When it was getting dark, the two finally returned to the campsite. Chu Yan had already woken up. When he saw them coming up, he rushed over and howled at them. “You dare not call me?? Hurry up, what did you find under the cliff? Let me take a look!”
Qiao Zhiya got off the mecha first, and he heard Chu Yan’s angry yowling. He gently took out the little snake from his pocket, held it in front of him, and said happily, “Look, Lin-laoshi and I found this little guy! Isn’t it beautiful?”
By the standards of snakes, the little snake was really good-looking. But by the standards of humans… this little black lump was just… a sad-looking lump.
“Ah… not bad,” Chu Yan’s excitement subsided immediately. He reached out and poked the little snake, which was still in a coma. He perfunctorily asked, “It was the one who asked you for help before? It’s so small, what kind of snake is it? This thing is also so small… How did you hear it? So amazing…”
“It’s not a sound, it’s a kind of power resonance. It has something in common with my power, so I can perceive it,” Qiao Zhiya explained in simple terms. He reached out and patted the little snake.
Because magic power was inherent in nature, all animals – and even more “aware” plants – could resonate with it.
This small episode passed quickly. The sky was already dark, so everyone hurriedly packed up and took out their mecha. They started flying across the area in the middle of the night.
After crossing the cliff and bypassing a high mountain, a flat and endless forest appeared in their field of vision. There were occasional black spots flying in the sky, which should be the birds and beasts that inhabit this forest returning to their nests.
The power of the animal repellant was quickly revealed. All the passing birds seemed to be running away from the mechas.
“Qiao, your animal repellant is really good. You can try to make it in large quantities when you go home, and then sell it to the mercenaries here. You will definitely make a lot of money,” Chu Yan was nestled in the cockpit of his mecha, so he used their internal communication line to chat with Qiao Zhiya.
Qiao Zhiya shook his head in reply. But then, he realized that Chu Yan wouldn’t be able to see him, so he verbalized it: “No, this kind of animal repellent is too disruptive to the balance of the forest. If it is used by bad people, it will destroy the ecosystem. I will not sell it.”
AD
“Okay…” Chu Yan smacked his mouth, changed the subject again, and asked, “Is Xiao Hei awake? Is it a snake or a pig? How can it sleep so well?
The nickname given to the little black snake was simple – it was simply calling it by its scale color.
Qiao Zhiya couldn’t help laughing. He opened his pocket to take a look. “It hasn’t woken up yet. It should have not slept for many days, plus it’s still a baby, so it’s natural to sleep for this long.”
Chu Yan muttered, half-jokingly, “Nah… it probably was too ashamed to face you. It hangs on a tree halfway up the mountain, totally embarrassing to the snake-kind.”
Qiao Zhiya was silent – he was, in fact, also curious about this. Normally, snakes should not let themselves fall into such a predicament. Plus, the little black snake was still so small, it should still be in the stage of being protected and raised by its parents. (Generally, most snakes just lay eggs and book it. They did not raise their young. There’s only very few species of snakes that provide some level of parental care to their young, i.e. pythons.)
During the journey, everyone amused themselves by chatting. At dawn, everyone found an open space to rest and reapply the animal repellant.
“It can last for half a day at most, so it must be done as soon as possible,” Qiao Zhiya handed the empty small bottle to Lin Zhen. He was a little worried. “This can be solved with animal repellent when we go, what should we do when we come back…”
If he knew about it earlier, he would have put more in the storage ring.
AD
“Don’t worry, this is something I should worry about,” Lin Zhen comforted him. He hurriedly let everyone get on the mechas, and continued to set off against the gradually brightening sky.
When they approached the junction of Area D, the animal repellant had almost evaporated, and everyone encountered a wave of bird attacks. Even a group of bandits plotted against them. Fortunately, the team brought by Lin Zhen was strong, and they all survived without any danger. After passing through, they also snatched a more detailed map and some supplies from the defeated bandits.
They looted from the bandits and set off. Chu Yan squeezed into Lin Zhen’s cockpit, nestled in the corner with Qiao Zhiya. Together, they flipped through the newly acquired map. Chu Yan looked excited. “That bandits should actually be an off-shot mercenary team, probably from one of the big ones. They should have some things we don’t have, although our stuff is quite complete. Their map is more detailed than what we have.”
Qiao Zhiya, who had once again seen the ugliness in humans, was a little unhappy. “We are just passing by, why do they want to beat us, and there is no competition between us…”
“Who said there is no competition? Do you know what level of exotic beast that bird you shot down just now? The feathers of that bird are very valuable! They are looking for money.” Chu Yan explained. Seeing the blond youth was still listless, he hurriedly put his arm on his shoulder and said, “That’s how being a mercenary is. Wealth is their priority, even if it means facing greater danger. We can’t stop them from having no integrity. Don’t think too much about it. There are still many good people in this world.”
“Hmm…” Qiao Zhiya nodded, sat up straight and wanted to cheer up. He suddenly noticed a movement in his pocket. His eyes lit up, and he hurriedly lowered his head and took out the little black bag from his pocket.
“Yo, is this pig awake?” Chu Yan also moved over in curiosity.
The little black snake opened its eyes in a daze. First, it instinctively rubbed against Qiao Zhiya’s palm. Then, after opening its eyes and seeing Chu Yan’s big face approaching, its tail straightened up in fright, and then moved along very flexibly. It slithered around Qiao Zhiya’s hands and arms, onto his shoulders, hiding behind his collar and looking at Chu Yan sneakily. The tip of its forked tongue sticking out, looking a little scared.
“…This little guy is really useless, despite its cool black scales…” Chu Yan retreated speechlessly, thinking that he probably had poor eyesight. Did he just see a snake looking visibly scared?
Qiao Zhiya didn’t expect that the little black snake’s reaction would be like this when it woke up. He withdrew his hand, tilted his head toward his shoulder, and called, “Come down, I’ll feed you something.”
AD
Swinging in the air, the little black snake quickly attracted attention. It tentatively slid onto his hand, and then rolled comfortably around his wrist, completely forgetting about Chu Yan.
Chu Yan thinks that the snake was probably a fool, and it can be coaxed to forget the “threat” around it with a little effort. Whether it can grow up smoothly was really a problem…
Qiao Zhiya fed some magic power to the little black snake. After it settled down, he wanted to feed it some nutrients, but it was actually picky and refused to eat. Its finger-thick body already looked refreshed after eating his magic power.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Qiao Zhiya was a little worried. He pinched its slender body. As he rummaged through his belongings, he took out a homemade potion. He dipped his finger into it, and offered it to the little snake.
Xiao Hei immediately raised its head, and swallowed Qiao Zhiya’s drug-stained finger with a whimper.
“Damn!”
Chu Yan was shocked, and hurried to pry its head. He was livid. “You ungrateful ugly noodle! Let go, let go, you’d better pray that you don’t put in the effort, or I’ll cook you into snake stew!”
“Don’t be nervous, it didn’t bite me. It just didn’t know how to lick the potion, so it engulfed my finger completely. It has no teeth, so it doesn’t hurt.” Qiao Zhiya hurriedly comforted Chu Yan. He pulled off the surprisingly stupid little black snake, and put the potion directly into its gaping mouth.
So the little black snake wrapped itself happily around the potion, opened its mouth wide and gulped the potion down. Its forked tongue wriggled inside the bottle.
Chu Yan: “…” This is really an unusual snake!
The two were watching the excitement around the little black snake. Lin Zhen, who was driving the mecha, suddenly slowed down, then switched on the internal communication. He ordered,: “Come up, there are people below.” After speaking, he took the lead to go up.
Chu Yan and Qiao Zhiya were taken aback by the seriousness in his tone. They quickly turned their heads to look, only to see a red light flashing across the mecha on the screen showing the outside world.
“Is someone exchanging fire below? This is already Area D.” Chu Yan immediately recognized that the red light was the shells from firearms. He hurriedly moved to the co-pilot seat, and fixed Qiao Zhiya in place with a silver net, so he wouldn’t fall off from the cockpit due to inertia.
“We just arrived in Area D, and haven’t gone deep yet,” Lin Zhen replied. He quickly exchanged a few words with the team members, and opened a very energy-consuming depth detection.
AD
A roar of a beast came from below. At the same time, the depth detection radar sent back the image of the designated area. The forest and other biomes looked normal on the screen – the problem is, there were several mechas in the forest, chased by a massive beast behind them.
After that, the strange beast seemed to be attracted by something, and suddenly turned around. The mecha pilots noticed this, and immediately dispersed and disappeared into the forest.
“There is something wrong with that shell just now,” Lin Zhen frowned. He then issued several orders, letting the team members fly towards the depths of Area D.
The alien beasts chased them relentlessly, and occasionally spit out some strange things at them. What’s worse, a group of bird-shaped alien beasts flew back together and appeared in front of them.
“Go down, avoid the flock of birds, and get rid of that strange beast below!”
Lin Zhen gave the order decisively, accurately found a fairly open place in the forest, and landed directly.
They originally planned to land after arriving at Area D, sticking to the ground and approaching the possible location of Star Sand. After all, flying was too dangerous in Area D, where all kinds of eerie beasts congregate.
But their plans had to be casted aside, as suddenly there came this group of people who “helped” them.
“Those mecha pilots are nasty!” Chu Yan got angry after he guessed what those people wanted to do. They came out this time in a hurry, but in the end they encountered this kind of mercenary team who likes to drag people down. They were so fucking annoying.
Lin Zhen didn’t talk; he instead concentrated on manipulating the mecha. After the mecha dropped to the range where it could attack the beast, he directly showed the cold weapon and attacked the beast – using firearms might have adverse effects in this kind of forest, as the dry leaves here could easily catch fire or the loud sounds might attract other beasts. Using bladed cold weapons was more preferable.
Seeing this, the team members tacitly landed in a few positions where the beast could escape. They trapped the beast within a certain range, cooperated with Lin Zhen, and silently and tacitly killed the ferocious looking beast.
“The smell of blood will attract other beasts, get off the mecha, and retreat!” Lin Zhen put away the corpse of the alien beast, took Qiao Zhiya off the mecha first, Chu Yan followed closely behind.
The little black snake nestled in Qiao Zhiya’s arms cocked its tail after getting out of the mecha. It turned its head to look in a certain direction, and lazily returned to the potion.
Putting away the mechas stained with the blood of the alien beast, everyone quickly left the battle site. They walked to a small stream to rest for a while, and took out the map to discuss the next route.
When it was getting dark, the two finally returned to the campsite. Chu Yan had already woken up. When he saw them coming up, he rushed over and howled at them. “You dare not call me?? Hurry up, what did you find under the cliff? Let me take a look!”
Qiao Zhiya got off the mecha first, and he heard Chu Yan’s angry yowling. He gently took out the little snake from his pocket, held it in front of him, and said happily, “Look, Lin-laoshi and I found this little guy! Isn’t it beautiful?”
By the standards of snakes, the little snake was really good-looking. But by the standards of humans… this little black lump was just… a sad-looking lump.
“Ah… not bad,” Chu Yan’s excitement subsided immediately. He reached out and poked the little snake, which was still in a coma. He perfunctorily asked, “It was the one who asked you for help before? It’s so small, what kind of snake is it? This thing is also so small… How did you hear it? So amazing…”
“It’s not a sound, it’s a kind of power resonance. It has something in common with my power, so I can perceive it,” Qiao Zhiya explained in simple terms. He reached out and patted the little snake.
Because magic power was inherent in nature, all animals – and even more “aware” plants – could resonate with it.
This small episode passed quickly. The sky was already dark, so everyone hurriedly packed up and took out their mecha. They started flying across the area in the middle of the night.
After crossing the cliff and bypassing a high mountain, a flat and endless forest appeared in their field of vision. There were occasional black spots flying in the sky, which should be the birds and beasts that inhabit this forest returning to their nests.
The power of the animal repellant was quickly revealed. All the passing birds seemed to be running away from the mechas.
“Qiao, your animal repellant is really good. You can try to make it in large quantities when you go home, and then sell it to the mercenaries here. You will definitely make a lot of money,” Chu Yan was nestled in the cockpit of his mecha, so he used their internal communication line to chat with Qiao Zhiya.
Qiao Zhiya shook his head in reply. But then, he realized that Chu Yan wouldn’t be able to see him, so he verbalized it: “No, this kind of animal repellent is too disruptive to the balance of the forest. If it is used by bad people, it will destroy the ecosystem. I will not sell it.”
AD
“Okay…” Chu Yan smacked his mouth, changed the subject again, and asked, “Is Xiao Hei awake? Is it a snake or a pig? How can it sleep so well?
The nickname given to the little black snake was simple – it was simply calling it by its scale color.
Qiao Zhiya couldn’t help laughing. He opened his pocket to take a look. “It hasn’t woken up yet. It should have not slept for many days, plus it’s still a baby, so it’s natural to sleep for this long.”
Chu Yan muttered, half-jokingly, “Nah… it probably was too ashamed to face you. It hangs on a tree halfway up the mountain, totally embarrassing to the snake-kind.”
Qiao Zhiya was silent – he was, in fact, also curious about this. Normally, snakes should not let themselves fall into such a predicament. Plus, the little black snake was still so small, it should still be in the stage of being protected and raised by its parents. (Generally, most snakes just lay eggs and book it. They did not raise their young. There’s only very few species of snakes that provide some level of parental care to their young, i.e. pythons.)
During the journey, everyone amused themselves by chatting. At dawn, everyone found an open space to rest and reapply the animal repellant.
“It can last for half a day at most, so it must be done as soon as possible,” Qiao Zhiya handed the empty small bottle to Lin Zhen. He was a little worried. “This can be solved with animal repellent when we go, what should we do when we come back…”
If he knew about it earlier, he would have put more in the storage ring.
AD
“Don’t worry, this is something I should worry about,” Lin Zhen comforted him. He hurriedly let everyone get on the mechas, and continued to set off against the gradually brightening sky.
When they approached the junction of Area D, the animal repellant had almost evaporated, and everyone encountered a wave of bird attacks. Even a group of bandits plotted against them. Fortunately, the team brought by Lin Zhen was strong, and they all survived without any danger. After passing through, they also snatched a more detailed map and some supplies from the defeated bandits.
They looted from the bandits and set off. Chu Yan squeezed into Lin Zhen’s cockpit, nestled in the corner with Qiao Zhiya. Together, they flipped through the newly acquired map. Chu Yan looked excited. “That bandits should actually be an off-shot mercenary team, probably from one of the big ones. They should have some things we don’t have, although our stuff is quite complete. Their map is more detailed than what we have.”
Qiao Zhiya, who had once again seen the ugliness in humans, was a little unhappy. “We are just passing by, why do they want to beat us, and there is no competition between us…”
“Who said there is no competition? Do you know what level of exotic beast that bird you shot down just now? The feathers of that bird are very valuable! They are looking for money.” Chu Yan explained. Seeing the blond youth was still listless, he hurriedly put his arm on his shoulder and said, “That’s how being a mercenary is. Wealth is their priority, even if it means facing greater danger. We can’t stop them from having no integrity. Don’t think too much about it. There are still many good people in this world.”
“Hmm…” Qiao Zhiya nodded, sat up straight and wanted to cheer up. He suddenly noticed a movement in his pocket. His eyes lit up, and he hurriedly lowered his head and took out the little black bag from his pocket.
“Yo, is this pig awake?” Chu Yan also moved over in curiosity.
The little black snake opened its eyes in a daze. First, it instinctively rubbed against Qiao Zhiya’s palm. Then, after opening its eyes and seeing Chu Yan’s big face approaching, its tail straightened up in fright, and then moved along very flexibly. It slithered around Qiao Zhiya’s hands and arms, onto his shoulders, hiding behind his collar and looking at Chu Yan sneakily. The tip of its forked tongue sticking out, looking a little scared.
“…This little guy is really useless, despite its cool black scales…” Chu Yan retreated speechlessly, thinking that he probably had poor eyesight. Did he just see a snake looking visibly scared?
Qiao Zhiya didn’t expect that the little black snake’s reaction would be like this when it woke up. He withdrew his hand, tilted his head toward his shoulder, and called, “Come down, I’ll feed you something.”
AD
Swinging in the air, the little black snake quickly attracted attention. It tentatively slid onto his hand, and then rolled comfortably around his wrist, completely forgetting about Chu Yan.
Chu Yan thinks that the snake was probably a fool, and it can be coaxed to forget the “threat” around it with a little effort. Whether it can grow up smoothly was really a problem…
Qiao Zhiya fed some magic power to the little black snake. After it settled down, he wanted to feed it some nutrients, but it was actually picky and refused to eat. Its finger-thick body already looked refreshed after eating his magic power.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Qiao Zhiya was a little worried. He pinched its slender body. As he rummaged through his belongings, he took out a homemade potion. He dipped his finger into it, and offered it to the little snake.
Xiao Hei immediately raised its head, and swallowed Qiao Zhiya’s drug-stained finger with a whimper.
“Damn!”
Chu Yan was shocked, and hurried to pry its head. He was livid. “You ungrateful ugly noodle! Let go, let go, you’d better pray that you don’t put in the effort, or I’ll cook you into snake stew!”
“Don’t be nervous, it didn’t bite me. It just didn’t know how to lick the potion, so it engulfed my finger completely. It has no teeth, so it doesn’t hurt.” Qiao Zhiya hurriedly comforted Chu Yan. He pulled off the surprisingly stupid little black snake, and put the potion directly into its gaping mouth.
So the little black snake wrapped itself happily around the potion, opened its mouth wide and gulped the potion down. Its forked tongue wriggled inside the bottle.
Chu Yan: “…” This is really an unusual snake!
The two were watching the excitement around the little black snake. Lin Zhen, who was driving the mecha, suddenly slowed down, then switched on the internal communication. He ordered,: “Come up, there are people below.” After speaking, he took the lead to go up.
Chu Yan and Qiao Zhiya were taken aback by the seriousness in his tone. They quickly turned their heads to look, only to see a red light flashing across the mecha on the screen showing the outside world.
“Is someone exchanging fire below? This is already Area D.” Chu Yan immediately recognized that the red light was the shells from firearms. He hurriedly moved to the co-pilot seat, and fixed Qiao Zhiya in place with a silver net, so he wouldn’t fall off from the cockpit due to inertia.
“We just arrived in Area D, and haven’t gone deep yet,” Lin Zhen replied. He quickly exchanged a few words with the team members, and opened a very energy-consuming depth detection.
AD
A roar of a beast came from below. At the same time, the depth detection radar sent back the image of the designated area. The forest and other biomes looked normal on the screen – the problem is, there were several mechas in the forest, chased by a massive beast behind them.
After that, the strange beast seemed to be attracted by something, and suddenly turned around. The mecha pilots noticed this, and immediately dispersed and disappeared into the forest.
“There is something wrong with that shell just now,” Lin Zhen frowned. He then issued several orders, letting the team members fly towards the depths of Area D.
The alien beasts chased them relentlessly, and occasionally spit out some strange things at them. What’s worse, a group of bird-shaped alien beasts flew back together and appeared in front of them.
“Go down, avoid the flock of birds, and get rid of that strange beast below!”
Lin Zhen gave the order decisively, accurately found a fairly open place in the forest, and landed directly.
They originally planned to land after arriving at Area D, sticking to the ground and approaching the possible location of Star Sand. After all, flying was too dangerous in Area D, where all kinds of eerie beasts congregate.
But their plans had to be casted aside, as suddenly there came this group of people who “helped” them.
“Those mecha pilots are nasty!” Chu Yan got angry after he guessed what those people wanted to do. They came out this time in a hurry, but in the end they encountered this kind of mercenary team who likes to drag people down. They were so fucking annoying.
Lin Zhen didn’t talk; he instead concentrated on manipulating the mecha. After the mecha dropped to the range where it could attack the beast, he directly showed the cold weapon and attacked the beast – using firearms might have adverse effects in this kind of forest, as the dry leaves here could easily catch fire or the loud sounds might attract other beasts. Using bladed cold weapons was more preferable.
Seeing this, the team members tacitly landed in a few positions where the beast could escape. They trapped the beast within a certain range, cooperated with Lin Zhen, and silently and tacitly killed the ferocious looking beast.
“The smell of blood will attract other beasts, get off the mecha, and retreat!” Lin Zhen put away the corpse of the alien beast, took Qiao Zhiya off the mecha first, Chu Yan followed closely behind.
The little black snake nestled in Qiao Zhiya’s arms cocked its tail after getting out of the mecha. It turned its head to look in a certain direction, and lazily returned to the potion.
Putting away the mechas stained with the blood of the alien beast, everyone quickly left the battle site. They walked to a small stream to rest for a while, and took out the map to discuss the next route.
