Lin Mu and Little Shrubby ended up getting over fifty different kinds of herbs in and around the volcano. Most of them were low to mid grade herbs but a couple of them were at the high grade as well.
It took Lin Mu about a day to harvest all of the herbs simply because some of them were in hard to reach areas or were difficult to harvest without being damaged. But after he was done with all of them he was pleased with the end result.
~phew~
"Finally done," Lin Mu said as he wiped the sweat off the brow.
It was only later that he had realized staying in a low spirit Qi area would make him uncomfortable now. Little Shrubby also stood beside him and looked around at the area.
"I haven't found any more of the herbs here. I think we are all done." Little Shrubby replied.
"Very well, I guess it's time to go ahead." Lin Mu spoke.
"Let's go then," Little Shrubby replied.
The two of them flew away from the volcano and went to the next area that was beyond the volcano. This part of the area was something Lin Mu had not seen before. Even when he was falling from the sky, the volcano was the furthest place he could see at that time.
This meant that he had already come quite far and would need to search and learn about the rest of the areas on his own. This volcano was also not the one that was mentioned in the records Adviser Chu had given him thus he had to keep on searching.
Lin Mu and little Shrubby wandered for about a week, finding different beasts and plants. He fought several Nascent soul realm beasts as well as core condensation realm beasts.
He even came across two areas that definitely contained Dao Shell realm beasts. Lin Mu didn't get close to seeing what kind of a beast lived there and kept his distance to stay safe. After that week, he finally found the first sign of familiarity.
"Look! That lake!" Little Shrubby called out from the Sky.
Lin Mu was currently on the ground and was harvesting a couple of herbs he had stumbled across. They were mid grade herbs, but he was not letting them be left behind. He had done the same for most of the herbs he had come across and had built up a sizable store of them.
In fact, the number had reached almost half of what one of the warehouses in the Tri Cauldron Peony sect contained.
"Coming!" Lin Mu replied and flew up into the sky.
There he could see a very peculiar lake in the distance. It was shaped like a six pointed flower and had an island in the center of it. And on that island, a massive tree could be seen growing.
The tree was over three hundred meters tall, with its crown being five hundred meters wide. It was a strange ratio and the tree was spread wider than the island itself.
"So that's the Cloud Crowned Banyan Tree," Lin Mu identified.
Cloud Crowned Banyan trees were large trees that could grow almost indefinitely. It was said that they could grow by a hundred meters every thousand years and, seeing the size of this Cloud Crowned Banyan Tree, Lin Mu reckoned it was at least three thousand years old.
Various bird beasts and smaller animals could be seen living on the tree as well. There were small fig like fruits growing all over the tree that provided the food for the creatures living around it.
There were also light brown flowers growing in bunches on the tree and a few insect beasts could be seen going from one bunch to the other, pollinating them.
"A Six-pointed lake, an island in the center and the large tree… yup that's the one Adviser Chu marked on his map." Lin Mu confirmed.
This was one of the places that Adviser Chu had been to before and it was actually one of the farthest places he went to. Lin Mu landed at the island and took a look around. There were smaller plants growing as well, but no trees.
The Cloud Crowned Banyan Tree had taken up most of the space on the island thus it was obvious that the other trees would not grow there. In fact, the lake itself was slightly larger than a kilometer and the trees' crown was 500 meters wide, taking up half of the space.
It even extended over the water and provided shade to some of the fishes living in water. Lin Mu peeked into the water and could see several hundred if not thousands of fishes in the water.
"Adviser Chu mentioned that he this was one of the most remote places he had gone to when comparing the place he started from. He turned to the direction of the Eight hill from here and that is where he found the exit of the Sinkhole." Lin Mu muttered and looked for the Eight hill.
The reason why Adviser Chu called it eight hill was because it looked like the character 'Eight'. Its sides were curved smoothly and its top was flat, looking rather unique. Lin Mu wondered if he should go there first or go to the next destination that was given on the map.
"Hmm… let's go to the next destination, I can always come back anyway." Lin Mu decided and flew to the next destination, which was also the one that Adviser Chu reached before this lake.
This destination was about half a day away and was filled with forest in between.
"The number of beasts is really increasing here huh… I thought adviser Chu said the further he went from the starting location, the more beasts he found there." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
Twelve hours and several beast fights later, Lin Mu and Little Shrubby reached the next destination.
"Whoa!" Little Shrubby exclaimed, seeing the surroundings.
"The Billion Flower Meadow… the name is perfect indeed." Lin Mu said with a smile.
