Chapter 107
The number of demon beast carcasses which was littered on the ground could make one's hair stand on end. Most of the corpses are incomplete with their bodies severed in different places. Among this corpses lay a huge black wolf which is the biggest of them all, though its body is still intact but the back of its head is already blown wide open along with its brain emptied on the ground.
Three figures can be seen panting heavily as they stood weakly on the ground in the middle of this mess. These people are Shin Jiao, Rat Ling, and Zen Nian.
Zen Nian was the first one to move as he slowly walks towards the woman on the ground. When he nears her his expression immediately changed. He seems to be familiar with the figure of the woman and upon seeing her state his heart began to panic. With wounds all over her body, it seems that there are no parts of her that don't have traces of claw marks. Even her robes are already tattered and not fit to be worn anymore.
He immediately squatted down and carefully turns the woman. When he saw her face, two streaks of tears immediately flow down his cheeks. Zen Nian could not help himself but feel pained at the pitiful state of Ya Nian. He immediately took out some of his healing pills and pops them in her mouth, and then he took off his robe and covered her body with it. Though badly beaten and wounded, Ya Nian is still breathing though unconscious.
Shin Jiao walks near Zen Nian, bend down and slowly checked her pulse and her breathing.
"She already lost a lot of blood. We have to treat her wounds immediately." Shin Jiao suggested after assessing her situation.
Zen Nian carried Ya Nian to the cave and carefully lays her down by the fire. He used some clean cloth and carefully cleaned her face. He wanted to clean her body but he hesitated as it would ruin Ya Nian's reputation if someone saw it. Upon seeing this scene Shin Jiao could not help but shake his head. He remembers his action upon seeing Cherry Lao and cleaning her body, at that time he was only acting to help her. He could understand the dilemma; Zen Nian is having right now so he decided to help.
"Master Zen, I'll go out first and search for medicinal herbs to help young mistress Ya Nian with her wounds. Rat Ling come with me, help me search." Shin Jiao said as he gestured towards Rat Ling who is sitting in the corner.
At first Rat Ling was stupefied at Shin Jiao's words as he himself is not very familiar with herbs, so why choose him. But upon seeing the glaring look in Shin Jiao's eyes, he showed a bitter smile and excused himself. After the two went away, Zen Nian wryly smile at Shin Jiao and was truly grateful for his understanding of his situation.
Then he slowly approached Ya Nian and carefully removes his robe covering her. Upon seeing the wound in her body, he can't help but frown as they are still not closing. He knows that if he didn't treat them as soon as possible, she would lose too much blood and may die. So he immediately removes his inner robe and cut them to strips. Then after cleaning the wounds on her body, he put some medicine on them and carefully wraps the wounds. After a long while, he was drench in sweat as worry and anxiety-filled his heart upon seeing the bloody figure of the woman he cares about.
Meanwhile, Shin Jiao and Rat Ling walks towards the boundary of the array formation and carefully picks out some of the herbs which Shin Jiao knows to have some healing properties. While working with Zen Nian in the alchemy house he became too familiar with a lot of herbs hence is able to recognize a lot of them.
After picking the herbs he needed, Shin Jiao look for a huge stone and started to craft a stone bench and a stone table. He decided to just use this place to concoct the medicine he already has in mind.
With the use of his glove, Shin Jiao has now the ability to craft things even without the use of natural energy. So he started to create important tools he could to use in making medicine.
He first crafted some wooden bowls and cups using the trees in his surroundings. Then he found some ordinary crystals sticking out of the ground beside a huge boulder and used it to craft some vials and test tubes.
Shin Jiao then wrote some runes on top of the table which uses a demon beast core to produce fire.
Now that he is ready, Shin Jiao began experimenting in making the medicine he is thinking of. Though it is already night time, with the use of the ordinary crystal, Shin Jiao was able to make a small lamp. With that, he spends his time engrossed in making medicine. He didn't even notice the dumbfounded look on Rat Ling face who is standing near him as he began working.
It took him a while before he could finally produce a low level compounded healing tablet. Though from the test he conducted on himself, he can deduce that its affectivity is around 30% compared to the Rapid Hemostatic pill. But with his rough equipment and unfavorable conditions, this is already good enough.
After making roughly around 20 tablets he immediately kept them inside 3 wooden pill bottles which of course he crafted.
After he was done, he immediately gave one to Rat Ling who stood beside him. As Rat Ling saw the whole process on how the tablets were made, he gladly accepted it.
"Brother Shin, you are a genius! Not only can you teach good cultivation techniques and craft things, but you are also a great alchemist... I wish I can be as good at anything as you are." Rat Ling praised admiration clearly seen shining in his eyes.
Shin Jiao just gave a faint smile and patted Rat Ling's back as thanks for the compliment. He knows that every person in the world is unique and that each has its own strength and weaknesses. For example, himself, though he is a person with the jack of all trades trait, yet his weakness is his luck. Though he would always keep his life, however, upon arriving in this world he has never had a long and peaceful time. Instead, he encounters one trouble after another.
After keeping the bottles, Rat Ling excitedly walks towards the cave according to Shin Jiao's instruction and gave Zen Nian the other bottle. He let Rat Ling go back as he needed to make other medicine he needed for his travel. So he just grabs the time and crafted more healing tablets and other stuff like anti-biotic, pain reliever, and fasting pills.
After many hours of work, he was already done and noticed that the night sky is almost past. Before Shin Jiao returns back to the cave, threw out of the array formation the carcasses of the wolves after taking out their cores. Shin Jiao felt elated as he now has more demon cores on his pouch.
Not long later he was done with everything and so Shin Jiao decided to go back to the cave.
When he walks back he now noticed a woman leaning on the cave wall while talking to Zen Nian. The two seems happy which made Shin Jiao smile. He can't help but frown as he knows that Ya Nian is Zen Nian's older sister, but the glow in each other's eyes shows differently. It's like the two are not siblings but lovers. He wanted to ask but pushes it out of his mind as it was not his thing to intrude in others lives. He can't even handle his own relationship, why bother?
When Shin Jiao entered the cave the three also noticed him. They became vigilant at first but when they realized it was him, Zen Nian and Rat Ling heave a sigh of relief.
"What took you so long brother Shin?" Rat Ling suddenly asked curiously.
He knows that Shin Jiao was already done with concocting the pills, he is just curious at what else would take him that long to stay outside. With a faint smile, Shin Jiao shrugs his shoulders.
"Nothing, I just look around the perimeter and check at the array formation." He casually explained as he walks towards a corner and sat down.
Then he noticed that Ya Nian seems to want to say something but is hesitating. When Zen Nian saw this he smiled and patted Ya Nian's shoulder. Then he looks at Shin Jiao and nods his head. Shin Jiao knows what he means and nods his head back in confirmation.
Shin Jiao closed his eyes and regulate his breathing. After a while, he frowns as a feeling of frustration overcame him. He tried to feel any spiritual or natural energy in his body. But since he can't, he just gave up and lay down to sleep.
After some time, he was awoken by the sound of footsteps. Shin Jiao is always a light sleeper even before he enters the secret organization. So he immediately opens his eyes and found Rat Ling, Zen Nian, and Ya Nian already standing up and has already cleaned the place. As per his instruction, they are to keep any traces of them being in this place clean. Upon seeing them, Shin Jiao also slowly stood up.
"Shin sorry… Did we wake you up?" Zen Nian asked.
"Nah… it's okay. I think it's time we leave this place." Shin Jiao said as he noticed that the sun is already slowly rising.
Then he carefully set up a rune pattern on the ground, inside the cave. Then after finishing it, the array suddenly activated and slowly the temperature began rising. Not long later the ground suddenly turns into molten lava due to the strong heat. Seeing this scene, the three people standing behind Shin Jiao became dumbfounded. Especially Ya Nian as this is her first time seeing someone turns the ground into molten lava with just some stones with runes on it she was truly stupefied.
"This… How can this be?" Ya Nian muttered as the unbelievable sight right in front of her.
She knows that with enough use of spiritual Qi one can produce enough heat to melt even rocks. But the scene in front of her is truly absurd and almost impossible.
"We need to do this thing so that they would believe that there truly once lived a Flame Sky Snake in this cave. I feel that there might be people coming back to this place so we must set this up to make sure that they would not suspect us being in this place." Shin Jiao explained.
After saying that, Shin Jiao turn around and approached Ya Nian. He then handed her his own robe which made the later frown in confusion.
"Shin… what is this?" Zen Nian asked also feeling confused.
"She cannot return to the Safe Zone with her tattered robes. Plus the rune on that robe is already ruined." Shin Jiao explained.
"Then how about you?" Zen Nian suddenly asked with worry.
"Haha… don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I'll just use this opportunity to expand my horizon in this Dark Forest." Shin Jiao said with a faint smile.
"No… I…" Ya Nian suddenly muttered with mixed emotion clearly written on her dainty face.
Shin Jiao showed a knowing glance at Zen Nian which the later understood and heaves a heavy sigh.
"Don't worry about Shin Jiao. He might not look like it but he is a very strong man." Zen Nian consoled Ya Nian who still has the look of hesitation on her face.
Zen Nian accepted the robe from Shin Jiao and draped it over Ya Nian's shoulders.
"I think you better leave now, or else the people whom I think would come here will arrive soon." Shin Jiao said.
With that word from Shin Jiao, the three people in front of him look at each other.
Then with a helpless look on their faces, began activating the runes on their robes. The last one to activate the rune is Rat Ling, who bear hug Shin Jiao while his eyes seem teary.
"Brother Shin, I will see you again one day right?" Rat Ling asked with a hint of sorrow in his tone.
"Of course we can see each other again if you have time to visit the town of Dis, that is. Hehehe." Shin Jiao jested.
Then Rat Ling flashed a knowing smile on his face and nods as his figure vanished in a flash of light. After the three disappear, Shin Jiao immediately dashed through the forest towards the hidden cave. He already copied the teleportation rune on the robe and now can't wait to study it in peace. He still has a day before he can meet the sisters and get his pills to repair his meridians.
After some time he reached the hidden cave which he marked and enters it.
Now long after he disappeared, from the sky above five figures standing on a flying sword flew towards the area where the entrance to the array formation is. Among these people are two young men whom Shin Jiao knows, Wei Qi Nian and Hong Nian.
The two are leading three middle-aged men in the area and one of them is the First Elder of the Nian clan. As the group arrives they started to inspect the place as the prospect of finding a Flame Sky snake is very tempting. After a long while of searching, they found a cave with a searing hot temperature inside.
"Elders, this is the place right?" Wei Qi Nian excitedly said as he craned his neck looking at the cave.
"Hmm… seems to be. But it seems that we are already too late." One of the elders said as he opens his eyes.
"Elder, what do you mean?" Wei Qi Nian asked in confusion.
"The creature has already left." this time the voice of Hong Nian was heard.
"What!? Then… What about the body? The artifacts? We must get them." Wei Qi Nian suddenly shouted in panic as he quickly rushed inside the searing hot cave.
Seeing the action of the Wei Qi Nian, the first elder frowns and shook his head feeling a little dissatisfied at his actions. Though he wanted to support Wei Qi Nian to be the next clan head, however, this is only because of the boy's mother. As a person, he dislikes the attitude of the boy as he is too impulsive and somewhat stupid at times. But as he already promised the mother so he has no choice but to fulfill it.
The group found nothing in the cave but molten rocks and decided to just leave and judge the situation as an unlucky circumstance. Everyone felt a little dejected at the outcome, everyone except for Hong Nian.
Nobody noticed something outside the cave as they were busy looking inside it, that is except for him who surveyed the area carefully. With a glint of craftiness in his eyes, an evil grin suddenly appears on his face.
"What a smart little fellow."