The Emperor Heaven Valley before him was completely undeserving of its name, offering Yang Kai no benefit whatsoever.
Ye Qinghan wouldn't have deceived him—he was confident of that. Ever since he'd come to know her, she had always been cautious and respectful in her attitude toward him. How could she possibly deceive him about something like this?
The only explanation was that Emperor Heaven Valley had indeed once contained Emperor Intent, but for some unknown reason, it had dissipated.
Tens of thousands of years had passed. Seas had turned to mulberry fields—anything could happen.
Yang Kai stood in place and brooded for a moment, but when he recalled how many spirit herbs and medicines he had already collected, he realized his trip hadn't been without gain. In fact, his harvest was quite substantial, and he stopped dwelling on it.
The valley was suffused with a wondrous fragrance, clearly indicating the presence of many spirit herbs and medicines.
Since he had already come this far, Yang Kai had no intention of letting anything go to waste. He immediately began searching through the valley.
Before long, Yang Kai reaped enormous rewards.
After plucking a deep crimson fruit from a tree half a person's height, he was about to stash it into his Space Ring when something caught his attention. He extended his spiritual sense and probed the fruit.
A moment later, he couldn't help but let out a soft exclamation.
He recognized this fruit—it was the Vermilion Bird Fruit, a Dao Source grade superior-grade spirit fruit and the primary ingredient for refining the Meridian Cleansing Pill. Consuming it could help a martial cultivator cleanse their meridians, making their cultivation more refined.
If that were all there was to it, it wouldn't have been remarkable. The key point was that Yang Kai had detected a trace of clear rule power within the Vermilion Bird Fruit.
A Dao Source grade spirit fruit, no matter how high its quality, should never be able to nurture the power of rules. This shocked him profoundly.
After sensing it more carefully for a moment, Yang Kai found that the rule power nurturing within the Vermilion Bird Fruit had already taken form, carrying a faint impression of Emperor Intent.
Yang Kai's brows suddenly shot up, his eyes lighting up as he murmured, "Could it be..."
As if struck by a sudden thought, he hastily pulled out all the spirit herbs and medicines he had previously collected from his Space Ring and examined them carefully.
A stick of incense later, a look of realization appeared on Yang Kai's face. He now understood what was going on.
This Emperor Heaven Valley had indeed once contained dense Emperor Intent, allowing martial cultivators to comprehend and cultivate within it, laying the foundation for breaking through to the Emperor Realm.
But over the tens of thousands of years that followed, that Emperor Intent had been completely absorbed by the spirit herbs and medicines growing in the area. Now, that Emperor Intent had fully merged with those plants, the two becoming inseparable!
Nearly every spirit herb and medicine he had gathered in this valley, like the Vermilion Bird Fruit, contained Emperor Intent within them!
By contrast, the herbs he had collected before arriving here showed no such characteristics. The difference was immediately clear when the two sets were compared side by side.
Understanding this, Yang Kai couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement.
Spirit herbs and medicines that contained Emperor Intent—forget having seen such things before, he had never even heard of them. If he refined them into spirit pills, those pills would inevitably retain traces of Emperor Intent. Having a martial cultivator consume them would allow that cultivator to clearly comprehend the rule power within.
This method was far more effective than simply comprehending Emperor Intent within the valley itself, because comprehending it in the valley was an external process. But comprehending it through pills that contained Emperor Intent meant perceiving it from within the body—every piece of flesh, every inch of meridian would participate, clearly allowing the martial cultivator to comprehend it far more thoroughly.
Only a special place like Emperor Heaven Valley could have given birth to such extraordinary spirit herbs and medicines.
Yang Kai could imagine that once pills refined from these herbs entered the Star Boundary, those Dao Source Realm third-stage cultivators would fight tooth and nail for them. The medicinal properties and effects of the pills themselves would be secondary—for those cultivators stuck at the peak of the third stage of the Dao Source Realm, unable to advance, the Emperor Intent and rule power contained within would be the paramount prize.
His heart brimmed with joy. He secretly felt that his greatest harvest from this entire trip might well be these herbs from Emperor Heaven Valley. Without any further hesitation, he launched a thorough, inch-by-inch search.
He resolved not to leave a single spirit herb behind. Whatever had reached maturity, he would collect them all.
The valley wasn't large, but having been untouched for tens of thousands of years, nourished by dense spiritual energy between heaven and earth, it had nurtured a great many spirit medicines. Yang Kai searched through it methodically, working an entire day before he had combed through the whole valley.
Every last spirit medicine was gathered into his possession.
To distinguish them from the herbs he had collected earlier, Yang Kai placed these medicines in a separate location, planning to refine them into pills as soon as this trip was concluded.
The Emperor Intent was contained within them, but now that the herbs had been picked, if he didn't refine them quickly, Yang Kai worried the Emperor Intent would gradually dissipate.
Sister Hua would likely be very interested in those spirit pills. With the aid of those pills, her progress toward breaking through to the Emperor Realm would surely accelerate considerably.
A day later, Yang Kai stood before a mountain cave, his expression grave.
He had discovered this cave while searching for spirit herbs in Emperor Heaven Valley earlier, but hadn't had time to explore it in detail. Only after all the herbs had been collected did he finally have the opportunity to investigate.
The cave appeared to be naturally formed, but Yang Kai keenly noticed traces of artificial modification. However, whoever had altered it had done so with considerable skill, and given the vast span of time that had passed, the modifications weren't easy to detect.