Chapter 317: Familiar Cooperation
They had a destination now: the damaged teleportation array at the top of the tower.
The urgent question was how to get there quickly and safely.
After Alice's stern warnings, Cypher no longer dared to try anything recklessly.
After all, there was no telling whether the mechanisms here were broken, altered, or simply required conditions that had not been met.
Fortunately, Alice was here.
Cypher watched Alice explain the precautions ahead of him and silently counted his blessings.
"Hey! Cypher! Did you remember everything I said?"
Seeing Cypher's unfocused eyes, Alice looked suspicious. She waved a hand in front of his face, trying to bring his attention back.
"I remembered..."
Cypher smiled. Seeing that Alice did not believe him, he gave her his summary.
Simply put, the vines here concealed spike-spitting organs with potent anesthetic venom. The spikes they spat out were the seeds of those vines.
Once the spikes pierced a passing creature, it was like collecting a toll. If it did not pay, it had to work off the debt.
The powerful anesthetic was enough to keep passing creatures from feeling the spikes embedded in their bodies at all.
Left inside the body, the seeds would take root and sprout, then quietly parasitize the creature until it was completely turned into nourishment.
Cordyceps from the Magical World!
Cypher's eyes glinted slightly as he wondered what miraculous effects they might have.
A painkiller?
Cypher laughed dumbly.
"Other than the species at the very top of the food chain, nearly everything has a natural predator."
Once Cypher had finished, Alice reluctantly nodded.
She told him about a type of hummingbird here that treated vine seeds as snacks.
"They fly faster than sound, and their sharp beaks can peck through steel."
"Most importantly, they're this big!"
Alice