Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Mo Ka Forest

Ling Mo stayed by the stream until the sky was fully bright.

Her ponds in pocket space were already filled with water. She still needed more water-chilling stone, but she had days left. There was no need to rush.

Just as she was about to leave, several figures appeared ahead.

They were barefoot, bent over, and flipping stones in the water with both hands, searching for something.

Ling Mo guessed they were hunting Silver Moon Fish. She touched the face covering she wore to make sure it was secure, then turned calmly to head in another direction.

But they’d already spotted her.

They waved wildly.

Ling Mo tried to pretend she hadn’t seen them, but one person blurred forward and appeared right in front of her.

Wind talent.

She recognized it instantly.

Ling Mo took a few steps back, voice roughened on purpose. “What do you want?”

The man put on a friendly smile. “You look young, young lady. Just came of age?”

“What’s it to you?”

Ling Mo bristled like a hedgehog.

The man hurried to explain, “Don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean anything bad. I just saw you’re alone. Want to team up? There’s strength in numbers.”

When Ling Mo didn’t immediately respond, he pressed on. “We’ve got someone with a strong special talent. He can tell which things are ingredients. You just give him half of what you collect.”

“Half might sound like a lot,” he added quickly, “but it’s safe. Absolutely safe.”

Ling Mo’s gaze flicked past him.

The others were still bent over in the stream, turning stones.

Only one person stood on the bank, watching quietly.

At first, she’d thought he was resting. Now she understood—he was observing.

The ability to identify ingredients at a glance had to be a special talent.

Special talent was a broad category, but it tended to split into extremes: either astonishingly powerful or laughably useless.

Talents like pocket space and healing talent were among the most sought-after. Pocket space, especially, could become terrifying once it developed.

As if he sensed her attention, the refined young man on the bank turned and smiled at her warmly.

Ling Mo’s scalp prickled.

That man was dangerous.

The recruiter kept talking. “By the way, what’s your talent? If you join, you’ll have to tell us.”

“No,” Ling Mo said flatly. “I’m used to working alone.”

She stepped around him and walked away, ignoring the calls behind her as she vanished into the forest.

Ling Mo didn’t see what happened after.

The recruiter’s smile fell the moment she was gone. He returned to the refined man, voice low and face dark. “Old Boss, she noticed something.”

The refined man’s expression remained gentle, but his voice was calm. “She doubted you from the beginning.”

He clicked his tongue softly. “A woman’s sixth sense?”

“Come out. We’re moving.”

The people in the stream stopped turning stones and stood.

If Ling Mo had seen them, she would have been stunned. Their eyes were dull. Their movements were stiff. They didn’t look like living people at all—more like puppets being pulled by invisible strings.

Deep in the forest, Ling Mo ran into a different kind of trouble.

Something dropped out of the sky and landed in her arms with a wet, heavy smack.

She looked up, but saw nothing.

The bloody little lump stirred and let out a weak cry, its fur matted and clumped with red.

What was this supposed to be?

Food from the sky?

After getting used to Interstellar, where everything seemed larger than life, seeing something this small felt strangely unreal.

Ling Mo placed it into the vegetable basket and waited.

Nothing happened.

Normally, if it was prey, the vegetable basket would demand it be processed first. If it wasn’t food, it would warn her.

But this time, there was no reaction at all.

Ling Mo stored it in her pocket space. If it wasn’t food, then maybe it was fate. She’d see if she could keep it alive.

Its teeth and claws looked sharp. If it survived and grew, it probably wouldn’t be weak.

Inside pocket space, Ling Mo used mental power to rinse away the blood.

The creature was white.

It looked like a newborn lion cub, its spots not yet fully faded.

And on its back—small but unmistakable—were a pair of wings.

Ling Mo inspected it carefully and found three of its four legs were broken. Its tiny body was riddled with wounds.

With injuries like that, and after falling from the sky, it was hard to say whether it was cursed by fate or simply stubbornly alive.

Either way, she did what she could. She splinted the three broken legs and treated the wounds with medicine. After that, whether it recovered was up to it.

She placed the cub in a quiet corner of her pocket space and left it to rest.

Then she went back to work.

Ling Mo continued searching for ingredients. When she found ones with special effects, she even transplanted a few into pocket space for later.

During the day, she witnessed several groups fighting over ingredients—and discovered something that made her blood run cold.

Points could be stolen.

Hidden in the grass, she watched a group surround a man and pin him down. Their leader snatched the man’s vegetable basket and shoved it into his own.

Moments later, the points transferred from one basket to the other.

The restrained man stared in despair, helpless to stop it.

Worse, it wasn’t an isolated incident. Ling Mo saw backstabbing, ambushes, and betrayals—enough to make her keep her distance from everyone.

By afternoon, even though she’d collected plenty, her rank still slid from fifth to ninth.

Now she understood how people were climbing so quickly.

From then on, she kept her vegetable basket inside pocket space, only taking it out when she needed to submit something.

She ran into other players along the way. Seeing she wasn’t holding a basket and looked filthy, with blood smeared on her clothes, they mocked her before leaving.

Ling Mo exhaled quietly once they were gone.

Their words were ugly, but she didn’t care.

And she didn’t care about her rank dropping either. As long as she didn’t get eliminated, that was enough.