Chapter 4298 — Leaving the Forest

"That won't be necessary, either. If you truly want a perfect breakthrough into the Nascent Soul stage, there's actually a very simple way—bathe in Star-Ink Milk..." the great spider said with a smile.

"Huh?" Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, who had been listening with all ears and had naturally assumed it would be some ingenious method, froze on the spot at the sudden word "bathe."

Bathing in itself was nothing strange, but bathing in Star-Ink Milk—the whole notion was bizarre no matter how one turned it over. Were it actually sold on the open market, a single drop of Star-Ink Milk would fetch at least a thousand spirit jades. To use the stuff for bathing—was there anything under heaven more extravagant, more lordly?

"You heard right—bathing," the great fire lion said with a chuckle from the side. "We of the spirit beast clan don't use the Star-Ink Milk ourselves; we trade it all to human cultivators. But it comes from our hands, after all, so we've come to understand how things go for the many human cultivators who use it, and we've summed up some experience. Star-Ink Milk works best the first time it's used. After that, you can't say it has no effect at all, but it will never again produce that miraculous, bone-and-marrow transformation—at most it benefits you the way it benefits us spirit beasts, no more."

"Quite so, and there's another point: whether taken internally or applied to the skin, either will do—the enhancement is much the same," the great spider added with a nod.

"Since there's no real difference, there's no need to waste it on bathing, is there?" Wei Zhao said, tugging at the corner of his mouth. He still felt the idea was far too absurd; even a clan of hereditary grandees couldn't withstand such squandering.

"No—we've summed up a third piece of experience: on that first use, the more Star-Ink Milk touches your whole body, the better the effect," the great spider explained.

Before Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao could react, the great fire lion beside them chuckled: "So if you want a true 'perfect breakthrough,' the best way is to bathe in Star-Ink Milk—no other method lets it touch more of you. Of course, if you don't mind, I suppose you could drink it while you bathe."

"Drink it while you bathe..." Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao looked at each other, speechless. Such an outlandish, outrageous method of use—truly never seen, never heard of.

"It sounds a bit far-fetched, but going by the experience our spirit beast clan has gathered over the years, that really is how it is. Of course, ordinary people could never know this method—and even if they knew, they'd have no means to manage it. The human cultivators who can get their hands on even a small vial of Star-Ink Milk are already very few. To get so much at once as to bathe in it—that's impossible," the great spider said with a nod.

"All right, I understand now." Only then did Wei Zhao finally digest this astonishing method of use. In any case, the great fire lion and the great spider had just given him several hundred vials at once—more than enough even for bathing. And if there wasn't enough for the few of them to bathe separately, then at worst they could all bathe together...

As they were speaking, the pointer on the little round disc beside the teleportation formation suddenly quivered slightly, at once drawing Wei Zhao's attention.

"This is...?" Wei Zhao asked, pointing at the little disc. On it were faintly carved the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper and a half moon; the arrangement was exactly that of the Moon-Shadow Formation, and there seemed to be some connection between the two.

"Oh, this is the detection formation for the Moon-Shadow Formation outside. If there's any movement in the Moon-Shadow Formation, it shows up here," the great spider explained.

"So that means someone's trying to force their way through the Moon-Shadow Formation?" Wei Zhao said thoughtfully.

"Indeed. From the look of it, another wave of human cultivators is about to arrive. Heh heh, they're coming to bring us warmth—good people, all of them," the great fire lion said, rubbing his hands together in excitement.

Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao could not help smiling. If those people knew the two of them were lying in wait here to rob the road, they would sooner die than come in to "bring warmth"—who the hell would want to play the good Samaritan?

"Since outsiders are coming, it's not fitting for the two of us to linger here. We'll have to be on our way first. Now that we know how each other fares, there will surely be a chance to meet again," Wei Zhao proposed at once.

"Very well—there's always time ahead; next time we'll have a proper reunion with our benefactor," the great fire lion and the great spider said, nodding. If outsiders saw them together, the two of them didn't much care—they never went out into the world, after all—but if someone with ill intent fixed their eyes on Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, complications would be hard to avoid.

"Good—till we meet again. Take good care, both of you," Wei Zhao said, and together with Huang Xiaotao cupped his hands to the great fire lion and the great spider.

"Till we meet again—take care." The great fire lion and the great spider watched Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao step onto the teleportation formation, then at once activated it. A flash of white light, and the two figures vanished without a trace.

When they opened their eyes again, Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao stood once more in the vast, dense forest. Around them lay an open clearing; besides the small teleportation formation beneath their feet, there was another formation not far off. Unless something unexpected happened, the other end of that one should be the Lu Feng Road teleportation formation, leading straight to Zhenduan City.

Wei Zhao glanced around. There were no other human cultivators about at the moment, nor any sign of Chang Daoping and his people. They had come in high spirits and left in disappointment—having taken such a beating in the ruins, they were probably too glum to linger and had gone straight back.

"What do we do now? Shall we keep looking around here?" Huang Xiaotao asked, turning her head. There were still a few days before the miasma returned, so there was no hurry to leave.

"Forget it. If we keep wandering here, we probably won't run into anything good. Rather than waste time for nothing, we'd do better to head back to Zhenduan City first. By my reckoning we've been out more than half a month this trip; once we get back and rest up a little, we can wait for the ship back to Weihu City," Wei Zhao said after some thought.

The Infant Ginseng, the Myriad-Pass Golden Core Fruit, the Star-Ink Milk—several of the most famous supreme treasures of Lu Feng Forest, and they had gotten every last one of them. For the two of them, there was naturally no need to go on wasting time adventuring in the forest; better to go back and conserve their strength.

Huang Xiaotao nodded, and the two of them went straight to the other teleportation formation nearby. After a look around, they found that, like the Lu Feng Road teleportation formation, this one also had six positions—but unlike that one, behind each of the six positions was a slot. (To be continued...)