Chapter 4298 — Leaving the Forest
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"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.