If one wanted to train using the 'Secret Dragonblood Manual, then one had to first stir the Dragonblood in one's veins. There were only two ways of stirring up the Dragonblood inside one's veins: when the Dragonblood density within one's veins reached a certain minimum level, or drinking fresh blood from a live dragon. It was dangerous to drink the blood of a living dragon; even if applied topically, dragon's blood caused terrible pain, let alone being drunk. The world worked in a pair of opposites. Azure Soulgrass, put together with dragon's blood, had the most intense effect. But it was extremely rare. Renji once asked about its price. A patch of Azure Soulgrass would cost tens of thousands of gold coins. It was one of these items that couldn't be bought even if there was the money to buy. Kaiya Tanaka once said, "The live dragon's blood is so powerful. Ordinarily, a patch of Azure Soulgrass is far from being enough. If you drink a great quantity of the live dragon's blood, you shall have to use even more Azure Soulgrass." One patch of Azure Soulgrass was already that expensive. How could Renji afford it? Perhaps his entire fortune of 70,000, earned during this month, would only be enough to buy one patch. "Azure Soulgrass, Azure Soulgrass!
Heaven is being so kind to me." Renji felt unspeakable joy. He energetically jumped down directly and fell several dozen meters before landing on the cliff wall across from him. Then, he immediately started mumbling the words to a spell. In moments, Renji's entire body was covered with wind Chakra essences in flow, and flows of wind began enveloping him as well. Wind-style spell of the fifth rank – Floating Technique. At his present level, Renji could only let his body float, rather than actually flying. The floating meant allowing oneself to float up or down vertically. Taking a step forward, Renji was in mid-air before he started to slowly descend, floating down to the deep foggy canyon. Echo envied him as he stood on Renji's shoulder looking down while they descended. Although Echo was pretty strong, he couldn't fly. He wasn't a flying-type magical beast so he could only fly if he became a Saint-level magical beast. This canyon was filled with white fog, which roiled about. The deeper Renji went, the greater the distance between the canyon walls became. Quite soon, Renji landed near the Azure Soulgrass.
"Azure Soulgrass is deep green in color, but emanates a faint blue light. Azure Soulgrass is cool to the touch. When the blades of grass are torn apart, they leak out a dark green fluid which is very cool when drunk," Renji remembered from the Keito Institute library. Staring at the Azure Soulgrass growing out from the cliff, rustling gently in the wind, Renji took a deep breath, then carefully uprooted the Azure Soulgrass.
"It really is cold." The moment he touched the Azure Soulgrass, he felt as though he had touched a piece of ice.
He immediately placed the Azure Soulgrass into his backpack and looked around. "I wonder if there is any more Azure Soulgrass here! " A place that could give birth to one patch of Azure Soulgrass might give birth to another. Using the Floating Technique, Renji continued to float down into the roiling white fog. Meanwhile, Renji kept a sharp eye out despite the fog making all things blurry; he could make out several vines twisting about the cliffs.
"That's huge! " The farther down into the canyon he went, the larger Renji realized that this place was. The two walls were only a few hundred metres apart at most at the top of the canyon; now Renji was certain this absolute minimum distance wasn't less than a few thousand metres. Still, he continued to float close to the wall.
Using vision, in combination with his speed of floatation and the angle against the wall, he could sort of estimate the distance. "Roar…." "Grrr…. " All kinds of bassy growls issued from beneath, from time to time sounding out. They were coming from all over. From the sound alone, Renji judged that there was over a hundred magical beasts below. Renji couldn't help but feel his heart quail. "Magical beasts. There are lots of magical beasts below!" Just from hearing the sound, Renji could tell.
Renji pressed himself more firmly against the cliff walls and began to lower himself more slowly and cautiously, holding onto the vines with his hands.
"Boss, I can feel great danger below," Echo suddenly said to Renji through their mental link. Renji also felt as though his heart was tightening. He continued to venture down, and the growls of magical beasts grew increasingly defined. Those low growls were potent. Clearly, they were coming from the large magical beasts. Generally speaking, large magical beasts were not weak. Powerful magical beasts weren't present in a large and general sense, but large magical beasts were generally powerful.
"Azure Soulgrass!" Renji suddenly saw that below him, very far away, was another piece of Azure Soulgrass. Surrounding the Azure Soulgrass were many green vines and shrubs. As Renji was not a fearful person to begin with, upon seeing the Azure Soulgrass, he began floating down while keeping his hands gripped to the rattan vines. But at this point in time, Renji failed to notice… Amongst the green vines that wrapped themselves around the Azure Soulgrass, a green python snake had been hiding inside - probably twenty meters long, as thick as to require at least two men needed to encircle it with their arms. That big python was very green, already curled up like a rattan vine. As a result of fog partly covering it, Renji didn't notice it at all.
By the time he did, Renji was closing in on where the Azure Soulgrass was.
"Boss, quick! That's an enormous python!" Echo suddenly warned Renji urgently over their link.
"Python?" Renji was astonished. Nearly all the python-type magical beasts were extremely powerful. Even the weakest Triple-horn Viper was a rank six magical beast. Renji promptly scanned his surroundings carefully. By now, Renji was about a hundred meters away from the giant python. Soon enough, after having looked for it carefully, he promptly spotted the giant python. "Whoah." Renji inhaled deeply. That python, thick as a water barrel and long thirty meters, made Renji's heart quail. "Ivy-etched Python. A magical beast of the seventh rank-the Ivy-etched Python." The information he knew about this kind of Python immediately leapt to mind. By now, Renji also realized why it was that this canyon had so much white fog. "The Mist Technique is just a water-style technique of the first rank. One seventh-ranked beast—just one Ivy Engraved Python—can produce huge amounts of white fog; the amount it can produce is almost endless. With at least such a number of white fog in this dense valley, there is more than that one Ivy Engraved Python." Renji felt this at one go. The canyon was ten kilometers long in its length and width.
Such a large canyon, all in white mist, there must be more Pythons here.
That Ivy-etched Python, which had lain among the vines, suddenly moved. Its huge head turned and stared at Renji; its two cold eyes stared death into his very being. "Grrrr…. " A terrifying sound rumbled out from the Ivy-etched Python's maw and, in the same moment, it shot forward at high speed.
"Rawr!" "Hiss!" "Grrr!" The entire canyon began filling up with the calls of various beasts. Simultaneously, loud, sonorous movement sounds echoed. Casting his gaze downwards, Renji saw that more than ten enormous creatures were moving in his direction. Moreover, Renji could tell that those ten comprised no more than a small part of the creatures in this chasm. "Fly away! " Faced with the attack by the Ivy-etched Python, Renji immediately began floating up at maximum speed. Renji adjusted the wind power, ensuring that the force lifted him more than its pressure compared to his body weight, rushing at an extremely fast speed into the air.
Then Renji flew upwards. At this time, he could see a monstrously large Ivy-etched Python climb upwards after him along the cliff walls.
Its eyes were frigid, snake-like, as they bored into Renji's, threatening him with death, while the serpent continued hissing incessantly. "Screech! Screech!" A shrill bird scream rent the air, and from the floor, around dozens of colossal birds began rushing forward to give chase to the protagonist, Renji."Stormdrakes! Those are Stormdrakes!" In a split second reaction, Renji's face turned paper white.