Chapter Eighty-Five: The Wind Wolf

“Ding! Initiating the Demon Hunt quest. To complete the quest, you must obtain the Celestial Blue Hookwood from the Spirit Herb Cavern in the southeast of the Spirit Herb Valley. Failure is not permitted.”

“Ding! Quest item acquired: Map of the Spirit Herb Valley.” The Sect Master System’s voice echoed incessantly in Jiang Yan’s ears.

The moment Jiang Yan entered the demon-hunting battlefield, he had essentially accepted the mission; thus, the Sect Master System directly announced his acceptance and granted the quest item. But the absolute prohibition against failure left Jiang Yan perplexed. There were actually missions that allowed no room for defeat? Curiosity piqued, Jiang Yan opened the quest system.

“Demon Hunt Quest—If you fail to obtain the Celestial Blue Hookwood, you will not reach the realm gate to return to Linqing Prefecture. After the gate collapses, return is impossible.”

So the gate leading back to Linqing Prefecture—the Demon Hunt Gate—was located precisely where the Celestial Blue Hookwood grew. If Jiang Yan failed to reach it and retrieve the wood within twelve hours, the gate would collapse, and he would be stranded. Now it was clear why this quest could not be allowed to fail.

“Senior Brother, what is this place?” Tang Wan parted the tangled vines and approached, scanning her surroundings with clear bewilderment.

Jiang Yan looked about. They stood within a dense forest, the trees towering above them, each seemingly over thirty meters tall and so thick it would take several people to encircle a trunk. Even the saplings clinging to the roots were as tall as the mature trees Jiang Yan was used to seeing. The forest was filled with birdsong, yet none of the calls were familiar.

“We are now in the Spirit Herb Valley of the Yunlan Demon Realm,” Jiang Yan replied, retrieving the quest item granted by the Sect Master System from his Sect Master’s ring to check their current location.

“The Yunlan Demon Realm!” Tang Wan looked around in astonishment. So this was the demon world...

A pristine jade talisman appeared in Jiang Yan’s hand. His spiritual awareness emerged from the sea of his consciousness, enveloped the token, and delved within.

Suddenly, the world shifted before his eyes. Jiang Yan seemed to stand in a realm where the sky above was ablaze with stars. Looking down, he saw a vast valley stretching thousands of miles, filled with immense trees. Everywhere his eye could see, the forest was a lush, emerald ocean.

“It’s a three-dimensional map!” Jiang Yan murmured to himself in awe.

“Senior Brother, you just said...” Tang Wan, barely recovered from her astonishment, caught Jiang Yan’s muttered words and looked at him, puzzled.

Startled, Jiang Yan withdrew his awareness from the jade map and stowed it away. He reached into his treasure pouch, retrieved two more jade talismans, and handed one to Tang Wan, changing the subject. “Junior Sister, these are tokens given by the young novice—they’ll conceal our presence. We should each wear one.”

With the tokens in place, the two set out toward the heart of the Spirit Herb Valley, where the Celestial Blue Hookwood grew.

According to the map in the quest system, several key locations lay along their path:

The Mapleleaf Woods, inhabited by first-grade low-tier Wind Wolves;

Yellow Phoenix Slope, home to first-grade low-tier Spotted Leopards;

Black Bear Ravine, where first-grade mid-tier Demon Bears gathered.

The Celestial Blue Hookwood grew in Man-Eating Flower Gorge.

Following the map’s guidance, Jiang Yan and Tang Wan soon arrived at the Mapleleaf Woods. Along the way, apart from occasionally spotting some aged spirit herbs, nothing much happened. Unfamiliar with the terrain, Jiang Yan only dared use his Golden Light Travel Art to hurry through areas clearly marked on the map as free of demon beasts and spirit herbs.

The map from the Sect Master System was extraordinary, not only depicting detailed distribution of demon beasts in the valley, but also displaying the positions of spirit herbs should Jiang Yan pass nearby. Thus, he kept his spiritual awareness fixed on the jade map, ever watchful for precious herbs.

“Three-leaf Clover!” Jiang Yan exclaimed in delight as he spotted a spirit herb marked on the map.

Three-leaf Clover was an ingredient for Foundation Pill and extremely rare and expensive in the markets of Linqing Prefecture. It also had a unique trait: on ordinary soil it grew slowly, but in grade-one spiritual fields, its growth was rapid, flowering, seeding, and regenerating in a short time.

“It really is a Three-leaf Clover!” Tang Wan peered where Jiang Yan indicated and, only after much effort, located the herb. Since receiving Jiang Yan’s compendium of pill recipes, she had grown intimately familiar with spirit herbs like this one.

“I’ll go pick it. Senior Brother, let’s plant it in our sect’s spiritual fields—then we’ll never lack this ingredient for Foundation Pills again!” Tang Wan was elated. The sect happened to have a grade-one spiritual field, perfect for cultivating Three-leaf Clover. With this single plant, as long as they found the other required herbs, Huashan would never again have to worry about the crucial ingredient.

Jiang Yan agreed absentmindedly. He was not particularly interested in Three-leaf Clover. For the disciples of Huashan, once their cultivation reached a certain level, their chance of success at Foundation Establishment on the Six-Star Platform in the training ground was already fifty-fifty. Foundation Pills held little allure for Jiang Yan, let alone a single spirit herb. He waited where he was, letting Tang Wan collect the clover.

Delighted, Tang Wan reached the herb, gently moved aside a stone, and carefully dug out the soil around its roots, intending to take it whole. With the Sect Master’s treasure pouch, carrying hundreds of such herbs was a trivial matter.

At last, she freed the root system intact, heaved a long sigh of relief, and, after sneaking a mischievous glance at her Senior Brother—who couldn’t see her from that angle—placed the clover, soil and all, into her treasure pouch.

Just as she finished, strange cries suddenly reached her ears. She looked up in confusion—and saw gaping jaws lunging toward her.

“Demon beasts!” Tang Wan shrieked. On the road, her Senior Brother had described the characteristics of such creatures, but this was her first encounter, and she was frozen with shock.

Before her, three Wind Wolves with gray pelts slobbered hungrily, their eyes fixed on the half-crouched Tang Wan.

The middle wolf let out a furious howl, the sound blasting through the long grass and sending a foul stench straight at Tang Wan’s face.

“Wan’er, fall back!” Jiang Yan’s voice rang out behind her, furious and alarmed. In the next instant, his body flashed with azure light, darting toward the stunned Tang Wan.

The stench jolted Tang Wan out of her shock. Twisting her lithe waist, she pushed off the ground and shot backwards, still bent low, hurtling toward the safety of her Senior Brother.

With a graceful lift of her slender hand, two shimmering azure lights began to coalesce before her.

The three Wind Wolves’ eyes gleamed with chilling red light as they lunged for the treasure pouch at her waist.

The wolf leader was utterly vexed. He’d only stepped away with his pack for a stroll, and now the herb he’d guarded so carefully had been stolen. Stranger still, none of his pack had sensed the presence of outsiders—yet the herb was gone. And what were these two odd creatures? He had never seen their like.

Jiang Yan and Tang Wan wore the novice’s concealment tokens; even a second-grade spirit beast would have trouble detecting them, let alone these first-grade Wind Wolves. If not for the wolves’ long familiarity with the clover’s scent, they would not have noticed its sudden absence.

As Tang Wan retreated, the wolves closed in. Suddenly, several piercing sounds split the air behind her—Jiang Yan had unleashed his Azurewood Arrow technique.

Three arrows, whistling through the air, shot past Tang Wan by a hair’s breadth and pierced the charging wolves.

Two wolves fell instantly, skewered, and crashed to the ground, lifeless.

The wolf leader, though run through, did not die at once. With a thunderous howl, it dug its claws into the earth and lunged even faster at Tang Wan.

“Wan’er!” Jiang Yan cried out in horror. The Azurewood Arrows, having pierced the wolves, continued flying far beyond, too late to save his junior. The wolf was almost upon her.

Jiang Yan’s face drained of color. “Junior Sister is in danger!”

PS: Overtime has kept me busy these days—please forgive any delays in updates...