This time, Su Chen set out fully equipped with gear and weapons.
He wore a wide-brimmed jungle hat and a slim-fit gray windbreaker. Three sheathed small straight knives hung from his tactical belt—one on the left, two on the right—while he held a Wind Blade War Axe in his hand.
His heavy-duty hiking backpack contained another twenty of the same small straight knives, three golf clubs, an engineer shovel, and two solid red bricks.
Besides weapons, he also had a small drone, a flashlight, binoculars, a power bank, a spare change of clothes, several small storage vials, a portable alcohol stove, and plenty of food and drinking water.
Additionally,
he wore a professional-grade outdoor watch on his left wrist.
Its professional ’Track Back’ feature would allow Su Chen to retrace his steps and return precisely to the location of the Plant and Mineral Crystals.
This function didn’t rely on GPS or external signals, operating purely on a built-in dead reckoning algorithm.
This was especially useful in the early morning fog, where visibility was limited.
In the mysterious and eerie depths of the ancient forest, one’s intuition could be deceptive. To avoid getting lost, the importance of this watch was self-evident.
BEEP!
’Track activated!’
’Beginning retrace!’
After selecting the previously generated route, a dotted green arrow appeared on the watch screen and began providing navigation.
Starting from his original point, Su Chen led Xiaoye deep into the forest.
They were surrounded by lush, towering, and sturdy ancient trees, most of which would require several people to encircle. A rough estimate from looking up suggested that many of them were over a hundred meters tall.
The treetops intertwined high above, forming a continuous, vast green canopy that cast many parts of the path into dimness.
The humus layer, formed by piles of fallen leaves, was thick and black. It was soft and yielding underfoot, and after soaking up the dew, it became like a muddy mire that threatened to suck one down with every step.
Fortunately, despite the mottled light, a gentle breeze flowed freely through the gaps in the trees.
It effectively dispersed the stagnant, decaying smell that had accumulated in the woods.
"The burrows of those Night Monkeys must be up there."
Su Chen looked up for a moment. Given the height of the trees, it would indeed be difficult to raid their nests.
’I’d need an avian summoned pet for that.’
A short while later,
Xiaoye’s Perception picked up prey again.
It sprinted through the forest, using Shadow Shifting to ignore all obstacles and pass straight through the ancient trees.
The hunted Demon Dog had no time to dodge. Its torrent of spewing flames hit nothing but empty air, and less than a second later, a pair of Dark Gold Claws descended from above and shattered its skull.
Since entering the forest, Xiaoye had already killed a green snake and taken care of two Demon Dogs.
The snake was just an ordinary one and didn’t drop a single essence.
The Demon Dogs, on the other hand, consistently provided one or two Fire Element essences.
After passing through a dim forest path, the light ahead suddenly intensified.
The once-impenetrable canopy looked as if it had been forcibly torn open by some power, revealing several huge, unnatural gaps.
Like open skylights, magnificent pillars of light poured down. The light refracted through the pervasive forest mist, creating a Tyndall effect that gave off a sacred, intense glow, with no hint of softness.
Strangely, all sounds of insects and birds had vanished here.
As Su Chen stepped into the area, he immediately felt a faint stinging sensation on his skin.
Although Xiaoye’s attributes were in conflict with the light, its armored body as a Netherworld War Dog was not particularly troubled.
"Incredible..."
He took a few steps back, his eyes fixed on the focal point of the central pillar of light.
Countless tiny points of light seemed to be coalescing in one spot, drawn together by an invisible force. Within a few breaths, a small orb of light, emitting a gentle glow, was about to form.
’Interesting. Is this some kind of environmental incubation?’
He realized he was witnessing the birth of a Light Element essence.
After a brief moment, the essence finished forming.
The small orb of light slowly drifted down from the air.
Meanwhile, the light ahead hadn’t diminished in the slightest, yet the faint burning sensation it carried had vanished.
Just as Su Chen stepped forward...
The mantis stalks the cicada, but the oriole waits behind.
He wasn’t the only one waiting eagerly. On the branch of an ancient tree, a tree lizard, which had completely concealed its presence and blended into the environment, had been watching everything unfold.
The moment Su Chen reached out to grab the essence, the tree lizard suddenly opened its mouth and spat.
WHOOSH!!
A highly condensed beam of brilliant light shot through the air, heading straight for the right side of Su Chen’s head with incredible speed.
However...
Su Chen was already on high alert. The instant an unidentified brilliant flash appeared in his peripheral vision and a wave of pressure bore down on him, he immediately activated the Jingzhe Rune without hesitation.
Trillions of cells in his body were instantly stimulated by a bio-electric current, completely unleashing his potential. In that moment, the light around him abruptly slowed down.
VMMMM!
The world slowed down in his eyes.
After entering bullet time, his focus sharpened to its absolute peak. He not only saw the trajectory of the incoming energy beam but also locked onto the figure in the tree.
In a flash,
Su Chen’s figure darted forward and to the side like a phantom, dodging the brilliant beam by what seemed like a hair’s breadth. During this maneuver, his right hand drew a small straight knife from his waist, and the fiery energy from the Flame Burst Rune instantly surged into it.
In the final instant before the Jingzhe Rune’s effect ended...
SWISH!
The flying knife left his hand.
Interestingly, once everything in Su Chen’s Perception returned to normal speed, the thrown knife seemed to accelerate, precisely striking the tree lizard’s head.
BOOM!!
A ball of flame exploded, its terrifying disintegrating power nearly blasting all the flesh from the meter-long lizard’s body.
Even the thick branch it had been clinging to was blown clean off, sending splinters and charred remains scattering to the ground.
"Whine!"
Xiaoye rushed forward, skidding to a halt on its front paws and kicking up a spray of dirt and shredded leaves.
It circled its master, sniffing him anxiously to check if he was injured.
Just from its whimpering, Su Chen could imagine its terrified and furious expression, and how it was even blaming itself for failing in its duty to protect him.
"It’s okay, just a small problem," Su Chen comforted Xiaoye.
A Netherworld War Dog’s sense of smell wasn’t an infallible panacea, and he wouldn’t be harsh on his loyal summoned pet because of it.
Besides,
when he had activated the rune just now, he had advanced instead of retreating, seemingly grazing past the beam of light.
But that hair’s-breadth dodge was actually completely under Su Chen’s control. He hadn’t wasted any movement on excessive evasion; instead, he converted every saved fraction of a second into a precious opportunity to strike.
That one second of peak power was fleeting.
Within that time limit, he had successfully launched his final attack.
That was what gave the impression he was dancing on a knife’s edge.
In a sense, it was a display of boldness born from great skill.
After calming Xiaoye down, Su Chen began to take stock of his spoils.
Three essences in total!
The one Light Element essence generated by the environment.
And, fished out from the puddle of bloody pulp, one Light Element essence and one Wood Element essence.
"Got two of the light orbs I needed most, just like that." Su Chen was now quite satisfied.
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