Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Mo Ka Forest

Before night fell, Ling Mo hurried back to the stream, reset her fish traps, and found a place nearby to settle in for the night.

She had assumed it would be just like the previous two days—quiet and safe. But in the middle of the night, her mental power caught something entering her detection range.

Ling Mo’s eyes snapped open. Her heartbeat spiked as she felt it drawing nearer.

She hadn’t found a tree hollow this time, so she could only rest in the canopy.

Through the thick leaves—and the faint glow cast by Water-Chilling Stone and Waterwood Stone—she saw a massive silhouette moving toward her.

One step. Two steps. Closer.

She didn’t know what it was, but the outline reminded her of a gorilla from Blue Star—only several times larger.

Ling Mo held her breath, eyes locked on the shadow, ready to dive into pocket space the instant it came any closer.

Thankfully, it never looked up. It seemed to be nothing more than thirsty, coming to drink.

Only after the giant figure lumbered away did Ling Mo finally exhale, gulping air like she’d just crawled back from the edge. Her clothes were soaked through with sweat.

That thing could probably crush her with a single finger.

Just yesterday, she’d been thinking this game was a paradise—treasures everywhere. Now? Not anymore.

Compared to that monster, players like them were nothing but insects.

She didn’t sleep again after that. She didn’t dare close her eyes. It wasn’t until the sky lightened into a pale gray that she finally loosened her clenched jaw.

From what she’d seen the past few days, the creatures in Mo Ka Forest didn’t move around during the day.

She climbed down at first light and went straight to her traps.

She’d set five in total, and three of them had been close to where the giant creature drank. Two of those nets had been wrecked. It stung, but the remaining traps still held Silver Moon Fish.

As usual, she kept a third for herself and tossed the rest into the vegetable basket. Her ranking jumped from ninth to seventh in an instant.

Today was the fourth day. After today, there would only be three days left.

She followed the stream upstream, collecting more Water-Chilling Stone and Waterwood Stone as she went. They were all valuable.

Watching the pile of Waterwood Stone in pocket space grow, and seeing the pond slowly fill as she added Water-Chilling Stone piece by piece, gave her a quiet, steady kind of satisfaction. Even last night’s terror faded a little.

Once the sky was fully bright, she finally left the stream and headed into the forest. She walked for an entire morning without encountering a single player.

Before, she rarely met anyone because she avoided them the moment her mental power detected them.

But today was different. Even when she pushed her mental power to its limit, she couldn’t sense another player anywhere.

Then, without warning, she shifted two steps to the side.

A dark shape dropped from above and slammed into the spot she’d just been standing with a dull thud.

She looked up. A brown figure flashed through the treetops and vanished. On the ground lay a pinecone the size of a football.

There weren’t any pine trees around, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any nearby.

She tossed the pinecone into the vegetable basket. Five points.

Mo Ka Forest was too vast. Searching alone could take forever.

So Ling Mo pulled out her secret weapon—parrots.

After days of training, she could communicate with them smoothly, and they understood her instructions almost perfectly.

She searched up an image labeled Red Pine Cone on the learning machine and showed it to them. At first she’d only planned to have them look for red pine trees, but after a moment’s thought, she searched for other nut-like fruits found in Mo Ka Forest as well.

Then she released over twenty parrots in one go, sending them in all directions.

As they flew off, Ling Mo kept moving, gathering what she could—and scanning for Energy Rawstone hidden underground.

She’d noticed a pattern: beneath plants that grew especially lush, their root systems often concealed Energy Rawstone.

And plants like Glazed Spiny Velvet Grass—those vicious ones—had an eighty percent chance of hiding it in their roots.

The bigger the plant, the richer the energy source beneath it tended to be, and the more Crystal Fruit it produced.

Wearing her weed cloak, Ling Mo crouched in the grass and stared into a clearing.

A giant red mushroom stood there—easily two meters tall.

On Blue Star, the brighter the mushroom, the more dangerous the poison. Red cap, white stem… eat it and lie down together.

But this wasn’t Blue Star. To be safe, she scanned it with the learning machine.

Crimson Flame Mushroom. Thick flesh. Spicy. Often dried and ground into seasoning. After eating, the body would heat up uncontrollably. Not recommended to consume in large amounts.

A seasoning?

It was basically a giant chili pepper.

If the game threw them into extreme cold later, this would become a hot commodity.

Once she confirmed it wouldn’t attack like Glazed Spiny Velvet Grass, Ling Mo stepped forward and stored the entire massive Crimson Flame Mushroom into pocket space. She swept up the smaller ones around it, too.

Just as she was about to leave, a familiar ripple pulsed through her senses—right where the giant mushroom had grown.

Ling Mo pushed her mental power underground.

The entire clearing beneath the mushrooms was packed with Energy Rawstone—roughly a hundred pieces, with the densest concentration directly under the spot where the giant Crimson Flame Mushroom had stood.

She made a full circuit, collecting every last piece before she finally moved on.

Thank goodness her mental power could handle telekinesis. Otherwise, hauling that much stone up by hand would’ve been torture—she would’ve swung her shovel until it smoked.

What bothered her was this: she hadn’t sensed the Energy Rawstone at all at first. Her mental power hadn’t flagged anything wrong underground. It was only after she removed the Crimson Flame Mushroom that the Energy Rawstone’s fluctuations became detectable.

Some plants could hide the presence of Energy Rawstone.

Later, she’d have to be even more thorough.

Right then, her mental power flared with an alert.

A group of players had entered her detection range—seven or eight of them.