The fine thorns on a second-rank Red Sore Bee Gu could cause even a Golden Core cultivator, if accidentally pricked, to be laid up for over a month without a detoxifying pill.
This Red Sore Bee Gu, trapped in the jade box covered by a formation, appeared extremely agitated. Its bloated body moved as swiftly as a spirit snake.
Not far from its side, three green leaves were stacked together. Each leaf was half the size of a palm, yet as thick as an adult's hand, so lushly green it seemed ready to drip with rich juice.
At this moment, as streams of spirit power were continuously poured in from the small hole above the jade box, the green leaves really began to ooze drops of rich juice.
But in the eyes of the Red Sore Bee Gu, due to the formation in the jade box, this all appeared as if it were placed in a vast sea.
This sea was endless, with blue waves rippling all around. It was struggling forward, but it felt as if its body was trapped in a viscous swamp, giving it the feeling that it was slowly sinking and drowning.
This caused it to let out continuous, strange hissing sounds as it desperately tried to escape!
As for the hole in the top of the box above its head, it paid it no mind, because every time it looked up, all it saw was a vast, white sky that its divine sense could not penetrate.
What terrified the Red Sore Bee Gu even more was that it found its body beginning to swell after being soaked in this "seawater."
A burning heat gradually grew within its body, and this heat slowly seeped into every single one of its fine thorns. The thousands upon thousands of white thorns were gradually darkening, turning into a dark green color…
In the courtyard, sweat was already beading on the fair-skinned girl's forehead. The magical power in her body was being consumed rapidly, but this was not her main concern.
She had numerous Qi-replenishing pills on her. Whenever her magical power ran low, she would just toss a few into her mouth. These pills were all fourth-rank or higher, with the pill poison greatly reduced.
Even if there was some, she could just meditate and circulate her cultivation later to refine and expel the pill poison.
What she was worried about was her delicate control over her spirit power. The green leaves in the jade box were leaves from the "Green Wave Heart" tree. The name sounded elegant, but it was actually extremely venomous.
This type of tree was almost impossible to find in the outside world. Even within the Malevolent Spirit Sect, only four remained in the spirit herb garden of Lord Lao Peak .
They were three hundred and seventy years old, seven hundred and fifty years old, and two that were several thousand years old, respectively.
The two several-hundred-year-old Green Wave Heart trees had sprouted from the roots of the two thousand-year-old trees and grown anew.
This was only possible due to the careful cultivation of the disciples of Lord Lao Peak. After that, no matter how they tried to cultivate them, no new saplings would grow.
The most precious part of the Green Wave Heart tree was its leaves. They were incredibly poisonous and could not only be used to refine poison pills but were also the main ingredient for refining the "Green Heart Pill," which aided Golden Core cultivators in their cultivation.
A leaf had to grow for at least a hundred years before it could be used; otherwise, its poison would be scattered and not condensed, making it completely useless for medicine.
A single leaf from a hundred-year-old Green Wave Heart tree, even without being refined into a poison pill or liquid, could easily take the life of a Foundation Establishment cultivator with its juice.
The fair-skinned girl was none other than Li Zhaoyan . Since Zhao Min was always in seclusion, her daily cultivation was taught by Li Wuyi and the others on Little Bamboo Peak, with occasional personal guidance from Wei Zhongran .
But among these people, Li Zhaoyan preferred her Great Aunt from Never-Parting Peak —Li Changting . This was because she loved all those colorful Gu-insects and the various poisons with different effects.
Under these circumstances, she not only learned many Gu-driving and Gu-refining arts from Li Changting but also learned poison-refining and poison-application arts from Li Wuyi, Miao Wangqing , and the others.
Don't be fooled by Miao Wangqing's quiet appearance. As a disciple of the Malevolent Spirit Sect with less-than-stellar combat power, she paid even more attention to her own safety and was particularly skilled in alchemy and poison refining.
This, of course, included various poison pills and liquids for self-preservation, many of which were deadly poisons that could kill in an instant.
In fact, these methods were not surprising in the Malevolent Spirit Sect. People like Li Wuyi, and even the beefy Wei Chituo , were masters of poison.
And when they decided to be insidious, their rich experience in killing made them even more venomous.
All of them, including Yun Chunqu, had taught Li Zhaoyan various methods of backstabbing and poison application. In their eyes, these methods were quite normal. When walking the Cultivation World, it was better for others to die than for you to die. Your own strength was the only true strength.
Such a clever, smart, pretty, and cute girl could not be allowed to suffer losses when she ventured out into the world in the future. Otherwise, where would they, her uncles, aunts, and martial uncles, hide their faces?
After Zhao Min went into seclusion, Li Zhaoyan was the only one left in this courtyard. Today, she was conducting an experiment, a "massive" experiment that she felt could change her strength.
Therefore, she had even taken out the second-rank Red Sore Bee Gu that her Great Aunt Changting had given her. Although she had many types of Gu-insects, only this Red Sore Bee Gu was at a level equivalent to her own strength—Foundation Establishment stage.
Li Zhaoyan felt that only by testing with it could she truly experiment with her ideas.
Watching the Green Wave Heart leaves in the jade box slowly melt and diminish, Li Zhaoyan's heart began to pound nervously. These three hundred-year-old Green Wave Heart leaves were something her maternal grandfather had only agreed to purchase for her after she had pestered him for a long time.
He had repeatedly told her that if she were to use them, she must do so with someone else present. But Li Zhaoyan wanted to test it herself.
Thus, the three Green Wave Heart leaves she had just gotten last night were all placed in the jade box this morning, and the formation within the box was activated.
While controlling her magical power to melt the Green Wave Heart leaves, she carefully observed the state and reaction of the Red Sore Bee Gu.
Although one couldn't feel the Green Wave Heart when it seeped into the body, that was because the poison it released was silent and subtle.
But once the toxins accumulated beyond what a living being's body could bear, it would bring boundless pain, a pain that could make a person collapse in an instant.
For the victim, the final outcome was almost always death, but that was of course not Li Zhaoyan's goal.
The reason she chose the Red Sore Bee Gu for the experiment was that the red sore poison within its body could be used to counteract other poisons, including the poison of the Green Wave Heart.
This had been concluded long ago after research by the disciples of Lord Lao Peak. Li Zhaoyan was using this very point, having the Red Sore Bee Gu absorb the Green Wave Heart poison to complete her test.
But in this process, the venomous juice from the melting Green Wave Heart she controlled had to be slightly higher than the Red Sore Bee Gu's own ability to counteract poison, keeping it at a point where it was always about to snap.
Li Zhaoyan had to continuously maintain that extra bit of poison entering the Red Sore Bee Gu's body—no less, no more.
This state had to be maintained for a relatively long period of careful observation before she could get the result she wanted for her judgment.
As for the endless seawater in the Red Sore Bee Gu's eyes, it was an illusion conjured by the formation in the jade box. The juice from the Green Wave Heart leaves was just mixed in with the non-existent seawater to confuse its senses.
That she could achieve this step already surpassed the understanding of many Lord Lao Peak disciples regarding pharmacology, and this kind of fine magical power control also required a very exquisite cultivation method.
Li Zhaoyan kept her eyes glued to the situation inside the jade box. Time ticked by. The Red Sore Bee Gu was still moving, but its speed was getting slower and slower.
'Observing its aura, it's still in good condition, but its speed is slowing. This is because it's absorbing the Green Wave Heart and can't dissolve it in time…'
Li Zhaoyan observed and thought to herself. After some time, she couldn't help but feel a little smug. She truly was a genius.
But her smugness lasted no more than five breaths before her big, watery eyes widened in shock. The Red Sore Bee Gu, which had still been moving, suddenly tumbled a few times and then stopped moving altogether.
"No way! Did the Green Wave Heart leaf toxins accumulate in its body to a point where it couldn't be dissolved? Only less than half of these three leaves have melted, this shouldn't be happening!"
Li Zhaoyan looked carefully again and again. The Red Sore Bee Gu's body had even stopped rising and falling, as if it had stopped breathing.
Li Zhaoyan's jade hand, which was on the hole, paused. She immediately stopped channeling magical power, and a stream of divine sense instantly penetrated the jade box.
She hadn't used her divine sense before, instead relying on her eyes to observe the transparent jade box, because her cultivation level was not much different from this Red Sore Bee Gu's.
Once her divine sense entered the jade box, it would disrupt the integrity of the illusion, and there was a high chance the other party would notice something was amiss.
Now, seeing that her efforts might have been in vain, Li Zhaoyan's divine sense entered and immediately enveloped the Red Sore Bee Gu.
Just as her divine sense approached the surface of its body, Li Zhaoyan's heart leaped in shock, because an aura that made her heart palpitate suddenly radiated from its body.
"I've been tricked!"
This was Li Zhaoyan's first thought. This Red Sore Bee Gu was a second-rank demonic beast. It had long since gained spiritual intelligence and was no less clever than a human.
It might have noticed something was wrong earlier but was unable to break out of the illusion, so it used feigning death to lure her into a trap.
Just as this thought arose in Li Zhaoyan's mind, the Red Sore Bee Gu lying at the bottom of the box instantly opened its pair of small, ferocious eyes. Its divine sense formed into a long spike and stabbed fiercely towards the empty space above.
"Ah… It hurts, it hurts… You… you stabbed me, you stabbed me… It hurts so much, so much!"
Li Zhaoyan, standing in the courtyard, let out a miserable cry. In her cry, the hand still on the jade box subconsciously tried to block the opponent's attack, and a massive force was directly channeled in.
Immediately, she was forced back several steps. Then, she clutched her small head with both jade hands, hopping around the courtyard while crying out in pain.
"You little thing… you… you're stabbing me, stabbing me… Hiss, hiss, hiss…"
Her divine sense was struck by the opponent, and a sharp pain instantly penetrated her sea of consciousness . The pain was so intense that tears streamed down Li Zhaoyan's face.
It wasn't until dozens of breaths later that she finally lowered the hands clutching her head. Wiping the tears from her face, she looked at the jade box on the stone table in a fit of anger and frustration.
"You little thing, you're dead, you're dead meat! I'm going to chop you into… into mincemeat…"
But just as she was halfway through her sentence, she saw the situation inside the jade box clearly, and her pretty face changed color.
Inside the wide, transparent box, the Red Sore Bee Gu had vanished. In its place was a huge, red-and-black speckled Gu-insect, and its body was still continuing to expand.
"It… it… it…"
A shiver ran down Li Zhaoyan's spine, and her body trembled. By now, there was not a single trace of the Green Wave Heart leaves left in the box.
Only then did she remember that in her subconscious attempt to block the attack, she seemed to have poured in almost all of her magical power in an instant. It would have been a miracle if any of the Green Wave Heart leaves had remained.
And what terrified her now was that the Red Sore Bee Gu had probably absorbed all the juice from the Green Wave Heart leaves at once and had undergone a mutation.
The Gu-insect's mind had been stimulated by the potent poison and had also become abnormal. At this moment, it was actually showing signs of self-detonation. That was equivalent to the self-detonation of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.