The third wave was from five Scorpion tailed demonic wolves, which were rank 4 beasts.
During the third and fourth waves, no one had lost their lives, and they weren’t injured either. However, during the first and the second waves of attack, they had lost four men. If it wasn’t for Ye Chen reacting immediately, they might have lost more than half of their men.
The underground demonic mice were not very powerful. Normally, even a Mortal Realm stage 7 warrior could manage to beat it head on, without much effort. However, when it hid underground, it would become a Mortal Realm warrior’s or even an Early Condensing Reality Realm warrior’s nightmare.
Among the Lin family guards, there was a Mortal Realm Stage 10 warrior, who was dragged into one of the deepest holes in the ground by the demonic mice. His miserable shrieks lasted for a long time before they stopped. The second and the third mouse were not lucky enough, they had targeted Ye Chen and Yuan Xuemei. They hadn’t even managed to completely get out of the hole before they were killed by them. And the last one alive was scared away.
If the underground demonic mice had frightened the group, then the second wave had completely traumatized them.
It was a huge group of silver ring snakes, which were rank 2 beasts. Their heads were oval shaped, while their bodies were covered in black and white ring patterns. With their extremely thin tails, their whole bodies were about four meters long. They were as thick as a human hand. Although they were not as poisonous as the dark green poisonous dragon spiders, they were still capable of taking even a Condensing Reality Realm warrior’s life. If one was bitten by them, he would lose his life due to lung failure, as it was extremely hard to be treated.
The silver ring snakes’ attacks were pretty tricky. They attacked from the branches of the trees, from within the bushes, from under the falling leaves, basically from anywhere in their surroundings, which made it even more dangerous.
In the critical moment, the disciple of the North Snow Martial Academy, Wang Feng, executed the Storm Snow Sword Art. Its ice cold sword Qi managed to slow down the silver ring snakes, and sliced up all the closer ones. He stopped almost half of the silver ring snakes all by himself.
Ye Chen and Yuan Xuemei weren’t idle either, they used their special martial arts and killed all the silver ring snakes while maintaining a distance of about ten steps from them.
Unfortunately, they were unable to protect everyone. A herb collecting member and two guards from the Lin family guarding team were bitten by dozens of silver ring snakes, and instantly lost their lives.
Lin Xiaoxue’s face turned quite pale. They were already in the deepest parts of the Red Blood Forest and there were more and more demonic beasts there. But, it was not the only reason she was concerned about. She was upset because there were too many people that had lost their lives, and that only meant that she would have to pay a huge amount of money. It was not that she was stingy. It was just that the Lin family had already spent one hundred gold and fifty Qi replenishing pellets for hiring the five martial disciples, which already amounted to about two hundred and fifty thousand gold in total, that is twenty-five hundred thousand silvers. Now that five people had lost their lives, it meant an increase of five hundred thousand silvers, and ten thousand silvers for each person alive.That increased it to more than three thousand and five hundred thousand silvers. If anymore people lost their lives, then it might even go beyond five million silvers.
For a small family like the Lin family, five million silvers was already a very huge number, that even shake their foundations. If they were ever pushed to a position where they couldn’t even make both ends meet, then that was the end of a small family.
Biting her lips, Lin Xiaoxue hoped that this trip would turn out to at least be worth it.
After they walked another ten miles, Ye Chen suddenly felt that there was an increase in the density of Yuan Qi in the surroundings.
Lin Xiaoxue had also sensed this, she excitedly said, “We are almost near the herb collecting location! Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
The group from the Lin family could not help but be a little relieved. They had been extremely tense since the beginning of the trip. They did not dare to relax for even a second, as they were afraid they’d become food for the beasts and would never be able to leave the Red Blood Forest to go back to their homes.
But there would be no gain without pain. If they could endure until the herb collection mission was over, they would go back happier than when they came in.
Moments later.
The group arrived at a huge basin. When they looked around, they saw that the whole basin spanned across a few miles. It was full of all kinds of medicinal plants, such as the Black Ring Plant, the Silver Bell Plant, the Golden Ball Iron Blood Grass, the Star flower, the Scorpion Flower… there were hundreds of valuable plants there. A thick layer of spirit Qi was concentrated in the sky. it was just like heaven.
“So many medicinal plants!” All the members of the herb collecting team were excited, their eyes brightened, and their breathing sped up. Although these medicinal plants were not valuable individually, once there was a huge amount of them, they were worth a fortune. If they could manage to take them all back, they would be able to sell them all for at least one or two million silvers, without even processing them. Once they were processed and made into pellets, then they would be worth more than at least ten million silvers. Some of the extremely precious medicinal plant would even cost more than that. For example, some of the ingredients of the Qi replenishing pellet like the Golden Ball Iron Blood Plant were extremely rare. Each one was worth at least one thousand gold, which was more expensive than some of the finest weapons.
Lin Xiaoxue looked pleased, however, she did not let the excitement get to her head, she said, “Each herb collecting member should be protected by two Lin family guards. Spread out and if you encounter anything strange, do not decide by yourselves, ask me first.”
“Yes!”
On their way here, the guards had been working extremely hard. If they did not surround the herb collectors and protect them, even more people would have been killed. However, they felt that it was all worth it. Besides all the silver they were entitled to, they would also get ten thousand silvers, just for being alive. They needed at least a few months to make that amount of money.
After all the tasks were assigned, Lin Xiaoxue also joined the herb collecting team. She gasped when she discovered some very valuable plants.
Yuan Xuemei smiled, “The density of Yuan Qi is very high here. There might be some beasts around, should we five go check the surroundings?”
Ye Chen nodded, “Right. Let’s take one direction each!”
“Okay!”
They were being paid to do this, so they all chose a direction and went to patrol the surroundings. They could even pick up some useful plants on their way and keep them in their storage rings.
Edited by : Jaggerjakk, Disco Pangolin