Chapter 689: First contact
The members of the Love Sect group were already used to this since they knew what kind of personality Xiao Ming had.
But for the members of the Demon Palm Sect group, they couldn't help looking at Xiao Ming with strange looks.
Xiao Ming was surprised when she saw the strange way that they looked at her since these were looks that she had never seen before.
Normally when people looked at her after she gave this kind of look, it would be softer than the expression that they were currently looking at them with. This look that the Demon Palm Sect members had…almost seemed like they felt sorry for her.
Seeing them look at her like this made her feel embarrassed for some reason.
She didn't know why she felt this way, but she felt this way because of them looking at her like this.
So in the end, Xiao Ming stopped playing around and said, "Alright, let's get out of here."
The others nodded in agreement to this.
Even if they were tired, they knew that it was only a matter of time before more trouble was drawn in because of the spirit beast corpses that were around them.
This was a dog eat dog world, which meant that spirit beast corpses were nothing more than bait for other spirit beasts. It would only be a matter of time before the scent of the spirit beast corpses drew in other spirit beast.
No, when they looked closely, they could see that there were already spirit beasts that were gathering around them.
The ones that gathered around them right now were nothing more than scavengers that would try to grab what was left after the predators were done. That was the only reason why they hadn't approached so far.
But the moment that the other spirit beasts showed up, they wouldn't hesitate to come forward to scrounge their fill.
It was best if they left before any of that happened.
The sooner they got out of here, the better it was for them.
So everyone quickly left this area while making sure to get the scent of the spirit beasts off of themselves. If they allowed the scent of the dead spirit beasts to linger on them, that would be like becoming a giant lure for all the spirit beasts around them.
It would only be a matter of them before they were surrounded and killed if that happened.
So they had to get this scent off of them so they could move freely.
That was where the water that they kept in their Storage Rings came in handy.
Ordinary mortals wouldn't be able to do this, but cultivators naturally kept food and water in their Storage Rings just in case anything happened. With that water, they were able to easily wash the scent off of themselves.
After leaving that area, they took some time to rest while figuring out what to do.
But really it was just Xiao Ming and Mo Sha exchanging one sentence.
"Deeper?" Xiao Ming asked.
"Deeper." Mo Sha said with a nod.
They decided that there was no reason for them to stay here on the edges any longer.
If they wanted better herbs that were worth more points, they would need to go deeper where there were more valuable herbs.
Though that did mean going into the territory of more dangerous spirit beasts, but that didn't matter. They were more than capable of dealing with them since they were able to easily take down the Sun Lion and the Steel Tiger.
So their group started heading deeper into the forest.
It didn't take long before they could feel the spiritual energy concentration getting thicker.
Just the spiritual energy in the air alone was already this thick, so they could imagine what kind of herbs were growing in this place.
But before they had a chance to search for these herbs, they heard a voice from in front of them.
"You think that you can beat us and take this?"
"Ha, you're the ones dreaming if you think that you can stop us from taking this."
It was clear that there was some kind of clash in front of them.
Though they didn't know who was clashing with each other, they could tell that they were clearly fighting over something valuable. For people to fight over something valuable, it was most likely some kind of herb that they were fighting over.
If they were fighting over an herb, then it was perfectly fine for them to play the oriole hiding behind the mantis stalking the cicada.
They would take down both of these groups while also stealing their spoils.
So the first thing that the Love Sect and Demon Palm Sect groups did was hide their presence.
They did all that they could to hide themselves before heading in the direction that the sound was coming from.
Eventually, they were able to hear a waterfall coming from the same direction.
It seemed that their voices were so loud that they had even spread further than a waterfall.
It was hard to imagine what these people were thinking since raising their voices loudly like this would surely attract the attention of the spirit beast. Let alone attracting other participants who wouldn't have any good intentions towards them.
Such as the Love Sect and Demon Palm Sect groups.
As they came closer, they saw what was happening.
It was an herb that was growing on the pond under the waterfall and there were two groups of people that were just staring at each other. Though both sides were positioned in a way that made it seem like they were ready to fight at any moment, neither side actually made a move.
They just stood there staring at each other, clearly not daring to do anything.
The two groups should be at the same level, which was why they were so wary of each other.
Without a guarantee of victory, they wouldn't attack each other.
So they would just stay there staring at each other like this until they finally felt the pressure of the time limit.
It wasn't as if they would be able to stand there like that forever since there was a time limit to this round. If they remained like that, they would just waste their time doing nothing by staring at each other.
So there would be a point where they would start doing something.
But that was the last thing that the Love Sect and Demon Palm Sect groups wanted.
As they stared at these two groups, Xiao Ming asked, "What do you think we should do about this?"
She clearly didn't have a single idea of what they should do, which was why she was asking this.
However, the others remained silent since they had no idea what to do either.
They didn't think that it was a good idea to attack this group directly since there was the risk of hurting the herb. The herb that was in the pond was the most important, so they couldn't hurt it even if they could hurt these people.
So they had to think of a way to take care of them without causing too much of a fuss.
Or at least that was what they thought until Huang Xie suddenly said, "How about we use this?"
He pulled out a few things and placed them in front of him for everyone to see.
Everyone was surprised to see these things since…they were pieces of the Sun Lion that he had harvested earlier while waiting for Xiao Ming to finish absorbing the Fire Lotus Flower.
For him to take these pieces of the Sun Lion out and put them in front of everyone like this, they knew exactly what he was planning.
These pieces of the Sun Lion would without a doubt be very enticing to the spirit beasts, so just leaving them out would without a doubt attract spirit beasts.
So Huang Xie's plan was to actually use these things to attract the spirit beasts to surround these two groups. Then while they were fighting the spirit beasts, they wanted to surround these two groups and take them all out while securing the herb.
But this seemed like a very messy plan since there was a high chance that the spirit beasts would ignore the humans to try and get the herbs.
If there were too many spirit beasts gathered, it might even scare off these humans and make them lose the herb on the pond.
So it was really a plan that was based on how the spirit beasts would act.
That was not something that could be relied on.
But to everyone's surprise, Mo Sha said, "Let's do it then."
Everyone looked at Mo Sha with a surprised and confused look before Xiao Ming asked, "Are you sure about this?"
Mo Sha gave a nod before saying, "While it might seem like a reckless plan, I think that it's not bad. At the same time, it isn't as if we have another plan."
A bitter smile crept on everyone's face when Mo Sha said this, but Xiao Ming asked, "How are you so confident about this?"
Mo Sha pointed at the herb on the pond and said, "Until now, not a single spirit beast has touched this herb. What do you think will happen if more were gathered here?"
Xiao Ming knitted her brows when she heard this.
But eventually her brows relaxed and she gave a nod while saying, "Alright, let's do this."
The bitter smile on everyone's face became stronger, but there was nothing that they could say since this was their leaders who had spoken.
They had no choice but to follow their orders.