137 The Fated Encounter
Xie Tian panted and gasped for breath. At long last, he got out of the binds.
Nearby cultivators noticed Xie Tian's action. They shouted and begged for help.
"I'm a member of the Huangjin Sect. Free me first, and I'll reward you handsomely!"
"A demon worshiper!? Don't make me laugh! Someone like you should die along with Wei Huang! Young man, I'm from the Yuan Clan. My lord is a General-in-Chief of the royal army! Help me and I'll put a good word for you. I can guarantee you that you won't regret it!"
"Brother, please help me! I'm just a rogue cultivator, but my wife and my two children are waiting for me at home. I'll give you all my precious treasures."
"Junior brother, free this elder sister, and I'll do anything for you! I mean it!"
The voice of these prisoners got louder.
Xie Tian got annoyed as they might spook the dryads. He summoned a short knife from his spatial ring and turned toward the loudest man. Then, he stabbed the man's chest.
"Shut the fuck up!"
Everyone got silent, shocked. Then, they realized that this might be a way out of this dimension.
After all, there was a rule that the Myriad Cauldron had stated – Should they harm each other, they would be booted out of the plane.
Yet, after stabbing the man, nothing happened.
Xie Tian and all cultivators sensed the omen.
Something was wrong. The alchemists might have lied, or this area was not included in the rules.
After the man died, the roots and vines released the corpse. Xie Tian looted the dead man's spatial rings and put them in his sleeve pocket.
Since Xie Tian couldn't escape with this tactic, he walked toward another man and grabbed the latter's neck.
Energy Drain
"YOU!!"
The choked man glared at Xie Tian with hatred. He had a thousand sentences to curse the protagonist, but he couldn't utter a word.
Xie Tian didn't say anything. He drained the man's Qi to replenish his lost energy. However, the roots also competed against Xie Tian, stealing the victim's Qi as well.
After the second victim lost all of his Qi, Xie Tian severed his neck with his short knife. He stole the dead man's spatial rings, and then, he walked toward another prisoner and repeated his action.
The prisoners noticed the pattern, they yelled at Xie Tian and tried to get the dryads' attention. These cultivators had the loser mentality - if they couldn't survive anyway, they would take Xie Tian to their graves with them.
"BASTARD!! I'VE REMEMBERED YOUR FACE! I HAVE A LIFE BRAND! ONCE I DIE, MY CLAN WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!!"
"HELP! SOMEBODY IS ESCAPING!"
"YOU SCUM! ONCE I'M FREED, I CRIPPLE YOU AND HUNT YOUR FRIENDS AND YOUR FAMILY!"
"ELDER SISTERS!! HELP ME!! SOMEONE HAS ESCAPED AND ARE KILLING THE PRISONERS!!"
None of them was aware of the soundproof array surrounding the large prison cell. No sound escaped through the room, and the dryads could not hear the commotion.
As no one could hear anything inside the prison, Xie Tian continued to devour the helpless prisoners. He didn't spare old women, beautiful girls, and young cultivators.
After Xie Tian killed the 15th victim, the ground shook.
The owners of the restriction vines and roots noticed the anomaly inside the cell, and they decided to intervene.
All roots and vines in the room suddenly pulled all captured prisoners into the ground.
Seeing the development, Xie Tian stopped what he was doing and turned toward the ceiling. He used the drained energy to fuel his dantian and launch a fireball.
It was a risky move since the ceiling would collapse onto the spell caster, but Xie Tian's body was immune to yang fire. He transformed his skin into dragon scales and braced the explosion.
As soon as the explosion and the landslide occurred, five dryads with the strength of 4th-stage climbed through the root holes into the prison cell. They came here to investigate the source of the anomaly.
But it was too late. Xie Tian jumped up into the falling soil, dirt, and stones. Then, he fired ten more dragon fireballs randomly to the surroundings, causing more explosions and landslides.
The dryads escaped back to the root holes by reflex as they were afraid of fire.
Using this opportunity, Xie Tian continued digging upward with his explosive fireballs. He didn't care if the debris and explosive force might harm him in the process.
The dryads sensed that Xie Tian was climbing toward the surface. They used their roots to dig the soil and chased after him.
Xie Tian was moving up with a speed of 10 meters per second while the dryads were ten times faster. Within a few seconds, the dryads got into an attack range.
But it was too late again, Xie Tian reached the surface. He jumped up from the hole and found himself inside a rain forest. Countless poisonous plants and trees were everywhere.
Ten meters away from Xie Tian, a group of twenty 4th-stage cultivators, who had escaped from the dryad queen, had cleared a small area to make a temporary make-shift camp.
When the explosion occurred and Xie Tian jumped out of the ground, these cultivators took out their weapons and prepared for combat.
Upon seeing Xie Tian, they hesitated.
Xie Tian wasn't the only one who tried to escape from this realm by attacking fellow cultivators. These people already tried the method when they were escaping from the 7th-stage dryad, but it didn't work.
Confused and paranoid, the cultivators wondered if they should kill this man to defend themselves or leave him alone. After tall, the rules of this plane, stated by the alchemists, were false.
Xie Tian noticed the nearby group of human cultivators. Without hesitation, he shouted, "Help! Dryads are chasing me!"
BOOM
The chasing dryads also got out of the ground. They found Xie Tian on top of a tree and a group of 4th-stage cultivators.
The humans were shocked when they saw these naked dryads again.
"What!? More dryads!?"
"Those monsters again!?"
"Dammit, to arms!"
The dryads sensed that the new group was stronger than Xie Tian. They disregarded him and turned their attention to the new enemies.
"Leave that weakling alone! Secure more fertilizer!"
"Hahaha! Come to this sister. Your blood will nurture me!"
"Foolish human! Be our food!"
The two groups exchanged their magic skills, fighting for survival. As for Xie Tian, as soon as nobody paid attention to him, he ran away toward the direction of a brown plain, five kilometers south from his location.
It was where Cao Mao and the dryad queen was having sex.
.
.
.
"Hmm?"
While Cao Mao was in ecstasy, the dryad queen, Emerald Hopea, stopped moving her hips and looked toward the commotion, where Xie Tian had escaped from.
Hopea detected over a hundred cultivators in the vicinity of ten kilometers, but she chose to ignore them to extract seeds from Cao Mao. However, the fight between her subordinates and a group of 4th-stage cultivators worried her.
The queen stopped forcefully making Cao Mao ejaculate. She detached from him and plugged her hole by temporarily sealing her lower mouth. Then, she lowered her face and poured a mouthful of her saliva into Cao Mao's mouth.
"I'm sorry. There's something urgent going on. I want to continue being with you until the plane ejects you, but I have to protect my subordinate."
Before Hopea departed, she bit the tip of her tongue and let her green blood float before her. The queen condensed her earth and water element essence into the blood, creating a green crystal at the size of Cao Mao's hand.
The crystal ball sparkled under the sunlight, collecting natural Qi and converting it into a treasure, which could even incite various 7th-stage monsters into action, a Jade Bloodstone.
The queen placed it on top of Cao Mao's chest. The crystal ball slowly sank into his flesh.
The jade bloodstone shrunk after it entered Cao Mao's body. It compressed itself into a small particle, and it flowed along with his blood, heading inside his heart.
Once it got inside, the jade bloodstone flashed and dissolved into nothingness. However, Cao Mao's heart pulsed once and stopped as complex lines of green tattoos emerged.
Ding
The dryad queen, Emerald Hopea, has given you a heart inscription tattoo, Chloro Heart!
You are now immune to wooden and plant elements.
Your Qi generation rate has increased by 10 folds.
You can now identify any plant, tree, herbs, algae, and mushroom.
You can store wooden element Qi and plant element Qi in your heart. Current capacity - 0/10,000.
Cao Mao's heart pulsed again after the tattoo had been completed. Before he could react, everything was over. He struggled to sit and looked at the queen, asking what she had done with his eyes.
"I inscribed your heart with my blood essence. From now on, your physique should be immune to natural poison from plants and trees. Your bone marrow should now produce ten times the amount of Qi of what you can get daily. Also, you can probably identify any tree, plant, and grass with only a glance now."
Cao Mao opened his mouth as he wanted to refute that the action was uncalled for. However, the explanation shocked him.
In disbelief, Cao Mao checked his Qi production status menu.
_
Daily Qi Gathering Rate
Yang Qi: 29,000
Yin Qi: 7,000
_
Without doing anything, Cao Mao would get 29,000 strands of Yang Qi and 7,000 strands of Yin Qi each day. This could be exchanged into 29 drops of Yang Essence and 7 drops of Yin Essence once he had reached the 4th-stage, the Essence Gathering Realm.
The boost was huge for ordinary cultivators without a haxxor dual-cultivation ability like Cao Mao. But for him, the 10x multiplier to the Qi generation rate was always welcomed. After all, at a higher level, he will benefit a lot from the heart tattoo.
Seeing the improvement, Cao Mao rechecked the system log to see the changes. When he noticed the ability to store wooden element Qi, he knew that he hit a jackpot.
Instead of being angry at Emerald Hopea, Cao Mao respectfully knelt to the queen.
Before Cao Mao could utter a word of gratitude, she knelt and kissed his lips. She sent her Qi to nurture Cao Mao's constitution, canceling the anesthetic drug effect, "If you don't have any place to go to, please return to us. My proposal stands for eternity. We will be waiting for you."
Without waiting for Cao Mao to recover from shock, the queen left.
Cao Mao stared at the direction that the dryad queen had left. He muttered in pity.
"Had I never had to kill Xie Tian, I would have accepted your proposal. My time in this world is limited. I'm sorry."
Cao Mao sighed and put on his clothes. Then, he sat down to meditate, checking his current constitution and conditions.
The long bath in the hollowed spring benefited Cao Mao a lot. At this rate, he should be able to cultivate more than one type of elemental Qi before he had reached the 5th-stage.
But before Cao Mao could have the luxury to stabilize his energy and cultivation base, a familiar face showed up on the sunbath field.
Cao Mao sensed the nostalgia dragon Qi. He turned around and stood up.
"… Xie Tian."
Xie Tian, tattered in burnt scars, glared at Cao Mao.
"Xu Miao!"
Foll𝑜w current novels on fre(e)w𝒆bnovel