The herdsman here was also missing.

"Spread out to search and see whether there are any traces. Watch out for those ferocious beasts and do not provoke them," the empress ordered.

The feathers hadn't regrown on the two miserable-looking colorful birds, but they were released into the sky again.

Less than two hours later, one of the colorful birds returned with Gong Xing jumping down from the sky and reporting, "Your Majesty, there's a forest to the southeast that's full of kadsura coccinea trees."

"Wow!" Ren Baqian, who was sitting there ma.s.saging his legs, stood up instantly and asked, "A grove of kadsura coccinea trees?"

"Yes, at least hundreds of them!" Gong Xing said.

"Good stuff!" Ren Baqian clapped excitedly.

This fruit wasn't only delicious, it also nourished the mind. When he was traveling to Tianjing Basin last year, he spent a lot of effort and only managed to find a few. He didn't expect to find such a forest here.

Now that the first part of the [Yang Boosting Technique] had been completed, his focus was on the second volume of the [Ancient Scroll of Methods]. However, his progress in the first step of the [Recuperation Technique], which was visualizing the five elements, had hit a wall. There had been no progress for months. No matter how he visualized, everything eventually collapsed into nothingness.

Ren Baqian felt that this was due to his mind being too weak.

Following repeated visualizations, the visualized objects existed for a slightly longer period than before. He was getting more familiar with the visualization method, but to get the visualized objects to exist permanently was still a distant dream.

He didn't know when he would be able to complete this step.

To find a forest such as this one was like finding charcoal in the snow.

"Your Majesty." Ren Baqian turned to look at the empress and said, "I will take a look."

"I will come along!" The empress gave the eerie forest in the distance a sweeping glance and decided that it was pointless to stay here. Even if she asked the winged cavalry to search, it still wouldn't help.

With Gong Xing leading the way, the two of them and their escorts took six hours to reach a hill.

On the hillside was a patch of forest where the tree leaves were as large as fans.

Occasionally, one or two white fruits could be seen among the leaves.

"They are indeed kadsura coccineas. Furthermore, they are also ripe!" Ren Baqian was overjoyed. "Haha! They are all mine! With these kadsura coccineas, I can break through the first step."

He felt like someone who had won a 50 million dollar grand prize.

After laughing, Ren Baqian looked at the empress beside him and held her hand, saying, "Your Majesty, all of this is yours!"

"Fancy saying that now. Don't try to fool me!" the empress said.

She was used to his sweet talk and was immune to it.

"These things will be really beneficial to your cultivation! However, we need to deal with something else in this forest."

The empress then took a step forward with great momentum. Rustling sounds were immediately heard in the forest.

Thousands of snakes with kaleidoscopic colors reared up their heads in the trees and thrusted their tongues in the direction of the group.

"No wonder the kadsura coccinea here haven't been plucked and eaten!" Ren Baqian was stunned. He had discovered the snakes before, but didn't realize that there were so many.

Although kadsura coccineas weren't considered a treasure, they were rare. They grew slowly, were scarce, and were loved by apes and other beasts.

It was said that eating kadsura coccineas opened up the minds of ferocious beasts.

Earlier, he felt it strange that the ripe fruits hadn't been plucked. Now, he knew it was due to these snakes.

The empress strode into the forest, swept her fingers like swords in the air, and the snakes all around were cut apart, making it seem as if there was a b.l.o.o.d.y rain.

"Just waiting for you!" the empress suddenly shouted. Then, she stretched out her right hand toward the sky at lightning speed and left the forest in a flash.

Ren Baqian saw the empress pinching a small green snake with two fingers. It was as thick as a chopstick, one palm in length, and wriggled continuously between her fingers.

It suddenly opened its mouth and mooed like a cow. The sound was quite loud, but was insignificant when compared to the roar of the roaring emperor.

"Is this the leader of the snakes?" Ren Baqian observed the small snake and was shocked when he saw two horns protruding from its head. "Is this a dragon?"

The empress looked at it carefully and replied, "It has a dragon bloodline! However, it's not as good as the one in Great Xia because its blood is too thin!"

"That's a good thing too!" Ren Baqian looked at the little snake between her fingers with curiosity. He was wondering what a dragon looked like and thought about seeing it in Great Xia when possible. He wondered whether he could trade a carbon-activated mask for their dragon.

If not, he would throw 100 skunk bombs.

Ren Baqian felt that this was a brilliant idea.

"It isn't a big deal. The most you can extract is one drop of mixed dragon blood. In fact, the heart and gallbladder are more useful." The empress scratched the snake with her left hand and stuffed the two bean-sized objects that had appeared at her fingertip into his mouth.

"Ah!" Ren Baqian's eyes widened as he licked her finger which was inside his mouth. The empress retracted her hand as if she had received an electric shock and glared at him.

Gong Xing, who was standing at the side, looked at the empress enviously.

The snake heart and gallbladder were too small for Ren Baqian to feel whether they had been swallowed, but very soon, a hot current spread to his whole body from his stomach.

Those two bean-sized things turned into blood essence that penetrated his whole body, making his body turn red and his head spew hot air.

Ren Baqian quickly sat on the floor to fervently convert the blood essence into qi essence and circulate it through his five organs. After two hours, Ren Baqian considered it complete, and his qi essence had increased by 20 percent, which was a great advantage.

When he opened his eyes, the empress had already cleared away the snakes in the forest and was sitting beside him in a daze.

"Your Majesty!" Ren Baqian exhaled. He was tired after being force fed a snake heart and gallbladder and after roaming around for half a day.

"Hey, the forest is cleared, and it's all yours." The empress glanced at the forest.

"I will give you half!" Ren Baqian said cheerfully.

"These things aren't of much use to me!" The empress waved her hands.

"It doesn't need to be useful! Being delicious is enough!" With a laugh, Ren Baqian jumped up a tree and picked four fruits. He threw two to Gong Xing, cleaned two on his body, and handed them to the empress. "This fruit is delicious!"

The empress glanced at him and retorted, "Your body is dirtier than the fruit… Might as well not clean them!"

Ren Baqian didn't know whether to laugh or cry and asked, "My Majesty, can we talk?'

The empress groaned two times, then took a bite of the fruit.

A day later, Ren Baqian started to feel upset.

He could eat only four kadsura coccineas a day and would feel full. There were over 110 trees in this forest and four fruits per tree. How long would it take him to eat all the fruit?

Ten days later, Qi Ziting brought another group of people to join them after receiving the news.

All the herdsmen had disappeared, and it didn't make sense for the empress to search around here.

After a discussion, it was decided that Ren Baqian and the empress should stay for a while. They would only return to Lan City after Ren Baqian had eaten the kadsura coccineas and enhanced his mind with the [Recuperation Technique].

Xi Wanya was to take charge of planning for the villages in the Sixty Thousand Mountains and studying the situation of the border villages.

Qi Ziting's duty was to organize a group of experts to find those herdsmen.