Devil Vine was one of the most common plants in the wasteland after the catastrophe.
Devil Vines were usually dark green, and the more they evolved, the deeper their color became.
Even as seedlings, these plants had an almost unbelievably tenacious vitality. They could survive in extremely dry, barren regions that received less than ten millimeters of rain a year. Some had even discovered living Devil Vines in the Alpha Death Storm.
According to experiments,
these astonishingly resilient wasteland plants could remain active for more than three years even in a Death Storm. Once a dehydrated vine returned to the eye of the storm and absorbed enough water, it would immediately spring back to life.
In some remote regions, certain Devil Vines had evolved into mature specimens. Their territory could easily spread across hundreds of square meters, and their bodies were as hard as iron. Worse, they had developed a bloodthirsty predatory nature, making them extremely dangerous. They often became deadly traps for passersby.
At that moment,
in the low scrubland on the ground, a band of merchants were fighting a fierce battle against a mature Devil Vine as they hacked their way through the brush.
As the battle dragged on, the merchants used their black-powder weapons to unleash roaring flames, inflicting some damage on the Devil Vine. But they paid a heavy price in return. Three of their members were lost, and a precious Eight-legged Self-propelled Device, along with its cargo, had been dragged into the depths of the Devil Vine. The losses were severe enough to threaten the bankruptcy of this newly established small trading company.
As academies of all kinds sprang up, it was not only the large trading companies that dealt in cross-eye trade that had prospered. Small companies that kept trying to establish stable overland