Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique

Chapter 43: Crimson Core Seeds

The massive, blood-red tentacles that had blotted out the sky suddenly went entirely limp.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Hundreds of thick, spiked vines crashed heavily against the rocky floor of the ravine, causing dust and smoke to rise in the air.

"Rhain!"

As the dust settled, a sharp cry broke the silence of the ravine.

Maren forcibly pushed herself up from the ground.

Completely ignoring the grisly wounds on her body, she stumbled through the sea of dead vines toward the center of the ravine.

"Rhain... are you..." she choked out in dust, her eyes desperately searching the settling dust. "Are you alright?"

Standing amidst the withered remains of the core root, Rhain slowly turned around.

He looked at Maren’s panicked expression and gave a slight, reassuring nod.

"I am fine, Instructor Maren," Rhain said calmly.

"Rhain..." Maren wanted to scold him, but her vision suddenly darkened.

The Crimson-Vein Vines had not merely drained her essence to the point of exhaustion.

Every time those spiked tentacles had lashed across her body, they had actively sucked away her blood.

She had lost a massive amount of blood, and surviving this long was a pure miracle born of her desperate desire to protect the disciples.

Now that the fatal threat was eradicated, her body completely shut down. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Maren’s body swayed, her eyes rolling back as she collapsed directly toward the hard, rocky ground.

Swoosh!

Rhain quickly appeared beside her, his arm wrapping firmly around her shoulders to support her weight.

He gently lowered her to a seated position against a smooth rock. Her breathing was dangerously weak, and her skin was alarmingly cold to the touch.

With a flick of his wrist, a flawless, perfectly round pill materialized in his free hand.

An Uncommon-Grade Essence Gathering Pill, rewarded by the System.

Rhain gently pinched Maren’s pale lips open and fed the pill directly into her mouth.

The moment the flawless pill entered her body, it instantly dissolved into a gentle, soothing stream of extremely pure essence.

It rapidly flowed through her dry meridian channels, nourishing her damaged organs and stimulating her blood production.

Within the timespan of a few seconds, the deathly pallor on Maren’s face began to recede, replaced by a faint, healthy rosiness.

"Instructor Maren! Rhain!"

Footsteps echoed hurriedly down the slope of the ravine.

Victor, Bria, Hale, and the three exhausted inner disciples scrambled down the rocky terrain.

They rushed forward and quickly formed a tight circle around Rhain and Maren, their faces plastered with worry and dread.

"Is instructor Maren okay?" Bria asked, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked at Maren’s bloodstained robes.

"Instructor, please be alright..." one of the rescued disciples sobbed, his eyes red with guilt and terror.

Maren’s eyelashes fluttered. She slowly opened her eyes, the pure essence of the pill having restored a fraction of her strength.

She looked at the circled, panicked faces of her disciples, and then up at Rhain, who was still supporting her shoulder.

A profound, unspeakable gratitude flashed in her eyes.

"I am fine," Maren whispered weakly, forcing a comforting, tired smile for the disciples. "The bleeding has stopped. I just need a little time to recover."

"She just needs rest. The danger here is cleared." Rhain added flatly, his dark grey eyes sweeping over the group to settle their panicked nerves.

Hearing their confirmations, all of them collectively sighed in relief.

Those three disciples even dropped to their knees, weeping tears of gratitude.

Victor stared silently at Rhain, his mood was incredibly complex.

Ever since the humiliation of being effortlessly suppressed in the sect training ground, deep down in the darkest corners of his heart, a bitter, unwilling grudge had taken root.

Just a day ago, Victor had stood proudly at the absolute peak of the Inner Sect. He had believed himself to be the unparalleled genius of the Azure Cloud Sect.

He had constantly told himself that one day, he would bridge the gap and reclaim his absolute pride.

But today... looking at the hundreds of massive, withered tentacles blanketing the ravine floor, Victor finally woke up from his ignorant delusion.

Victor finally realized the undeniable truth.

The gap between them was not a step, it was an unreachable mountain.

While others were still recovering, Hale had stepped a few paces away, his eyes scanning the shattered remains of the core root Rhain had pulverized.

His gaze caught a faint, alluring red glow emanating from the cracked earth.

He crouched down, brushing away a layer of dark soil and withered vines.

"What... are these?" Hale murmured, pointing at the glowing objects buried within the shattered core.

Rhain raised his head to look at that glow. He had also noticed it, but didn’t have time to check them.

Maren also turned her head.

The moment her eyes landed on the faint red glow, her pupils widened.

"Bring one of them to me," Maren’s voice wavered.

Hale didn’t dare to delay. He reached into the dirt, carefully pinched a tiny, glowing seed between his fingers, and hurried back to place it in Maren’s palm.

Maren stared at the tiny seed that was not larger than a pearl.

"It really is..." Maren gasped in shock, "Crimson Core Seeds."

Bria and Victor exchanged confused glances. "Crimson Core Seeds?"

Maren nodded woodenly, her eyes glued to the tiny bead. "The plant that nearly killed us... must be Crimson-Veined Plant. I had once read about them in the sect library."

She tightly gripped the tiny seed, her hands shaking.

"These seeds... they possess the ability to forcibly widen a cultivator’s meridian channels and temper their bones to an unimaginable degree! Consuming even a single seed can permanently enhance a cultivator’s innate talent several times over! Each one of these tiny seeds is... a Rare-Grade treasure!"

A Rare-Grade treasure!

The words exploded in the minds of Victor, Bria, and the others like a thunderclap.

A single Rare-Grade item could cause rivers of blood to flow in Greymist Town.

Wait..." Hale suddenly turned around and dashed back to the shattered core root.

He agitatedly dug his hands into the dirt, brushing aside the withered bark and dead vines

A dazzling, blinding red light instantly erupted from the crater.

Hale’s eyes widened so far they nearly popped out of his skull.

"Oh God..." Hale’s legs completely gave out as he fell backward onto the rocky ground.

Buried within the pulverized remains of the core plant were not just a few seeds.

There were densely packed clusters of them, glittering like a sea of blood-red rubies.

One hundred... five hundred... a thousand!

There were easily more than a thousand Crimson Core Seeds!

"A thousand Rare-Grade seeds..." Maren muttered in a daze.

The sheer, incomprehensible magnitude of the discovery caused Maren to completely forget her severe, life-threatening injuries.

She abruptly sat straight up, completely ignoring the tearing pain in her ribs.

"If our disciples consume these..." Maren’s voice trailed off.

It was a treasure capable of altering the destiny of an entire sect!

Maren slowly tore her gaze away from the blinding red glow and looked up at Rhain.

"Rhain, You killed the Crimson-Veined Plant. These seeds are yours by right. What do you want to do with them?" Maren asked with desperate hope.

Victor, Bria, Hale, and the three rescued disciples all turned to look at him.

Rhain glanced at the glittering pile of blood-red seeds.

To any other cultivator, this was a life-changing treasure.

But for someone like him who possessed a flawless physique, these seeds were practically same as the ordinary pebbles on the side of the road.

He could decide to sell it later. But right now, he wasn’t in the state of mind to think about that.

"Gather them and store them for now," Rhain said indifferently.

Hearing his casual command, Hale, Bria, and victor immediately scrambled forward.

Without caring about the dirt, they rapidly swept the glowing seeds into their spatial storage rings.

Rhain withdrew his gaze and swept it across the group.

Maren’s face had regained some color, but she was still severely weakened.

The three disciples who had been trapped with her were slumped against the rocks, trying to recover from their exhaustion.

"We rest here for a while," Rhain ordered.

Bria and Hale looked at Rhain, their eyes overflowing with gratitude.

They had been physically dying from exhaustion, but neither of them had dared to speak a word about it to Rhain.

Leaving them to recover, Rhain turned and walked a few paces away, sitting down on the very edge of the rocky cliff overlooking the ravine.

Rhain stared down at the dead vines, his expression unreadable, but his mind was in turmoil.

Was it a mistake?

The thought crept into his mind.

Was it truly right to let Seris enter this place?

The Hollow Realm was far more merciless than he had initially calculated.

It wasn’t just the Ironpeak Sect and the Barlowe family lurking in the shadows.

And if the human enemies weren’t terrifying enough, the Hollow Realm itself was a literal deathtrap.

His urgency to find her had spiked to an unprecedented height.

He took out the Tracking Talisman.

The translucent projection hovered in the air.

Right in the absolute center of the map, seven bright green dots were perfectly overlapped.

His group.

Right now, their cluster of seven was unequivocally the largest gathering of Azure Cloud Sect members on the entire projection.

Logically, any scattered Azure Cloud disciple or elder checking their talisman would see this massive cluster and change their trajectory to head straight toward them.

That’s why, he decided to wait here for sometime.

He could only hope that Seris was looking at her talisman, and already making her way toward him.

A few hours passed like this.

Ding!

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