1972 A Friend Of The Beasts

Several Tall buildings rose in the distance and looked like they belonged to a clan having the same kind of symbol on it. The symbol was that of a Morning Glory flower.

"That must be the Morning Glory clan." Lin Mu recalled the Crown Prince telling him about it.

It was one of the locations on his list to visit, but he did not thing he would end up near it unexpectedly.

But before he could think about the clan, he had his companions to gather first.

Lin Mu could feel the presence of the Yin Yang Twin Serpents nearby but what was strange was the absence of Little Shrubby.

'Is he gone somewhere?' Lin Mu wondered and tried to sense him with their link too.

And sure enough, a couple seconds later, Lin Mu felt Little Shrubby further south of where they were. 

'About a kilometer away… but why would he leave the twins here?' He questioned and decided to ask the twins directly.

~HISS~

The twins had noticed him too and soon rushed to him.

"Xiao Yin, Xiao Yang, what are you guys doing here?" Lin Mu questioned.

"We found… someone." Xiao Yin spoke first.

"Friend… new." Xiao Yang added.

"A friend?" Lin Mu raised a brow. "Who's that?" he asked.

~CHIRP~

But Lin Mu didn't even get the answer before a sweet chirping was heard.

~SHUA~

And along with the source of the chirp arrived a red blur. Little Shrubby seemed to have sensed Lin Mu's arrival too and came to meet him.

"Master!~" Little Shrubby called out.

"I heard you found a new friend?" Lin Mu asked, looking for it. 

~CHIRP~

The sweet chirp was heard again, but this time from Little Shrubby's head.

"Here!" Little Shrubby said pointing with his eyes that were upturned.

"A bird?" Lin Mu finally saw a tiny bird on top of Little Shrubby's head. 

With Little Shrubby's size and thick fur, the bird was pretty much buried under it. Lin Mu saw a small head head poke out. 

The bird was barely the size of a thumb and had beady red eyes. Its beak was scarlet red while its feathers were snow white. But a red splotch could be seen on its immaculate feathers.

"It's injured." Little Shrubby spoke.

Looking closer Lin Mu saw the blood coming from the bird's leg. One of its legs seem to be broken and blood was still dripping from it.

~CHIRP~

The bird chirped again, but this time Lin Mu could feel the the pain in it.

"We were looking for something to help it." Little Shrubby explained. "We found it crying in the forest." 

"I see… Did you give it the healing pills?" Lin Mu asked as he had given Little Shrubby healing pills for emergencies.

"I did. It didn't work." Little Shrubby replied. 

"It didn't?" Lin Mu raised a brow as the pills were decently strong.

At least for an injury like this even half a pill would have been enough. The bird was small and wouldn't be able to eat much either.

"Blood don't stop." Xiao Yang added.

"It doesn't stop bleeding? How long has it been?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Two days." Little Shrubby answered astonishing Lin Mu.

"That's far too long for it to continue bleeding." Lin Mu knew something was wrong.

For a bird this size to continue bleeding for that long would not be possible as the total amount of blood in its body would be too less.

Not to mention, the bleeding should have stopped on its own too in a short time. Since it hadn't there must be something seriously wrong with the bird.

"I need to take a closer look." Lin Mu muttered and used his immortal sense to scan the body of the bird.

~shua~

His immortal sense quickly picked up on the bird's cultivation base which was barely at the Dao Shell Realm. It was very weak compared to the standard of the immortal world and even more so for the Evergreen Pillars Forest which had stronger beasts on average.

'Wait… how's it alive with that cultivation base? Even if it didn't die from the blood loss, it should have died from the healing pills. It would be too strong for it.' Lin Mu was confused.

He then tried to identify the bird and could vaguely tell that it was a Snow Stream Sparrow. But there were some difference that stood out.

The beaks of the Snow Stream Sparrow's were not red and they were also bigger in size. Even if it was an infant, it would not be this small.

But the other features of the bird seemed to match the Snow Stream Sparrow along with the cultivation base as they were spirit beasts that were present in Immortal worlds as well.

The strongest they could get was Dao Treading Realm most of the time and them becoming and Immortal beast was not recorded.

'I should address its injury first.' Lin Mu changed the priority.

He checked the injury and analyzed what could be wrong. 

And sure enough he quickly found the cause.

"Poison?" Lin Mu could sense the impurity in the bird's blood.

This was why it kept on bleeding and was also unable to move much.

'Is that why the healing pills didn't work?' Lin Mu wondered.

Depending on the type of poison, a healing pill would be ineffective as one would need a detoxification pill. And even then, one would need the right kind of detoxification pill for different kinds of poisons.

Some of the detoxification pills could work on multiple poisons, but they still weren't an all purpose remedy.

Now that Lin Mu knew what was wrong, he tried to identify the kind of poison that the bird was afflicted with. Unfortunately, Lin Mu was not an expert in poisons.

This was something Herbalists or alchemist would be well versed in, but certainly not him.

He might have read about them quite a lot, but identification of them through blood was not an easy task. One would have had to studied them and seen their effects beforehand, to be able to tell what kind of poison it was.

"It's Vein Snapper Venom." A soft voice fluttered behind Lin Mu.

"Saintess," Lin Mu turned around to see the woman standing there.

Her presence was imperceptible as always and actually felt even more ethereal than before.

'She seems to have not only recovered to the same level as before but grown further.' Lin Mu guessed.

Of course, he knew that this was not the Saintess' true cultivation base, but just a temporary one that was within the limits of the Immortal world. But even then, this was easily more than enough to go against multiple Peak Immortals.

It had been seven months since Lin Mu had last talked to the Saintess and ten months since the Saintess had started her recovery. It was quite clear that she was already in the perfection condition.

"How do I get rid of it?" Lin Mu asked the woman.

"I'll teach you." The Saintess replied.

With her skills, it was as easy as snapping a finger to do the same. But rather than doing that, the Saintess knew Lin Mu would prefer to learn how to do the same.

"Can I do it without the direct knowledge of the poisons?" Lin Mu questioned first.

He didn't back down from the task, but still knew that asking questions was necessary for learning.

"You can. The Vein Snapper Venom is a bit tricky to identify but it isn't particularly hard to get rid of." The Saintess replied.

"Do we need a detoxification pill for it?" Lin Mu asked next.

"You can use one certainly. But it is also possible to purge it using other methods." The Saintess replied. "The Vein Snapper Venom comes from a tiny insect called as the Vein Snapper Tick. It is a nasty parasite and attaches itself to various kinds of beasts before injecting its venom.

This causes the beasts to continuous bleed and eventually get weak enough to not move.

Before this though, they also become more prone to accidents and injure themselves. Birds are particularly affected by it, as they fall from the sky and break their bones in the process." She explained.

Hearing that Lin Mu was quite intrigued. He knew that insects were also considered as part of the beasts, but they often went unnoticed unless they were big.

Tiny parasites and normal sized insects that still had the power to bring down beasts many times bigger than them were certainly terrifying. 

"So how do we get rid of it?" Lin Mu asked next.

"The Vein Snapper Venom works by preventing the clotting of blood. This causes internal bleeding at first, which leads to weakness which then leads to more injuries that further bleed.

As such you simply need to get rid of the venom that will be bound to the veins." The Saintess explained. "Since you are already well versed with formations, you can use the same to get rid of them. The only difference is that you will be applying individual runes to the veins directly."