Chapter 308 – Tribe, Advancement in Profession

After a fierce battle, the Yellow Bear exploration team had four members lightly injured, and three with damaged combat power.

Another member met with an accident and was taken by an evil deity biology, their fate unknown.

In sub-legendary level secret realm explorations, casualties are normal, but no one expected the first “casualty” to happen so quickly.

Many people’s faces carried a slight heaviness.

Yin Muqing pulled up Lu Yuan’s information and unexpectedly found that this “self-sacrificing” person had left quite an impression on her.

Mainly because of his unusually scant resume.

Theoretically, he should never have been part of this “pioneering” team.

But because he was apparently a key contributor to the opening of this secret realm, and his background seemed somewhat special, he had been forcibly included.

Yin Muqing originally had an extremely indifferent view of him, but it had now changed slightly.

Because although this young Flying Bear named Lu Yuan was foolish in her eyes for rushing to rescue without assessing his own strength, she had to admit that a team indeed needed such a person.

“Can anyone contact… this Flying Bear named Lu Yuan?”

Yin Muqing scanned Lu Yuan’s profile, questioning the group of Flying Bear Generals.

Most people shook their heads, unfamiliar with the name, although a few felt they might have heard it before.

But that barely counted as familiarity.

“I have a chance of finding him!”

At this, someone stepped forward and spoke.

Everyone looked towards the voice and saw it was Han Xun, remembering that Han Xun had indeed been quite close to him.

Back in the forest, they had explored as a duo.

Yin Muqing thought for a moment and quickly made a decision: “Then take two people and try to locate him. Report any clues immediately.”

Although due to the evil energy wave, technology-based communication methods often failed within the secret realm, sensing within a certain range was still achievable.

“Understood,” Han Xun nodded solemnly.

Lu Yuan’s predicament was completely unexpected for him, and he was probably the most worried about Lu Yuan in the whole team right now.

Although he could sense that Lu Yuan might have hidden a part of his strength, in the current perilous environment, unless one’s strength reached the height of someone like Yin Muqing, even a Four-Wing Flying Bear like him still faced significant risk of falling.

He could only hope that Lu Yuan’s luck would be enough to see him through.

Han Xun quickly picked two people, one of whom had been saved by Lu Yuan from the strange bird flock earlier. The three of them then left the main group in a hurry.

No sooner had Han Xun’s trio departed than the Yellow Bear exploration team noticed that just as they had exited the eerie forest, two figures emitting an aura as strong as Yin Muqing’s appeared not far away.

Javier the Sleepless’s people had caught up!

Yin Muqing’s gaze turned grave as she immediately issued orders to clean up the battlefield and then continue moving forward.

…

“It’s enough.”

Having “commandeered” the strange bird to fly for a considerable distance, Lu Yuan figured it was time, and decisively punched hard into the strange bird’s belly.

[Grandmaster Exertion] powered his fist, coated with Platinum Qi, slicing through the strange bird’s belly like a hot knife through butter.

In the next second, the terrifying power erupted.

“Boom!”

The strange bird’s body swelled grotesquely before letting out a shrill cry and exploding into countless fragments.

Lu Yuan abruptly released his Grandmaster’s Domain, causing the surrounding air to twist and blur.

He seemed to step down an invisible staircase in mid-air, descending step by step from hundreds of meters high.

The blood-red mist from the exploded strange bird formed numerous tiny whirlwinds that swirled around him, with the essence of its flesh seeping into his body through his pores.

By the time Lu Yuan’s feet touched the ground, the blood mist had already dispersed completely.

“Landing with wings and this way are two completely different experiences…”

Lu Yuan exhaled lightly, casually musing to himself while surveying the surrounding environment.

At this point, he should have already delved deep into the Black Plains.

Lu Yuan squinted his eyes and looked ahead, taking in the sight of a hundred-meter-tall mound.

Calling it a mound might not be entirely accurate.

To be precise, it was… a cairn made of a massive amount of black stones!

This cairn was excessively large for ordinary people.

Around and on this giant black cairn, he could see figures of elephant men walking about.

Since stepping into the elephant deity secret realm, this was the first time Lu Yuan had seen elephant men.

“A tribe? A settlement of elephant men?”

Lu Yuan’s eyes flickered, “But why do these elephant men look… dead?”

Taking a deep breath, Lu Yuan briskly walked towards the giant cairn.

The closer he got to the cairn, the hotter the elephant deity curse on his chest became.

He knew well that a crisis awaited ahead, but for him, it was also a rare opportunity.

Lu Yuan reached the base of the cairn.

Around its perimeter, elephant men knelt on one knee in a circle, their cyclopean eyes tightly shut.

In the gaps between the stones, enormous and pale beast bones were inserted, standing like flags.

At the very top of the cairn, there was an elephant man with four arms and two heads, also kneeling on one knee.

Lu Yuan looked in the direction this double-headed four-armed elephant man was bowing towards.

Dense, murky fog enveloped the front, obscuring the view. Only faintly, he could discern several mounds similar to this cairn.

The farther they were, the higher.

Circling the cairn, Lu Yuan counted twenty-three elephant men, including the one with four arms at the top.

He sensed no sign of life from these elephant men, utterly different from the various ancient elephant deity creatures he’d encountered before.

Suddenly, Lu Yuan noticed peculiar patterns on a black boulder about ten meters above him.

Without thinking, he moved to inspect them closely.

However, the moment he touched the massive cairn, the elephant deity curse on his chest burned like a brand, as if he’d triggered some mechanism.

In unison, the kneeling elephant men around the cairn opened their eyes!

“Roar!”

Dozens of elephant roars exploded simultaneously next to Lu Yuan’s ears.

The massive sound waves converged, causing the entire cairn to tremble slightly.

In the next instant, the revived elephant men leaped into the air, lunging towards Lu Yuan.

In a split second, it felt as if Lu Yuan was swamped by a thick, dark shadow, the tsunami-like pressure engulfing him completely in the blink of an eye…

Half a second later…

“Boom!”

A twisted, invisible, horrific force exploded atop the cairn.

Platinum Qi erupted like thunder, scattering severed limbs and arms belonging to the elephant men!

“Whoosh-“

Lu Yuan’s figure, entirely shrouded in his Grandmaster’s Domain, blurred, enveloped by a massive whirling distortion.

He stomped down hard, shattering the stone beneath his feet. Wrapped in Platinum Qi, he moved like a bolt of white lightning, weaving through the revived elephant men.

Each flash of that lightning saw another elephant man explode into pieces.

In just a few breaths, the dense shadows that had covered the cairn were torn to shreds.

These typically emissary level SS-grade elephant men were like fragile ragdolls in the hands of Lu Yuan, who had unlocked his full martial arts mastery.

Over twenty elephant men were quickly reduced, their black, rock-like bodies and chunks of flesh splattering around like raindrops.

As Lu Yuan continued his savage “slaughter,” a massive figure suddenly plummeted from above.

A double-headed four-armed elephant man, its eyes gleaming scarlet, lunged aggressively at him.

Golden sparks flashed in Lu Yuan’s eyes, and his Qi-enveloped, lean body suddenly swelled-

[Grandmaster Overload Mode]!

His rapidly vibrating muscles tightened and released like countless drawn and loosed bowstrings, unleashing terrifying power exceeding thousands of tons.

“Grandmaster Divine Elephant Style. Double Dragon Devourer!”

Lu Yuan struck with both fists, his arms disappearing into the air and reappearing.

The ferocious momentum of the double-headed four-armed elephant man paused…

Then, with a resounding “boom,” it exploded into pieces!

“Swish swish swish-“

Without stopping, Lu Yuan darted about, leaving behind several afterimages in the air.

When Lu Yuan returned to his initial position, the remaining elephant men on the cairn froze before exploding one after another.

“Whoosh-“

Amidst the scattered black flesh fragments, Lu Yuan exhaled lightly.

His swollen body rapidly shrank, releasing large amounts of white steam from every pore.

Calmly, his hair gradually settled, and his flushed skin returned to its usual fair complexion.

A few breaths later, the gigantic cairn was as serene as before.

The only difference was that the kneeling elephant men around the cairn had vanished, leaving behind nothing but rubble-like debris.

“One, two, three, four…”

Lu Yuan counted the scattered hearts of the elephant men on the ground.

There were twenty-three in total, twenty-two similarly sized, and one that was roughly three times larger.

He crushed each stone-like heart, absorbing the eerie glow they emitted.

Checking his elephant deity progress bar on his professional panel, he watched it climb swiftly.

17%…

18%…

19%…

However, Lu Yuan couldn’t help but frown slightly.

“Why does the energy feel so little…”

After absorbing all twenty-three hearts, he found that the progress bar for his [Elephant Deity. Ming King Stance (Extraordinary)] had only reached 42%.

Each ordinary elephant man’s heart contributed about 1% to the progress bar, while the double-headed four-armed elephant man’s heart provided around 5%.

“Compared to the elephant deity emissaries I defeated outside the secret realm, these are far inferior. They’re barely better than typical ancient elephant deity creatures…”

Lu Yuan speculated that the previous elephant deity emissaries, who had ventured outside the secret realm to hunt him, were fully charged with power, unlike these undercharged elephant men awaiting activation within the secret realm.

“Gearing up these half-dead elephant men must be quite the task. Otherwise, they could have swamped me during the earlier curse waves, and I wouldn’t have stood a chance…”

“As for the one powering up these elephant men…”

An image of a figure atop the demon mountain with three heads and six arms flickered in Lu Yuan’s mind.

“Fortunately, there are enough elephant men in the secret realm. If the quality is lacking, quantity should make up for it. It should be enough to max out my progress bar…”

With that thought, Lu Yuan shifted his focus to the pattern he had noticed carved on the stone earlier.

On closer inspection, it appeared to be a drawing.

As he attempted to decipher its content, the fusion progress of his [Student] and [Ancient Language Expert] professional panels, which had been dormant for a while, began to stir and jump once more.