Journey to the West: Starting by becoming an apprentice of Emperor Donghua

Leaving aside Ao Fan, the fact that this woman dared to conspire with the Black Serpent King to harm her meant she was courting death.

Just as he was about to shoot out the wisteria heart, the situation suddenly changed.

The clam maiden opened her mouth, and a seven-colored pearl flew out.

This is... a spirit pearl?

The next moment, the seven-colored pearl shone brightly, instantly dispelling the mist that filled the mountain.

Ao Fan let out a miserable scream:

"My eyes!"

The light was so real that even when Ji Sheng was watching from afar, he felt as if his eyes were being pricked by needles, and he quickly closed his eyes.

"You wretched woman, wait until I get back, I'll make you wish you were dead!"

Ao Fan's eyes were almost blinded by the light. He abandoned the clam maiden and fled without looking back.

After the clam maiden offered up the spirit pearl, she was also at her wit's end. She suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and barely managed to retrieve the spirit pearl.

She could no longer maintain her original female form and revealed her true form.

It was a pink water clam, the size of a millstone, that had landed on the lakeshore.

As the lake rises with the tide, a wave can sweep up a clam and pull it into the lake.

Just then, a streak of green light shot out and pierced into the clam's shell before it could close, just like that, with a gentle touch.

The clam didn't even utter a sound before being sliced ​​in two.

The tide stopped immediately, and the lake returned to calm.

This azure light was naturally the wisteria heart activated by Ji Sheng. He sheathed his magic sword, flew towards the split pink clam, and called out:

"A fairy, a fairy?"

The clam didn't react at all, its wings spread out towards the sky like a butterfly's, remaining motionless.

Ji Sheng used his magic to test it and confirmed that the clam was truly dead. Unlike the Black Serpent King, it didn't possess a substitution technique.

With a sigh of relief, Ji Sheng went to the water clam and examined it carefully.

The clam meat was a vibrant pink color, and a strong, fishy smell wafted from it.

The rusty, cold iron was hidden in the crevices between the clam's flesh and shell.

As Ji Sheng took the iron block into his hand, he noticed something shimmering inside the clam meat under the sunlight.

This is……

Ji Sheng used his hands to pry two pearls out of the clam meat; they were the spirit embryo pearls.

【Spiritual Embryo Pearl (Purple Below): A pearl produced by a clam woman who gathers the essence of her entire body, it has excellent healing effects.

If taken orally, it can heal internal injuries; when applied externally, it can cause wounds to heal immediately. When used in weapon crafting, it can help different materials fuse better.

There are two spirit pearls in total. This one is of purple grade, while the other is only blue.

Clearly, the blue-grade one was likely recently produced and had not been properly nurtured.

Ji Sheng was overjoyed to have acquired two treasures.

Am I in a situation like the snipe and the clam... where the dragon and the clam fight, and the fisherman profits?

This large lake is clearly the place where the clam maiden cultivates herself; the scenery is beautiful and the spiritual energy is abundant.

However, the many dead fish and shrimp floating on the lake surface were a real eyesore; they were probably the little demons under the command of the Clam Woman.

That Ao Fan is really ruthless; he just cleared out the pond...

He wanted to dive into the water to search for the Clam Woman's treasure, but thinking that Ao Fan might return with reinforcements, he quickly left the place.

When he left, he also took the clam shells and clam meat with him.

This clam maiden is at least a Demon General in cultivation. These materials are all rare and precious treasures.

Clam meat can be used to make soup, and clam shells might even be refined into some kind of protective magic weapon.

The journey was uneventful, and around dusk, Ji Sheng finally returned to Jinji Mountain.

He arranged for some demons to guard the mountain gate and sent out others to keep watch in all directions, so that they could immediately come and tell him if there was any disturbance.

He then went to the secluded meditation room on the mountaintop.

This trip was definitely worthwhile. Rusty cold iron, the Black Serpent King's snake skin, and the water clam transformed from the Clam Maiden—it was truly a fruitful return.

Remove the snakeskin, and a few lines of small characters clearly appear:

[Black snake skin (blue): The snake skin shed by the Black Snake Spirit when she was five hundred years old was used to take her place in death.]

It possesses considerable medicinal value and can be used to refine elixirs or, through secret techniques, to create lifelike puppets or shadow puppets.

Although it's only a blue-grade item, it's still a great deal since it was picked up for free.

As Ji Sheng had expected, the medicinal value was as expected, but the subsequent use of it to make shadow puppets was something he hadn't anticipated.

Ji Sheng did not know such secret techniques, so this was essentially useless to him.

Then came the rusty, cold iron.

In the Jia Yi sword-making method, there is a secret technique that can fuse materials with different properties into one.

Even materials that are incompatible can be fused together without hindrance.

He planned to use the heart of the wisteria as the main body, and fuse it with the rusty cold iron to forge his own flying sword.

Not only does the rusted cold iron possess a rich metallic aura, which greatly increases the sharpness and hardness of flying swords when fused, it also has the effect of the startling poison.

If it were used to launch a sneak attack, it would be perfect.

Then came the spiritual pearl.

Ji Sheng wanted to obtain this pearl for a simple reason: to help the materials fuse together when forging a precious sword using the sword-making technique.

Now that we have rusty cold iron, it's the perfect time to put it to good use.

Finally, there's the clam shell and clam meat.

The clam shells were of low quality, merely blue, and oddly shaped.

Ji Sheng couldn't think of any magic weapon to use it for at the moment, so he had to put it aside for the time being.

As for the clam meat, although it is rich in spiritual energy, it also contains a lot of turbid and demonic energy.

He is a recluse and would never touch it.

But it's different for other monsters; this stuff is incredibly nourishing for them.

So he handed the clam meat over to the kitchen staff, who stewed a pot of thick soup and gave each of the little demons a bowl.

After finishing these tasks, Ji Sheng returned to bed and began using the Jia Yi Sword Forging Technique to fuse the Wisteria Heart and Rusty Cold Iron.

He had been worried that Ao Fan would come looking for him, and that he would have to be distracted while forging the sword. But several days passed without any incidents.

So he gradually calmed down and focused on his cultivation.

Time flies, and another month has passed in the blink of an eye.

Spring has returned to the earth, and Jinji Mountain is already lush and green. The sun shines brightly, warm and pleasant.

"Spotted Leopard, do you think our King has emerged from seclusion yet?"

Halfway up the mountain, at a sentry post, the blue-haired wolf yawned and asked the spotted leopard, who was also on guard duty nearby.

Under the bright sun, the spotted leopard could barely open its eyes and mumbled incoherently:

"Who knows? The king ordered us to stand guard, saying we must be extremely vigilant. It's been a month already, what enemy could we possibly have?"

The blue-haired wolf wholeheartedly agreed:

"That's right, if you ask me, our King is too cautious. Within a radius of hundreds of miles, what fool would dare to cause trouble for our King?"

As he spoke, he thrust his wooden spear forward several times:

"If anyone dares to come, I'll let them taste the power of my spear! I'll poke at least a thousand holes in them!"

Just then, a loud bang was heard nearby. The two little demons were startled and, in their panic, dropped their spears and huddled together.

"Who? Who's nearby?"

The spotted leopard was bolder, wielding a large knife and looking around:

"Quickly state your name, for my sword, Hua, does not kill the old or the young!"

As the two were still probing around, they saw a huge rock not far away, seemingly cut in half by something, slowly sliding downwards.

"An enemy is coming! A formidable enemy!"

The spotted leopard was so frightened that its fur stood on end and it immediately barked.

"Stop yelling, there's no formidable enemy, it's me."

A gentle, magnetic voice drifted over, filled with tranquility. The two demons, unconsciously affected, fell silent.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty? You've emerged from seclusion?"

Ji Sheng had appeared behind them at some point, standing with his hands behind his back, gazing down the mountain.

A streak of green light danced wildly in mid-air, moving at an extremely fast speed, appearing and disappearing in an instant, so fast that it was almost invisible.

Only a faint crackling sound reached my ears; it was the sound of the flying sword rubbing against the air.