The new world was just as barren and quiet as Qianye remembered. The army of thirty thousand spent an hour before setting foot in the new world. Although the people selected for this mission were strong elites and all of them had ingested blood glands, many still experienced discomfort. Some of them even died.
The first thing Qianye did after sending the ill soldiers back to the rear wasn’t a rushed exploration. Instead, he ordered the military engineers to build defensive structures on the hill in front of the valley and guard the door firmly. On the other hand, he sent out dozens of small scouting parties in each direction and had them draw up a map. This would make it easier for him to grasp the surrounding movements.
Qianye and Caroline also made preparations to explore deeper into the region.
The stone platform in the valley remained unchanged; it was just a pile of rocks at a glance. Crossing over the valley brought them to the area of dark golden sandstones. Caroline couldn’t remain calm, either, after seeing the raw ore.
After a simple survey, Caroline believed that this place was an ore vein, and it was so shallow that the ores were visible on the surface. Such bountiful deposits were only heard of in legends describing the upper continents of Evernight, all of them core regions of the four major dark races. Who would’ve thought they would see something like this right at the door of this world?
One could easily imagine how fierce the fight for land here would be.
Qianye wasn’t really focusing on the ore veins since he was attempting to fly at the moment. After several attempts, he finally got used to the flow of origin power in this new world and wobbled into the air. From above, the giant pillars in the distance caught his attention. Those structures were hundreds of meters tall, and despite their windswept exterior, they evidently looked man-made.
A shade of blue-green appeared far off over the horizon. According to the Empire’s research, the beasts’ diet contained a large number of metallic elements. If this was a common occurrence, the plants of the new world would be dark green, blue, or dark red in color. The distance was hard to gauge, either, due to the great distance or his vision turning blurry. All he could say was that it looked like a forest.
The presence of a forest meant the presence of living things. They might run into a large number of beasts again at that point.
While he was observing the land, Caroline had also adapted to the circulation of origin power and managed to fly to his side.
Qianye pointed at the distant stone pillars. “Let’s go over there and see.”
“Okay.”
As peak experts, their flying speed increased sharply as they grasped the local origin power. In the end, their speed here was more or less the same as in the Evernight World. They crossed several kilometers in an instant and came to a hovering stop before a giant stone pillar.
The appearance of this pillar was even more impactful at close up—its diameter was over ten meters, with cracks and gaps over its surface. Clearly, it was formed of cut stone, but these rocks were several meters in size and dozens of tons in weight. How did they manage to lift them up?
Qianye flew around the pillar and up to the top, but he found nothing special. After some thought, he dug out a piece of the stone, but there was nothing special about that, either.
He went around the other pillars as well and found that they were all the same. Caroline placed a hand on the stone pillar and sensed the interior briefly. “Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“This pillar is wet.”
Qianye grabbed a piece of stone from the pillar and studied it in detail. The external surface of the rock was dry, but there was a bit of moisture inside.
After sensing further, Caroline came to a conclusion. “This pillar is absorbing moisture and origin power from its surroundings, maybe other things as well.”
The air in this world was moist, but everything else was dry because the origin power here would absorb moisture. This stone pillar could actually draw both moisture and origin power from the atmosphere.
Qianye thrust East Peak into the pillar, all the way to its hilt. Then, with a twist of his wrist, he pulled out a piece of the pillar’s core. There was nothing special about the stony material itself, but through the hole, Qianye’s True Sight could make out origin power flowing up and down the pillar.
Qianye landed at the base of the pillar. “Let’s try digging downward.”
The digging process was extremely fast with Caroline and Qianye working together. The ground sank deeper and deeper until they were dozens of meters below the surface. In a flash of blue light, a cluster of light blue crystals appeared before them.
This cluster was only the size of an arm and half-buried in the stone pillar, seemingly growing from it. Qianye’s ears started to ring the moment this crystal appeared, almost like the sharp buzz of bees.
Caroline crouched down and studied the crystal carefully. “Is this a condensation of the new world’s origin power?”
There was a smokey fluid circulating within the magnificent crystal. One could feel the intensity of its aura even through the crystalline container. Apparently, the smoke within was an extremely condensed form of the new world’s origin power.
Sensing something, Qianye pulled Caroline up. “Something’s coming.”
The two flew up to the top of the pillar in a flash.
Dozens of beasts were charging over in a cloud of rolling dust, made up of various sizes and species. After arriving at the base of the pillar and seeing the crystal, they pounced madly into the hole. The first beast had just arrived at the opening when it was bitten on the hind leg and flung out.
This bite was so powerful that it broke the first creature’s leg. The others went wild at the sight of their injured companion, swarming over and tearing it into pieces. The sight of blood caused the entire group to become restless, so much so that they began killing one another. By the time the fight was over, the dead and injured were strewn across the ground. Only the most powerful one remained alive, but it was also covered in wounds.
This beast was like a lion, but it had six legs and a strong tail with bone spikes growing from it. At several meters tall, it was already a giant beast by Evernight standards. Yet, it was only a medium-sized member of the beast horde.
It jumped into the pit, bit the crystalline cluster into pieces, and swallowed it. The beast staggered like a drunkard afterward and barely managed to climb out of the hole. It then collapsed before taking the first step and began grunting in pain. The beast’s body bulged up and squirmed about, almost as though there were numerous little beasts crawling within its body.
In the blink of an eye, the creature’s skin split open, and one bone spur after the other shot out from within. Scales flipped open all over its skin, causing the creature to bleed all over. This change also brought about a change in the creature’s body size, only stopping when it was quite a bit larger than before. It barely managed to clamber up and began devouring the nearby beast corpses.
The beast began to grow rows upon rows of bone spikes all over its body. Its back, legs, and vitals were now covered in scales, which improved its defenses to a new level. After the changes in its body had stabilized, the creature looked up at Qianye and Caroline atop the pillar. This time, its eyes were filled with clear emotion.
If it was just a wild beast acting on instinct before, it had now turned into an intelligent creature. Qianye was surprised as he observed the changes. “So this is how the officers from the beast army appear.”
The various types of beasts in the horde not only had their own roles, but were also split into strict ranks. Some of them were larger, more powerful, and even looked different. This type of six-legged creature was both strong and swift, the core of the ground attack force. Their officers were the scaled, six-legged creatures with bone spikes, just like this one.
The creature looked up at Qianye for a while before slowly backing off and running away.
Qianye wasn’t about to let it escape. He arrived in the creature’s path in a flash and swung East Peak down on its back. This attack came at lightning speed, leaving no room for the beast to dodge before it was slammed into the ground.
Qianye had only used the back of his sword because he wanted to try subduing this intelligent creature. However, the beast kept struggling despite the overwhelming difference in power and seemed to have no intention of giving up. After a brief deadlock, Qianye broke its neck reluctantly.
The two returned to the pillar and began digging again. As expected, they found more clusters of crystals. Some of them were pretty small and had just emerged from the pillar.
After examining them, Qianye carefully removed the three biggest clusters and placed them in Andruil’s space. These crystals could activate the wild beasts’ intelligence, so they were definitely not ordinary objects. Qianye decided to send these to Zhao Jundu and have the Empire study them.
It was at this time that a small movement appeared in a corner of Andruil’s space. This soon developed into waves of intense fluctuations that attacked Qianye’s consciousness.
Startled, Qianye scanned the location with his consciousness, but he had to think pretty hard to recall what that little rock-like thing was. That was a tiny female bug he had picked up inside the Great Maelstrom. He had never touched it since he stored the little creature, and it had been sleeping soundly in there ever since. Who would’ve thought it would wake up all of a sudden?
Qianye retrieved the female bug, but the little critter attacked him immediately after appearing. It wasn’t big, but its bite was shockingly powerful, breaking Qianye’s skin in one chomp.
Not expecting the little critter to be so powerful, Qianye loosened his grip from the pain. The little insect flew out and made a beeline for the stone pillar below, where it began biting off the crystal in large mouthfuls. That firm crystalline substance was like candy to the little bug, who ate everything up amidst crackling sounds.
In the blink of an eye, it had devoured a piece of crystal that was larger than its own body. No one knew how its stomach was structured to be able to fit all that food.
After eating up the crystal, the insect spat out a large amount of white silk and wrapped itself in a cocoon.
Qianye looked up at Caroline with a wry smile. The latter was dumbfounded at this point. She never imagined Qianye’s storage space could carry living creatures. After a brief discussion, the two decided not to touch the cocoon and simply wait for further developments. Having witnessed the previous beast’s transformation, it could be assumed that this little critter wouldn’t take very long.
Before long, the cocoon was torn apart, and out came a giant armored-insect the size of one’s arm.
Unfurling two pairs of wings from its back armor, it took to the air and dived toward Qianye!
A shocked Caroline was just about to intercept the insect with her whip when Qianye stopped her. This delay gave the insect enough time to arrive at its destination!
However, the critter didn’t bite Qianye. Instead, it climbed onto Qianye’s shoulder and stopped there, touching Qianye intimately with its feelers.
Caroline was surprised. “Is it because it drank your blood?”
“Might be. My bloodline is special, and its intelligence has been activated, so I think it considers me family now.”
“This little fellow looks pretty impressive, but we don’t know how powerful it is.” Caroline glanced at the insect but didn’t dare touch it. She was, after all, a girl and large insects were a fairly upsetting sight.
Seemingly understanding Caroline’s words, the little insect began to squeal and squeak. It soared into the air and charged at one of the beast corpses, ramming in through its head and coming out from the other side. The entire process was like shooting the carcass in the head with a large caliber origin gun.
