Huo Yuhao stepped on a withered branch, his eyes narrowed.
"This is...!"
"I didn't think the poison would be this deadly." Jianxin covered her mouth, her expression darkening. Her eyes staring at the countless soul beast skeletons scattered throughout the area, and those bones were multicolored.
Clearly these remains of soul beasts had perished from extremely venomous poison!
They had explored further into the forest, the fishy poisonous odor in the air becoming thicker as they had ventured deeper. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became—like wading through invisible sludge.
They had entered a miasma.
A miasma is a kind of venomous gas that gradually arises from decaying and decomposing vegetation and animals that are not taken care of, and if there isn't any wind or rain to blow it away.
Moreover, this wasn't no simple miasma if it managed to poison so many soul beasts to death! A soul beast's skeleton was the toughest part of its body, and some were even used by humans as special materials.
One of the items that best represented this was undoubtedly the Flame Demon King Arm as Huo Yuhao's prosthetic soul tool left arm.
Also, thanks to Kong Deming's knowledge, he had managed to elevate his soul tool to Class 9! Its durability and reliability was already strong enough, so he only needed to expand on its firepower. One punch from it could easily crumble the body of an ordinary Titled Douluo!
Both Huo Yuhao and Jianxin weren't afraid of being affected by the miasma.
After all, respectively, one had the physique of Ultimate Ice-Fire that grants him immunity to all elements that haven't reached Ultimate tier, which includes poison, while the other was a spirit soul.
Unless the miasma contains properties that inflict one's soul, Jianxin wouldn't be hurt.
And as far as they've travelled so far, she hasn't shown any signs of corrosion or spiritual instability.
Huo Yuhao continued on trekking into the forest. The miasma grew thicker with every step he took. The air was now so dense it felt like walking through liquid shadow.
Even the faint glimmer of daylight filtering through the treetops had vanished, swallowed whole by the suffocating fog.
Thirty minutes passed and Huo Yuhao stopped, his brows furrowed.
"This is taking too long. I was holding back in case something would trigger if I use my spiritual detection, but I can't afford to waste time!" His light blue eyes gleamed with a blood-red light, and six magnificent configurations of soul rings materialized from beneath his feet.
Platinum with golden edges, black, black, black, red, red—a lineup of soul rings that no soul masters in the entire continent could rival! Moreover, he still hasn't gotten more soul rings for his second martial soul.
Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection quickly enveloped the entire core area of the forest around him of ten kilometers, and he wasn't going all out with it.
He had controlled his spiritual detection to be concentrated in a small area so he could have finer details of his surroundings.
Within his spiritual detection, he found an area of the miasma that was far different with more toxicity that even his spiritual detection was slightly affected.
His eyes sparkled. "I think I found it."
1st Soul Ring - 4th Skill: Absolute Domain.
His body was enveloped in a silver light and he disappeared, teleporting instantly toward that region.
A different world from before appeared in front of them. Everything was bluish-green, just so astounding and eerie.
Cyan hues blanketed the earth, while the plants that grew around them covered large patches of earth in a seemingly messy and disorganized manner of teals, aquas, and turquoises. Faint blue-green mist floated up from them before gradually beginning to expand outwards.
"What kind of plant is that?" Huo Yuhao didn't dare to venture forward blindly.
Despite the vast knowledge that he had accumulated, he hadn't seen this kind of plant before.
These blue-green plants extended to either side of them. They weren't that tall, about half a meter tall, and every single plant had nine strangely shaped leaves. These leaves resembled human hands, but each one had seven fingers, while some of the relatively larger ones had nine fingers.
There were enormous cyan flowers located at the tips of every leaf, and green toxic mists were being released from the large flowers' stamens. The green mist gradually expanded in all directions before flowing into the multicolored miasma.
The cyan hues they exuded were a substantial part of the multicolored miasma.
Jianxin narrowed her eyes, muttering. "Why do these flowers look so familiar?"
Suddenly the toxic green clouds all around them surged with lightning speed, threatening to swallow Huo Yuhao in an instant. The world turned into a blur of swirling jade and cyan light.
The air hissed and crackled with venomous energy, containing enough toxicity to melt through the toughest metals metal and rot soul beast bones.
Huo Yuhao snorted, a deep jade green light emanated from his torso. From beneath the skin and muscles of his torso, jade green bones began to shine through.
Ice Empress' Torso Soul Bone 1st Skill: Permafrost Domain!
In the past, he wouldn't have been able to unleash its full potential. But at rank 70 Pseudo-Soul Saint stage and with soul power quality equalling an ordinary Titled Douluo, he can fully control all of Ice Empress' soul skills to their full peak power!
Moreover with the influence of the Ice Goddess in the past, Ice Empress's soul skills would unleash greater strength than it originally could.
A massive burst of ice spread outward from Huo Yuhao's body like a blizzard. The temperature around him plummeted instantly.
The miasma that had been slithering through the air froze mid-swirl, the green vapors crystallizing into jagged shards that rained down like shattered glass.
In a breath, the cyan vines that had been lashing toward him slowed, their movements stiffening. The ground crackled as roots and soil froze solid several meters deep. The entire section of the forest turned into an icy wasteland, the frost consuming color, motion, and life alike.
Jianxin let out a breath, eyes wide in awe. "I almost forgot how formidable your soul bone is. It's from the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, ranked 7th amongst the continent's top 10 Great Beasts? As expected of her soul bone."
Huo Yuhao glanced at her and asked, "Between you and Ice Empress, who's stronger?"
She looked back at him and softly smiled. "Hmm. I'm not sure. I haven't sparred with Ice Empress before so I'm not certain which of us is stronger. But what do you think, Yuhao?"
"Hmm."
He had heard stories from Qiu'er and Bi Ji about Jianxin's strength. While she's typically a pacifist and mostly keeps to herself, her combat prowess was nothing to laugh about as even Di Tian was wary against her.
As the Yin-Yang Saint Crane, her use of Yin and Yang, both laws that stand above the earthly elements, makes up for her combat prowess.
It's because she had already condensed two soul cores when she became 100,000 years old!
And such soul cores are connected using the Yin-Yang Complement, one soul core was of entirely Yin element and the other was Yang.
With two soul cores of the Yin-Yang Complement, she could even defeat Bear Lord with ease!
Which was quite shocking to hear that she had been severely injured by the 65,000 year old Dark Demon Evil God Tiger. Such a being was only a nuisance to ordinary 100,000 year old soul beasts like the Titan Giant Ape and Azure Bull Python.
Honestly, it was actually just a lucky shot! Jianxin had been distracted by a 100,000 year old Soft Bone Rabbit running around near them at the time.
"Yuhao, I think I know what these plants are. They looked like the Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes!"
Huo Yuhao was taken aback. "Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes? What's that?" Also, was it just a coincidence?
He had just mentioned Dugu Bo and his martial soul was the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor, the evolved form of the Jade Phosphor Serpent.
Jade Phosphorous Flower, Jade Phosphor Serpent? What are the chances of them not being connected?
"The Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes is one of the most poisonous plants in the world. Its toxins contain acute corrosive acid and it's known as the number-one corrosive toxin. Coming into contact with it will cause the physical body to decay, and one will also have to withstand intense pain and suffering."
Jianxin wryly smiled. "However, this flower is also very rare and precious. It's quite shocking to find such a large group of them here.
According to what I remember, the Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes likes to live in groups, but their reproductive capabilities are terrible. They have strict requirements for their environment, and they have to absorb immense amounts of nutrients to sustain themselves during their growth process.
Not all the flowers that we just saw have evolved into soul beasts, but most of them have already completed the evolution process. Otherwise, how could they control so much of the bluish-green toxic clouds to attack us? Those that evolved into soul beasts are called Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Nine Absolutes and have at least 10,000 years old of cultivation."
Huo Yuhao's eyes shone and he smirked. "It's not surprising if someone had intentionally planted them here."
"Someone planted them here? But who would—ah! Tang San?!"
Huo Yuhao nodded, "Looks like my deduction was correct. If these poisonous plants are as endangered as you say they are, then they could only be cultivated here manmade. That person has to be extremely strong and the environment has to be good if it had managed to keep these plants in good condition for so long.
Tang San is the likely person to have planted these here. And the environment they need to have...is likely the garden of immortal herbs that I'm after!"
Huo Yuhao took a deep breath, his eyes flashing with excitement that he could barely contain.
"Let's go!"
He took a step forward, and the frozen ground beneath his feet cracked softly, sending thin white veins of frost spidering across the soil.
Jianxin folded her arms, floating beside him with a half-smile. "By the way, what are you going to do with these plants?"
"What else? Harvest them of course! They'll be extremely useful for some of our members and future generations." He chuckled, conjuring two shadow clones to have them collect the frozen plants.
He held extreme control over his power, just enough frost to immobilize the plants without destroying their medicinal essence. The clones moved efficiently, sealing each flower into specialized containers before storing them away in a soul storage tool.
"Rather than let these plants go to waste, it's better to put them to use," Huo Yuhao said calmly, venturing deeper into the valley of death. "Resources like these shouldn't just sit here rotting away in a forgotten corner of the world."
The mass of Jade Phosphorous flowers wasn't that wide, and it didn't take long before they pierced through the ravine of death and arrived next to the edge of the valley.
The edge of the valley was extremely steep, like it had been cut off by a knife. Multicolored miasma was still concentrated within the Jade Phosphorous Poison Clouds. They descended down without any hesitation, with Huo Yuhao's Ultimate Ice, he didn't worry about the poisons any longer.
There were some obstructions down the way, but they were quickly annihilated.
Just as he was a few feet from the ground, Huo Yuhao held his straw hat as he unfurled his Heavenbound Wings and gracefully landed on the valley floor without a sound.
"T-This is...?!"
What was before Huo Yuhao and Jianxin now far exceeded their expectations. They had pierced through the multicolored poison clouds, and what they breathed in was an unprecedented fresh air full of life energy.
The place they were looking at wasn't sinister at all, it felt like heaven on earth!
The valley couldn't be considered large, but many different plants were growing within it, while there were just too many colors to count as they gazed across it.
There were so many beautiful flowers, and each was prettier than the last, bearing all sorts of fruits.
Many plants shone with varying degrees of light, and one could tell even with the naked eye that these plants were exotic and extraordinary.
The most astonishing thing was the lake in the middle of these plants. The lake was clearly separated into two parts.
One side was icy-blue in color and it exuded a faint white air, while the other side was fiery-red, and the light above this side was slightly distorted. One part was blue and the other was red, and these two parts were like colossal jewels engraved into the ground. The waters evaporating from this lake permeated the dense life energy from the lake all over the valley.
"This...this is a paradise!" Jianxin's voice was trembling.
"You were right! This is the place! I am certain that there is nowhere else on the Douluo Continent that is as suitable for plant growth as this place is. The life energy in this place is at least five times that of the Great Star Dou Forest's Core Region."
Huo Yuhao furrowed his brows, the tomoes in his sharingan eyes started moving.
"Are any of you going to introduce yourselves, or shall I start off first? Then don't blame me for being impolite."
Upon hearing his words, many plants had begun to sway, and some had even turned in their direction, while other plants shone more intensely.
Located at the shore where the lake's blue and red parts intersected, there was an enormous light-pink flower that didn't have any leaves. It began to exude a terrifying pressure similar to a hundred thousand year old soul beast.
"Human, it's your good fortune that you can make it here, but I will no longer show you mercy if you continue to provoke me!"
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AN: Oh lucky day, oh lucky day! The gacha Gods have bless me!