Itinerant Cultivators

Jiang Hao mulled over it. He didn't care which sect he joined because he didn't need any cultivation techniques or skills to learn from them.

He wanted to join only to gain in-depth knowledge of this world and some other secrets not available to the general public.

So, joining the Mountain Sword Sect wasn't a problem for him.

"Since senior sister Ming insists, I wouldn't mind joining the Mountain Sword Sect."

"What do you mean by that, junior brother Jiang? I am not insisting you on anything.

The reason why I wanted you to join the Mountain Sword Sect was that it would be easy for me to give you your portion of the reward in contribution points.

And also, I doubt you agreed because I insisted; you must have given it enough thought."

Jiang smiled when he heard that, as she wasn't wrong.

"Also, you don't have a storage bag with you, junior brother Jiang. How would you have taken your share with you? That's why I mentioned it, and it was all for your own good."

Jiang Hao got dumbfounded. One reason was enough, senior sister Ming Yue; you don't have to state every one of them. Is she still holding a grudge because I got back at her last time?

I have to remember this in the future and not get on her bad side, or I will have to listen to her snide remarks.

While sighing internally, he went to check on the trees. He didn't mind telling her that he had a storage treasure, but it wasn't necessary, so he didn't speak about it.

As he touched one of the trees, he stopped and stepped back. There was a beast on this tree, but it wasn't an ordinary one. It was a beast that gave him a feeling of fatal danger.

The only beasts that could give him that kind of danger were late stage or above.

And by the uneasiness in his heart, he knew that it was at the late stage. Although Blue-Striped Snakes are weak in a physical sense, they have quite strong venom, and their speed is also great.

He didn't know how strong Ming Yue was, but she was definitely stronger than ordinary Mid stage cultivators, So maybe she could handle it, but the battle would be intense.

Although Blue-Striped Snakes don't attack unless provoked, if their battle alerted them, they would definitely come to save their kind.

Prior to this, whenever beasts attacked Ming Yue when she was about to cut the trees, she quickly dealt with them as they were weak.

Hence, it wasn't to the point where they would alert nearby Blue-Striped Snakes, but this one would definitely affect all the nearby snakes.

It would be an unfortunate situation for them then; they might not even be able to continue the collection of sacs.

Jiang Hao moved back to where Ming Yue was and said, "Let's continue somewhere else."

Ming Yue didn't ask him why and just moved away with him.

Jiang Hao heaved a sigh of relief. Even though these snakes don't attack casually, who knew if this one might get triggered and attack just because he touched the tree?

He was on his nerves while moving away and only relaxed when they reached far enough.

"What happened?"

Now that he was relaxed, Ming Yue asked immediately. After all, this was the first time she had seen him this tense.

"There was a late stage Blue-Striped Snake on that tree."

When Ming Yue heard that, she got surprised, and she also understood the reason for his strange behavior. Even she wasn't fully confident in fighting a late stage beast in its own habitat.

She also figured out one more thing from this information: Jiang Hao could tell the strength of the beasts that were hidden.

This was perfect because she was afraid of fighting late stage and peak stage beasts. Now that they could avoid them this way, it was far better than the situation she had initially imagined.

After all, whenever she attacked a tree, she got attacked by the Blue-Striped Snake staying on it. If she was attacked by a peak stage Blue-Striped Snake, the danger would be unimaginable for her.

That's why she wasn't interested in moving too close to the lake, because the chances of encountering a peak stage Blue-Striped Snake there would be very high, and she might have to use her protective talisman, which was not worth it.

She eyed Jiang Hao with a slightly reproachful look. When he saw that, he coughed.

"Cough… senior sister, what happened?"

"Nothing, junior brother. Since you can tell the cultivation stage of Blue-Striped Snakes that are hidden in trees, why were we wasting our time with the stage 8 ones before?"

Jiang Hao didn't know how to respond to that. It was true that if he wanted, they could have avoided them and saved a lot of time. He had to come up with a good excuse.

"Senior sister, it's not like that. Unlike you, I really don't know the exact value of the stage 8 Blue-Striped Snakes. I thought their value would be close to stage 9 snakes."

Ming Yue still looked at him without blinking.

Jiang didn't know what else he could do, so he just watched here and there, avoiding eye contact with her.

It's not like he didn't know the value of these beasts. Since the mission specified collecting only stage 9 Blue-Striped Snake sacs, it meant there was a need for these in the Mountain Sword Sect, and hence their value was quite higher than stage 8 snakes.

Finally, Ming Yue shook her head and sighed.

"Forget it. Let's go."

Jiang Hao sighed internally and followed her.

After that, he only pointed out the trees with early or mid stage Blue-Striped Snakes.

He even occasionally encountered late stage Blue-Striped Snakes too, and they would run away every time.

The lake was quite big. If they were going to circle around it, it would take a few days for them to do it.

But since there wasn't any time limit, as this wasn't a mission, Ming Yue wasn't worried about it.

Jiang Hao was even less worried, as his eventual goal was to earn as many resources as he could. Time wasn't an issue for him.

They continued for 10 days and circled about half of the lake.

Now that they were only targeting early and mid stage snakes, their collection rate had decreased.

But even then, they had gotten 252 sacs, of which 201 were from early stages and 51 were from mid stages.

Mid stages were valued at 20 CP in the sect, so the total amount for all the sacs would be 4,035, which was quite a lot. And they were done with only half of the lake; there was still half left.

But just as they were about to continue, they heard sounds of fighting.

They exchanged glances and made their way towards the area from where the sound was coming.

It wasn't far from them, so they reached it in 2 minutes.

There were 5 cultivators fighting 2 mid stage Blue-Striped Snakes.

Two of the 5 cultivators were in the mid stage Foundation Establishment realm, while the others were at the early stage.

With their lineup, it was easy to take care of one mid stage snake, but fighting two together was not an optimistic situation.

Not everyone was as strong as Ming Yue. In the lower worlds, this was even more true. Two ordinary mid stage cultivators might be able to fight a single mid stage Blue-Striped Snake, but fighting two of them wasn't a good decision, even if they had 3 early stage cultivators on their side.

Jiang Hao already had an inkling why this happened, as he and Ming Yue had also encountered pairs of snakes some times instead of single snakes. But they weren't late stage and were easily killed by Ming Yue.

These guys must have seen a single mid stage snake on a tree and attacked, not knowing there was another one, leading to this precarious battle for them.

They all seemed like itinerant cultivators, as they weren't wearing similar clothes.

Jiang Hao wasn't overly concerned about their life and death. Everyone who entered this forest knew they might die here, yet they entered. Some entered out of greed, and some out of necessity.

In the wilderness, everyone is on their own. In fact, the greatest danger to humans in the wild might not be spirit beasts or demons; it might be other humans.

Although Jiang Hao was only 15 and quite young, he understood this quite well.

Even though they had already come here, he could still save them since it wouldn't affect them too much. But since he was only at stage 9 of the Qi Refinement realm and hadn't decided if he should show his real strength or not, he could only ask Ming Yue.

"What do you want to do, senior sister?"

He asked Ming Yue her choice.

"I will save them. It's not a big deal anyway."

Jiang Hao nodded, as it really wasn't a big deal. He had no doubt she could easily handle this.

And as expected, the moment she entered the battlefield, she easily dealt with the snakes.

Her sword strikes were beautiful to watch.