Luckily, the heavens smiled on him once more. Seeing Wei Zhao standing motionless at the riverbank, the monster finally lost its patience and struck again—a scaly hand shot out of the water with no warning whatsoever, the scene unfolding exactly as before.

This time its target was Wei Zhao's ankle; its intent was plain enough. It meant to drag him down into the river just as it had done to Fei Yangnian. Once in the water, the creature would reign supreme.

Its speed could hardly be called slow: not only did it break the surface with no omen at all, but it left not so much as a ripple behind, and its movement was frighteningly swift. An ordinary man might wish to guard against it, but would lack the strength. Unfortunately for the creature, it had run into Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao had no fewer than ten ways to deal with this ambush. This time, to make absolutely certain nothing went wrong, he chose the most foolproof method of all.

That hand had already closed around Wei Zhao's ankle—and yet in the next instant it grasped at nothing. Wei Zhao appeared beside it, raised his hand, and loosed a blue arc of lightning. Seizing the chance while the creature was numb and stiff, he hauled it out in one pull.

What he saw nearly knocked the wind out of him. Staring at the monster's grotesque form, Wei Zhao was struck dumb on the spot.

At first glance it looked like a child of four or five, yet its whole body was covered in densely packed black scales, a smallish turtle shell clung to its back, and a hollow dented its crown, with a good deal of water pooled inside. A face like that would startle anyone.

"Kappa?" The thought flashed through Wei Zhao's mind. The figure before him matched the water sprite of folklore exactly—the kappa, also called the water tiger. It was a water monster recorded even in the Compendium of Materia Medica, though he had always taken it for a legend born of garbled hearsay. Never had he imagined he would meet a living one here.

"You know me?" the kappa gurgled, spitting out human speech while fixing Wei Zhao with a fiercely wary stare.

Strictly speaking, it was an amphibian: sovereign in the water, and able enough to move about on land as well. Yet plainly its confidence was great only in the river. Now that Wei Zhao had abruptly hauled it ashore, it was thrown into a nervous fit—and judging by its stance, it had no thought of attacking him, but was instead casting about for some way to flee back into the water.

"Heh. So it really is the legendary kappa. This Primordial Trial has been quite the education." Wei Zhao could not help laughing at the creature's words. First Jumang, and now a kappa—the Primordial Trial truly lived up to its name. It really did feel a little like stepping back into the primordial age.

"Human, what do you want?" The kappa kept its vigilant glare fixed on Wei Zhao.

"Nothing much. Just a little curious." Wei Zhao looked perfectly at ease, and in truth there was nothing to be nervous about now. Before the kappa had been dragged out, it had given him quite a turn—after all, anything that could slip past his spiritual sense could not be easy to deal with. But now there was no need for concern, for at best this thing was a spirit beast of the Foundation Establishment level. It posed no real threat to Wei Zhao at all.

As for how it had managed to evade his spiritual sense, that was most likely the kappa's innate gift. In some legends, after all, such creatures ranked as veritable river gods.

"Leave this place. Leave the Hundred Herb Garden, or you will regret it!" the kappa threatened. Unfortunately, its frame was simply too small, and it had been hauled ashore alive by Wei Zhao besides—so the threat carried no weight whatsoever.

"So this is the Hundred Herb Garden." Wei Zhao nodded, looking it up and down. "Then you are the master here?"

"I am not. I am only the gardener. If my master finds you, you are dead. Leave this place at once, human!" the kappa urged again.

"Who is your master?" Wei Zhao paid the warning no mind and pressed on, thoroughly intrigued.

"My master is—" The kappa broke off abruptly, its eyes darting. Then the water pooled in the hollow of its head suddenly surged skyward and came pouring down again like rain—and the instant its body touched that water, it dissolved into nothing.

"Looks honest enough, but turns out to be a sly one." Wei Zhao shook his head. His form flickered, and he appeared on the open ground to the right front, where he unleashed a Wildfire Thousand Legs without a moment's hesitation.

Bang! With a muffled thud, a slight, scrawny figure was suddenly forced into view at the tip of Wei Zhao's foot—and then, beyond all doubt, went flying backward to land hard in a heap of spirit herbs dozens of meters away.

"You—how could you possibly see me?" The kappa forgot its injuries entirely, forcing an expression of utter shock onto its thickly scaled face. Merging formlessly into water was the innate gift of the kappa clan; even beings far mightier than they could not detect it. Yet here it had failed before a human.

"Is that so strange?" Wei Zhao countered. True enough, the creature's ability to melt into water was formidable—when it had hidden in the river earlier, it had been flawless, undetectable even to his spiritual sense.

But at least half the reason for that was the false sense of security that clear river water bred in a person's mind. Now that this distraction was gone, even if Wei Zhao could not pin down its exact position, he could still catch traces and hints of it—and that was quite enough.

The kappa was plainly rendered speechless. Just as Wei Zhao had judged, it was no formidable being in itself. In the river it was somewhat stronger, strong enough to deal with the vast majority of Foundation Establishment spirit beasts and human cultivators, but once on dry land it was far more feeble. When all was said and done, it had only one card to play: the kappa clan's innate gift of merging formlessly into water.

And now that gift had been broken by Wei Zhao, while the creature itself was cut off on land and could not return to the river. Even if its mental defenses had not been utterly routed, they were not far from it.

"What do you want, human?" The kappa regarded Wei Zhao with a trace of panic and gestured at the rare spirit herbs strewn all around. "If you leave now, I will let you take some of the herbs with you. Otherwise, if my master is alerted, human, you are dead."

Wei Zhao could not help but laugh. This kappa was rather amusing—unable to beat him, it had turned to playing both carrot and stick. "And you think a few scraps of worthless herbs like these will send me on my way?" he said, savoring the joke. (To be continued.)