Changing routes

Wang An's main body was registering with the Special Administration Bureau.

On the Avatar's side, after two days of exploration, the four-person exploration team had finally circled all the way from the mountain range on the left to the northern part of the range on the right, drawing close to Tianping.

With only a few people, the exploration team could move nimbly, and the Avatar provided protection as a powerful fighting force. As a result, their search for Class Change Stones had gone quickly and relatively smoothly.

This place truly deserved its reputation as a "feng shui treasure land" specially chosen by the Chen Martial Arts School. The exploration team had collected four Class Change Stones and four meteorites in total.

Adding the three Class Change Stones and two meteorites the Avatar had collected at the wild boar nest, they had made quite a haul.

How many of them they would have to hand over, however, still required careful consideration.

Just as the exploration team set off along a route heading south from the northern mountains,

a clear voice came from ahead, quietly changing the team's somewhat relaxed mood.

After all, the last thing an exploration team wanted was to find another team on the route ahead. That meant the area in front had already been picked clean, forcing them to change course and adding risk and time for nothing.

"Brother Ye, do you think there are still meteorites with those patterns in this forest? All we've found on the way here are ordinary meteorites. After we sell them to the authorities and split the money, each person won't get much."

"Wanxing, be patient. There should still be some. Hardly anyone has explored this area yet, so there's a good chance of finding special meteorites. They should be just ahead."

A disturbance ahead caught Ye Xingchen's attention.

"Who's there? Everyone, stay alert."

Ye Xingchen had only just called out his warning, and the others were about to raise their bows, when an arrow came whistling toward them and buried itself in the ground at their feet.

The six people from Chunhe Aluminum could clearly see that nearly half the arrow had sunk into the soil. The power of the bow that had shot it was plainly far beyond ordinary.

Ye Xingchen, Lin Wanxing, and Qian Kaige, the three amateur archery instructors, knew that better than anyone. It would take a compound bow with a draw weight of at least a hundred pounds to achieve such power.

The sight of the arrow alone made them swallow, their mouths growing a little dry.

Then the Avatar's questioning voice came from ahead of them.

"Are you from Chunhe Aluminum's exploration team?"

The Avatar hacked through the dense bushes between the two exploration teams. Usually, he only needed one slash to the left and one to the right to cleanly cut through the obstacles ahead, clearing a path wide enough for two people.

"Yes, we're Chunhe Aluminum's exploration team. I'm Qian Kaige."

Qian Kaige watched the man in the lead bring his blade down with brisk efficiency, swinging his machete so fast it left afterimages, and hurriedly answered.

The Avatar sized up the six people: five men and one woman. Only three of them were visibly carrying ranged weapons such as compound bows.

Besides Qian Kaige, who had just answered, there were a young man who looked to be in his twenties and a sweet-looking woman.

Judging by their rough, dark skin, the other three spent a great deal of time exposed to the wind and sun outdoors. They seemed completely out of place with the rest.

He stopped examining the others and walked over. When he was two meters away, he looked at the young man holding a compound bow and asked,

"Are you the leader of this team?"

As the man sized him up, Ye Xingchen felt an invisible pressure from him. He had sensed the killing intent the man had revealed while hacking through the vegetation just now.

Some of his teammates felt the force of the man's presence and were too frightened to make a sound.

His bearing was very similar to that of the Special Recovery Squad members he had seen at the camp before. It came from long experience with killing: even a casual slash came down at the quickest, least strenuous angle.

That was what Ye Xingchen thought.

This man must have taken part in the brutal slaughter of certain creatures to develop skills like that.

When it came to someone like that, he felt it was best to avoid provoking him if possible. After all, who wasn't made of mortal flesh and blood?

As long as he doesn't go too far, I, Ye Xingchen, can bend as well as stand tall.

He then replied,

"I am Ye Xingchen, the current leader of this exploration team."

"Doesn't your Chunhe Aluminum exploration team usually send out more than ten people at a time? How come there are only six of you today? Where are the others?"

"Our original exploration team leader had something to attend to halfway through. He should have returned to camp by now."

The Avatar found it a little strange that the exploration team's leader had gone back so suddenly, and made a mental note of it.

"Why did you come here to explore? I remember this area has always been explored by the Chen Martial Arts School."

"Our team doesn't have a fixed area to explore. Wherever we see there aren't any mutated creatures, we go there, so we came to explore this place."

"Oh, is that so? Why do I get the feeling you sneaked over while we were in the thick of fighting the mutated creatures?"

The Chunhe Aluminum team's hearts clenched in fright at those words. Ye Xingchen could feel the Avatar's gaze, cold as a knife, fixed on his vital points, as though his life might be forfeit the very next second.

Lin Wanxing felt extremely uncomfortable at such questioning and answered in an intensely impatient tone.

"The country hasn't set any rules about each exploration team's territory, has it? Our team can explore wherever it wants. Nobody else gets a say."

The others broke out in an even heavier cold sweat, terrified that this harbinger of doom would be angered, finish them off, and dump their bodies in the wilderness.

Qian Kaige apologized with an ingratiating smile, trying to ease the tension between the two sides, while the others immediately went over and dragged Lin Wanxing to the back of the group.

The Avatar ignored the woman, who seemed unable to think straight. Was he supposed to do something to her today just because she had spoken rudely? He wasn't that crazy.

"Mark the places where you've collected meteorites these past few days for me, and give me the terrain data you've gathered along the way too."

Seeing that they had no intention of demanding their meteorites, the Chunhe Aluminum exploration team breathed a sigh of relief.

They immediately copied the data they had gathered along the way and handed it over.

Comparing it with their route, the Avatar realized they had explored their way north from the foot of the mountain range on the right.

In fact, he had known someone was following them ever since they had set out.

But just as they had thought, the Avatar couldn't very well kill them all.

So during their exploration over the past few days, they had moved as quickly as possible and pocketed most of the Class Change Stones.

Since the other team had already explored this route, they would have to return by another one. After all, there was no point in retracing someone else's path.

The Avatar immediately called to his teammates and started down the mountain. He planned to head to Yellow Bamboo Mountain, then to Black Smoke Fork. Though it was a bit of a detour and might take two or three days, it was at least better than coming away with little to show for it.