Metal-Eating Vine Life Crystal

Metal-Eating Vine · Life Crystal

At the sight of this, the black vines that had been pursuing him seemed thoroughly enraged. Their lashing frequency became ever more astonishing, and Song Chi also noticed that the sharp barbs on the vines appeared to be changing.

A faint golden gleam flickered among them, making the already coldly glinting barbs even more terrifying. As the golden light flowed, even the surrounding starry sky seemed to warp faintly.

Song Chi's gaze sharpened, and he instinctively sensed that something was wrong. Before he could react—

The next second, the black vines streaked with golden light lashed out again.

Bzzzz!

Violent ripples immediately spread across the Dark Matter Energy Shield, far more intense than before.

Correspondingly, the shield value of the Dark Matter Energy Shield had dropped by more than four hundred points at once, nearly one-fifteenth of its total value.

"Could it be an armor-piercing effect?"

The Dark Matter Energy Shield Generator component itself had defensive attributes. Ordinarily, external attacks had to first be mitigated by those defensive attributes before affecting the energy shield. The earlier attacks had been the same.

But after that golden light appeared, the attacks of those black vines had clearly strengthened severalfold. Armor-piercing was the only effect Song Chi could think of.

Looking at the shield value, which still had over four thousand points remaining, Song Chi gritted his teeth and forced himself not to react. Even with an armor-piercing effect, the Cangqiong could still hold on for a while. He wanted to see whether the opponent's true body would reveal itself first, or whether the Cangqiong's energy shield would break first.

After a brief charge-up, the Psionic Main Cannon fired for the second time.

This shot still failed to penetrate the fragment's rocky layer, but judging by the increasingly frenzied assault of the black vines, Song Chi became even more certain of his guess.

What followed was a repeat of the previous operation. Two minutes later, when the fourth Psionic Main Cannon shot landed, the rock pit below was finally blasted through completely. Through the roughly three-meter-wide hole, Song Chi, high in the air, finally saw the true appearance of the "starry sky plant" hidden in the fragment's core.

Two distinctly different colors covered the thick main vine, which was nearly a meter in diameter and close to fifty meters long. Its lower half was a faint gold, while its upper half was the familiar black.

After quickly consulting the Encyclopedia of Shattered Star Sea Alien Civilizations and Creatures, Song Chi identified the origins of this "starry sky plant."

Well... more accurately, it was not a starry sky plant at all, but a special Floating Continent plant: a Metal-Eating Vine.

The Metal-Eating Vine was a rather unusual type of Floating Continent plant. It usually rooted itself in various large metal ore veins, absorbing the metallic essence within them to grow stronger. Once it matured, it possessed terrifying destructive and offensive power.

After recognizing the Metal-Eating Vine, Song Chi felt somewhat relieved. He was glad it was a Metal-Eating Vine rather than a true Star Sea plant like the Star-Eating Vine. Otherwise, it would likely have been far more than merely peak first rank, and the Cangqiong's fate would have been obvious.

As a type of Floating Continent plant, no matter how special the Metal-Eating Vine was, it could not escape the fundamental nature of Floating Continent plants.

The reason they were called Floating Continent plants was that they lacked the ability to grow infinitely in the starry sky. In other words, it was not that this Metal-Eating Vine just happened to be at peak first rank. Rather, in the special environment of space, peak first rank was the highest it could evolve to.

Otherwise, the fragment outside would no longer be able to contain it. And once it left the shelter of the fragment's core, the special environment of outer space would be enough to kill it.

That was also why it had reacted so strongly earlier when the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle tried to dig open the fragment and destroy the environment it relied upon for survival.

Having figured out the situation, the response became simple. The Cangqiong remained hovering high above, occasionally firing its main cannon, while the seven Fire Sunflower Soldiers began charging into the fragment's core one after another, continuously wearing down the Metal-Eating Vine at the cost of damaging themselves nearly as badly as the enemy.

About an hour later, when only three of the seven soldier figurines remained, the Metal-Eating Vine in the fragment's core below finally lost all signs of life energy.

The Floating Continent fragment had been blasted open with a massive hole, and the starry sky matter constantly pouring into its core was already eroding it. Coupled with the suicidal attacks of the seven Fire Sunflower Soldiers, this Metal-Eating Vine, whose vitality should have been extraordinarily tenacious, died in space in such a miserable fashion.

Even then, Song Chi still did not choose to act personally. Instead, he had the remaining three Fire Sunflower Soldiers clean up the battlefield.

Several minutes later, Song Chi, now holding a fist-sized green crystal core, finally found the specific information on the core extracted from the Metal-Eating Vine's body in the database.

Name: Life Crystal

Rank: Peak First Rank

Effect: Can be used to accelerate the growth of special plant life such as medicinal herbs and tree seeds, shortening their growth cycles.

Note: Commonly found within plant-type lifeforms of the same rank.

This Life Crystal was fairly valuable. It was worth around several dozen strands of first-rank Floating Continent Essence, or roughly several hundred strands of zero-rank Floating Continent Essence.

Song Chi was quite satisfied with that. Although it had taken more time, there had been a corresponding reward. Even if it could not compare to the thousand tons of Adamantine ore from before, it was still equivalent to the gains of several Star Domain explorations by other zero-rank Kindling Starships.

He recalled the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle. It had also been one of the Metal-Eating Vine's primary targets during the earlier battle, and its body was now damaged by thirty percent. Its future work efficiency would inevitably be greatly reduced, but Song Chi was not rich enough to simply throw it away.

Once he returned, he could send it to a repair shop for repairs and continue using it afterward. It had cost several million credit points, after all, and had only just paid for itself.

Just as he finished tidying up and was preparing to start the engines and leave, the vehicle AI aboard the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle inside the cabin issued another prompt.

"Radiation readings for 'Phantom Crystal Ore' have been detected below. Preliminary estimates exceed one hundred tons."

Hearing this prompt, Song Chi hurriedly shut down the engines that were about to restart and reopened the shuttle hatch.

Phantom Crystal was an extremely special Kindling Starship enhancement resource. Although it was not a mandatory resource and starships could still be freely enhanced without it, that did nothing to diminish its exorbitant value.

It was said that adding an appropriate amount of Phantom Crystal while enhancing the "Hull Armor" component could improve the Kindling Starship's own stealth capabilities. If enough Phantom Crystal was invested, it would be difficult for the naked eyes of creatures of the same rank or the onboard radar of warships of the same rank to discover or detect it.

Because of this special effect, the value of Phantom Crystal remained high not only within the territory of the Kindling Human Civilization, but even throughout the entire Shattered Star Sea.

As far as Song Chi knew, within the territory of the Kindling Human Civilization, the market price of Phantom Crystal had already reached five strands of first-rank Floating Continent Essence per ton,