I had to admit, our battle against the Hunter Lizard pack had let me truly experience just how formidable my teammates were. Back then, defeating Rui Feng had made me unconsciously file them under "cannon fodder the protagonist runs into early on." Thinking about it now, that had been terribly disrespectful. Sound waves and electricity were both difficult abilities to deal with, and Lin Bing's freezing field was practically the perfect counter to my power. Though Captain Rui Feng's ability was relatively weak, his combat skills were astonishing and he was rich in experience. I absolutely couldn't underestimate him just because we'd won before.
We quickly regrouped and hurried toward our destination. The commotion from the battle might well attract other monsters. Among the Hunter Lizard corpses strewn across the ground were quite a few spirit cores. A single Hunter Lizard core wasn't worth much, but so many together would add up to a tidy sum. Yet no one in the team coveted them; nobody wanted to slow our pace for their sake. As expected of a great Lineage—such high standards.
"Hey, hey, Liu Ye, I secretly picked up a few spirit cores. Let's trade them for some snacks when we get back~" Just as I was reflecting on this, Rui Xin sent me a message through sound waves.
...I take back what I said.
We ran into monsters several more times along the way. They almost always appeared in groups, and every time we wiped them out without a hint of suspense. I couldn't tell whether they were too weak or we were too strong (I thought the latter was more likely). Gradually, I noticed a pattern: the weaker the monsters, the more they liked to travel in groups, using sheer numbers to bring about a qualitative change. Truly powerful monsters, on the other hand, all kept to themselves; traveling in groups would only hamper them. According to Rui Xin, powerful monsters made their lairs in the deepest parts of the area. We wouldn't run into them yet.
That evening, we made camp on a relatively dry patch of grass. Si Nanlong took out his compass. It was nowhere near as pretty as Si Nan Ying's, but it was still far better than what the lower-ranking personnel had. First, he used the compass to spread out a small but highly precise detection field. After confirming there were no poisonous bugs, snakes, or scorpions hiding in the ground, he pried open the compass's base—
"Hey... what are you doing?"
"This compass has lots of functions. It's really useful."
He pulled out several spirit stones, each no bigger than a marble, and tucked them inside, then snapped the base shut. I felt an extremely faint ripple spread outward from the compass. When it passed over me, my body tingled slightly, like I'd been zapped by static electricity.
"You don't have to be here to power this thing. Once you put spirit stones in, it can run automatically. It's set up as an alarm net right now. If anything comes near, it'll alert us," he explained.
That was a convenient feature. It would greatly reduce the burden on whoever was keeping watch. As I was thinking this, my whole body suddenly tingled, as though a powerful static current had passed through me. Si Nanlong's expression changed too. "It's an alarm! And right on cue!"
We hurried to the edge of camp. Quite a few people had already gathered there with weapons in hand, but everyone looked relaxed; there wasn't the slightest tension in the air. I squeezed to the front and finally saw the intruders clearly... but what in the world were these things?
A whole mass of colorful, fluffy creatures huddled on the ground. Each one came only up to my ankles. They looked like a cross between Angora rabbits and squirrels, with short arms and legs. They squeaked as they rolled around. They didn't inspire the slightest sense of danger—in fact, they were kind of... cute?
Si Nanlong burst out laughing. "So they're Ramon Rabbits. What a false alarm. They're one of the few herbivorous monsters around here. They usually hide in burrows. Looks like we pitched camp next to their nest."
Monsters could be herbivores, too? The more I looked at these rabbits, the more I liked them. Small, fluffy, harmless to people—worlds apart from the fanged, green-faced monsters we'd met before. They were the perfect balm for my battered soul.
So cute~ I wanted to catch one and keep it~~
CRACK! Brains splattered everywhere—Li Cha had kicked a Ramon Rabbit's head clean off.
"Waaaaaaah! My pet! Waaaaaaah!!!!!!!!"
"Miss Liu, what are you getting so worked up about?" Si Nanlong asked in surprise. "Ramon Rabbit meat is famous for being delicious. You didn't know?"
I didn't know, and I didn't want to know! Wait, were you all happy because you could eat rabbit meat!?
...And so, we had roast rabbit for dinner. I said I didn't want any, but my body was perfectly honest—I ate skewer after skewer. Damn... it was really delicious...
The night passed without incident. We set out early again the next morning. If nothing unexpected happened, we'd reach the first survey point—Salt Crystal Lake—this afternoon.
To my surprise, the closer we got to our destination, the sparser the vegetation became, and the fewer monsters we saw. After noon, the whole area had turned into wasteland. It looked just like a desert on Earth, exactly the sort of place where an inland salt lake might be found.
"We're here." Rui Feng, at the head of the group, pointed ahead.
The vast white expanse before us turned out to be a large lake. Up close, I saw a thick layer of crystalline salt twenty centimeters beneath the surface, stretching across the entire lake like a partition sunk below the water. Patterns carved by the flowing water covered the salt crystals. These natural decorations were more beautiful than any man-made designs, so entrancing they made my head spin.
"I never expected there to be such a beautiful lake in the middle of nowhere!" Rui Xin exclaimed in admiration. She turned to me, then suddenly cried, "Liu Ye, are you crying?"
Only after she pointed it out did I realize that two streams of tears had already run down my cheeks, past my chin. Even my hood couldn't hide them. I quickly wiped them away, as an indescribable sorrow welled up inside me. It was a feeling I'd never experienced until coming to Spirit Star: homesickness.
That was right—homesickness! When I was little, my father's work had taken us to a small town in Qinghai, where we lived for a while. I could still vividly remember the salt lake not far from town: the azure sky, the clear water, the beautiful layer of salt—it was just like the scenery before me! For a moment, it was as if I'd gone back to childhood, wearing sandals as I laughed and skipped across the salt layer, with my father chasing after me, telling me not to run too far...
"...Ye, Liu Ye!"
"...Ah, sorry. I zoned out." At the sound of Rui Xin's voice, I finally came back to myself.
"You suddenly started crying, then spaced out after you finished. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just... miss home a little."
Rui Xin's eyes sharpened. This was a perfect opportunity to probe the mysterious woman's background, but in the end, she said nothing. Taking advantage of someone's grief like that would spoil the moment.
"All right, everyone, keep quiet. I'm starting now. I need to concentrate."
We fell silent at once. Si Nanlong arranged spirit stones in a circle on the ground, stood in the middle, and held the compass against his chest. Eyes closed, he seemed to be meditating. A moment later, the air trembled faintly. The spiritual energy dispersed through the air surged toward him with astonishing force. Streams of spiritual energy, as thick as liquid, shot out of the spirit stones on the ground. Some flowed into his body, while most poured into the compass. The spirit stones ran dry and lost their luster, but the compass kept absorbing.
HUM!
At last, as the final spirit stone lost its luster, the compass gave a low hum. The strongest pulse I'd ever felt spread out, covering the entire lake and desert, reaching a third of the whole sector under our team's responsibility. Si Nanlong maintained his pose, frowning as his eyelids twitched slightly. He seemed to be struggling. We all stood at a distance, afraid of disturbing him.
Time passed, second by second. Half an hour later, the compass finally stopped working, and Si Nanlong sank to the ground, somewhat drained. He said with weary relief, "The survey is complete. The preliminary analysis shows no abnormalities. The main data has been stored in the compass. We'll do a more thorough analysis when we get back..."
We were about to help him up when his expression suddenly changed.
"Watch out below!!!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, the ground began to shake violently. A crack like a scar appeared in the wasteland, and huge amounts of earth and rock collapsed into it. Within seconds, the crack had widened into a massive pit!
Once the pit had formed, the ground stopped shaking. But our sense of danger only grew stronger. We could feel that something extremely dangerous lurked beneath the pit! At some point, every sound around us had vanished, leaving only the deathly silence before a great battle.
"Hiss..."
A strange sound came from underground—hoarse and dry, like a broken radio. Just hearing it made my skin crawl.
BOOM! The ground jolted violently, sending sand and stones flying into the sky. A gigantic creature shot out and slammed down onto the ground, shrouding everything in dust. When the haze cleared, I stared at the bizarre creature before me, dumbstruck. My teammates wore expressions of disbelief, and Rui Feng looked graver than I'd ever seen him.
"It's a Desolate Beast..."
Before you continue