At this point, Ji Shuang paused.
"On the contrary... they controlled our actions."
Chapter 71
What's going on?
Not only were the other teammates shocked, Wen Jing himself was as well.
"Why didn't it have this effect before? It only worked when you said to stop?"
These words shocked the group once again.
Others might not show it, but seeing Brown shake his head, she knew that the abnormal effect of her mental power was still present.
This sentence also contains the word 'stop,' but it's different from before?
"Shall we try again?" Ji Shuang suggested.
Therefore, Wen Jing had no choice but to call out to everyone to "stop" again.
This time, Brown didn't react, but the other three were all jolted, as if they had been shocked.
"What happened to you guys?" Brown asked in shock, also speaking on behalf of Wen Jing.
Ji Shuang shook her head. "This time I tried to resist, but I was hit harder than usual."
"Me too," the other two said.
That's... pretty domineering, huh?
Wen Jing and his two opponents embraced, vaguely understanding the special mechanism of their mental power.
However, the current environment is not a good place for verification.
"Let's explore first," she said.
Upon Wen Jing's words, the others also came to their senses—that's right, the situation is still unclear, and exploration is the priority.
The little insect led the way, leading the white bird, armored rat, and lizard along the rope to meet the meerkats.
They arrived just in time. Eve used her energy to heal her wounds, and coupled with the inherent strength of Awakened, she had already regained her mobility.
Shortly after the five people reunited, they sensed a fluctuation behind them.
Looking back, they saw the section of rope they had stood on and walked across gradually disappearing into the void.
Upon seeing this, everyone's hearts skipped a beat.
This rope can actually disappear!
Flying or jumping would result in them being entangled by ropes that appeared out of thin air, meaning they had to climb up the ropes and dared not even stay in place to return.
However, when they looked up and saw the endless, tangled net of ropes and complex knots, they felt completely lost, as danger lurked everywhere.
Subconsciously, the four small animals present naturally looked towards the even smaller, microscopic animals.
"Walk."
Wen Jing uttered a single word, having already chosen a direction, and immediately began to move forward.
Just like the 'stop' just now, the other four people chose to comply, both by their brains and their instincts.
Ropes are paths of no return, connecting different knots, which in turn extend into new paths leading in different directions.
The materials that make up ropes do not have energy reactions, but with careful observation, it can be found that various materials that make up ropes do.
Wen Jing led the team along the rope to a knotted area.
This knot wasn't originally made of bark fibers, but rather a mixture of animal hair, with three more knots hanging down below.
Before stepping onto the knot, Wen Jing had a premonition and communicated with everyone through their mental connection:
"Prepare for war."
Upon hearing this, the four of them immediately became alert and began to observe their surroundings.
Hmm? No enemies spotted?
Just as doubt arose, the scene before the five of them changed. They were no longer surrounded by a rope maze, but a familiar yet strange wasteland.
"Call..."
The wind whistled, and the next moment, three gray-brown cheetahs pounced from the front, left, and right.
If they had encountered this spatial change without warning, the group might not have been able to react immediately. However, thanks to Wen Jing's prior warning, the team members, who were already prepared for battle, reacted quickly and engaged in combat.
The enemy attacked from three sides, excelling in speed and stronger than the enemies encountered in the wasteland. Wen Jing single-handedly fought one cheetah, while the other four dealt with two others, disregarding the 'law of the wind'.
The rumors haven't completely died down; will the cheetah resurrect?
While the other four were speculating...
"Clatter!"
Wen Jing had already completed the kill before them. The cheetah that appeared from the wind also disappeared into the wind. The difference was that, with a soft sound, a white item fell from the slain cheetah.
As his gaze swept over the item, Wen Jing's heart stirred slightly. He sent out a Gravity Silk to pull it over, and without stopping, he turned around to help his teammates.
With her help, the other two cheetahs were quickly killed by their combined efforts.
"Tap, tap..."
With two soft sounds, everyone saw the items that had fallen from the cheetah—two white seashells, each about the size of a thumb and not exactly the same shape.
"What's this?"
How could a cheetah have lost the exoskeleton of a marine creature?
The group gathered around, looking at the seashells on the ground, and found it quite strange.
Even if they have very poor animal knowledge, they still know that this thing shouldn't fall from a land animal.
Wen Jing already had a seashell on her back, like a small backpack, and she said directly to the surprised group:
"Pick it up."
Hearing her say that, Eve bent down and picked up the two seashells, one in each hand.
Others also had ways to obtain supplies, but she was the most resourceful.
"That one is yours, and you also have a share in these two," Eve said to Wen Jing as she picked them up.
The Operations Department already had a well-established system for distributing spoils of war, based on contributions made in combat. The three members were all familiar with this system, as was Wen Jing's contract with the Student Council.
The other three took it all for granted, but none of them thought the seashell was particularly valuable.
Although this is the first time we've obtained loot since starting our team's exploration, it doesn't feel like a treasure. However, it is Ancient Wilderness item, so it should be worth more Integral than the beast bones that can be found everywhere.
Only Wen Jing had another interpretation of the value of the seashell.
After collecting the spoils, the noise subsided.
Just as the wind stopped, everyone's vision blurred again, and in the blink of an eye, they were back on the previous knot.
The path they came from is disappearing, and ahead of them lie three new rope paths connected by this knot.
"Back here again!"
"By the way, Wen Jing, how did you know there was danger?"
Upon seeing this, her teammates immediately realized what was happening and quickly asked her what was wrong.
"Because of 'knotting ropes to record events'..."
Wen Jing answered in his heart.
What appeared to them as a bizarre labyrinth was, in her eyes, a series of events.
It's hard not to associate knotted ropes with primitive civilizations.
However, she certainly wouldn't say such a thing, so she pointed to the three knots hanging down below the rope knot to the four people. The rope knot was obviously mixed with a lot of animal fur.
Wen Jing wasn't an expert on primitive culture; he simply knew that knots were a type of event and made guesses based on their shape and material.
If this weren't in the Ancient Wilderness, it would probably be a record of a tribe hunting three wild beasts or something like that.
But after the trials on the stone wall, she had to consider the possibility of 'history repeating itself'.
And just as she predicted, she was right.
"The three knots represent three enemies... I see! I've learned something!"
Unaware of the cultural background, the teammates were immediately filled with admiration after realizing it, praising Wen Jing as a Ancient Wilderness advisor for exploring the wilderness.
Even the person currently without ears felt their ears burning.
Is this what it feels like for the protagonist of a novel who wakes up to find that the world's cultural level has regressed by 100 times?
A moment later.
Eve carefully examined the knots leading to the remaining three paths, then looked at Wen Jing, who was perched on her head. "So, shall we... take the middle one next?"
The knots that lead to the three paths can be seen here. The middle path, as Eve mentioned, has three knots, while the other two have six and two knots respectively.
But those two knots are larger than all the knots on the other two paths combined.
The people weren't fools. After Wen Jing opened their minds, they were able to apply the same logic to other situations. They couldn't possibly miss such an obvious difference in size.
However, Wen Jing looked at the two largest knots.
"Left."
When she spoke, although the others were surprised and apprehensive, no one objected.
Wen Jing must have her reasons for doing this!
That is indeed the case.
Standing atop Eve, the highest point in the Wilderness Body, the furthest view currently visible is two layers of knots.
On the next layer of knots connected to the knot on the left, she saw a knot woven into golden ears of wheat...
Wen Jing was very excited to see what would happen when she stepped onto that knot.
*
"Roar!!!"
At the two large knots, the wasteland reappears, and two black bears, each over two meters tall when standing upright, emerge from the wind, their imposing presence terrifying.
The members of the Operations Department were on high alert. For Awakened like them with small Wilderness Body, they used to have to deal with even one of these large Wilderness Beast when they encountered them in team operations. But now they were facing two of them.
Looking at Wen Jing again, he charged towards one of them without hesitation, just like in the last battle.
Without time to consider how someone of Wen Jing's size could defeat such an enemy, the other black bear launched its attack. All four of them unleashed their full power, some attacking, some defending, some interfering, and some dodging.
"Boom boom boom..."
The battlefield was filled with various energies, and the sounds of wind and the roars of various beasts intertwined.
Amidst the chaos, a piercing roar of a bear suddenly rang out.
That sound... Wen Jing won?!
The four people who were fighting around the black bear were secretly delighted.