So Many Snakes

The journey was filled with constant bumps and scrapes... En, it was that student team. Jiu Ming followed behind leisurely, not needing to worry about encountering anything at all. Anything they could encounter was already pulled away by the taunting source in front.

But...

Jiu Ming looked at the small snake he was holding. The snake was entirely purple, with what looked like quite beautiful electric arc patterns on it. Touching it gave him a tingling sensation, like an electric shock. Hmm, could this thing be a hybrid of an electric eel and a snake?

Ninety percent of the exotic beasts encountered along the way were these snakes, big and small. The small ones could only be dealt with in close combat, while some of the larger ones could even spit lightning.

However, in Jiu Ming's opinion, the small snakes posed a greater threat to the students. He saw one student accidentally get their ankle wrapped by a small snake. The student immediately stood there, twitching all over as if they had foolishly touched a high-voltage wire.

If it weren't for his teammates reacting quickly, this kid would have foamed at the mouth from the convulsions.

As for the big snakes, although their lightning attacks were hard to dodge, they had a brief charging time before attacking, making them easier to evade. They were much better than the small ones, which were hard to guard against. Of course... if you were entangled by a big snake, the small ones could already make you twitch uncontrollably from the electric shock. If a big one entangled you, wouldn't you be cooked directly?

Thunder snakes, Jiu Ming thought, recalling the information he had seen not long ago. That material had introduced these types of snakes. Compared to different mutated snakes, these snakes were even more mutated. They had essentially developed another attribute change from the exotic beasts.

This kind of change could occur not only in snakes but also in other exotic beasts under fortunate circumstances or extreme mutation. However, the appearance of so many thunder snakes now definitely indicated a problem.

The simplest way for thunder snakes to appear was if they frequented lightning regions for a long time, leading to a mutation that turned them into thunder snakes. But here, even though there were frequent thunderstorms, it shouldn't have produced so many, and they appeared all at once in a nest!

The most likely scenario was that there was indeed some rare treasure, and it was related to lightning.

Peeling snake skins and extracting snake gallbladders. After taking down a batch of thunder snakes, these students immediately began doing just that. The skin of a thunder snake was an excellent conductor, and snake gallbladders, even those of ordinary snakes, were tonics. Not to mention this mutated variant of a mutated existence.

For normal people, eating it would strengthen their bodies and increase their resistance to electricity. For thunder-element Ability Users, it would also increase the power of their abilities. Of course, these were all based on regular consumption. To achieve instant ascension, one would have to kill an extremely powerful thunder snake and extract its gallbladder.

Jiu Ming could see that if they weren't in a hurry, they probably wouldn't even let the tender snake meat go to waste. Because of the lightning energy contained within their bodies, thunder snakes were very clean. They had no parasites, and there was no need to worry about them being poisonous...

A large number of thunder snakes appearing. Thinking of the extensive praise for the meat quality of thunder snakes in the books, Jiu Ming's throat moved. It was said to be delicious even when eaten raw. He couldn't eat it.

Why can't ghosts eat? Who came up with this setting!!

"A large number of thunder snakes appearing. The most likely reason is that a Thunder Element High-Energy Crystal Mine has appeared there. I wonder if some 'lucky' student stumbled upon it and attracted a swarm of thunder snakes."

Li Rui Ming guessed. As for that lucky student, finding it there was indeed good luck. But after the good luck, tsk tsk, it was estimated that the moment a swarm of thunder snakes surged out, they wouldn't even know how they died.

"That wouldn't cause such a huge interference, though."

"The interference area is already starting to shrink. It's clearly caused by some kind of instantaneous burst... Did I say something wrong?" Sensing that the atmosphere was a bit off, Li Rui Ming stopped fiddling with the instrument and looked around.

"...No, let's leave it at that. The priority is to get the students out of there." Wang Hai waved his hand, why explain things so clearly?

"I haven't finished yet." Li Rui Ming pushed the instrument in front of him aside. "Under normal circumstances, even a Thunder Element High-Energy Crystal Mine wouldn't generate such massive interference. Something must have been triggered by some existence, and it's quite a powerful existence. Otherwise, even with external help, there wouldn't be such a wide range of strong interference."

"En, that's good enough." The camp commander nodded. It was possible that this time, instead of a demerit, it would be a merit. The usage limitations of Thunder Element High-Energy Crystal Mines were not as broad as those of attribute-less ones, but having limitations meant that in some aspects, they surpassed ordinary high-energy crystals.

Therefore, attribute-infused high-energy crystal mines were actually more valuable than ordinary ones.

As they continued to advance, Jiu Ming noticed that the students around him were gradually increasing. Many were injured, but due to the increase in numbers, their situation was actually safer. Jiu Ming also happened to see many 'colleagues'. He just didn't know how many of these colleagues would be able to maintain their integrity later on...

Many knowledgeable students realized the reason for the appearance of so many Thunder Snakes: a High-Energy Crystal mine!

The news couldn't be kept secret, as there were too many students here. Even a few Top Students in the academy could figure this out. The best approach was to seek cooperation. Needless to say, the closer they got to where the Thunder Snakes appeared, the stronger and more numerous they became. Relying on a small team alone would eventually lead to being overwhelmed.

"Can't notify any external help," Wang Hai thought. The strong interference in that area was already weakening, but the communicator was still useless. Even if it worked, it wouldn't do much. All the electronic devices of the people inside were fried, so how could they be contacted?

For the students there, the internship was proceeding normally, not temporarily interrupted.

"Hoo, it's already getting troublesome," Jiu Ming said, looking at the small Thunder Snake he was holding. Compared to the previous one, this one had obvious arcs of electricity flashing on its body, clashing with the faint currents on Jiu Ming himself.

Even the small snakes could now release visible currents, which was quite troublesome. Thunder Snakes were already very fast, and these small ones were even more difficult to guard against. Fortunately, after mutating, they had become non-venomous snakes. Otherwise, the gathered students would already be casualties, not just a dozen or so who were electrocuted.

Were they attracted by his electromagnetic barrier?

Jiu Ming shook his head, crushed the Thunder Snake, deactivated his electromagnetic barrier, and put away the sealed Card. It was better to feel uncomfortable than to encounter a swarm of Thunder Snakes that sensed him and attacked.

"Holy crap, why is it only biting me!" Yang Zhi Yu said with a troubled expression, looking at the several bloody holes on his leg. His body twitched occasionally. Compared to other students, he was more unlucky. Others had at most two small Thunder Snakes wrapped around them, but he had five or six wrapped around his leg. The intense current released at that moment almost made him collapse on the spot.

He still hadn't recovered. The sudden surprise attack by the Thunder Snakes had forced the large team, formed by the union of multiple student squads, to take a temporary break. Regardless, they had to let those who were electrocuted recover.

"You should be glad you have a reinforcement-type ability. Didn't you see those elemental types have already fainted?" a student who hadn't recovered yet said to Yang Zhi Yu with a half-joking tone. Their physical reinforcement-type abilities, which enhanced their own bodies, resulted in high durability and resistance, so their situation was relatively better.

The elemental "mage" students were more tragic. The lightning-type ones were okay, as their own abilities gave them high resistance to lightning. Being shocked once or twice was fine. Other types were truly tragic...

"But I saw that I was the one who got electrocuted the worst," Yang Zhi Yu said regretfully. At that time, he had the most Thunder Snakes wrapped around him.

"Luck, I guess." The student beside him couldn't say any more sarcastic remarks and finally gave a more reasonable answer: luck.

Who told you to be unlucky?

"Holy crap, here they come again!!"

Several students on watch shouted, and everyone else immediately tensed up and jumped to their feet, warily looking around. The rustling sound indicated that a large number of creatures were moving around them.

Scratching his head, Jiu Ming glanced at the students and actively moved forward. No matter what, if this continued, it was normal for these student groups to be wiped out here. It was necessary to reduce the number of those similar beings in advance.

The powerful existences that these students couldn't handle definitely needed to be dealt with. As for the rest, for them, this experience was quite a good training opportunity.

He took out the sealed Card of Defective Electricity again, and an electric ball formed by arcs of electricity appeared in his hand. In fact, the abilities sealed in the Defective Electricity Card had a gap compared to the original user, with pros and cons overall.

The good thing was that it could be used without calculation ability. The bad thing was that many effects were lost. Without the factor of calculation ability, Jiu Ming couldn't manipulate electronic devices with the current, so he could only use it for attack.

Moreover, the power of Defective Electricity... looking at the notes, one could see how low it was, not even reaching 1% of the original Railgun. A gap of over a hundred times didn't just bring a hundredfold difference!

The electric ball continuously gathered in his hand. Even if the power was small, he would spend some world energy to enhance it. When the electric ball became extremely dense, Jiu Ming directly crushed it. Bright arcs of electricity instantly exploded and spread outwards.

Unlike the currents from the Thunder Snakes, this move by Jiu Ming was quite provocative. Soon, a large area of rustling sounds erupted around him, and several bolts of lightning struck from various directions.

"This Taunt seems a bit too much..." Jiu Ming's mouth twitched slightly. After confirming the number of Thunder Snakes around him, he unhesitatingly turned and ran. The number was far more than he had imagined. It shouldn't have been this many!