525 The Golden Needle Bee

A couple of miles away, the image of the elder leaving appeared in Ye Chen's mind; even the slight changes in expression were clear in his eyes.

"The Dragon Blood Plant is a soul plant nourished with the blood of dragons, and is just like the spirit crystal stones, having a great effect on the improvement of spirit bodies. A three thousand years old plant would make up for thirty normal spirit energy crystal stones. Most importantly, the dragon blood contains the dragon power, and even if there is only a tiny bit of it, it would still mean a lot for body cultivation."

Ye Chen was clear about the value of the Dragon Blood Plant. Using it to replace the crystal stones would be a bit of a waste, since the dragon power from the dragon blood would be the most valuable part. It would not be hard to imagine the pain and regret the elder must have felt when he decided to give it away.

But, that did not matter to Ye Chen, as long as he got his Dragon Blood Plant.

Shoo!

His body flashed once and turned into a beam of light that shot into the distance.

In the next half a day, from each mountain Ye Chen traveled past, he would obtain a couple of valuable plants. Those plants were at least two to three thousand years old, and there were even ten thousand years ones. Of course, spirit plants could no longer continue growing once they reached ten thousand years of age. In fact, some of the plants could not even live longer than hundreds of years. Only the great and powerful ones could grow on, and were able to handle the effects of time.

After dozens of mountains, he arrived at a meadow that was surrounded by mountains. It was very rich with spirit qi, and there was rain dropping from the sky. It was not a normal rain, but spirit rain formed with condensed spirit qi.

Opening his hands and gathering a handful of spirit rain, he could clearly sense the spirit qi being absorbed into his body and turned into pure Zhen yuan eventually.

"Such a horrifying spirit qi! Training here might be faster than training with top rank spirit stones, and staying here for a long period of time would make the physical body even more enriched with spirit qi. Here, I will also be able to reach my spirit body faster." Ye Chen sighed a little, full of emotions.

The area was huge, as he had flown for at least five miles before reaching the center of the area. Only after arriving in the center had he realized the reason that the spirit qi there could be so rich that it could form into raindrops. It turned out that this area was actually a medicine garden which was an area that had been circled out with railings made with vines. It was built very tall, at least fifty meters in height. Ye Chen thought that he could not fly over it easily due to the restraint. But of course, there would be no need of flying, since there was an entrance that had been lifted up by two huge branches of wood in front of him. Through the entrance, he could already see the colors of different plants and the shining spirit light within.

"So many spirit medicines! This time, we are definitely going to be rich! After we go outside and change them all into top rank spirit stones, we won't have to worry for the rest of our lives."

"What's the point in changing them into top rank spirit stones? The smartest thing would be to exchange them with rank 5 marital institutions for pellets that could increase our cultivation."

"You are quite right. Let's do it faster! Otherwise, more and more people will arrive here."

Ye Chen was not the first to find this place. There were already a lot of people inside the garden. They were happily picking the medicinal plants, looking extra joyful.

"Eh? It is the Star Spirit Fruit and the Cutting Meridian Plant! No one wants these?"

Ye Chen had noticed some of the spirit plants on the side. There were a lot of different kinds of them here, but only some of them had caught his attention: they were the Star Spirit Fruits that could help peak level Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors reach the Astral Reaching Realm, and the Cutting Meridian Plant, which could also increase the cultivation for warriors who were below the realm of Sea of Souls.

After some thinking, he realized it was rather reasonable, since people who managed to come in here were all Sea of Souls realm warriors, who would not care for mid rank spirit plants at all, since they were all busy picking top rank ones that were good for themselves.

"Come!"

Ye Chen made a waving gesture. His Zhen yuan loosened the mud and was about to take out some of the mid rank spirit plants through the air. What surprised him was that the mud inside this medicine garden was nourished with spirit qi, which made it extremely tough and almost solid. As the mud was cracking open, the edge of the crack shone with a crystalline light. It made a huge cracking noise while the spirit plants within that he tried to grab were broken in half.

"No wonder these people were picking them one by one. Plucking through the air would cause a huge amount of waste, which would not be good for anyone."

Ye Chen shook his head and decided to bend down just like the rest of the warriors to pick up the ones he wanted.

"Mid rank Iron String Plant!"

"Mid rank Poison Antidote Plant!"

"Top rank Yuan Forming Fruit!"

"Top rank Purple Heart Wood!"

"Top rank Heaven Fairy Tea!"

There were just too many of them were. Picking one by one, it would take him more than half a month to pick all of them. But, Ye Chen was not in a hurry, since the island would stay there for three months after its first appearance. After three months, it would disappear again. So, he had more than enough time.

Whoo! Whoo!

It was right then when a vibrating sound was heard from the center of the garden. It sounded like bees, except it was a hundred times louder. There was also vibrating metal sound emerging along with it.

The sounds soon became more frequent and louder; eventually, it was everywhere. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up to the source of the sound.

Golden color…It was a bright golden light!

Countless beams of bright golden light shot out toward everyone there, fast like lightning.

"Ah!"

The Sea of Souls Realm warriors who were the closest to the sound widened their eyes before being blown down onto the ground. Their bodies were full of bloody holes and wounds. It was easy to see the pinky finger sized golden spikes through some of the wounds, which were indeed what punctured through their protective Zhen yuan and bodies.

"It is the Golden Needle Bee! Run! Now!" Someone yelled while running at an extreme speed. Hearing him, the others suddenly woke up from the shock, feeling the chill rushing down their spines as they hurried to turn and run.

Ye Chen squeezed his eyes; he had seen the so-called Golden Needle Bee beast, which had palm-sized bodies that looked to be made with pure gold. It was their wings that made the vibrating sounds. They flapped their wings at an extremely high frequency, such that he could only barely make it out even with his soul power.

There were a lot of them. Based on a rough estimation, there were at least hundreds of them, forming a wave of golden light that was floating toward him.

'Run!'

There was no other thought in his mind right now. All he could do was to try his best to outrun them. If he were too slow, then he might very likely die in this medicine garden and become a great fertilizer for the spirit plants.

Soon, Ye Chen reached the closest railing and took out his emerald-colored longsword to throw an attack.

Crack!

The railing was unbelievably strong, as that sword attack of his only broke a couple of arm-thick veins; the edges of the cut were smooth like glasses. Looking at the remaining railing in front of him, he sighed. The ones he managed to cut down were just like a single hair on a human, since there were still plenty more left.

The roaring was getting louder and louder. A lot of them stopped on the way toward him, but then more filled in the gap. There was not a single moment of silence.

The Golden Needle Bee was ten times more infamous than the Blood Dragon Snake from the ancient era. These beasts might not be as powerful as the others individually, but in groups, they would be a nightmare for any opponent. Their tail needles contained an extreme poison, and also contained the effect of breaking through defensive layer easily. Their bodies were strong as metal, to the point were even people who were stronger than them could not cut open their bodies. On the contrary, their continuously flapping wings could gently slice through one's body, and it would guarantee to be a bone-deep wound.

"Damn it!"

Ye Chen let go of the idea of trying to break open the vine railing and turned to the entrance, which was a few miles away. Right then, he started to hate the huge space and the enriched spirit qi in this garden, since it could take him a while to get to the entrance, which would be the exit for him now; the rich spirit qi would be his greatest blockage, and it would only become worse and worse as he increased his speed. Right then, it was impossible for him to break through even the speed of sound, which was a normal thing for him to do any other day.

When he was less than one hundred meters away from the exit, a group of bees had gotten their eyes on him.

Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!

They were like golden bombers as they separated into three groups; one of them started to shoot down at him from above at such a fast speed that it was almost impossible to react on time.

"Piss off!"

Ye Chen waved his sword out; that golden-blue sword light shot out toward the incoming bees.

Pooh!

Chin!

What made him gasp was that besides only one Golden Needle Bee right in front of the longsword that had been cut in half, all the others were only blown away by the sword light. They flew back wobbly with vague sword marks on their bodies.

"These guys are a bit too strong, aren't they?"

Ye Chen knew that if he wanted to kill the bees, he could only try to attack them from a close range, since his sword qi and sword light would not be able to harm the bees at all.

Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!

Meanwhile, countless golden spikes had been shot toward him; it was the first time in a while for him to feel such fear. He shook his wrist to perform his Speed Sword Hell, generating a sword light that shot toward the bees.

Although the attack did not have high battling power, it should be perfectly fine to block out the spikes.

He continued to throw out attacks as he backed out toward the exit. As he finally reached the gate, he flashed out with all of his power without thinking further.

After reaching the outside, the spirit qi seemed to be less dense, and his speed started to recover. However, what stressed him out more was that the bees' speed was increasing drastically as well. Somehow, the distance between them decreased at this point. He ground his teeth and let go of his defensive layer, performing his Sword Light Flying Art and turning into a beam of light to escape.

However, the bees did not seem to want to stop chasing after him.

A beam of sword light and a pile of golden light continued to run and chase.

After crossing a couple of mountains, he had come to the side of a huge lake, when a thought suddenly appeared in his mind. Since the bees would need wings to increase their speed, then the impediment faced in doing so would be unbelievably powerful. Meanwhile, warriors used their Zhen yuan to push forward, so it would not be as strong.

Splash!

Thinking that, Ye Chen jumped directly into the water.

Indeed as he had expected to be, the bees who were chasing after him at an extreme speed stopped. Some of them were one beat too slow and followed Ye Chen into the water, but then quickly jumped out immediately.

After circling the lake for a while, the bees decided to give up on chasing after Ye Chen and went back to the garden.

"Finally!"

Under the water, Ye Chen let out a breath of relief.

After he stayed in the water for a while, the area seemed to quiet down completely. Only then did Ye Chen come out of the water and flew in the opposite direction. He did not want to get back to the garden again.

…

In the outer area of the island, the spirit plants were everywhere. But after going a bit deeper into the mountains, the quantity of the spirit plants growing there seemed to have decreased.

Shoo!

At this moment, Ye Chen arrived in front of a fancy looking palace. Entering the lobby, Ye Chen's eyes froze a little.

In front of him were three human figures. One of them was indeed the elder whom he had fought not long ago. Right then, the elder's eyes met his; the former seemed to have an odd smile on his face.

"Little bro, long time no see…"

Ye Chen smiled lightly, "What a coincidence!"

"Indeed!"

The lady right next to the elder laughed, "You don't happen to be the one who embarrassed the fisherman, are you now?" She had heard about what happened from the elder, which surprised her a lot, since according to the elder's description, he should be only a twenty-something years old man. And at that young age, he still managed to wound the fisherman! No matter how he had done it, the result itself was impressive.