“What an idiot! You are so out of my league!” Yan Li was laughing to death in the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce.

He emerged again after the serpent recoiled, planning on giving it some serious blow, but was disrupted by the noise outside of the valley.

“This is it! This is where that fragrance comes from! The Magic Herb must be in here!”

“Someone's here!” Yan Li thought, and returned to the Mixed Yuan s.p.a.ce immediately.

Soon, three people came rus.h.i.+ng in; and judging by their speed, they should all be Poyuan realm masters.

“Look, there's a cave!” One guy pointed out.

“No, look closer, s.h.i.+xiong Hou and s.h.i.+mei Ling! There are marks left by some sharp weapon on the stone wall beside it, so someone else is also here!”

“Then let's go, don't let them get ahead of us!” Hou sneered, approaching the cave, and then went straight in without thinking twice.

A shriek sounded off as Hou scrambled to get out of it and slumped to the ground, covered in a kind of gross-looking smelly green fluid, which was rapidly devouring his flesh.

“What happened, s.h.i.+xiong Hou?” The other two hurriedly went up and asked.

“There's a, a fifth-level creature,” Hou stuttered, “The Serpent, and a three-leafed Ganoderma.”

“The Icy Jade Ganoderma!”

Their eyes immediately lit up, since the Icy Jade Ganoderma was a natural Magic Herb, which could help improve one's skills as well as strengthen his body. Normally, it would take an Icy Jade Ganoderma a hundred years to grow a leaf, which meant this one here was at least three hundred years old now.

If that really was the case, then they would be reaching Xuan realm after taking this Ganoderma.

However, just when they were still caught up in excitement, the huge head of the serpent appeared at the entrance as its chilling glare honed in on the three people underneath.