So Many Snakes

The journey had been one mishap after another... Yeah, it was that student group. Jiu Ming followed behind them at his leisure, with no need to worry about running into anything. Anything they might encounter was drawn toward the taunt magnet up front.

But...

Jiu Ming looked at the little snake in his hand. Its body was entirely purple, marked with what looked like beautiful arcs of electricity. When he reached out to touch it, he felt a shock. Huh, was this thing some kind of hybrid between an electric eel and a snake?

Nine out of every ten Exotic Beasts they came across on the way were these snakes. They came in all sizes. The small ones could only fight at close range, while some of the big ones could shoot lightning.

But in Jiu Ming's view, the little snakes were a bigger threat to the students. He'd seen one student accidentally get a little snake wrapped around his ankle, and immediately start twitching all over like someone who'd stupidly touched a high-voltage wire.

If his teammates hadn't reacted quickly, the kid would've been convulsing until he foamed at the mouth.

The big snakes' lightning was hard to dodge, but they had a brief moment of buildup before attacking, which made them easier to avoid. That was far better than the little ones, which could catch you off guard. Of course... if a big snake wrapped around someone, and the little ones could make them convulse from the shock, wouldn't a big one just cook them on the spot?

Thunder Snakes. Jiu Ming remembered reading about them in some material he'd seen not long ago. Compared to other Mutated snakes, these were even more thoroughly Mutated, a kind of Exotic Beast that had developed an entirely different attribute.

This kind of change didn't only happen to snakes. Other Exotic Beasts could develop it by some stroke of luck or through extreme mutation. But with so many Thunder Snakes appearing now, something was definitely wrong.

The simplest way for Thunder Snakes to emerge was for them to spend years in a Lightning Region, eventually changing into Thunder Snakes. But although this place often had thunderstorms, that shouldn't have been enough to produce so many. And they'd appeared all at once, in a whole nest!

The most likely explanation was that some rare treasure had turned up—something related to lightning.

The students had killed a batch of Thunder Snakes and immediately started skinning them and removing their gallbladders. Thunder Snake skin was an excellent conductor, and even the gallbladder of an ordinary snake was nutritious, let alone that of a Mutated variant like this.

Eating it would strengthen an ordinary person's body and increase their resistance to electricity. For lightning-type Ability Users, it could also boost their powers. Of course, that was only with regular consumption. To get an instant, massive increase, they'd need the gallbladder of an exceptionally powerful Thunder Snake.

Jiu Ming could tell that if they weren't in a hurry, they wouldn't even have spared the tender snake meat. The Thunder Snakes' bodies contained lightning energy, so their meat was very clean, free of parasites, and there was no need to worry about it being poisonous...

A whole swarm of Thunder Snakes! Thinking of all the praise the book had heaped on Thunder Snake meat, Jiu Ming swallowed. Apparently, it was delicious even raw. Too bad he couldn't eat it.

Why couldn't a ghost eat? Who came up with that setting?!

"A huge number of Thunder Snakes have appeared. The most likely explanation is that there's a Thunder Element High-Energy Crystal Mine over there. I wonder which 'lucky' student stumbled across it and ended up drawing out that swarm."

Li Rui Ming made a guess. As for that lucky student, it was certainly lucky to find the place—but after that, tsk, the moment all those Thunder Snakes came pouring out, he probably wouldn't even know what had killed him.

"But that still wouldn't cause interference this severe."

"The interference zone is already shrinking, so something must have triggered a sudden burst..." Li Rui Ming stopped fiddling with the instrument and looked around when he sensed that something was off. "Did I say something wrong?"

"...No, that's enough. The priority is getting the students out of there." Wang Hai waved his hand. Why spell it out so clearly?

"I'm not finished." Li Rui Ming pushed the instrument in front of him aside. "Under normal circumstances, even a Thunder Element High-Energy Crystal Mine wouldn't cause interference this severe. Something must have triggered it, and whatever it was must be incredibly powerful. Otherwise, even with an external source, it couldn't have caused such widespread, intense interference."

"Mm, that'll do." The Camp Commander nodded. This might turn out to be a case where they not only avoided blame, but earned credit. Thunder Element High-Energy Crystals had more limited uses than those without an attribute, but those limitations also meant they could surpass ordinary High-Energy Crystals in certain areas.

That was why High-Energy Crystal Mines with an attribute could be worth more than ordinary ones.

As they continued forward, Jiu Ming noticed more and more students around them. Quite a few were injured, but with more people around, they were actually safer. Jiu Ming also spotted a number of "colleagues." He just wondered how many of them would still be able to keep their usual standards of decency afterward...

Many of the more knowledgeable students had realized why so many Thunder Snakes had appeared. The most likely cause was a High-Energy Crystal Mine!

There was no way to keep the news secret. There were too many students here, and even a few top students from the Academy could figure it out. The best course of action was to join forces with others. After all, the closer they got to the source, the stronger and more numerous the Thunder Snakes would be. A single team wouldn't be able to manage alone in the end.

There was no way to contact the reinforcements outside, Wang Hai thought. The intense interference there had started to weaken, but the communicators still didn't work. Even if they did, they'd be useless—the electronic devices on everyone inside had already been fried. How could they make contact?

As far as the students in there were concerned, their internship was still proceeding as normal. It hadn't been temporarily suspended.

"Phew, this is starting to get troublesome." Jiu Ming looked at the little Thunder Snake he held. Compared to the last one, this one had obvious arcs of electricity flashing over its body, clashing against the faint current around Jiu Ming.

Even the little snakes could now produce electricity visible to the naked eye. That was a serious problem. Thunder Snakes were already fast, and the little ones were even harder to guard against. Fortunately, after mutating, they'd become nonvenomous. Otherwise, there would already have been casualties among the students who'd gathered here, instead of just a dozen or so getting shocked into convulsions.

Had they been drawn over by the electromagnetic barrier around him?

Jiu Ming shook his head, crushed the Thunder Snake, and took down his electromagnetic barrier. He put the Sealed Card away. It was uncomfortable, but better than being swarmed by a whole bunch of Thunder Snakes that could sense him.

"Fuck, damn it, why do they only bite me!" Yang Zhi Yu stared at the several bloody holes in his leg, utterly exasperated. His body still twitched now and then. He'd had worse luck than the other students: they'd had at most two little Thunder Snakes wrapped around them, but he'd had five or six on his leg. The strong current they'd released all at once had almost made him drop to his knees.

He still hadn't recovered. The Thunder Snakes had ambushed them too suddenly, forcing the large group—formed from several student teams—to stop and rest for a while. No matter what, those who'd been shocked needed time to recover.

"You should be glad you have a body-enhancement ability. Can't you see those Mage students have already passed out?" A student beside Yang Zhi Yu, who was still feeling the effects himself, joked. Their physical enhancement abilities improved their bodies, making them more durable and resistant, so they'd gotten off relatively lightly.

The elemental-type "Mage" students had it worse. Those with lightning abilities were fine, since their powers gave them high resistance to electricity. Getting shocked once or twice was no big deal. The other types, though, were truly out of luck...

"But I'm pretty sure I got shocked the worst," Yang Zhi Yu said dejectedly. He'd been the one with the most Thunder Snakes on him at the time.

"Probably just bad luck." The student beside him couldn't bring himself to make fun of him, and settled for a fairly neutral answer. "Bad luck."

What could you do? You were the unlucky one.

"Fuck, they're coming again!!"

A few students on watch shouted. Everyone else tensed and jumped to their feet, warily watching their surroundings. The rustling sounds proved that a great many creatures were moving nearby.

Jiu Ming scratched his head and glanced at the students before heading forward on his own. If things continued like this, it was entirely possible the students would all be wiped out here. He needed to thin out the numbers of those things before that happened.

The powerful creatures the students couldn't handle definitely needed to be dealt with. As for the rest, this would be a pretty good trial for them.

He took out the Sealed Card for Defective Electricity again. An orb of electricity formed in his hand, arcs gathering together. The Defective Electricity sealed in the card wasn't as good as the original user's ability. Overall, it had its pros and cons.

The good part was that he didn't need any calculation ability to use it. The bad part was that it lacked many of the original's effects. Without the calculation ability, Jiu Ming couldn't manipulate electronic devices with the current. He could only use it to attack.

And Defective Electricity's power... the note said it all. It didn't even reach one percent of the genuine Railgun's power. A difference of more than a hundredfold— and the result wasn't just a hundredfold difference!

The electric orb kept gathering in his hand. Even if it was weak, he could spend some world energy to boost it. Once the orb had grown as dense as it could, Jiu Ming promptly crushed it. Bright arcs of electricity erupted in every direction.

Unlike the current produced by the Thunder Snakes, Jiu Ming's provocation had been pretty blatant. Before long, a whole chorus of rustling sounds rose around him, and several bolts of lightning struck from different directions.

"I might've pushed the taunt a little too far..." The corner of Jiu Ming's mouth twitched. After confirming the number of Thunder Snakes nearby, he turned and ran without hesitation. There were way more than he'd imagined. There shouldn't have been this many!