The nectar was clear with a faint blue tint. Wen Jing wiped up a little with a foreleg and brought it to her mouth.
The next moment, she felt invigorated.
Fragrant, sweet, soothing... and full of energy! Although it lacked the "potent medicine" kick of the blue-purple fruit, it absolutely deserved to be called a treasure.
After waiting a moment and confirming that nothing was wrong with her body, Wen Jing excitedly lowered her head and guzzled away.
"Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug!"
But just as she had drunk more than half the nectar inside the flower, the outer petals suddenly moved, snapping shut and wrapping her inside.
Chapter 29
Seriously! I still fell for it? Is this a carnivorous plant like a pitcher plant?
The flower's transformation and her suddenly dark surroundings made Wen Jing shudder, snapping her out of the bliss of guzzling nectar.
Only then did she belatedly realize something was wrong.
She had thought her earlier precautions were thorough enough, but now that she had fallen into the trap, she could immediately spot the problem in hindsight.
Wen Jing had consciously used an ant to test whether anything was wrong here, yet she had only tossed it into the vines.
Although it would have been more troublesome and taken more effort, she could clearly have gone a step further and tossed the ant into a flower to test it.
Because subconsciously, she had not wanted to let the ant drink the nectar...
Even before actually tasting the nectar, she had already wanted it all to herself. So did the scent of this nectar itself cause insects to fight over it?
And apparently, this was only its first effect. Once the winner entered, the flower would devour and digest them.
Sure enough, Wen Jing then felt the surrounding flower walls begin secreting a fluid different from the nectar.
But-
"I'm fine?"
The little blue-purple bug extended her slender leg and poked at the flower's digestive fluid, suffering no harm.
Realizing something, Wen Jing grew excited and bit into the flower wall.
"Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch..."
In the dreamlike field of flowering vines, a black dot appeared on a closed flower bud that had stopped glowing. Soon, the dot rapidly expanded into a hole.
Before long, a little blue-purple bug crawled out through the opening and shook her soaking-wet carapace.
"Hahahahaha!"
She had tested whether she could bite through the petals before drinking the nectar. Even after closing, the flower's texture had not changed, so naturally, she could still bite through it now.
Laughing wildly, Wen Jing escaped the flower, then drifted all the way toward the ant army using Gravity Silk.
The ants were still hesitating in place. The little blue-purple bug swooped down, stuck Gravity Silk to one lucky large ant, and raced back.
"Chirp, chirp!"
The large ant frantically waved its six legs in midair as Wen Jing carried it, bewildered and helpless, all the way to a nearby open, glowing white flower.
Having realized the problem this time, she suppressed her displeasure, tossed the ant straight into the flower's center, and waited on a leaf beside it.
Sure enough, a moment later, the flower closed again, like a lantern switching off.
Wen Jing floated onto the petals and immediately started chomping away, soon gnawing a hole in the bud.
"Drip..."
Glittering nectar and the motionless large ant slid out through the hole and dropped to the ground.
She hurried over and prodded it a few times, seeing its antennae twitch slightly.
"It's not dead... Looks like drinking the nectar has an effect similar to drunkenness or paralysis on ordinary insects."
Having finished her analysis, Wen Jing gleefully rubbed her hands together-but these effects did not work on her at all!
Trait: Abnormal Status Immunity I
Whether it was the nectar that robbed insects of their ability to resist or the digestive fluid released after the flower closed, this effect made her directly immune to both!
Aside from that initial, controllable possessiveness, the Ancient Wilderness version of a pitcher plant's baited trap was completely ineffective against her.
She could eat the bait and even kick the trap apart while she was at it.
Ignoring the ant, Wen Jing flew up, clung to the hole in the petals, and guzzled away without wasting a drop.
The closed petals were mixed with digestive fluid corrosive to insects, and now she deeply appreciated the value of "immunity" once more. Unlike "resistance," which merely improved one's ability to withstand something, immunity directly prevented negative effects from working!
Wen Jing gulped down the nectar here. With the nectar essence from two flowers in succession in her belly, her life and spirit attributes increased on her status panel.
Life: 0.58 Strength: 0.5 Speed: 0.5 Spirit: 1.08
It was not as good as the blue-purple fruit, but... she climbed onto the closed flower bud.
Shrouded in mist, the vine jungle stretched as far as the eye could see, with Fluorescent Flowers dotting it like stars. There were nearly a hundred within sight alone.
What they lacked in quality, they made up for in sheer quantity!
The little blue-purple bug planted her hands on her hips and boldly announced: this flower field was hers!
The mysterious, dangerous vine jungle of only a short while ago had become an all-you-can-eat nectar restaurant in Wen Jing's eyes. Like a hardworking bee, she shuttled between the flowers.
How much nectar could a tiny little bug drink? To guzzle at full capacity, Wen Jing underwent another targeted evolution.
[16 → 13] [Trait acquired: ?? Nectar-Decomposing Enzyme]
With three skill points spent, Wen Jing's body became like a bottomless pit, capable of rapidly digesting more nectar than her own body's volume.
And with experience and preparation, she no longer drank all the nectar in a flower this time, instead withdrawing after drinking only some.
She discovered that the Fluorescent Flowers' traps were triggered by weight. When the contents of a flower's center underwent a significant change in weight, it would close and begin releasing digestive fluid.
Other insects would have had trouble dealing with this. In the cramped center of a flower, even winged insects like bees could not fly, but Wen Jing could use Gravity Silk to make herself directly "weightless."
So, during the rest of her buffet, she began drinking half of each flower's nectar, then retreating before the flower could react.
It was all about sustainable development!
Wandering through this treasure trove, Wen Jing began with the uppermost ring of flowers and gradually ventured farther down without realizing it.
"Hm?"
After poking her head out of yet another Fluorescent Flower, she looked up and only then noticed that her surroundings were growing darker.
It was not merely that the mist had thickened; the mist itself had become darker than before.
She looked upward and could no longer see the way she had come.
On closer inspection, she seemed to faintly make out some kind of spores mixed into the mist. Perhaps these spores were poisonous too, and she was simply immune to their effects.
Wen Jing calculated the time. It was probably less than half an hour until six in the evening, when day and night switched in the Ancient Wilderness. She had to get ready to head back and leave exploring this place for next time.
On her current panel, her life and spirit attributes had already risen to 2.48 and 2.98 respectively.
Her life attribute strengthened her recovery, while her spirit attribute sharpened her perception. At the same time, the Fluorescent Flowers' earlier influence on her emotions and consciousness had completely stopped working.
However, looking at the decimals on her panel, Wen Jing's compulsive tendencies kicked in:
"Just half a pot of nectar away from three spirit. One last little drink!"
The little blue-purple bug, now another size larger than when she had started, made her decision and lunged toward her last meal of the day.
"Gulp, gulp..."
Life: 2.48 → 2.5 Spirit: 2.98 → 3
Enough. Time to go!
Wen Jing quit while she was ahead, climbing out of the flower in satisfaction and floating toward the upper trunk.
Just then-
"Whoosh!"
A long purple tongue shot diagonally toward her position in midair, then swiftly retracted. It moved as fast as a phantom, leaving only a black line flashing through the air.
Yet the next moment, the little blue-purple bug "rose" from a vine, having escaped being swept away by the long tongue.
The ground undoubtedly exerted the greatest gravitational pull. Among the Gravity Silk strands she controlled, those directed toward the ground moved her fastest, allowing her to use them for rapid evasions.
"Heh-heh!"
Wen Jing raised her head smugly. She had known that flag-raising moments like retreating were when things were most likely to go wrong.
Of course, her evasion of this sudden strike owed only a tiny part to superstition. Far more of it came from her greatly increased spirit attribute, which had let her sense the danger from a distance and calmly dodge the attack.
Following the trajectory captured by her compound eyes, she looked toward the source of the long tongue.
Beneath that patch of blue-gray vines was an "abnormal vine" whose strangeness was only apparent upon close inspection.
Its blue-gray body bore the same patterns as the vine stems, while its flared crest and the shape of its tail were identical to the edges of leaves.
This lizard living among the vines had achieved perfect visual mimicry. As a cold-blooded animal, it could also change its body temperature with its environment, directly concealing itself from many creatures that relied on heat detection.
Had Wen Jing's radar methods not been so varied and unusual, any other insect would already have become food in its mouth.
Having missed its first strike, the vine lizard stared at Wen Jing and silently shifted its position.
Its movable eyes atop its head offered an even wider field of view than level-two compound eyes-true 360-degree vision-and quickly locked onto the little blue-purple bug.
"Whoosh!"
Its tongue, coated in mucus and venom, missed again. The next moment, the little bug floated away once more in a manner of movement that completely defied the understanding of the creatures here.
It had failed to hit Wen Jing even with a surprise attack, much less now that she had spotted it.
"Hiss-!" The vine lizard hissed angrily, abandoned its concealment altogether, and charged straight toward Wen Jing.
"Come on, come on."
Wen Jing fell into a familiar rhythm, nimbly weaving up and down among the vines as she deliberately lured the vine lizard toward the upper trunk.