Martial Peak

Earth Veins were immovable and if one tried to shift it, they would only end up destroying it; therefore, if one wanted a good Earth Vein, they could only occupy the territory atop which it sat.

However, there were always exceptions.

Some Earth Veins that had existed underground for countless years, because of some special reasons, would condense their energy into a special existence known as an Earth Vein Crystal!

An Earth Vein Crystal was equivalent to a miniaturized Earth Vein and it contained all the energy an Earth Vein should have.

Earth Vein Crystals were extraordinarily rare treasures.

Yang Kai had wandered his native Star Field for many years and had only ever seen one Earth Vein Crystal in the vault of Purple Star. That Earth Vein Crystal had been placed beneath his medicine garden inside the Sealed World Bead to maintain the aura of the medicine garden and cultivate spirit grasses and herbs.

However, the Heaven Escaping Bat had actually managed to collect four such Earth Vein Crystals from this place.

Yang Kai was overjoyed and quickly accepted these crystals as he began examining them carefully.

Soon, he discovered that these four Earth Vein Crystals were of a higher grade than the one he had obtained from Purple Star. Regardless of the total amount of energy stored inside or the purity of that energy, both were far in excess of the one from Purple Star’s Vault.

If the Earth Vein Crystal he obtained from Purple Star was Low-Rank, then the four in his hand were clearly at least Mid-Rank, with the biggest of the four possibly being High-Rank!

The aura that this Earth Vein Crystal exuded was so rich it shocked Yang Kai.

There being so many Earth Vein Crystals down here surprised and delighted Yang Kai.

However, after thinking about it for a moment, Yang Kai felt that this was actually quite natural.

If it weren’t for these Earth Vein Crystals, how could the World Energy here have been so rich? Heavy Earth was indeed precious, but it could not create such rich World Energy, only Earth Vein Crystal could.

However, the existence of Heavy Earth was probably also the root cause of the formation of these Earth Vein Crystals.

The natural gravitational field was so powerful in this place that the nearby World Energy would all be drawn to it and held in place. After countless years of such intense pressure, Earth Vein Crystals had naturally been produced.

The Five Coloured Treasure Pagoda had existed since ancient times, so over many thousands of years, these four Earth Vein Crystals forming under the effects of the intense gravity here was reasonable.

With just a bit of thought, Yang Kai had formed a likely theory in his mind about this matter.

Although the value of these Earth Vein Crystals wasn’t as high as the Heavy Earth, they were definitely not cheap either. Even large Sects would try to acquire Earth Vein Crystals so they could increase the richness of the World Energy inside its borders.

Yang Kai flicked his wrist and sent the four crystals to the medicine garden of his Sealed World Bead.

Now, in addition to the previous one, there were five Earth Vein Crystals here, and with so much Heavy Earth as well, Yang Kai likely had the best medicine garden in the Star Boundary.

Yang Kai could not wait to cultivate some precious herbs to see what kind of effect there was.

Half a day later, Yang Kai let out a sigh and gave up his search.

It seemed that all the benefits from this place had been taken away, and without the Heavy Earth and Earth Vein Crystals supporting it, the special environment at the bottom of the gorge disappeared and the World Energy quickly became thin

Signalling to the little bat, Yang Kai pushed his strength and flew up.

Without the natural gravity field, flying out of the gorge wasn’t difficult.

The Heaven Escaping Bat continued to lead the way ahead, looking for Mo Xiao Qi’s trail, with Yang Kai following behind unhurriedly.

…..

Three days later, Yang Kai passed by a small hill and suddenly glanced down after sensing something. Smiling coldly, he stopped and called out, “Friend, are you going to come out on your own or do you want me to force you out?”

There was no movement below, only the sound of the wind blowing in the leaves.

“Pointless resistance!” Yang Kai snorted coldly as he lifted his palm and a Golden Blood Thread slashed out towards a certain spot below.

The next moment, a blue light flashed as the Golden Blood Thread impacted something.

With a bang, the Golden Blood Thread was bounced back and where there was nothing before, a middle-aged man now appeared sitting cross-legged, his face pale, a look filled with murderous hatred directed towards Yang Kai.

Yang Kai was startled by this scene.

With his vision, he was naturally able to see that this man was seriously wounded, and with an unusual injury at that. It seemed his very foundation had been damaged.

This situation… was completely different from what he had previously expected.

He thought that this person was hiding here and wanted to sneak attack him, but now it turned out this man was hiding here to heal his wounds while Yang Kai’s actions had exposed him.

For a moment, Yang Kai couldn’t help but feeling a bit awkward.

However, after realizing what the situation was, and realizing he was in the wrong, Yang Kai quickly cupped his fists and said, “I apologize, it seems there has been a misunderstanding, please don’t take offence. Friend should continue to heal his injuries, this one will take his leave.”

“Isn’t this ‘friend’ here to take my life? If you’re going to do it, just do it, why bother putting on a show?”

What Yang Kai didn’t expect was that after he issued an apology, the middle-aged man didn’t relax his vigilance and instead shouted angrily at him, as if he and Yang Kai really had some kind of absolutely irreconcilable hatred.

Yang Kai frowned and replied, “This friend misunderstands me. I don’t know you, so why would I want your life?”

This matter was caused by a momentary mistake on his end, so Yang Kai didn’t take the other party’s offensive attitude to heart. Having said what he needed to, Yang Kai took out a jade bottle and tossed it over to the other party, “This is a bottle of healing pills, it should be able to alleviate your situation.”

Finished with this, Yang Kai turned to leave.

The middle-aged man was taken aback for a moment. By now, he realized that Yang Kai’s actions really were unintentional, otherwise, there would have been no need to act like this. Yang Kai could easily have killed him, but had compensated him with a bottle of pills instead. Opening the jade bottle, the man sniffed it lightly and confirmed it was indeed healing medicine as a look of hesitation appeared on his face.

Seeing that Yang Kai was about to leave ear-shot, the man finally made up his mind and called out, “Wait!”

Yang Kai stopped his pace, turned back, and sighed, “What does this friend want? Although I made the move and ruined your hiding place, as long as you move a bit that won’t be a problem. I also gave you a bottle of healing pills as an apology so we should just simply part ways here. Don’t try to reach out for a yard after taking an inch!”

The middle-aged man heard this but did not show the slightest signs of anger, instead just smiling mysterious and whispering, “That was not my intent.”

“Then what is your intent?” Yang Kai spoke impatiently.

“Do you want a Dao Source Fruit?” The middle-aged man stared at Yang Kai and said slowly.

“What?” Yang Kai’s face turned serious as he immediately swept his eyes around before eventually gazing towards the middle-aged man’s Space Ring and quickly asking, “Did you just say Dao Source Fruit?”

“Indeed, this friend did not hear wrong, I did say Dao Source Fruit just now,” The middle-aged man nodded.

“You obtained a Dao Source Fruit?” Yang Kai looked at him with surprise.

The middle-aged man nodded again and said calmly, “Heavenly Martial Holy Land put three Dao Source Fruits into the Five Coloured Treasure Pagoda this time, and this Zhang was lucky enough to acquire one of them.”

Before Yang Kai could ask where the Dao Source Fruit was, the middle-aged man surnamed Zhang smiled lightly and said, “Friend should not be hasty. Even if you kill me, you won’t get the Dao Source Fruit. Before I came here to heal, I hid it in a safe place.”

Yang Kai could not help lightly coughing as he asked, “Did I look like I would kill you?”

“That’s hard to say,” The man surnamed Zhang chuckled, “This friend does not seem to be a wicked individual, otherwise you would not have left so simply just now. Murdering others and seizing their treasures is a natural thing, but… The Dao Source Fruit is extremely precious, especially for people like you and me, so I cannot guarantee you won’t try to kill me and seize it.”

“Makes sense!” Yang Kai nodded, agreeing with his statement.

Even if the average cultivator did not take the initiative to kill people and seize their wealth, whether they could maintain such moral behaviour when faced with a treasure like a Dao Source Fruit was a different story.

“However… you even took the initiative to call me back and tell me about Dao Source Fruit. What do you really want?” Yang Kai looked at him suspiciously.

“Naturally I want to give that Dao Source Fruit to this friend,” The man surnamed Zhang said with a solemn expression.

“Are you making a joke?” Yang Kai squinted at him with an expression of disbelief.

The man surnamed Zhang shook his head, “Those who are about to die have no need for excess words. Why would I crack a joke with you about this matter now?”

Yang Kai narrowed his eyes and said lightly, “It doesn’t look like you’re about to die.”

The man surnamed Zhang gave a wry smile, “In order to escape, I had to use up eighty percent of my Blood Essence. Even if I do survive, my cultivation will fall sharply. What’s more, I was poisoned, and even my Knowledge Sea has been contaminated.”

Yang Kai’s expression changed when he heard this and he quickly released his Divine Sense to investigate this man carefully, only then realizing that he was not lying.

Although he put up a strong front, this man surnamed Zhang was actually only barely clinging to life. Perhaps he had taken some kind of powerful pill just before Yang Kai arrived that was prolonging his life.

With such injuries, even if no one came to kill him, this man would not survive more than two days.

Yang Kai sighed, “If it was just your body that was poisoned, I might still have been able to help you, but with even your Soul contaminated… I am powerless.”

“This Zhang has already made peace with his situation, friend does not need to care,” The man surnamed Zhang spoke casually, even chuckling slightly.

“I don’t know you, and whether you live or die has nothing to do with me, but… You called me back and said you want to give me a Dao Source Fruit. How can there be such a good deal in this world? Speak frankly, what do you want in return?”

“Friend is a smart person,” The man surnamed Zhang smiled and said, “My time is short, so I will be straightforward.”

Yang Kai nodded and assumed a listening posture.

“I can give you the location of the Dao Source Fruit, but after you take it, when you find someone to refine it into pills, you must give one to my Zhang Family’s descendants!” The man surnamed Zhang said, “I am Zhang Gao Xuan, the Patriarch of Maplewood City’s Zhang Family. The Zhang Family is not a big family, but it still has a few hundred years of history. This Zhang knows quite a few people in Maplewood City, so after you leave this place, it should not be difficult for you to find the location of my Zhang Family. If refining the Dao Source Fruit into pills is a failure, then that is simply the Heavens’ will, but if it succeeds, there should be at least three Dao Source Pills. I only ask you to bring one to my Zhang Family while the rest are yours to keep.”