novelCanyon Tour
| ← Ch.1085 | Ch.1087 → |
Once his interests were threatened, Paul immediately turned aggressive, unlike his usual self. He stood up and sneered.
"We what? We attacked the One-Horned Flying Ants? What's wrong with that? Are these One-Horned Flying Ants your relatives that we can't touch?"
Paul was actually exuding a fierce aura right now! Sheyan had seen this kind of aura before on Zi, so he could tell that Paul's real strength was quite formidable.
Aldaris followed up on Paul's words and uttered lazily, "When we heard about the deaths of our two companions last night, we were so angry that we couldn't even sleep. So we came to an agreement to come here to avenge them. Because it's too dangerous, we decided that we should face the risk ourselves and not involve others in this matter. Well, we've succeeded in avenging them. Aren't you guys happy for us?"
If Paul's words were somewhat aggressive, Aldaris' words were more like a scathing mockery that made people speechless!
Sheyan decided not to add any more fuel to the fire. Instead, he stepped forward to mediate.
"It was all thanks to the fierce battle yesterday which drastically reduced the number of these damn ants. Otherwise, we would never be able to kill all the male ants and the queen by ourselves."
As soon as Sheyan said this, he immediately drew the attention of the whole team to the ant queen.
Azsa could not help wondering in amazement, "You guys killed the queen?"
"We got lucky. There's the corpse over there, " answered Sheyan with a smile.
Such a reply instantly filled the rest of the contestants with awe, thinking that these three indeed had a right to be arrogant. Their appreciation of the trio's combat capability had also increased by a whole tier.
Sheyan then noticed that these newly-arrived temporary teammates of his were all tired and injured. He could immediately guess what had happened to them. He grinned and was about to speak, but Paul and Ronnie had started quarrelling again.
"What do you mean we're taking advantage of the situation? And you said we have no sense of teamwork? Okay, tell me, where's your sense of teamwork when you sneaked out last night? You think your actions are so discreet, don't you? I know what you guys were planning; you wanted to take advantage of the window after the ant colony suffered heavy losses and before the other powerful creatures arrive, to hunt on the plain! I didn't see any of you inviting us to go with you!"
It could be seen from the Cockatrices Sheyan killed previously that even the lower-tiered creatures on Uplos may have considerable value. For example, the Cockatrices were not very powerful creatures, but their petrification ability was quite rare, so the spoils from the Cockatrices had also become valuable.
Both sides had their own ideas last night. Although it appeared as if they were all sleeping peacefully in the camp, all of them had actually sneaked out. The difference was that one side was traumatised by their previous experience with the One-Horned Flying Ants, so they chose to hunt relatively weaker creatures instead, while the other side had applied the principle of reverse thinking and had gone straight towards the danger, because they believed that the enemies had become paper tigers that were terrifying only in appearance....
Lady Luck must have smiled on both sides last night, because it seemed that both sides had had a good harvest. However, the two MTs had wanted to use the fruitful result of their trip to reinforce their authority on the team, showing the team that following them was the best choice. But when they returned triumphantly to the camp this morning, they found that the rebellious trio were also not there. They had probably gone out hunting too.
The resentment they felt at the moment was so strong that it was almost visible to the naked eye. Certain individuals who had wanted to show off had terrible expressions on their faces, as if they had accidentally swallowed a fly.
When these people saw the corpse of the queen ant, and of course, the Pi ores that were being purified, the complicated feeling in their hearts instantly reached a new height. They had wanted to show off, only to discover that other's leftovers were more valuable than their main loot. It was a real slap in their face.
The MT faction was jealous and angry, while the neutral faction, who chose to follow the MT faction, was filled with frustration. They could not help thinking, 'If I had sided with these people last night, wouldn't I have a share of these Pi ores too?'
After this incident, the prestige of the MT faction once again suffered a heavy blow. But while both sides were locked in an awkward silence, Sheyan, aware of the danger of this world, took the initiative to express his goodwill.
"We actually discovered a medium Pi vein deep in the ant cave. You guys had better record it down. When we return, it should help with your evaluation."
Sheyan's kind gesture undoubtedly softened the current awkwardness. After all, even though the vein was useless because it was hidden 10 kilometers below the ground, the others would not know of its existence if Sheyan had not told them, so in a way, they still owed Sheyan a favour. Sheyan happily used these worthless things to get a little cohesion in this temporary team.
Sheyan and the two MTs held the same view on one point, and that was, the team could not be disbanded until they had achieved their goal, but in order to achieve this goal, sometimes they could use team disbandment as a threat.
This situation sounded bizarre and even a little awkward, but it was a true portrayal of their current situation.
After nearly three hours, the extraction of the eight pieces of Pi ores was finally completed. The extracted Pi elements were about the size of fingertips. They were grey in colour under the sun, but gold in the dark.
If you held one in your hand and inspected it carefully, it would look like fine sand that floated in the air, an existence between solid and gas that looked like it could be blown away with one puff. But if you were to touch it with your finger, the hard, solid feeling on your skin clearly indicated that it was a hard metal.
No one could explain the disparity between the Pi element's visual perception and tactile sensation, but it also meant that no fake Pi elements could be found anywhere. Perhaps that was why it was so valuable.
The trio had expressed their goodwill by pointing out the existence of the Pi vein, and had also proven their might, so the rest of the team were a lot more respectful towards them now.
While the trio were waiting for the ores to be extracted, the other contestants had turned the underground nest upside down, unwilling to let go of any chance of finding anything that may be of worth. They even went to the part of the mushroom rock that had collapsed to search the nests of the worker ants. In the end, Azsa surprisingly found a 3%-purity Pi ore that was probably the personal collection of a random worker ant.
After confirming that there was nothing more to be gained here, Sheyan proposed for them to leave as soon as possible. The powerful creatures in the vicinity would soon find out that the powerful force which had previously occupied this area had disappeared, and the place had become masterless. If they don't hurry up, they may very well face more than one terrifying creature, and each of those creatures would likely be strong enough to take on the whole One-Horned Flying Ant colony....
The creature that could tear the Ferocious Wolverine apart should be among them too. Even Ronnie, who always went against Sheyan, turned pale when he heard that and agreed with Sheyan's suggestion for once.
The group moved towards the west from the mushroom rock, where there was a deep canyon with a long river running within it. Sheyan proposed that they enter the canyon and move down the river. This way, they could save a lot of traveling time and avoid many unnecessary troubles. More importantly, canyons were often rich with minerals, so they would have a higher chance of discovering Pi ores there. With their reading instruments, they could cover a pretty large area if they sailed down the river.
The team readily accepted Sheyan's proposal, but some of them raised a doubt that there may be monsters in the river too. If they were attacked and the boat was to capsize, they would be stuck in a more perilous situation than on land. However, Pokan stepped out at that moment to back Sheyan's suggestion by saying, "Leave this problem to me. If the boat capsizes, I can make a temporary bridge for us to flee to the bank as long as we travel within 50 meters of the bank."
Now that the biggest potential danger had been resolved, there were no more complaints. The team went to work immediate. They chopped down a large amount of trees, tied them up into a huge raft and entered the canyon.
The canyon was like a deep scar that abruptly appeared on the plain. From the top to the bottom of the canyon was a drop of at least 100 meters. Due to the presence of a water source, the plants around the canyon were flourishing.
Sheyan and his team found a suitable place to enter the bottom of the canyon. They found that because of the lack of light, the mosses on the rock walls were greyish-black in colour, and many fungi that looked like giant mushrooms grew here. When the fungi were touched, they would sprinkle a lot spores. Due to updraughts frequently blowing in the canyon, the spores would rise up like yellow clouds.
Dardanian the botanist warned them that the spores may contain an unknown danger and forbade them to touch the spores. Sheyan noticed that some mushrooms had large chunks missing from their edges, as if they had been gnawed on by some creatures. He could only hope that these creatures, which seemed to be herbivores, were friendly, but his common sense told him to stop having wishful thoughts.
| ← Ch. 1085 | Ch. 1087 → |