Chapter 680: A Great Harvest

The Cat Girl Warriors were dazed for a moment before bursting into excited cheers.

They swarmed around Hong Yu, their curvaceous bodies nearly engulfing him. The sight made Bear Tao and the others gulp uncontrollably.

They were filled with jealousy!

Tiger Wei couldn’t help but stomp his foot, lamenting, “Heavens above! I’m handsome, a Celestial Pride Son, *and* the Young Clan Leader of the Holy Tiger Tribe! How can I not even have a girlfriend?”

“My dad always said the best girls fall for the worst guys, but…”

Bear Tao’s eyes widened in frustration. “I’d rather be one of those guys! They look so happy…”

Ape Feng and Tan Hui glanced at each other.

They were envious too, but they could only offer wry smiles.

Kua Long looked annoyed. He shot Hong Yu a deep look before announcing, “Since the North and South Divine City has agreed to the exchange, the Spirit Cat Race will swap territories with them. Starting now, for the next fifteen days, no faction may set foot in another’s domain. To do so will be considered a provocation against all the War Races and will result in joint suppression from all other powers!”

“Understood!”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Hong Yu’s eyes darted slyly. “Senior Kua Long, what if some unlucky group has a Desolate Beast wander into their territory and steal their Spirit Medicines? How would you tell the difference?”

Kua Long replied, “Before you enter, my Kuafu Race has a method to place a mark on every person, allowing us to track your locations. These marks will disappear after fifteen days. So, even if a Desolate Beast does happen to wander in, we’ll be able to tell if any experts from other territories have crossed the boundary.”

“I see!”

Hong Yu nodded, a flicker of fervent glee in his eyes that went unnoticed by everyone.

With that, everyone entered their respective territories.

There would be no conflict for these fifteen days, so the first thing Hong Yu did was disperse the Cat Girl Warriors. He then found a secluded corner and pulled out the sleeping Huhu.

The moment Huhu appeared, its jewel-like eyes widened and darted around, a trail of drool dripping from its mouth. Hong Yu chuckled. “Feeling hungry, little guy?”

Huhu nodded repeatedly.

Its eyes lit up.

Hong Yu grinned. “Listen up. I’m giving you a chance to strike it rich.” As he spoke, Hong Yu mentally transferred the layout of the twelve territories to Huhu. “You can’t touch the Spirit Cat Race’s territory, but you can go wild and plunder all the others. Oh, and be sure to pay an extra-special visit to the Four Great Divine Cities!”

“HUHU!”

Huhu’s eyes gleamed as it drooled uncontrollably. Then, it suddenly snapped its mouth shut and gave Hong Yu a wary look, gesticulating wildly.

Hong Yu rubbed his nose with a wry smile.

‘The little guy was trying to say that I had taken all the Treasure Medicine he worked so hard to find in the Fire Cloud Divine Sect’s ruins. This time, he wanted to agree on the split beforehand.’

Hong Yu pinched the cute little furball. “You’ve been hanging out with Little One for too long, you’re getting so materialistic! We’re partners, best buds! How can you be so crass and haggle over something like this?”

“HUHUHU!”

Huhu was baffled by Hong Yu’s sweet-talking. It stared at him blankly and waved a paw, as if to say, ‘I may be simple, but don’t you dare try to trick me!’

Hong Yu broke out in a sweat.

He felt a bit awkward under Huhu’s innocent gaze. He cleared his throat and said, “Relax, I won’t lie to you!”

And so, man and beast squatted on the ground and made a pinky promise…

Once they were done, Huhu wiggled its plump, fuzzy body in satisfaction and scampered off.

Huhu had barely left when Hong Yu heard Little One’s mocking “tsk tsk” laughter from inside the Profound Celestial Tower.

Hong Yu’s face flushed red as he snapped, “What the hell are you laughing at?”

Little One snickered. “My boy, you’re really learning from the master! Hehe, you completely bamboozled that little furball Huhu. You sold him into free labor and he’s still thanking you for it! Hahaha, this is killing me…”

“Ahem!”

Hong Yu rubbed his nose awkwardly. “You can’t put it like that. It’s not like I’m treating him unfairly! Anyway, Little One, Huhu has a unique talent for easily finding Spirit Medicine. Do you have any special tricks up your sleeve?”

‘Although this Central Medicine Garden is overflowing with Spirit Medicine…’

‘…after so many years of being plundered, and given how vast the area is, it’s incredibly difficult for an ordinary expert to find even a single stalk.’

Little One smiled mysteriously. “Of course I have a method…”

…

「Meanwhile.」

The various factions had entered their territories, spread out, and begun their intensive search for Spirit Medicine.

The experts of the Kuafu Race brought a type of Desolate Beast with them: the Three-tailed Spirit Mink. It was exceptionally intelligent and possessed an Innate Divine Technique for locating Spirit Medicine.

However, the environment of the Central Medicine Garden was exceedingly complex and peculiar. The air was saturated with the scents of countless Spirit Medicines.

This severely interfered with the Three-tailed Spirit Minks.

It usually took them over an hour to find a single Spirit Medicine, a pace that already had the Kuafu Race experts thrilled. “Brother Kua Long, using these Three-tailed Spirit Minks has really sped up our search for Spirit Medicine! At this rate, we’ll find several hundred stalks in fifteen days!”

The lowest grade Spirit Medicines in the Central Medicine Garden were Fourth Grade.

Most of the Spirit Medicine in the outer regions was Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Grade. Occasionally, a Seventh-Grade Divine Medicine of the ten-thousand-year-old medicine level would appear.

Kua Long stored the Fifth-Grade Spirit Medicine he was holding and nodded. “The most our Kuafu Race has ever gathered in fifteen days is four hundred stalks of Spirit Medicine. With the help of the Three-tailed Spirit Minks, we could very well surpass five hundred. We have a great chance of breaking the record set by our ancestors!”

“Haha, the other factions are definitely struggling!”

Several Kuafu experts laughed heartily.

In the territory of Xiakang Divine City.

Beside King Lingxiao stood two young men with sallow complexions. They practiced a peculiar Cultivation Technique called the “Earth God Technique”.

Practicing this Cultivation Technique gradually turned their skin the color of soil. At its peak, they could even merge with the earth itself and resonate with it.

The two of them were the secret weapon King Lingxiao had brought. He looked at them and asked, “Well? Is there any Spirit Medicine nearby?”

“Yes, within a hundred kilometers of here, there are one hundred and thirty-two Spirit Medicines, around Fourth and Fifth Grade,” one of them said, looking up.

The other man nodded. “At our current pace, it will take about three days to harvest them all.”

“One hundred and thirty-two stalks of Spirit Medicine in three days… that’s incredibly fast! We have a real shot at breaking that record of four hundred in fifteen days!”

King Lingxiao’s face was a mask of supreme confidence and smugness. He muttered, “The Kuafu Race has held that four-hundred-stalk record for far too long. It’s about time Xiakang Divine City took over! When this is all over, we’ll present hundreds of stalks of Spirit Medicine. I want to see the looks on the faces of the Kuafu Race when they look like they’re at a funeral!”

“Hahaha…”

Everyone burst into laughter.

But little did they know that in the territory of the North and South Divine City, Chen Tao was staring blankly at the scene before him.

Everyone had pulled out all the stops for the Central Medicine Garden, and he was no exception. He had brought a trump card: an Earth Insect Nest.

In the nest was one Earth Insect Mother Insect, and over one hundred thousand Earth Insects.

Chen Tao had just released the Earth Insects when he received feedback from the nest: three stalks of Spirit Medicine had been located up ahead. About half an hour after he finished digging those up, another report came in—four more had been found.

A smug, vicious smile spread across Chen Tao’s face. ‘With these Earth Insects, finding Spirit Medicine is as easy as picking it off the ground! Beichen, oh Beichen, you dared to snatch that territory from me, but you never imagined I had an Earth Insect Nest, did you? After fifteen days, I’ll make you drown in regret with a mountain of Spirit Medicine!’

「Meanwhile…」

…in Hong Yu’s territory, he was following Little One’s directions, zipping around unabashedly with his Divine Demon Wings.

He never missed.

He dug up one Spirit Medicine after another.

On average, he was unearthing more than ten stalks of Spirit Medicine per hour. At this pace, he would have at least a few thousand by the end of the fifteen days!

“Hahaha, Little One, this method of yours is incredible!” Hong Yu roared with laughter.

Little One said smugly, “But of course! Back in the day, I followed my master across the cosmos, searching for precious ore veins and Treasure Medicine. Though, the worst stuff my master would bother digging up was Holy Medicine. He wouldn’t even deign to look at anything less!”

“Oh? Master was that amazing?” Hong Yu asked, his interest piqued.

Little One nodded, his face full of pride. “Master was incredible. If he were still alive, he could annihilate a continent like the Southern Border Profound Domain with a wave of his hand! It’s just… I haven’t had any news of him for so long…”

A wave of sadness washed over Little One.

Hong Yu let out a soft sigh. “Don’t worry, Little One. I’ll definitely help you find Master!”

“Mm!”

Little One nodded, then pointed to the east and said, “Hong Yu, there’s a Sixth-Grade Spirit Medicine three hundred and sixty meters to the east, hurry!”

“On it!”

Hong Yu immediately rushed over, and in a short while, another Sixth-Grade Spirit Medicine was in his hands. He rubbed his nose and murmured, “I wonder how that little guy Huhu is doing!”

Time passed day by day.

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye. As time wore on, everyone’s pace of finding Spirit Medicine slowed to a crawl.

With the exception of the Kuafu Race and their Three-tailed Spirit Minks, Xiakang Divine City with its two “Earth God Technique” cultivators, the North and South Divine City with its Earth Insect Nest, and Hong Yu, the other factions were lucky to find even a single stalk of Spirit Medicine in a day.

Beginning on the eleventh day, even the Kuafu Race, Xiakang Divine City, and the North and South Divine City started coming up empty.

Often, the Three-tailed Spirit Minks, the Earth Insects, or the experts from Xiakang Divine City would discover the location of a Spirit Medicine, only to arrive and find it had already been dug up, leaving nothing but an empty hole.

This situation became more and more common.

It became so frequent that in the final four days, of the three major powers, only the Kuafu Race managed to find anything at all—a single, lucky Fourth-Grade Spirit Medicine. The others found nothing.

“Damn it, who is it? What damn medicine thief dares to challenge me?” King Lingxiao’s face was ashen as he stared at the hole in front of him. A rich medicinal fragrance still lingered in the air. ‘That was a Seventh-Grade Divine Medicine!’

But someone had still beaten him to it!

“Son of a bitch, you better hope I don’t find out who you are!”

Chen Tao’s face was ashen. He had just received news from his Earth Insects that a Seventh-Grade Divine Medicine had been found.

He had rushed over in excitement and immediately reached in to dig. But instead of a Divine Medicine, his hand came back with a warm pile of… crap. Chen Tao’s face alternated between green and white. “You damn medicine thief! You dare to mess with me like this? I swear, this isn’t over between us!”

「Meanwhile.」

… a certain black-and-white Cute Beast, having just taken a dump in an empty hole and inadvertently pranked someone, was now happily trotting back to its master…