Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
They had reached a small lake, which wasn’t all that rare in the mountainous terrain outside Yuzhou city.
What intrigued Gao Peng most was the fact that someone had discovered lightning moths around this lake.
Lightning moths were extremely docile insects that normally fed on flower pollen and the roots of certain plants.
They usually traveled in swarms in order to compensate for how weak they were individually.
Lightning moths also preferred to live in damp and dark environments as close to an abundant source of electricity as possible, as they needed to regularly replenish their bodies’ internal supply of electricity.
Silence had fallen over the lake. Even the insects didn’t dare chirp in the presence of the two Lord-tiered familiars.
The Shadow Japalura lazily slipped into the water. Only its spine could be seen slicing across the surface of the water. It seemed to like its new surroundings.
“I knew I should have brought Da Zi along. Da Zi is also an Electric-type monster, so it’d be more sensitive to the presence of other Electric-type monsters,” muttered Gao Peng to himself.
Da Zi currently had 16 evolutionary routes to choose from. Each one of them required a different ingredient.
Gao Peng had picked a few places to search for some of those ingredients.
After thinking for a moment, Dumby walked towards the edge of the lake and waved its hand at the water. A white hot blaze flew out of its palm over the water, which then began to boil.
Gao Peng saw white fish skeletons jump out of the water.
Dumby splayed out its hand and pressed down.
The rattling skeletons went still instantly. White flames burned in their empty eye sockets as they stared at Dumby in silence.
Dumby then turned to its master and said, “Master, they can help you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Gao Peng stared at the scene before him in amazement. Dumby’s mass resurrection technique had caught him off guard.
“Have them pick up anything from the bottom of the lake that has a high concentration of spiritual energy,” ordered Gao Peng, confident that Silly’s portable space would be able to hold anything they could find.
Dumby nodded. The resurrected fish dove back into the lake after receiving an unspoken order from Dumby.
A few moments later, some of the fish rose back to the surface with strangely shaped plants and rocks in their mouths.
“Um?” Gao Peng picked up a rock that one of the fish had brought to him. It was gray and no bigger than his thumb. On the outside, it looked like any other rock. However, there was a crack on its side that widened gradually to reveal a strange blue marking.
[Item Name]: Water Spirit Stone (Low Purity)
[Item Description]: Contains high levels of water elemental power. Can easily form a vein in the ground. Has a wide variety of uses.
A few other fish had also brought him pieces of Water Spirit Stones. Gao Peng picked them up and figured that there might have been a vein of Water Spirit Stone at the bottom of the lake. The stones’ low purity level suggested that the vein had formed only recently.
Most Spirit Stones had lots of uses. For instance, they could be used to build igloo-like buildings, where monsters of the same element as the Spirit Stone could live and speed up their own evolution processes.
However, this method seemed primitive to most people. Countless experiments had been conducted to come up with ways to use Spirit Stones more efficiently.
Though none of fish could find the ingredients for Da Zi’s evolution, the discovery of the vein of Water Spirit Stone in the lake was more than enough to make up for it.
However, the lake was a few hundred miles away from Yuzhou City. Mining the Water Spirit Stone vein wouldn’t be a simple matter.
Uncle Liu was fascinated by Dumby’s mass resurrection ability. “This pile of bones can resurrect other monsters?”
“Yes, it’s Dumby’s newest ability.”
Uncle Liu curiously looked at Dumby. “That’s a pretty useful ability, but isn’t it already on the close-combat evolutionary path? Why did it obtain a summoning-type ability? It’s not a good idea to let your familiars have such a jumbled skillset.”
Gao Peng didn’t know how to explain it to Uncle Liu. Letting one of his familiars reach Legendary grade was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Gao Peng wasn’t in a position to be choosy about how it happened.
As a Legendary monster, Dumby’s power also had to be Legendary-level. As far as Gao Peng knew, there were no limits to its Flame of the Undead skill. It could even bring about a zombie apocalypse if it wanted to.
However, in order to do so, Dumby would need to have a large supply of complete skeletons. Also, the level of the souls resurrected by Dumby couldn’t be higher than its own.
After looking around for a while, Gao Peng finally saw an electric maple forest 100 feet away from the lake.
Electric maple trees were capable of storing electricity. This must have been the reason why lightning moths had appeared in the vicinity.
“Not here, let’s go to the next area,” Gao Peng said to Uncle Liu.
Dumby, who had been standing on the edge of the lake all this time, aimed its left hand at the lake. Suddenly, a dense layer of fish bones surfaced from the lake and exploded, releasing the flames of the undead into Dumby’s open palm.
A 2-foot-tall pillar of fire rose up from Dumby’s palm and entered its skull. It now seemed to have become even more powerful than before.
At that moment, Gao Peng thought he heard in the air the cries of thousands of souls being torn apart.
The white flames in Dumby’s eye sockets gradually seeped into the rest of its body, hardening its bones even more…
Even after searching the four areas that he had marked out for that day, Gao Peng couldn’t find any of the ingredients necessary for Da Zi’s evolution.
However, he had discovered a quick way to help Dumby become stronger.
In all four areas, Dumby would resurrect an army of skeletons to aid Gao Peng in his search. It would then absorb the flames of the undead from the skeletons when it was done with them.
Maybe these skeletons contained nutrients essential to Dumby’s metabolism, or maybe Dumby needed the energy the resurrected skeletons had built up inside their bones from moving about.
Every time Dumby absorbed the flames of the undead, its aura grew even more powerful.
At the end of his search, Gao Peng was surprised to find that Dumby had reached Level 31.