Su Cheng had originally been puzzled. Why, after marking the central area of the Sunset Forest and the mountains as landmark terrain for those subordinates' soul masters, had they been unable to find the place over all these years?
It was only when he arrived that he realized he had underestimated things.
Although he had read many books over the years, knowledge from paper always felt shallow. The actual situation in these forests, where soul beasts roamed freely, was far more complex than he had imagined.
Five hundred meters was naturally not short, but in the vast Sunset Forest, hills of such height were everywhere.
Conducting a carpet-style search here would indeed require a lot of effort.
After all, this place could not be considered safe for ordinary soul masters. High-level soul beasts and dangerous plants could easily turn into lethal threats.
"It seems I'll have to check out the Soul Hunting Forest near Noding City later, mark some points in advance. Otherwise, when I return to the real world, finding suitable soul beasts to attach the first two soul rings will likely be much more laborious," Su Cheng thought inwardly.
"Mr. Su, it's right here." Du Gu Bo stood at the foot of the mountain, looking at the hill in front of him.
Then, the two of them quickly ascended the hill, one following the other.
Standing beside a cliff, a downward-conical mountain hollow appeared before Su Cheng. Thick hot steam rose from the hollow, carrying a faint scent characteristic of sulfur.
Clearly, there was a hot spring below.
Du Gu Bo looked at Su Cheng. "I'll shield you with soul power later, and we'll go down together. Then we'll reach the spot."
Hearing this, Su Cheng did not object and nodded, letting him proceed.
With Du Gu Bo's strength as a titled Douluo, it was easy to carry the two of them down into the valley.
Looking at the marvelous scene before him, even with Su Cheng's experience, he could not help but feel astonished.
"So this is what they call the Ice-Fire Two Poles Eye."
In the center of the valley, within an elliptical hot spring, milky white and vermilion waters were clearly separated on opposite sides. At their meeting point, steam constantly billowed up toward the mountain mouth.
Dense ice and fire spiritual energy interwove here, nurturing an abundance of rare and exotic herbs.
Looking around, he could easily identify many of the target spiritual herbs for his trip.
"Brother Du Gu, I'll need some of the spiritual herbs and rare plants from your place." After surveying a few times, Su Cheng directly told Du Gu Bo.
"Don't worry. Out of the ten or so most valuable immortal herbs here, I'll only take four, leaving the rest entirely for you. I'll also teach you how to use all these herbs," Du Gu Bo said.
From several interactions, Su Cheng had grown quite fond of Du Gu Bo.
Though ruthless at times, he was a principled person who valued relationships.
Su Cheng himself could not be considered a moral exemplar, so he did not mind Du Gu Bo's minor moral shortcomings.
Perhaps due to misjudging the value of the immortal herbs, Du Gu Bo appeared very generous, waving his hand with a smile. "Mr. Su, you are too polite. For saving our entire family, these trivial herbs could never repay your debt."
Though he was not part of the Spirit Hall, he understood Su Cheng's extraordinary position within it and never considered letting Su Cheng leave empty-handed.
As a titled Douluo from a partly grassroots background, Du Gu Bo would not make mistakes in dealing with people.
"Let's go. First, let's treat your son's illness." Su Cheng nodded. The herb matter was not urgent.
With that, the two of them went, one following the other, toward a wooden house in the valley.
Medicine was Su Cheng's innate talent in this life and also his most confident ability. Handling the Douluo Serpent Poison of the Du Gu family was not a major problem for him.
Even if he only wanted to suppress the poison so that it would not activate for decades, it would be easy to accomplish.
The only difficulty for him was completely curing the damage the poison had done to the body.
The Du Gu father and son's soul toxin was a mixed deadly poison, far more complex to detoxify than ordinary poisons.
To identify all the types of toxins involved and calculate the compounded properties of the poison required many times more work.
However, under the natural environmental suppression of the Ice-Fire Two Poles Eye, and with the abundance of herbs here, the difficulty was not particularly great.
As for methods like Tang San's, taking two immortal herbs to forge a body immune to all poisons and then using one's own blood to detoxify others, Su Cheng had no intention of using them.
He had never considered taking Bajiao Xuanbing Grass and Fierce Fire Apricot Flower to enter the Ice-Fire Two Poles Eye for body forging.
To be honest, a body forged in this way, resistant to water and fire, was naturally excellent, with an extraordinarily solid foundation. But it did not fit his path, and there was no need to force it for temporary gain.
If it were a soul skill or soul bone, it would be fine. Directly exposing the body to such extreme ice and fire properties would later be very troublesome to remove.
In fact, he did not plan to take any immortal herbs at all.
The medicinal power of immortal herbs was too extreme, which would disrupt his bodily balance.
If it had been a year ago, he would have been happy to try it and see how it might enhance his soul skill.
But after absorbing the third soul ring and confirming he could harmonize the fire and metal properties in his soul skill using extreme earth, he abandoned those previous ideas.
Now, he wanted to take it further, completing the five elements to see what changes would occur.
Su Cheng had a premonition that, if he wanted to escape the attention and manipulation of some high-level existences in the Douluo world in the future, finding a different path would be the best choice.
He also had another idea in mind: to fully stack the metal attribute to purify his soul skill and pursue an extreme, purely offensive path.
But for now, he had already made good progress on the attribute harmonization path, and there was a better candidate to attempt the soul skill purification route. Completing this experiment depended on the help of this herb garden.
Medicinal liquids made from ordinary herbs could improve the body but could not penetrate the veins, so they could not affect soul skills.
However, high-level spiritual herbs and rare plants were different.
Any ordinary plant, under spiritual energy nourishment, could generate miraculous medicinal power. Even more so for high-grade rare plants grown in this world-rare, spiritually rich land.
For the next month, Su Cheng spent most of his time in this valley, using the detoxifying effect of the Fragrant Qiluo Immortal Items to study how to detoxify Du Gu Bo father and son, and harvesting various spiritual herbs and rare plants to concoct medicines that could improve soul skill attributes.
Occasionally he left to relieve the pressure his body experienced from the dense ice-fire spiritual energy in the valley.
A month later, Su Cheng had cured the Du Gu father and son's serpent poison and finally completed more than ten attribute-based medicinal concoctions.
The most numerous were not for the main attribute of his soul skill, metal, but for earth.
Since he decided to complete the five elements, he could not be limited by the sword's inherent attribute.
Among the five elements, earth carried heaven and supported all things, far more suitable than other attributes as the foundation in the initial stage.
After spending several hours reorganizing the first volume's detailed outline, he felt mentally exhausted. The transitional plot passed quickly, and the story was about to enter the climax. Keep following for more~
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