The Exposed Sneak!

"Coming, coming." Zhao Manyan hurriedly chanted Water Element magic and conjured water to bathe the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger.

The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, its whole body sticky with grime, was washed clean, its dark-red fur returning to its original pitch-black color.

Meanwhile, Lu Zhenghe, Song Xia, and the others were each counting the members of their own teams.

Only after confirming that nobody was missing an arm or a leg did they breathe a sigh of relief.

Night fell, and the air gradually turned cool. The others sat around the campfire, while Lan Yu hid in a tree some distance away, cultivating his Chaos Element.

Since he had planned out his path forward, he couldn't afford to waste a single moment.

Dimensional magic was tied to mental strength: the stronger one's mental power, the stronger one's dimensional magic, especially in the three Elements of Sound, Chaos, and Space.

It was late, and everyone had pretty much gone to sleep, leaving only two or three people on watch.

In the middle of the night, Lu Zhenghe, that two-faced traitor, quietly buried a signal pen in the dirt. He thought there was no way anyone would discover what he had done, never realizing that the whole thing had happened right under Lan Yu's nose.

Only after taking a piss did Lu Zhenghe put on a bleary-eyed expression and return to his tent.

"Fuck! That bastard sure knows how to pick a spot!"

"Goddamn it, it reeks! He's definitely got internal heat!"

Lan Yu jumped down from the tree, landing without a sound.

He hurried away from the area. As for the signal pen Lu Zhenghe had buried, he didn't touch it.

After all, he wanted the Blood Li Zi too.

Mages were just like the ninjas next door: high attack, low defense. They were all glass cannons.

Of course, that didn't apply to those who had cheats.

And the Demon Element was another cheat that could enhance physical strength.

Although this cheat came at the cost of one's life, Lan Yu figured he could get his hands on it ahead of time. Later, once he found suitable containers for collecting Remnant Souls and Essence Souls, he could use the Blood Li Zi.

On the road that followed, the eighteen of them crossed mountains and forded rivers, hacking their way through brambles.

Apart from the swarms of Demon Beasts they encountered in the first tunnel, they never ran into anything like that again along the way.

After more than ten days of travel, Jinlin Desolate City finally appeared before them, long awaited.

At the last tunnel, they chose not to pass through it, opting instead to climb over the mountain.

When they reached the highest point of the ridge, all of Jinlin Desolate City came into view.

It was a vast basin of plains. To the west, the plains and low hills stretched as far as the eye could see. To the north flowed a river, winding through Jinlin City before heading east—the direction they had come from.

"Let's go. We'll survey the outskirts first and count how many Demon Beasts are roaming around," Song Xia said.

The outskirts of Jinlin City were covered by a broad woodland. This forest surrounding the city was one of the areas they needed to survey.

To everyone's surprise, though, there were only a few Demon Beasts wandering through the woods. They simply marked the area green on the map, indicating that there weren't many Demon Beasts there.

"Let's just go straight in. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can go back. Staying in this godforsaken place too long makes my skin crawl," Luo Song complained.

For more than ten days, he'd complained at least once almost every day. His once-plump frame had already grown a little thinner.

If a fat guy wanted to lose weight, there was no better place than beyond the Safe Zone.

It did come at a price, though: one careless mistake, and you'd be serving yourself up as a Demon Beast's next meal.

"You fatso, there are plenty of places we need to survey. How could we possibly finish that quickly? Unless we split up!" Lu Zhenghe immediately glared at Luo Song.

Luo Song shrank his neck and muttered something under his breath.

Song Xia immediately rejected Lu Zhenghe's suggestion. "We can't split up."

With all eighteen of them together, they could still manage if they ran into a swarm of Demon Beasts. If they split up, they really might end up scattered for good.

"Then we'll just cover the whole place, one spot at a time."

As they entered Jinlin Desolate City, they saw abandoned, battered cars all over the roads, Demon Beast droppings everywhere, bones that might have belonged to humans or other creatures, and crumbling buildings...

"How did a perfectly good city end up like this?" Bai Tingting was more sentimental than the others, and her voice carried a hint of sorrow.

Looking at the desolate, crumbling scene before them, Shen Mingxiao said, "Let's find somewhere to settle in first."

"Then we need somewhere safe enough—somewhere we can use the terrain to defend ourselves if danger comes, but still escape quickly," Lu Zhenghe said.

"That place looks pretty good to me." Mo Fan raised his hand and pointed. It was the Municipal Building of Jinlin City.

"You've got a pretty good eye." Song Xia compared it with the map, then said with a smile, "That's Jinlin City's Municipal Building."

"Let's go there, then."

After passing through several residential districts, the group arrived at the Municipal Building.

The Municipal Building had three levels, each serving a different purpose.

"This is one of the places we need to survey too, but something about it feels strange to me." Jingjing frowned. "Look at those plants. They aren't growing toward the sunlight. They're burrowing into the Municipal Building instead."

Mu Nujiao carefully examined the black, vine-like branches. Just as Jingjing had said, they were all growing into the building.

"Leave a few people outside. The rest of us will go in and take a look," Lu Zhenghe said.

"Are you sure you want to take that risk?" Lan Yu looked at Song Xia and asked. "There are all kinds of Demon Beasts. It wouldn't be strange for there to be plant demons, either."

"If you're scared, then stay outside!" Liao Mingxuan sneered.

Hearing this, Lu Zhenghe's furrowed brows relaxed at once.

Song Xia gave Lan Yu's words serious thought. Then she remembered what their instructor had warned them before they set out and said, "When it comes to an unknown place like this, if we barge in rashly, I'm afraid..."

As soon as Song Xia showed hesitation, Lu Zhenghe's brows furrowed again.

"I remember!"

Jingjing suddenly cried out, drawing everyone's attention.

"There's a kind of plant demon that really does hate sunlight, and it's good at hiding itself by blending into the surrounding environment. I think it's called a Pseudo-Cloth Demon."

A Pseudo-Cloth Demon!!

At Jingjing's words, Mu Nujiao remembered too. She had heard their teacher talk about this Demon Beast in their plant demonology class.

"An adult Pseudo-Cloth Demon is entirely black and likes to take root in dark places. If that's an adult Pseudo-Cloth Demon, with our level of magic cultivation, we wouldn't stand a chance even if we all attacked together."

After hearing Mu Nujiao, everyone looked at one another, uncertain whether to stay or go.

"Someone, cast a spell and see if there's a sneaky bastard lying in wait for us."

Lan Yu saw that his indirect approach had done the trick, so he spoke up.

"I'll do it." Zhao Manyan volunteered for the job. He could tell that several people from Imperial Capital Academy couldn't stand Lan Yu and Mo Fan.

Especially Lu Zhenghe and that guy called Liao Mingxuan.

"Violent Wave!"

After sketching out the Intermediate Level Star Map, a torrent surged toward the Municipal Building.