Nature Spirits

Shell Girl had gotten used to being tied up and shut away.

To her, the briefcase had become a place to sleep—and a safer one than the inside of her shell had ever been.

Woken by Chen Shouyi's movements, she lazily opened her eyes and yawned.

Once she saw her surroundings, all sleepiness vanished. Her eyes darted around restlessly. At last, when the giant left to pack his things, she immediately rolled over and stood up, then jumped off the bed. Her little legs carried her at a run to a corner beneath it. She felt around, and soon a glass marble appeared in her hand.

She gently wiped the dust from its surface. Gazing at its crystal-clear, perfectly round, hazy gleam, she was so excited she could barely contain herself.

She had thought the lost gem was gone for good.

More than once, she had secretly grieved over it.

She never imagined that she would wake up to such a delightful surprise.

But this time, she couldn't let the giant find it.

Suppressing her excitement, she quickly ran out from under the bed.

She looked up at a corner of the blanket hanging down, then jumped with all her might. She sprang three or four decimeters into the air, grabbed the dangling blanket, and swiftly climbed back onto the bed.

Her little face was flushed. She glanced at Chen Shouyi as if nothing had happened. Seeing that he hadn't noticed her at all, she quickly hid the marble inside her Princess Dress.

Chen Shouyi hadn't noticed Shell Girl's little mischief. He put all his belongings into the backpack he had just bought.

There were still four or five hours until six in the evening.

He took out a Common Tongue dictionary and leaned back against the bed. While memorizing words, he rested and gathered his strength.

His intelligence had now reached 126, and learning was easy for him. Even memorizing vocabulary had become interesting.

A language often reflected the material development of the civilization behind it.

The more precise and refined a language was, and the fewer ambiguities it contained, the more advanced its civilization's material culture tended to be. The opposite was true as well.

This Common Tongue was clearly rather crude.

Each word had quite a few meanings.

Take the word for "sun," for example. It could also mean sunlight, daytime, brightness, masculinity, and other things. The intended meaning could only be understood from the context.

The entire Common Tongue dictionary contained only a little over a thousand words, yet their meanings covered every conceivable thing.

But a backward civilization wasn't necessarily weak.

In fact, in an Otherworld like this, where chemical reactions were relatively suppressed, it was hard to develop productive forces. Even ten thousand years from now, things would probably remain much the same.

If Earth was a material world made up of the four fundamental forces—electromagnetism, gravity, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction—then the Otherworld was a transcendent world governed by five fundamental forces.

In this unique environment, living things could reach far greater limits of power, develop all kinds of extraordinary abilities, and even give rise to gods.

After memorizing the dictionary for an hour, Chen Shouyi finally began to feel sleepy, so he lay down for a short nap.

When he woke naturally, it was already half past five.

He ate five compressed biscuits and three cans of meat to deal with dinner.

Then, without the slightest hesitation, he slung on the backpack holding his arrows and jungle gear, and prepared to tie Shell Girl up again.

That was when he keenly noticed something odd about her. Her feet didn't seem to be quite together.

"What are you hiding in there?"

Shell Girl clutched her skirt tightly and shook her head frantically, looking utterly innocent. "Nothing! I'm not hiding a gem!"

She couldn't even lie.

Chen Shouyi was speechless, but he couldn't very well lift her skirt, so he pretended not to notice.

After all, he would need her to guide him at sea later. If he made her angry and she refused to help, that would be a problem.

He put the delighted Shell Girl into the briefcase and zipped it shut.

By the time he left the hotel, it was already dark outside. There were few people on the street. Pretending to be in a hurry, he strode along.

When he reached the Unfinished Building, he waited until the patrol officers weren't paying attention, then quickly turned and headed inside.

It was only just dawn in the Otherworld. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was already bright.

The sky was clear from end to end, which was undoubtedly a good omen for Chen Shouyi.

Without wasting time, he retrieved his weapons from the cave and immediately began boarding the boat.

The sun was now rising gradually above the sea, like a great ball of fire emerging from the Great Sea. The sight was magnificent.

Breathing in the damp, cold, salty air, Chen Shouyi felt his spirits lift.

He took up the oars and rowed toward the Great Sea.

Having learned from his previous trip, he moved faster this time. After rowing for about two hours, the Small Island was already visible in the distance.

But this time, he didn't spot the dugout canoe.

Maybe the disappearance of one the previous day had put the barbarians on their guard. Or maybe it was on the other side of the Small Island.

Chen Shouyi wasn't in a hurry. He would find it sooner or later.

This mission was quite dangerous. Before setting out, he had already worked out a plan.

First, he would not venture deep into the Small Island until he had confirmed it was safe.

Ever since he had heard the dying barbarian mention the "sacred tree" yesterday, he had felt uneasy. There were too many mysterious things in this world, and countless creatures could cost him his life.

Second, he would destroy all the barbarians' dugout canoes.

He planned to circle the island. He was sure he would find them all.

In fact, this was his main goal today. Once he completed this step, the passage would basically be secure. There might not be any problems for six months, or even several years.

People said that a horse could die before reaching a mountain that looked close. The same was true of the Small Island. By the time he actually neared the shore, another hour had passed.

He tied the beached dugout canoe to a rock on the shore.

Then he took off his clothes, changed into his jungle gear, and painted camouflage patterns on his face.

As soon as they set foot on the Small Island, Shell Girl grew uneasy. Standing on Chen Shouyi's shoulder, she gripped his hair nervously and whispered in his ear,

"Giant, it's dangerous here. Let's go back."

Hearing Shell Girl's warning, Chen Shouyi felt a chill in his heart.

In fact, he had sensed it too. Ever since landing on the Small Island, he had felt oppressed, like the low pressure before a thunderstorm. It made him feel as though he could barely breathe.

"Where's the danger? Have you seen anything?" Chen Shouyi asked gravely.

Shell Girl had mysterious abilities. Maybe she really had sensed something?

Shell Girl whispered nervously, "There are lots of them. Lots!"

"Where?"

"Everywhere!" Shell Girl pointed with her little hand at a large tree in front of them, then at a rock not far away.

"They're hiding. They'll come out after sunset."

Chen Shouyi was baffled. He could understand if she meant a tree, but calling an ordinary-looking rock dangerous was beyond anything he could make sense of.

"What are they?"

"Spirits. There are very powerful Nature Spirits here."

Chen Shouyi suddenly understood. He had heard of Nature Spirits before. Many popular science programs had introduced these mysterious beings.

In fact, this was a term translated directly from the Common Tongue. On Earth, they were called ghosts.

Such beings were found almost everywhere in this world. Wherever living things existed, there were sure to be Nature Spirits. Most came from the souls of dead animals and had little intelligence, acting on instinct alone.

By day, they hid in trees, in rocks, and underground.

The weak ones secretly fed on the vital essence of dead creatures. They couldn't even approach living things, making them utterly insignificant.

But some Nature Spirits were powerful from birth, attaching themselves to mountains and rivers and devouring the life within their territory like leeches, feeding on souls. Some were even worshipped as mountain gods or river gods.

Those were truly terrifying.

Most of the time, when people talked about Nature Spirits, they meant the latter. No one paid any attention to the former.

There was barely any life on the Small Island near the passage, so there weren't many of them there.

But here, the plants were dense and life thrived. There were clearly many of these beings.

Fortunately, it was daytime. Aside from a few exceptionally powerful Nature Spirits that had already developed divinity, none of them could move about during the day.

Summoning his courage, he walked up to the rock Shell Girl had pointed out.

Sure enough, he felt a trace of eerie chill.

He looked toward the forest in the distance. No wonder the whole place had felt so gloomy, as if the sunlight had been filtered on its way through, leaving not the slightest trace of warmth.