Chapter 1587: Fungi Growing in Stone
Xu Huo and Chi Xian exchanged a glance. Neither of them wanted to wade into this muddy water, so they simply walked around the group of seven.
But unexpectedly, a few minutes later, they ran into them again. This group seemed to be heading in the same direction as them.
The person they had captured was being led ahead by a prop. When he saw Xu Huo and Chi Xian again, he suddenly lunged forward, knelt before them, and kowtowed, sobbing and whimpering with tears and snot streaming down his face, as if begging them to save him.
The young man in sunglasses lifted his chin slightly.
Chi Xian immediately said, "You go on ahead."
The young man in sunglasses was satisfied with their tactfulness. He cast a glance to the side, and the scarred, bespectacled man accompanying him delivered three consecutive electric shocks to the poisoned man, until the latter collapsed on the ground, losing control of his bladder.
After finishing the lesson, the young man in sunglasses resumed his journey.
"Maybe we should change direction?" Chi Xian suggested. "I feel like walking with them might bring trouble."
Xu Huo didn't care. What he was looking for was a place similar to the fungal cave in Clown City. On the way here, he had collected some soil, tree bark, and leaves in a potion bottle. The King Fungus mycelium had quickly died off together with the toxic fungi. Forget about reproduction; it couldn't even survive for more than a few minutes.
The King Fungus had been born in an underground cave and had only thrived by attaching itself to the Nuwa Stone. He guessed it might require a special mineral environment. But here in this rainforest, digging down a meter or two only revealed soil. A rocky environment was hard to find.
Yet, the data he had seen did mention fungi that grew near rocks here.
He also asked Chi Xian about this. After careful recollection and searching, Chi Xian finally found traces of a related fungus. "Fungi that can grow in a rocky environment are rare, and most of them aren't worth much."
He subtly hinted that it wasn't worth Xu Huo's time to search for this kind of fungus.
Xu Huo nodded in agreement and immediately said, "Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Let's part ways here."
Chi Xian paused, watching him turn and walk away without hesitation. He raised his voice, "Hey, hey, didn't we agree to travel together?"
"I won't hold you up any longer." Xu Huo waved his hand without looking back, and the next second, he vanished into the dense forest.
Chi Xian clicked his tongue, turned around, and followed the floating jellyfish away.
Xu Huo moved in one direction, crossing the rainforest at top speed. Finally, not far from a lake, he found a layer of rock. As Chi Xian had said, mutated fungi that could grow on rocks were rare, which made the area around the lake look especially clean.
Looking around, he followed a small stream that fed into the lake upstream. With great difficulty, he found a cave near a low hillside. From the outside, it looked naturally formed.
He stood at the cave entrance for a moment but didn't go in. Instead, he circled to the side, released Excavator 114, and had it dig a tunnel diagonally downward.
After digging down more than ten meters, Xu Huo stopped. At this point, the rock layer was only a thin sheet of stone away from the cave interior. He moved carefully, using the Black Blade to cut an opening. What he saw was a layer of white eggshells, with a lizard-like mutated beast curled up inside, its claws and teeth particularly large.
Without needing to enter, he could see the situation inside the cave. On this side of the opening, several layers of these unborn mutated beasts were piled up. A little further in, a large and a small lizard beast were pacing back and forth. They were probably startled by the noise of his digging, but because of the pile of young, they didn't come forward.
He didn't stay long. Xu Huo retreated, went back to the water's edge, and was about to continue searching upstream when he discovered another trap similar to the one at the cave entrance.
Along the river and the lake, there were quite a few traps buried underground.
Near a water source, under normal circumstances, they were definitely used for catching beasts. After all, players had no particular reason to go near water.
So many traps meant there were probably quite a few people living nearby.
Xu Huo didn't intend to enter an instance, so he could only walk in the opposite direction. But he hadn't gone far when he heard faint cries for help from the woods.
The voice was already very weak. Sensing mutated beasts moving nearby, he paused briefly and then changed direction.
The person trapped was a young girl. Her right leg and left shoulder had been pierced through by iron rods in a trap. The bones were impaled. She couldn't get out, nor could she lie down. She was just standing upright in the pit, with only her head above ground.
She had lost too much blood and was nearly unconscious. When she sensed someone approaching, she could only weakly open her eyes, too weak to make a sound.
Xu Huo cut open the trap and pulled her out. He first fed her a potion, and only after she regained some clarity did he pull the iron rod out of her wound.
"Ah!" The girl screamed in pain. Sweat beaded on her face, which was dotted with a few patches of fungus. Her eyes rolled back twice, and she nearly fainted.
Xu Huo didn't give her any painkillers. He waited for her to calm down a bit before saying, "I'm pulling out the other one."
"No... no..." The girl scrambled backward in fear, though she didn't move far. Her meaning was clear. "The one on my shoulder... wait a moment. I'm afraid I'll pass out if you pull it out..."
Xu Huo stopped as she asked and inquired, "Why are you here alone? Where are your companions?"
The girl endured the pain for a moment before answering, "I snuck out. I got lost and stepped into a trap the townspeople dug. If I hadn't run into you, I might have really died here... Thank you."
Xu Huo stood up, looking down at her. "There's a town in a godforsaken place like this?"
The girl nodded. "But there aren't many people left... You're a player from another district, right? Can you take me home? I can tell you about the town."
Xu Huo smiled. "I'm not here to clear an instance."
The girl was stunned. She bit her lower lip, thinking hard, before saying, "I know other things too. What fungi are in the forest, what people are on the nearby islands. I know it all. Just take me back... Please. If no one helps me, I can't possibly make it back to town alive..."
Xu Huo looked at her quietly for a moment before finally seeming to relent. "Which direction do you live in? What's the town called?"
"That way!" The girl quickly pointed to her left with her uninjured arm. "It's called Butterfly Bone Town... Will you take me?"
Xu Huo used the "Twisting Pulley" to carry her and followed the direction she pointed.
Along the way, the girl took a bottle of medicinal powder from her small satchel and applied it to her wounds. Seeing Xu Huo staring at her, she took the initiative to explain, "This is a wound medicine made from a fungus. It can stop bleeding and pain, and it also prevents some blood-loving fungi from entering the wound."
Xu Huo nodded slightly, pointing to a small stone hanging from her waist. "What kind of fungus is that, growing inside the stone?"
The girl held the fist-sized, hollow stone. "It's for repelling insects. They only grow inside stones. When the stone decays, they die. Do you like this? I can give it to you. I have many more like it at home. You can take them all."
Xu Huo gently took the stone, examined it in his hand for a moment, and then asked, "Are fungi that grow inside stones common in Butterfly Bone Town?"
(Chapter End)