Chapter 235: The Blood Snake Vertebrae

Translator: Cynthia Editor: CakeHermit

Huge amounts of elemental energy exploded within the limited space of the sinkhole. The scene was spectacular.

Boom!

It was as if the whole city had been struck heavily by a hammer deep underground. The earthquake knocked many people to the ground. From the sky, horrifying fissures could be seen stretching into the distance like old tree roots.

Flames and lights gushed out of the sinkhole like a volcanic eruption. They rushed into the night sky and lit up Central Pine City.

Everyone was stunned by the scene.

Even the flaming ape, mayor, and dean stopped fighting.

The ape suddenly looked afraid. It was not afraid of fire, but that soaring flame had awakened an instinctual fear.

It turned tail and ran.

The flaming ape’s reaction was totally out of the mayor and dean’s expectations. By the time they realized what had happened, they could only see the ape’s receding back. Even though it was escaping, its speed was no slower than their flying speed. Seeing its momentum, the elementalists along its escape route didn’t dare to stop it.

In the blink of an eye, it had rushed to the city’s defensive wall. Without slowing down even a little bit, it directly crashed into the wall.

Boom!

It knocked a big hole in the wall. Having rushed out of the city, the flaming ape looked back for a second and then disappeared into the darkness.

Most people gave a sigh of relief.

Elementalists of the earth and wood attributes hurriedly rushed to the big hole. They needed to repair it before the blood fiends attacked. The ape could break the wall so easily only because it had crashed into the wall from the inside. If it had been the other way around, then the wall would have been much more difficult to break.

The city defense had played an important role so far. Without it, the situation in Central Pine City would have been far more difficult.

Tian Kuan was dumbstruck. This was the first time that he had seen a battle that involved so many elementalists.

He looked at Ai Hui deeply. That guy was as outstanding as he’d expected.

Then Tian Kuan silently disappeared into the darkness.

Wang Zhen floated down from the sky and went to look for Ai Hui. He believed Ai Hui’s reminder had been the key to the battle. If the blood fiends had rushed into the city on a large scale, then the city would have been in great danger.

He believed more and more that Ai Hui was like the Ye Baiyi of that time.

In such a chaotic and dangerous situation, it was not easy to find an opportunity within such a limited timeframe. Even Wang Zhen himself hadn’t thought of using a diving attack, which had proven to be very effective.

As a veteran, Wang Zhen was sensitive to the tiny changes in the battlefield. The elementalists in the sky were all smiling proudly now.

He nodded and remarked on their status in his heart.

Morale was up!

So far, this was the most successful battle in Central Pine City. None of the elementalists who had participated in the diving attack were hurt or dead. Such a brilliant result definitely boosted the elementalists’ morale.

After the fight, Ai Hui, who had been the key to the whole battle, became well known throughout the city.

He was no longer an insignificant young student. The speed of his transformation was even higher and the process was even shorter than that of the blood fiends.

Heroes always emerged in trouble times. People would only show their startling brilliance at critical moments.

Each time he thought of this, Wang Zhen would feel his own age and weakness, but he was fortunate to be able to witness the splendid beginning of such a promising youth in this world.

As he had been looking for a long time without finding Ai Hui, he turned to someone nearby and asked curiously, "Where is Ai Hui?"

The elementalist looked jubilant. He answered, "He went to clean up the battlefield."

"Won’t it be dangerous?" Wang Zhen was concerned.

"No." The dean also landed. He smiled and said, "It should be safe now. The sinkhole is like a huge stove; everything inside should have been roasted."

Hearing what he said, Wang Zhen also smiled.

Even iron and steel would have melted under such a terrifying attack.

It was a pity that such tactics could not always be used in the battle. If it were not in the special environment of the sinkhole, it would not be so powerful.

Ai Hui never fell behind the others when it came to battlefield cleanup.

While others were still worrying if there was still any danger, he had already jumped into the sinkhole with Lou Lan. Inside the sinkhole, it was sweltering hot. The earth was permeated with traces melted things and a burning smell.

Lou Lan was totally unaffected by the choking smells and smoke while Ai Hui didn’t care about them. He had seen worse cases when cleaning up battlefields before. Compared to the possible spoils, this adverse environment was not worth mentioning.

Most of the sinkhole had collapsed, but luckily there were still passageways for them to walk through. The sinkhole that the sandworms had dug was large enough.

Ai Hui walked carefully. As both of them could see in the dark, they noticed the dead bodies of sandworms everywhere on the walls of the passageways. The bodies were already scorched, but a tiny spot of red light like sand were left beside them.

"What is this red light sand?" Ai Hui asked.

Yellow light flickered in Lou Lan’s eyes. "They are the blood crystals of the sandworms. To be precise, they cannot be counted as blood crystals yet, but are something like a blood crystal that has just formed. Ai Hui, these sandworms must have blood-transformed not long ago."

"Not long ago?" Ai Hui was surprised. Confusion flashed across his eyes.

"Yes. Therefore, the blood crystal sand is not valuable," Lou Lan explained.

Ai Hui followed Lou Lan closely with the grass sword in his hand. The underground was Lou Lan’s world, where Lou Lan could move freely like a fish in water.

Soon, Ai Hui saw the body of a blood fiend whose hair and flesh were all burnt into ashes.

Lou Lan’s eyes lit up. He stretched his hand into the ashes and pulled out a blood crystal.

"Look Ai Hui! Blood crystal!"

Ai Hui was overjoyed. "Finally!"

As they went further in, there were more and more dead blood fiend bodies, many of which were not totally burnt into ashes but still looked frightening due to dehydration. To Ai Hui, however, it was just a piece of cake. He didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

Not every blood fiend had blood crystals, and some blood crystals were buried underground. Nevertheless, Lou Lan found them all.

Ai Hui grinned from ear to ear. Lou Lan was the best. He would never miss any blood crystals even if they were buried deep in the earth.

Having seen too many miseries, Ai Hui was a bit apathetic, but the piles of bodies and ashes made him fearful. If these blood fiends had rushed into the city from the sinkhole, it would undoubtedly have caused severe casualties.

Luckily, he had been quick enough to think of those tactics. Thinking of this, Ai Hui became complacent. After all, so many elementalists had been present. He’d never thought he could take control before, but now he’d done it.

On the other hand, Ai Hui felt he totally had no need to come down here.

Lou Lan was the one who was crazy at battlefield cleanup, and he was so careful that even Ai Hui felt ashamed for being inferior.

"Ai Hui, I got one!"

"Ai Hui, here here here!"

"Ai Hui, there’s one under your feet, about ten inches deep."

...

"Lou Lan, good job!"

"Lou Lan, you are so great!"

"Lou Lan, you are the best!"

...

Apart from "good" and "great", Ai Hui could not think of any other words to praise him.

A former professional could only be a visitor in the sinkhole because Lou Lan was here.

Ai Hui was bored. He looked around casually, and suddenly some faint light came into his sight. He was surprised and fixed his attention on a pile of ashes not far away. There

seemed to be something glowing there.

Curious, he walked towards it.

To be honest, except for the blood crystals, almost all the other parts of the blood fiends were useless.

This was the big difference between blood fiends and wild beasts. The essence of a blood fiend was its blood crystal. Although it could be strong and solid, once it was dead, its flesh and bones would be crispy like biscuits and could not be used at all.

It was really a shame for blood fiends. Wild beasts were also beasts, but they were of great value from head to toe.

Ai Hui walked up to the ashes and rummaged around.

Then he touched something solid.

Ai Hui’s eyes lit up. He grabbed it and pulled it out.

As he was familiar with beasts, Ai Hui could tell at a glance that it was the vertebrae of a blood snake. The blood snake had not been long and its spinal column was only about two meters in length. It was white in color with a texture like jade and porcelain. Its surface was covered with thin, crisscrossed blood streaks like a densely-woven net.

The spinal column was flexible and could be curved at any angle. Each of the joints were closely meshed. Ai Hui was surprised at its weight. He roughly weighed it in his hand and it was at least forty-five kilograms. It was so heavy even though it was less than two meters long and as thick as one’s wrist. Ai Hui wondered if it was made of metal.

"These vertebrae are unique." Yellow lights kept flickering in Lou Lan’s eyes. "They are almost as dense as thousand traces silverwood and brightlight iron. Bravo!"

Ai Hui was startled, as he knew both thousand traces silverwood and brightlight iron were rare and valuable materials.

Thousand traces silverwood was specially produced in Jadeite Forest. It was a kind of tree that grew slowly and needed wood elementalists to continuously infuse elemental energy into it. This material was white, bright, and very heavy. Before it grew to full size, each growth of one day and night would result in a silver ring in the horizontal cross section of the trunk. If the elemental energy infused into the tree was insufficient, then the silver ring would not form.

It reached its full size when the number of silver rings was one thousand, after which each attribute of the wood would be greatly improved. Even if the wood elementalist spared no effort to cultivate the tree without any negligence, it would still take three years to grow it into a useful timber. Besides, its consumption of elemental energy was far more than other plants. As a result, it was undoubtedly of high value and high price.

Brightlight iron was produced in the Brightlight City of the Silver Mist Sea. It could only be produced by an extraordinary craftsman using several materials. It was as light as a feather, but was extremely solid and shined with a saintly light.

That was why Ai Hui was so surprised to hear that the density of the vertebrae was similar to that of the thousand trace silverwood and brightlight iron.

He took a closer look at the vertebrae. The red blood traces on the white vertebrae were like a pattern; Ai Hui felt he must have seen it somewhere before.

Anyways, the blood snake must have been extraordinary when it had been alive, maybe similar to the blood ape.

The blood ape…

Ai Hui finally realized why he thought the pattern looked familiar; it reminded him of the flaming traces on the blood ape.

He observed the blood traces on the blood snake’s vertebrae. They were similar to the thunder traces mentioned in the swordplay manuals.

Thunder traces?

An idea suddenly occurred to Ai Hui. Could the vertebrae be a natural sword?