Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Mo Ka Forest

So it really wasn’t recommended to carry around. The moment she held it, her entire hand began to stiffen.

More importantly, it could be reused.

If she brought this back to Blue Star… Ling Mo’s smile threatened to split her face.

If her rational mind hadn’t reminded her the game came first, she might have camped by this stream just to hunt water-chilling stone.

Water-chilling stone only existed in pure streams, and restoring it required soaking it in clean water.

To avoid Blue Star’s water failing whatever “clean” meant by Mo Ka standards, Ling Mo decided she’d dig a pond inside her pocket space, dedicated to storing water.

She acted immediately.

She tucked away the water-chilling stone and kept searching for ingredients while simultaneously working inside her pocket space. Every so often, she glanced back at the stream, hoping another stone might catch her eye.

Luckily, she’d been training herself to multitask.

Doing three things at once looked chaotic, but she could handle it.

Then she sensed something unusual ahead.

Ling Mo dropped into a crouch. Her footsteps grew lighter, slower, as she crept forward.

She carefully parted the grass and saw a rabbit grazing.

A giant rabbit.

Sitting upright, it was nearly as tall as an adult.

Ling Mo wasn’t entirely shocked—Interstellar creatures tended to run large—but seeing a rabbit this big still made her heartbeat jump.

How was she supposed to catch that?

And if she did, then what? Stuff it into the vegetable basket?

She looked at the rabbit’s size, then at the delicate basket in her hand. The basket wasn’t even as big as one of the rabbit’s teeth.

Still, there was no way she was letting the prey in front of her go.

She shifted her position quietly. A repeating crossbow appeared in her hands.

Compared to a traditional bow, the crossbow was simpler—compact, convenient, and easy to use.

She’d smeared a sedative on the bolt tip.

She’d originally wanted poison, but this was supposed to be food. Better to knock it out instead.

Finding a good angle, she aimed for the rabbit’s eye and fired.

The bolt punched straight through.

Blinded and panicked, the rabbit crashed around wildly—only to slam headfirst into a tree a heartbeat later. With a final heavy thud, it went limp.

Ling Mo stared, then hurried forward, excitement surging. So this was what it felt like when the prey practically delivered itself.

If every hunt went like this, life would be beautiful.

She grabbed the rabbit by the ears and tried to shove it into the vegetable basket.

A message flashed in midair.

“Please process meat ingredients before teleportation.”

Ling Mo looked at the massive rabbit and sighed. Fine. She’d have to play butcher.

Before all this, she wouldn’t have managed it. But she’d anticipated this day and prepared accordingly.

She took out her tools and got to work.

Two hours later, the vegetable basket accepted only four cleaned rabbit legs. The rest was rejected without hesitation.

Ling Mo stored the remaining meat and the hide in her pocket space. There was still plenty left.

Now she understood. The Interstellar crowd was picky. They only wanted the best parts—everything else belonged to her.

After that, Ling Mo went into full hunting mode. Rabbits, wild chickens—her crossbow bolts struck true again and again, and the points on her vegetable basket climbed rapidly.

But no matter how long she searched, she couldn’t find a single trace of energy rawstone.

At this rate, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to collect ten pieces before the game ended.

By dusk, Ling Mo started looking for a place to rest.

The first two rounds had been on a ranch or farm. Even skipping sleep hadn’t been too dangerous there. But this was a primeval forest—she wasn’t about to gamble with her life.

The pond in her pocket space was already dug. All she needed was a short break before she began channeling water into it.

Near the stream, she found a tree and climbed up with effort. Once she confirmed there was no immediate danger, she hid herself in the dense canopy.

As night fell, the quiet Mo Ka Forest came alive.

And then Ling Mo saw it—the stream that looked perfectly ordinary in daylight turned blue in the darkness.

So every pebble in the river was water-chilling stone?

On the ground beneath the trees, faint green light glimmered as well.

Ling Mo pulled out her learning machine and searched again.

“Waterwood Stone: specialty of Mo Ka Forest. Ensures plants remain healthy even in harsh environments and reduces plant growth cycles by half.”

Ling Mo’s eyes lit up. If she weren’t worried about safety, she would have jumped down immediately to gather stones.

Just then, a shrill, terrified scream cut through the forest.

Even from this distance, the fear in that voice chilled her.

It was a reminder to everyone: this round wasn’t like the first two. Failing the game wouldn’t kill you, but nobody wanted to lose their qualification because of one careless mistake.

Ling Mo forced her excitement down and steadied her breathing.

Meditation was fine. Sleep wasn’t. She was at least twenty meters up—if she fell asleep and slipped, she might not die, but she’d be ruined.

All night, the forest echoed with players’ panicked screams and the gut-deep roars of unseen beasts. Even while meditating, Ling Mo couldn’t concentrate.

Only when the sky began to pale did the forest finally quiet.

Ling Mo took out a ladder, climbed down, and immediately began picking up stones. She worked her way to the riverbank where she’d set her net.

The net was full.

Countless slender fish thrashed within it, their scales shining like silver.

She grabbed one and tossed it into the basket.

The points updated.

Ling Mo’s breath caught.

A single palm-sized fish was worth fifty points.

A rabbit leg was only worth five. Four legs didn’t even come close—and that was after hours of work.

Staring at the dense school trapped in her net, Ling Mo felt steadier than she had in days.

She tossed fish into the vegetable basket one by one while also drawing stream water into the pond she’d dug in her pocket space.

Once the pond was full, she even released several of the silver fish into it.

After clearing the net, she reset the trap and started collecting stones again.

She dumped large amounts of water-chilling stone into the pond. The silver fish inside, which had been restless at first, calmed almost immediately as soon as they sensed the stones’ presence.