At this moment, only the Boiling-Blood Armored Porcupines remained trembling in the Black Forest.
Since the day it was born, it had never once felt death looming so close.
The instant Bai Qiu hurled his spear, the head of the Boiling-Blood Saber-Toothed Tiger—an opponent capable of fighting it for three hundred rounds without losing—was instantly pierced and shattered.
There was a reason Bai Qiu killed the saber-toothed tiger before leaving.
It was obvious that these two creatures could never normally coexist peacefully.
There was only one situation in which they could live side by side: neither could do anything to the other.
But now that the Boiling-Blood Armored Porcupines had been stripped of all its quills, there was no way it could defeat the saber-toothed tiger at full strength.
The moment their power balance became unequal, the stronger one would kill the weaker, seize its territory, and completely consume it in order to achieve a breakthrough in its attributes.
Between a tiger and a sustainably renewable rat, which one had greater long-term value?
The answer was obvious.
…
After that, Bai Qiu visited the third, fourth, and fifth blessed land sites.
Traveling alone took him two and a half hours.
The latter three locations were similar to the place where he had previously obtained the Storm Crystal.
Each contained a large number of semi-mutated Lord-class monsters and a single King-class monster.
Bai Qiu’s approach to such areas was straightforward: kill everything, then take away the item responsible for turning the location into a blessed land.
Since every site was guarded by large numbers of high-level monsters, Bai Qiu’s level rose to 34 after wiping them all out.
Only the final area remained.
Looking into the distance, Bai Qiu removed the exhausted Wind Crystal from his Wind Spirit Hoverboard—the crystal had already become a transparent empty shell—and replaced it with a fresh one.
By the time he arrived at the last location, it was already the middle of the night.
The dense forest canopy blocked even the stars and moon overhead.
The area was overgrown with trees and vegetation, devoid of even the faintest glimmer of light.
Yet under Bai Qiu’s ocular technique, nothing could hide.
A triangular-headed venomous snake lunged at him.
It stopped several meters away and let out a hissing sound.
But it was not a warning—it sounded more like a declaration before an attack.
The snake suddenly drew back its neck, opened its blood-red maw, revealed two long, sharp fangs on its upper jaw, and sprang toward Bai Qiu’s throat.
“Hiss!”
Before it could reach him, Bai Qiu precisely grabbed it by the vital spot seven inches below its head.
The snake’s body writhed and whipped against his Skyward Battle Armor.
“Easy now. Let me see whether you’re a native species or an imported one.”
As he spoke, he cast an Appraisal skill.
Jungle Viper — Level 18
Strength: D+
Magic: E
Endurance: D+
Agility: D+
Skills: Omitted.
Description: If it can break through your defenses, then you’d better watch out for its venom.
Bai Qiu took a screenshot of its status panel and lifted the snake up.
Only then did he realize how long it really was—around four meters—but extremely slender, with its thickest section no wider than an adult’s arm.
After snapping several photos, he flung the snake away.
Wind elemental energy gathered at his fingertip.
With a flick of his finger, he blasted the creature’s entire head into a cloud of blood mist.
The headless body continued writhing on the ground.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
…
Only on the fifth second did the corpse finally dissolve into white light and disappear.
Ding! Experience +6, Venom Fangs +2.
This was the monster’s innate skill: Persistence.
Even after suffering a fatal injury, it could continue attacking, though at the cost of reducing the level of its drops.
It was somewhat similar to Bai Qiu’s Combat Continuation ability, albeit significantly weaker.
Bai Qiu recorded the information and sent it to the editorial staff responsible for the Monster Encyclopedia section of the Forum Weekly Intelligence Station.
The Monster Encyclopedia had no rarity restrictions.
As long as a monster could be identified with Appraisal, information on it could be exchanged for rewards, regardless of how strong or weak it was.
The only requirement was that nobody had submitted information on that monster before.
Bai Qiu himself frequently browsed the encyclopedia, so he generally knew which monsters had already been cataloged.
Whenever he discovered a blessed land guarded by mutated monsters, he would first verify whether they were listed in the encyclopedia.
If not, he would use Appraisal, take screenshots and photographs, send the information to the Intelligence Weekly’s Monster Encyclopedia department for payment, and only then kill the monster.
In this way, he maximized its value.
The Jungle Viper was actually a very common monster.
It simply didn’t venture into the regions near human safe zones, much like Dragonfang Soldiers wouldn’t spawn deep within mountain ranges.
The deeper Bai Qiu traveled into the jungle, the more Jungle Vipers he encountered.
Perhaps because their territorial instincts were especially strong, several would often attack the moment he entered their territory.
Unfortunately for them, they were far too weak.
Bai Qiu did not even bother drawing a weapon.
He simply used Mana Release combined with Wind Manipulation to cast magical wind blades and cut them down.
As he continued deeper into the forest, the snakes grew increasingly larger.
When their length exceeded eight meters, the first Elite-class Jungle Viper finally appeared.
Still, the difference was little more than a few extra plus signs in its attributes.
Bai Qiu followed the same routine: capture, photograph, screenshot, sell the information, then kill it.
To be honest, Bai Qiu still couldn’t figure out whether these creatures were native products of Earth or monsters transferred over from another world.
So far, among all the blessed land he had explored, common materials such as Black Iron, Mithril, Star Iron, and Star Silver had never appeared.
Instead, the sites kept producing all sorts of strange things that seemed to have recognizable counterparts on Earth.
Bai Qiu accelerated his advance.
After that, however, he never encountered any Lord-class Jungle Vipers.
Apparently, the species’ evolutionary limit was only at the Elite rank.
He did, however, come across something far more interesting.
A massive serpent with two heads and a body glowing with an eerie cyan-green light.
It was a Hydra Serpent.
More precisely, a two-headed Hydra.
Worth mentioning was the fact that Bai Qiu was now very close to the destroyed Zone 2261.
The straight-line distance between them was less than forty kilometers, though an invisible barrier separated the two areas.
He had always been curious whether the barrier only blocked players, or whether it blocked monsters as well.
Now, the answer seemed to be revealing itself.
Two-Headed Hydra Serpent — Level 40 Monarch-Class Boss
Strength: C++
Magic: C+
Endurance: B−
Agility: C+
Skill 1: Regenerative Fluid
When the Two-Headed Hydra Serpent is attacked, it secretes a special fluid capable of repairing bodily damage.
Skill 2: Deadly Venom
The serpent’s entire body is saturated with toxins. It can coat its attacks and abilities with its venom.
Skill 3: Enhanced Regeneration
When the Two-Headed Hydra Serpent suffers injuries that cannot be healed through Regenerative Fluid, it can activate Enhanced Regeneration, restoring 66% of its maximum health within five seconds.
After Enhanced Regeneration ends, it enters a weakened state, reducing all attributes by 25% for thirty seconds.
Skill 4: Emerald Scale Shield
A shield formed by consuming a large amount of mana. It can block the vast majority of attacks. Once its mana is exhausted, the shield can no longer be used.
Skill 5: Resilient Body
The Two-Headed Hydra Serpent is immune to all conventional crowd-control effects, and none of its skills can be interrupted.
Skill 6: Venom Wind
The serpent can exhale a poisonous wind that corrodes all living creatures in its path, causing their flesh to rot and decay.
Skill 7: Venomfire
The Two-Headed Hydra Serpent gathers fire-element energy and launches a fireball infused with toxic flames. Anyone struck by it suffers flesh-rotting poison, which cannot be cured by ordinary healing potions.
— The end of the Chapter–
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