Chapter 69: Four-Turn Medicine Field
The geisha man gritted his teeth and glared at Yu Nianzhen.
In fact, he still had a few more puppets, but he didn’t dare to release them.
After all, the secret realm had just opened. It didn’t make sense to sacrifice all the puppets for blue-silver berries.
He still hoped to enter the inner region of the thousand herbs garden.
Until then, he would preserve as much strength as he could.
"Forfeit." He finally said.
"I will see you in the inner region."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned around and flew away from the valley.
When he saw that, Yu Nianzhen sighed in relief.
Although his sword intent was powerful, it wasn’t inexhaustible.
If he had to demolish a few more puppets, he would exhaust his sword intent and fall to a disadvantage.
"I will also go." The young woman said.
She had a deal with Yu Nianzhen, but that was before she realised how powerful he was.
Now that she knew, she didn’t want to deal with him in case he went back on his word.
In the end, her life was worth more than two bundles of blue-silver berries.
"Wait, take two bundles."
The young woman looked at Yu Nianzhen for a moment.
After ascertaining that he wasn’t trying to trick her, she grabbed two bundles and flew away from the valley.
A moment later, Yu Nianzhen planted the blue-silver berries herb in his jade box and stored the puppet remains in his storage ring.
When that was done, he sat cross-legged to recover his qi and heal his injuries.
This took one hour.
"I wonder if Jiang Yue has made it to the four-turn medicine field." He wondered aloud while standing up.
At the same time, he grabbed his communication token and tried to contact Jiang Yue.
However, the communication token remained unresponsive.
He sighed in disappointment, but he didn’t allow himself to wallow in self-pity.
The thousand herbs garden was thousands of kilometres wide.
It was expected that it wouldn’t be easy to meet Jiang Yue.
If they were lucky, they would meet early on, but if they weren’t, they could only wait until it was time for the inner region to open.
At that time, everyone would meet at the entrance of the inner region.
"It doesn’t matter, we will meet when we are meant to."
After that, Yu Nianzhen did not continue to stay.
He exited the valley, and after determining the direction, he flew toward the four-turn medicine field.
With occasional stops to collect herbs, Yu Nianzen arrived at the medicine field half day later.
"There is no one here." He observed as soon as he arrived.
From what he could see, the four-turn formation was still intact.
This meant that no other cultivators had arrived ahead of him.
However, this was not surprising.
Although the four-turn medicine field was a key region in the secret realm, the thousand herbs garden was large.
It had many fields within the outer region, and the four-turn medicine field was average compared to some others.
"First things first."
Yu Nianzhen looked around to make sure that he hadn’t overlooked anything.
After making sure he was alone, he turned to the medicine field.
The field was one hundred square metres, and the entire area was foggy.
This fog was the effect produced by the formation, and it prevented him from seeing the herbs within the array.
However, Yu Nianzhen was not discouraged.
Instead, he began to carefully examine the four-turn formation.
The formation had four nodes, and each contained a tier two poison.
Other than grades and ranks, resources were also defined by rarity.
A tier one resource was common, while a tier ten resource was extinct or impossible to find.
In this case, a tier two poison was not rare, but it wasn’t too common.
A quarter of an hour later, Yu Nianzhen found the location of all four nodes.
The first node contained tier two nightshade.
When triggered, one would experience drowsiness, hallucinations, and a myriad of other effects.
Although nightshade poisoning could be cured by a common detoxifying pill, it was dangerous when combined with other poisons.
However, this level of formation was not difficult for Yu Nianzhen.
After identifying the poison, he removed a calligraphy brush from his storage ring.
In the five years of seclusion, Yu Nianzhen found that writing calligraphy was a good way to practice swordsmanship.
Since then, he would often write when his swordsmanship encountered a bottleneck.
Now that he had comprehended sword intent, he found that he could channel his intent through the brush to write powerful runes.
With the brush in his right hand, Yu Nianzhen took a deep breath and poured his intent into the calligraphy brush.
The brush shone a silver light, and silver writing appeared in midair with the movement of his hand.
The writing was the sword character.
It emitted a sharp aura with a hint of fledgling dominance.
"This should do."
Yu Nianzhen looked at the sword character and then pushed it into the first node of the formation.
Soon after, the fog within the formation grew a little lighter, but it did not dissipate.
After dealing with the first node, he walked to the second.
This node contained cedar tree poison, and he repeated the process before moving to the third and fourth nodes.
When the sword character entered the fourth node, a transparent barrier appeared.
The barrier was the actualisation of the formation, and it bounded the medicine field on all sides.
A breath later, cracks appeared on the barrier and in another, it collapsed like a broken window.
"Not bad." Yu Nianzhen was happy when the formation broke.
There were two ways of breaking a formation.
One was by using brute force, and the other was by overwhelming each node to prevent changes.
The four-turn formation had four nodes, which could produce four changes.
By destroying each node, Yu Nianzhen limited the formation’s ability to produce and respond to changes.
However, he could easily do so because the formation was simple.
For complex formations, the destruction of a node would produce unexpected changes. This would force a formation master to rederive the entire array before continuing to break it.
After the formation broke, Yu Nianzhen saw the herbs in the medicine field.
From a random glance, he counted thirty peak grade silver rank herbs and one low-grade spirit rank herb.
"Nine spotted foxglove flower."
Yu Nianzhen immediately recognised the flower at the centre of the medicine field.
The nine spotted foxglove flower was a low-grade spirit rank flower.
Although it was poisonous and could be refined into a poison pill, it also had medicinal effects.
In the hands of a powerful alchemist, it could be refined into a special rejuvenation pill.
Such a pill refined using nine spotted foxglove had twice the effect on heart injuries as compared to ordinary rejuvenation pills.
The other herbs were also useful and could be refined into different detoxifying and healing pills.
"I should look for more fields rather than scavenging in the wild."
Yu Nianzhen said as he looked at the harvest.
However, it was only saying.
He didn’t plan on ignoring herbs that were not within formations.
After examining the herbs, he harvested and replanted them in the jade box.
"Maybe we should open a shop when return from the secret realm."
As a businessman, Yu Nianzhen was always thinking about making money.
Now that he had the jade box, he had the means to produce a steady supply of herbs.
Initially, he had the idea to sell herbs and pills within the sect.
However, he now realised that selling within the sect was too eye-catching and too lacking in ambition.
If he and Jiang Yue secretly opened a shop outside the sect, they would have anonymity and a lifeline that was not dependent on the sect.
The more Yu Nianzhen thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
"If we hire an alchemist, we can open a combined shop that sells herbs and pills."
"I will talk to Jiang Yue when I see him."
After making that decision, he immediately grabbed the communication token.
Unfortunately, there was still no response, so he had to move on to the prearranged plan.
"This place is too open; I need to find a better place to settle."
He looked around and a thicket one kilometre away.
The thicket was close to a creek, and running water could be heard from his position at the medicine field.
Without delay, Yu Nianzhen flew to the thicket and arrived in less than a breath.
He cleared a small space amongst the bushes and placed an array within the space.
After activating the defence array to cover his space and part of the thicket, he decided to take a bath in the creek.
When he was ready to enter the water, the water surface rippled.
A breath later, thousands of mayflies emerged from the water and landed on the water’s surface.
