Sprites Alliance

This was nothing more than a minor interlude.

It did not affect Wang Wu's continued sunbathing and absorption of Golden Particles in the slightest.

However, because he had stayed only in the Silver Three Minutes area, and his Spiritual Essence was merely level 1, he ultimately gained only 19 points of spiritual energy.

The Sprites surged back into the bushes like a receding tide, but Wang Wu did not move. He remained lying there, partly out of confidence in his level 6 Passive Concealment Talent, and partly because he believed that the more one did, the more mistakes one made; do nothing, and nothing went wrong.

His body was at least twice as large as before. If he still wanted to burrow casually into the bushes as freely and loosely as he had last year, he would truly stand out like a sore thumb.

Level 6 Stealth could keep him hidden while stationary, but it could not conceal him in motion.

Thus, lying low here was instead the best choice.

Another dull day passed. Only when night fell did Wang Wu get up and stretch his body a little before turning to climb the cliff. Perhaps it was the boost from his current 7 points of agility, but he found it remarkably easy. His four claws were extraordinarily nimble, and as he climbed the cliff more than eight meters high, he actually felt as though he were bounding and leaping through the air.

Naturally, such a disturbance could not escape the Flame Scorpion Clan. The moment he climbed onto the cliff, two Scorpion Sentinels that had rushed over long ago bit him twice.

The result was that they bit nothing but loneliness. With his 14 points of defense, they could not even break through his defenses.

Wang Wu simply smacked his lips twice and swallowed the two Scorpion Sentinels whole. They were fragrant and fiery, like eating two skyward peppers—utterly satisfying.

Boom!

A small fireball flew straight at him and struck Wang Wu squarely on the forehead, exploding into a blaze of fire. The immense impact made him stumble, nearly sending him off the cliff, but Wang Wu casually hooked a claw into the rock. Completely ignoring the raging flames over his body, he exerted a little force and surged upward like a gale, slapping the Fire Scorpion Priest five meters away to death with one claw before eating it!

Ah, that familiar texture—firm, springy, and carrying a strange fragrance—made him unable to stop himself from thinking of those verdant days of youth.

Wang Wu nearly wept.

Boom! Boom!

Two more small fireballs struck him from the left and right. Immediately afterward, an even larger fireball smashed him five or six meters away with a boom. The newly ascended Scorpion King had been alerted.

Even fiercer flames rose over Wang Wu's body. From afar, he looked like an oversized torch.

Wonderful! Damn wonderful!

Laughing wildly inside, he crashed off the cliff, rolled twice to put out the flames on his body, then plunged headfirst into the bushes.

Only after he charged all the way into the stream and submerged his entire body in the water did lines of information finally arrive belatedly.

"You were attacked by Fire Scorpion Priest fireballs ×3. Due to your 14 points of defense, you ultimately suffered 45 points of damage."

"You were attacked by the Flame Scorpion King's fireball. You suffered 150 points of explosive burning damage. Due to your 14 points of defense, you negated 42 points of damage. You ultimately suffered 108 points of damage."

"You suffered 45 points of fire burn damage. Due to your 7 points of Fire Resistance, you ultimately suffered 24 points of damage."

"You ate two Scorpion Sentinels. You gained 10 points of spiritual energy. You gained 100 points of Satiety."

"You ate one Fire Scorpion Priest. You gained 30 points of spiritual energy. You gained 0.5% Growth Rate. You gained 300 points of Satiety."

"Your level 5 Self-Healing Talent is activating. Within half an hour, you will gain a rapid recovery effect restoring 100 Health Points."

"Due to your level 5 Self-Healing Talent, your body's resistance to fire continues to increase. You gained 1 point of Fire Resistance. Current: (8/10)"

--

Wonderful! Wonderful!

Soaking in the stream, Wang Wu was ecstatic.

As expected of the Scorpion Tribe—they were absurdly fat.

In fact, he could have killed another Fire Scorpion Priest just now. He could even have fought his way to the Flame Scorpion King, since less than ten meters separated them. Surely smashing it with Ice Spirit Energy would have done the job.

But that would not have been worth it.

Wang Wu himself did not want to openly absorb Golden Particles on a large scale. The commotion would be too great. Borrowing some spiritual energy from the Scorpion Tribe, however, came with no pressure at all.

They occupied the best cliff. Even an ordinary Fire Scorpion Sentinel could provide 5 points of spiritual energy, while any random Fire Scorpion Priest could provide more than 30 points.

Where else could he find such a wealthy upstart?

Especially since the Scorpion Tribe was an old Sprite lineage that had existed since last year, with extremely deep foundations. Their entire household had more than a dozen Fire Scorpion Priests, dozens of Fire Scorpion Sentinels, and over a hundred ordinary scorpions. All of them could continuously be upgraded into Scorpion Sentinels, then into Fire Scorpion Priests.

Wang Wu was very willing to establish a long-term cooperative relationship with them.

After that, he comfortably soaked in the stream for two hours. Aside from sending a wave of warmth to the fish and shrimp downstream, he also went upstream and drank his fill. Once his Health Points had mostly recovered, he climbed ashore, shook the droplets from his body, caught three squeaking Gray Rat Knights, and threw them straight onto the cliff.

It counted as compensation for the Flame Scorpion Clan.

As the Old Wang next door, he was still civilized and polite.

Being kind to his neighbors was a bottom line he had always upheld.

No one could maliciously slander him.

After finishing all that, he took advantage of the chaos on the cliff to quietly continue lurking in his previous spot.

Ah, what a beautiful night.

When dawn arrived the next day, the Sprites in the valley gathered once more. This time, very few Sprites came to claim spots beneath the cliff. Once bitten, twice shy—they were growing too.

The neighbors on the cliff, however, seemed rather restless. Several Fire Scorpion Priests led more than a dozen Fire Scorpion Sentinels in constant patrols along the cliff edge. Whenever they found someone displeasing to the eye, they immediately hurled a small fireball over.

Those bright white fireballs were simply being wasted.

Wang Wu watched with aching heart, but what hurt him even more came afterward. Once the nine minutes of purple-gold, gold, and silver ended, for some unknown reason, a Golden Holy Mantis led over a hundred Mantis Swordsmen from another low hill and gathered beneath the cliff.

Then more than twenty Quasi-White-Haired Rats arrived with two squads of Gray Rat Knights, their feet pattering as they came.

Last came this year's newly ascended Black Centipede King, bringing a large group of Black Centipedes.

At first, Wang Wu thought they had gathered to imitate the coalition of eighteen warlords campaigning against Dong Zhuo and attack the Scorpion Tribe. Unexpectedly, that Scorpion King also led ten Fire Scorpion Priests and thirty Fire Scorpion Sentinels down the cliff.

The four allied forces had assembled. Not only did they not attack one another, they were all remarkably in sync. Something was very wrong.

Even though Wang Wu had lived in this valley for nearly a year, he had never seen such a spectacle.

This was too fantastical.

What are you trying to do?

Only when Wang Wu spotted the three bruised, battered, deeply aggrieved Gray Rat Knights squeaking nonstop did he realize—weren't they the three he had caught and thrown onto the cliff last night?

At that moment, Wang Wu was so shocked that a chill ran down his back.

No way, no way. You didn't even eat food delivered right to your mouths? You can actually restrain yourselves from attacking one another? Had you already formed an alliance last year?

Wang Wu felt that things had taken a turn for the worse.

Because during this time, he had secretly killed quite a few Gray Rat Knights. Together with last night's incident, had he ultimately caused these Sprite lineages to go into stress response?

"Chirp, chirp!"

A flock of Little Red Birds flew over and circled continuously in midair, seemingly also recounting the evil deeds of some shadowy mastermind.

Soon afterward came the Black Spider Clan and the Blood Spider Tribe. The allied army continued to expand, looking as though things were about to spiral out of control, when a burst of cheerful wild chicken calls—"Cluck, cluck, cluck!"—rang out.

Five large, fat Wild Chickens flapped over from the low hill opposite and began pecking furiously at the allied army.

The allied army collapsed instantly.

The Flame Scorpion King still tried to resist, but several fireballs flew over and were nimbly dodged by the Wild Chickens. The next second, blazing flames actually rose from the wings of those Wild Chickens, making them resemble phoenixes.

What a sight!

It turned into a farce.