Chapter 176

Chapter 176: Obtaining Dragon Blood Grass

In a certain area of the forest, Lu Chou had already set up an attacking formation.

He stared at this top-quality formation, his face beaming with pride.

When his brother brought that guy named Xu Changsheng to this place later, he would be unable to escape.

Lost in thought, he glanced toward the direction he had come from earlier.

That place, once filled with commotion, had gradually fallen quiet.

Could big brother have returned already with the target?

Thinking this, Lu Chou stepped into the formation’s area, waiting silently for the opponent to make a move.

Moments later, a figure burst from the forest—it was Zhou Luo.

Seeing him, Lu Chou furrowed his brow. He revealed himself and demanded sharply, "Where is my elder brother?"

"Him?" Zhou Luo shook his head repeatedly. "It’s too tragic."

Lu Chou froze momentarily, then flew into a rage. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing much," said Zhou Luo coldly, gripping the Xuan Sky Sword. "You’re next."

Lu Chou stiffened, gripped by shock and doubt.

Could big brother truly have been killed by this guy?

But didn’t he have the Xuanying Tower?

What exactly happened?

Countless questions flooded his mind.

He had no time to ponder further. Immediately, he activated the formation.

Whoosh——

A fierce wind swept through, shimmering rays of spiritual light swirling within, like an upside-down crystalline bowl covering the entire area.

Zhou Luo stood inside the formation, his expression calm.

"I don’t care what you did," Lu Chou declared loudly. "Within this formation, your death is certain."

This top-quality formation was his pride, its success over countless cultivators unknown.

Hearing these words, Zhou Luo offered only a faint smile.

His footsteps swift as the wind, he began advancing toward Lu Chou.

Lu Chou summoned his formation flags, prepared to direct the formation’s attacks against him.

At that moment, Zhou Luo abruptly swung his sword toward another location.

The sword light was fierce and sharp, crashing heavily beneath a large tree. Soil sprayed into the air, revealing formation stones whose glow had already dimmed.

Lu Chou froze as if struck by lightning.

Staring wide-eyed in disbelief, he cried out, "How did you locate the formation’s foundation so quickly?!"

This was a top-quality formation, and he had deliberately chosen highly hidden spots when placing the formation stones!

But why did the opponent not even use a formation compass and find it so easily?

How was that possible?

Even a top-level formation master couldn’t do it.

A chill ran through Lu Chou’s heart.

"Because I am more familiar with this formation than you," Zhou Luo said lightly.

This top-quality formation had long been part of his memory, and as Lu Chou set it up exactly according to the formation diagram, without any alteration.

Naturally, he could find it easily.

Then he swung his sword again, pointed to another direction, and destroyed another formation base.

At that point, the entire formation lost all power.

This offensive formation became an empty shell.

Lu Chou’s face turned ashen, filled with despair.

He simply couldn’t figure out how it had been done.

At that moment, Zhou Luo was already charging at him.

A sky full of sword light rushed out and attacked toward him.

Lu Chou regained his senses and tried to resist, but after finishing the formation setup, his strength was severely weakened, with old wounds plaguing him, and facing the ferocious Zhou Luo, he was no match at all.

A few moments later, his head was chopped off, ensuring he was utterly dead.

Looking at the headless corpse, Zhou Luo quickly put away the storage bag on it and began searching the entire valley.

The valley wasn’t very large in area, but the terrain was somewhat complex.

About an hour later.

Zhou Luo finally found that Dragon Blood Grass in a crevice on a cliff.

Its leaves were deep green in color, the surface smooth and delicate, shimmering with light; the shape was narrow and long, with sharp edges like blades, bearing distinct veins similar to dragon blood vessels.

Between the two leaves were vibrantly red flowers, the petals slender and thin as cicada wings, slightly curved, like leaping flames.

The flowers clustered tightly together, appearing exceptionally beautiful.

Under the sunlight, the petals glowed with a dazzling red radiance, giving off a hot and mysterious aura.

The entire Dragon Blood Grass stood about a foot tall, with a thick and sturdy purple-red stem, featuring unique textures like dragon scales on the surface.

The roots were deeply planted in a patch of faintly glowing spiritual soil.

Being a Spiritual Planter, Zhou Luo saw at a glance that it had been intentionally cultivated here.

Because that patch of spiritual soil was small as a palm, just sufficient for this single Dragon Blood Grass to grow.

That was also why the Dragon Blood Grass hadn’t spread or multiplied elsewhere.

It seemed likely that the Qinyuan Sect had deliberately sent someone to plant it there, and probably that formation outside was also their work.

Zhou Luo did not pluck this Dragon Blood Grass immediately.

Because he suddenly had other thoughts in mind.

If he could transplant it to the Zhou Garden, wouldn’t he never have to worry about lacking this specific Foundation Establishment material again?

After all, he was still a long way from Foundation Establishment.

If he truly managed to propagate the Dragon Blood Grass—letting him sell it for profit on the market aside—it would make things much easier for his descendants when they underwent Foundation Establishment.

If Zhou Luo hadn’t been a Spiritual Planter, he probably wouldn’t have considered this.

But now that he was facing such a golden opportunity, he couldn’t let it slip by.

At this thought, Zhou Luo immediately pulled out the tools he had prepared in advance, extended his mental strength, and began extracting the whole plant carefully.

The process wasn’t difficult, but it required extreme care to avoid damaging the roots and stems of the Dragon Blood Grass.

Thankfully, the Spiritual Planting Technique allowed Zhou Luo to work skillfully and without a hitch.

After thirty breaths, he had entirely peeled out the Dragon Blood Grass along with the surrounding spiritual soil and promptly placed it all into his system backpack.

Indeed, he worried that storing it in a storage ring might affect the plant’s vitality.

But the system backpack was different.

It froze every item inside at its exact state before entry.

Earlier, Zhou Luo had even experimented with Little White as a test case.

Speaking of Little White, he had come close to forgetting about that little one.

Mainly, he had been rushing nonstop on his journey, facing increasingly terrifying enemies, and never had a chance to bring the creature out.

He snapped his focus back and smoothly slotted the Dragon Blood Grass into a grid of his backpack.

As soon as it was placed, the item transformed into a ‘herbs’ icon and appeared in the second grid slot.

The first slot was occupied by that treasure.

Originally, the second slot would have held the Bone Corruption Powder, but regrettably, he had used it all up.

Still, trading it for a top-grade magical artifact and a variety of other items counted as a decent deal.

Thinking this, Zhou Luo retrieved all those piles of storage bags.

He first used his mental strength to scan the storage bags from the dead cultivators, finding that although the contents were abundant, they consisted of fairly ordinary possessions.

For instance, they included spiritual symbols, potions, spiritual stones, and magical artifacts.

While these were somewhat usable, Zhou Luo was the type to casually wield high-grade spiritual symbols and top-quality potions, so he saw it as better to sell everything off for spiritual stones and buy more material supplies.

The only worthwhile items came from the two Lu Family brothers, holding at least two top-quality symbols, a bottle of top-quality potion, and plenty of tools and materials for setting up arrays.

Zhou Luo gathered the undesired items into one storage bag to sell later when an opportunity arose.

The things he kept for himself went straight into his storage ring.

On pulling out that Xuanying Tower, however, he spotted a glaring crack in its structure that would severely weaken this magical artifact.

No wonder the Golden Bell had only minor scratches after colliding with it.

What a shame he wasn’t a weapon refiner, or he could have fixed it up right away.

He decided to check if anyone could repair this top-grade magical artifact once he left the area.

After completing all these tasks, he strolled unhurriedly toward the valley entrance.