"Red Coral Island! This is the nearest coral island, so let's stop here!"
Han Li stood on the Divine Wind Boat, murmuring to himself. Then he drove the artifact to swiftly circle around the island and hovered in the air for a while.
After confirming that there were no other cultivators or spirit beasts nearby, Han Li and Qu Hun slowly descended onto the island.
The island's area wasn't large, forming an irregular ring-shaped structure made up of various coral reefs of different sizes, pieced together in scattered clusters.
Han Li stood on the smooth, solid ground, rubbing the dark red, sand-like powder under his leather boots with his foot. He raised his head and carefully examined the island's terrain.
Before long, he narrowed his eyes, a thoughtful gleam appearing in his gaze.
Suddenly, Han Li issued a command to Qu Hun to stand guard nearby, while he began to walk around the island.
Under Qu Hun's watchful guard, Han Li spent two days exploring the island thoroughly, looking here and there.
He inspected every section of the entire coral island. In the end, he even dove underwater into the center of the ring-shaped island and didn't emerge for half a day.
On the third day, Han Li finally stopped, having made up his mind!
He ordered Qu Hun to begin setting up three major arrays—the "Inverted Five Elements Array," the "Heavenly Wind Frenzy Array," and the "Phantom Sky-Net Array"—at several selected locations.
These arrays were placed exactly at the three necessary paths leading into the center of Red Coral Island.
Then, Han Li used all the remaining array-setting tools at the ring-shaped center of Red Coral Island, setting up several more small arrays to completely seal off the surroundings.
This configuration could be considered a perfect net—no escape possible.
After completing all this, Han Li carefully inspected everything once more, confirming there were no oversights. Only then did he retrieve a jade box from his robes.
He gently stroked the surface of the jade box with one hand for a moment. A mysterious smile appeared on Han Li's face as he softly opened the lid.
Inside was a spiritual grass with a single stem and thirteen leaves, each about an inch long!
All of the grass's dozen or so leaves were curled into cylindrical shapes, looking somewhat peculiar.
What was even more astonishing was that its entire body glowed with a white, misty radiance, emitting a faint, colorful light that was incredibly dazzling and beautiful. It truly looked like something from the realm of immortals.
This was Han Li's ultimate trump card for this trip—the "Rainbow Garment Grass."
Actually, although this grass couldn't be considered common, it wasn't exceptionally rare either. It could be found on coral reefs in the Chaotic Star Sea.
However, if it were planted in ordinary soil, in an environment that wasn't vibrantly colored, the Rainbow Garment Grass would definitely wither and die within a day or two. Quite interesting indeed.
The most wondrous aspect was that the light it emitted would always match its growing environment, changing along with the colors of its surroundings. It might emit red light, blue light, or various other colors.
However, its medicinal efficacy for cultivators wasn't particularly important—nothing like its attractive appearance. It was merely used as an ingredient in refining some low-grade pills, and generally wouldn't attract cultivators' attention.
But the Rainbow Garment Grass's other, eerily strange name—"Monster-Luring Grass"—had once caused quite a stir in the Chaotic Star Sea's cultivation world.
No one knew which cultivator had accidentally discovered this at the time. This incredibly vibrant herb, though it always appeared with thirteen cylindrical, curled leaves, would gradually unfurl one leaf every hundred years. The unfurling process would last six to seven days, and during this time, it would emit a peculiar scent.
This scent had no effect on cultivators, but for most spirit beasts in the sea, it was irresistible.
Any spirit beast that caught this scent within a certain range would rush toward the source, immediately competing to swallow it whole.
Moreover, the older the Rainbow Garment Grass, the wider the area it could influence when unfurling its leaves, and its attraction to higher-level spirit beasts also increased accordingly.
It was said that once, a Nascent Soul stage expert deep in the Outer Star Sea happened to discover a "Treasure Light Grass" over a thousand years old, and this grass was just unfurling its eleventh leaf at that moment.
As a result, this expert witnessed dozens of sixth and seventh-level spirit beasts charging toward him simultaneously, scaring him into fleeing for his life.
After this discovery was made public in the cultivation world,
many cultivators had the idea of using this grass to lure spirit beasts in order to eliminate them and obtain their spirit cores.
Because for high-level cultivators venturing into the Chaotic Star Sea to hunt spirit beasts, the biggest headache was spending months roaming the sea without encountering a single one.
For most cultivators, fifth-level spirit beasts were the ideal targets. Sixth and seventh-level ones...
risking someone's life. As for eighth-level and above spirit beasts, aside from those of their own rank, cultivators of other levels would flee at the mere sight.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be hunting spirit beasts—they'd be feeding them.
The Outer Star Sea indeed had many spirit beasts, but as long as they didn't surface, lurking deep in the sea, they were extremely difficult to detect!
Unless high-level cultivators could travel tens of thousands of miles per day on their artifacts and use their spiritual sense to scan the sea surface and seabed, it was perfectly normal to wander the Chaotic Star Sea for half a year or even a full year without encountering a single spirit beast.
After all, apart from the Outer Star Sea being vast, most spirit beasts had their own unique methods of concealment, making them easy to overlook even when searching with spiritual sense.
Now that the Rainbow Marment Grass's miraculous ability to lure spirit beasts had appeared, it naturally caused quite a commotion in the cultivation world at the time.
For a time, century-old or multi-century-old Rainbow Garment Grass became incredibly expensive.
But soon these people discovered that their idea was nothing but wishful thinking.
First, they had no way to accurately predict the Rainbow Garment Grass's leaf-unfurling time.
Though it was said to unfurl one leaf every hundred years, an error of two or three years was quite normal. These cultivators who ventured out to sea couldn't effectively utilize this time period.
Second, they were frustrated to discover that this Rainbow Garment Grass had the peculiar habit of losing its ability to unfurl leaves and emit scent if uprooted before a hundred years had passed.
This meant their plan to carry nearly-mature Rainbow Garment Grass with them and transplant it to the Outer Star Sea was also shattered.
Thus, the name "Monster-Luring Grass" was soon abandoned by cultivators, reverting to the original "Rainbow Garment Grass" designation.
Han Li had read about this related information recorded as an amusing anecdote in a jade slip.
At that moment, a flash of inspiration struck him, and he thought of how the mysterious small bottle could work perfectly in tandem with this spiritual grass to achieve the miraculous effect of waiting for the prey to come to him.
He immediately purchased a batch of Rainbow Garment Grass from the market town and conducted experiments in his own cave dwelling.
Sure enough, after dripping green liquid on it, the Rainbow Garment Grass would unfurl a leaf within one to two days at the shortest, four to five days at the longest.
During the unfurling process, it emitted a peculiar scent—not exactly pleasant nor truly foul, but a deeply impressive, strange aroma.
Han Li, filled with doubt, placed two Blood Jade Spiders into the herb garden. The two spirit beasts immediately became extremely excited, leaping forward without hesitation to devour several of the Rainbow Garment Grass plants that were emitting the strange scent, consuming them completely.
Afterward, once the scent was gone, these two white spiders immediately returned to their normal state.
Han Li observed the Blood Jade Spiders with both delight and concern for over ten days. When no abnormalities appeared, he finally felt at ease.
With this trump card in hand, he immediately felt confident about his journey to hunt spirit beasts and obtain their cores.
After re-preparing everything, Han Li not only brought a large number of Rainbow Garment Grass seedlings and the small bottle, but also specifically chose Cui Ning Island's sea area, which was abundant with coral reefs, to teleport to.
After all, Rainbow Garment Grass could only survive in places with plenty of coral.
Now, with his perfect net set up on Red Coral Island, all that remained was to mature the Rainbow Garment Grass and let the spirit beasts deliver themselves to his doorstep.
Han Li found an isolated coral reef at the ring-shaped center of the island and transplanted the Rainbow Garment Grass seedling from the jade box.
Although he knew that older Rainbow Garment Grass would influence a wider sea area when unfurling its leaves, for the sake of caution, he decided to start with hundred-year-old Rainbow Garment Grass.
Han Li took out the small bottle from his body and carefully dripped a drop of green liquid onto the Rainbow Garment Grass.
Then he began meditating nearby on the coral island, while Qu Hun had long since returned to his side to rest and conserve their energy together.
On the third day, the Rainbow Garment Grass finally showed signs of unfurling its leaves right before Han Li's eyes, emitting its peculiar scent.
Without a word, Han Li's hand suddenly flashed with light, and several array flags of different luminosities appeared around him, neatly planted in the ground before him.
Han Li gazed at these array flags for a moment, then expressionlessly closed his eyes again.
He had already decided that if no spirit beasts appeared after several more days, he would drip another drop of green liquid to expand the Rainbow Garment Grass's luring range even further.
This way, spirit beasts would inevitably come to him.