The Green King Snake’s Nest

The next day, I headed out early in the morning to hunt Armored Boars. My defenses were a cut-resistant vest and gauntlets made of golden thread, and my weapons were the Serpent-Goat Broadsword, a black steel dagger, and rod-shaped throwing needles. In addition, I had a bamboo canteen and buns for lunch in my backpack.

Armored Boars lived in Kukul Forest, which spread beyond a small hill east of the outer edge of the demon realm. I fought Gōrō along the way as well, but I arrived at my destination, the forest.

“Now then, how many Armored Boars’ worth of tusks do I need?”

Armored Boars were large boars about two meters in total length, so their tusks were also large. I felt like one might be enough, but I did not know how many impurities they contained. If it was the amount needed for a new weapon, would two be enough?

As I cautiously advanced through the forest, I noticed that many of the trees bore acorn-like fruits. Armored Boars had probably settled here for those fruits.

While searching around the forest, I found a giant shed skin. I thought it belonged to a snake, but it was about fifteen meters long, and its thickness was greater than my torso.

“That’s strange. I haven’t heard of a giant snake living in this forest.”

I gripped the Serpent-Goat Broadsword and searched for the giant snake yōma with my Lone Awakening Eye. Then I detected a reaction to the north. When I advanced in that direction, I found a cave at the foot of a small hill.

The presence of a yōma was coming from inside the cave.

“Is this the giant snake’s nest? I definitely don’t have the courage to go in there.”

I did not want to fight a giant snake yōma in a narrow place. As I hid in the shade of a tree and watched the nest, the giant snake that owned it came out. It was a green giant snake yōma. If I remembered correctly, it was called a Green King Snake.

In this Green King Snake’s nest, a mushroom called the Bewitching King Mushroom grew. With that Bewitching King Mushroom, Celtan Grass, and Demon Twin-Spear Deer antlers, it was possible to make Qi Star Pills, which could be called a higher-grade medicine than Qi Prosperity Pills. Qi Star Pills should be useful for raising one’s qi level. I wanted to obtain the Bewitching King Mushrooms, but to do that, I had to do something about the Green King Snake.

As I was thinking about what to do, the Green King Snake lifted its sickle-shaped neck and turned its eyes toward me. Damn it. Snakes had pit organs that could sense infrared radiation.

The Green King Snake with its triangular head slid toward me. Its mouth was so large that it looked like it could swallow me in one bite. The Green King Snake opened its huge mouth and attacked.

I met it with Yang Fox-Flame and slammed the Serpent-Goat Broadsword, trailing flames, into its huge head. The blade of the Serpent-Goat Broadsword cut into the Green King Snake’s head. However, the wound was shallow.

“Tch.”

When I jumped backward, the Green King Snake’s fangs attacked as if pursuing me. I slashed upward as if scooping from below. It seemed I had cut a soft part of its skin, and a large amount of blood sprayed out. However, there were no vital organs in that part, so it was not a fatal wound.

I opened up distance while leaping backward in succession. The Green King Snake approached in a serpentine motion with enough force to knock me away. I began using Lightness Skill. I dodged the Green King Snake’s attacks with swift movements and watched for an opening.

Feeling like a frog stared down by a snake, I used Dragon Qi Throwing Art and released a rod-shaped throwing needle. What I aimed for was the Green King Snake’s eyeball. The rod-shaped throwing needle cut through the air and closed in on the Green King Snake, then pierced its eyeball. This seemed to hurt, and the Green King Snake began thrashing.

Finding an opening there, I used the Shrinking Earth Method from Meisen Swordsmanship, the first martial art I had learned, along with Lightness Skill to close the distance at once, then poured pressurized Heavy Yin Qi into the Serpent-Goat Broadsword and used the secret technique White Flame.

White flames burst from the Serpent-Goat Broadsword, and its blade severed the Green King Snake’s neck.

“…I did it. That was dangerous.”

I leaned my back against a tree and let out a long breath. Then, after resting a little, I skinned the Green King Snake. This skin was apparently a rare item and traded at a high price.

The Green King Snake’s skin alone became a heavy load. After that, I entered the Green King Snake’s nest and searched for the Bewitching King Mushrooms. The inside of the nest was dim, and a strange smell filled the air. I felt sick, but I wanted the Bewitching King Mushrooms. I found three Bewitching King Mushrooms at the back of the nest.

“I did it. Bewitching King Mushrooms.”

I smiled and harvested the Bewitching King Mushrooms. With this alone, I could probably make around twenty Qi Star Pills.

When I was about to leave the nest, I noticed that something had been carved into a rock inside. It was a text written in Immortal Secret Script. When I read the first words of that text, they read as Spiritual Cherry-Orchid Sword. What was written there was a text that seemed to list the key principles of swordsmanship in bullet points.

I realized that it was not a Gyorei Cave martial art, but a martial art from another sect. That was because it was a martial art I had never heard of at all. Moreover, it was a top-class sword art that used spiritual power. It had some parts in common with Gyorei Cave’s Vermilion Spirit Sword, but Spiritual Cherry-Orchid Sword seemed to have the characteristic of being a sword art that used both spiritual power and qi.

“So before this cave became the Green King Snake’s nest, there was a Taoist practitioner who used it?”

That person did not seem to have been a Taoist practitioner of Gyorei Cave, but had they been a Taoist practitioner of Goyou Cave?

I memorized the text that seemed to be an instruction manual for Spiritual Cherry-Orchid Sword using my instant memory ability. Then I struck the carved characters with a fallen stone so they could no longer be read.

After leaving the nest, I resumed searching for Armored Boars. I could not find one easily. Around thirty minutes after eating lunch, I encountered an Armored Boar. When the Armored Boar saw me, it charged headfirst. Its momentum was tremendous, but it charged straight ahead, so it was easy to dodge.

I twisted my body and jumped sideways to dodge, then slammed the Serpent-Goat Broadsword into one of its hind legs. That alone made the Armored Boar collapse to the ground. I ran up to the Armored Boar as it tried to get back up and finished it off with Yang Fox-Flame. Then I recovered the tusks from the Armored Boar. The tusks were large, and I felt that one beast’s worth might be enough to make the new weapon.

However, the tusks were mixed with many impurities, so I needed to hunt at least one more. That day, I could not find a second Armored Boar, so I returned to Gyorei Cave.

The next day, I brought the Green King Snake’s skin to a leatherworker in the commercial city of Boushin and asked him to tan it. After returning to Mount Gyorei, I went to the Old Immortal Workshop in the Old Immortal Cave and tried to see whether I could extract the white steel contained in the Armored Boar’s tusks.

Elder Min had taught me the method. It was an application of qi-refining forging, in which the Armored Boar tusks were heated until they turned bright red, then hammered to remove impurities and obtain pure white steel.