Chapter 331 – Agility Up, Cuckoo!

After Lu Yuan’s constitution underwent a second limit break, his teeth became so strong that he could chew through steel, let alone a small vine.

Lu Yuan tore off a piece of the golden vine, chewing it with a “crunch, crunch” sound.

To be honest, the texture was terrible, like chewing cold, hard, flavorless rubber.

However, during this process, the evil deity factor contained within the golden vine flowed into Lu Yuan’s body like water gushing from an opened faucet.

“Boom-“

Lu Yuan’s chest felt as if a storm was brewing. His Five Viscera shone, his bones and muscles resonated, and the sound of Thunder roared continuously.

The blood sphere in his chest rapidly expanded amidst this storm of the evil deity factor.

What an extreme sensation of growth!

However…

After a brief surge, the influx of the evil deity factor abruptly stopped.

“Pfui–“

Lu Yuan spat out the chewed remains of the golden vine. He could no longer feel any traces of the evil deity factor within it; even the vine’s original golden color had faded, leaving a light gray, woody residue.

It was like… chewed-up sugarcane.

“Crunch-“

Lu Yuan spat out the residue and continued biting off another piece of the golden vine.

In fact, he could absorb the evil deity factor from the vine without chewing, but the efficiency of doing so was much lower. Hence, he resorted to this crude and rough approach.

Lu Yuan kept eating the golden vine piece by piece, and the blood sphere within him continued to grow rapidly…

He was still very cautious. To avoid his internal chip and brain-computer from detecting the scene of him “chewing” wondrous items, he used his mental power to envelop and block them before eating.

When Lu Yuan had eaten about a third of the golden vine, the strength of the blood sphere within him seemed to reach a certain level.

“Boom!”

“Crack–“

A series of bone-cracking sounds resonated through Lu Yuan’s body. His physique seemed to become more balanced and slender, and the aura he exuded grew more refined.

Agility points +1.

One-third of the golden vine contained enough evil deity factor to naturally increase Lu Yuan’s agility points by 1, raising it from 28 to 29, just one step away from the second limit break at 30.

Lu Yuan still had 6 unused attribute points in reserve. If he wanted, he could now achieve a second limit break in both strength points and agility points.

However, being in Embers Mountain, surrounded by resources for upgrading, he wasn’t in a hurry to use these attribute points.

“After the second limit break, it takes 3 attribute points to increase by 1 point… the cost is getting higher…”

Pondering this, Lu Yuan bit off another piece of the golden vine.

He glanced at Lan Chen, who was searching for armor fragments nearby, and a thought suddenly struck him.

“How is this golden vine-like wondrous item formed?”

Probably everyone involved in this exploration would be curious about this.

But those who knew the answer… likely didn’t exist.

Looking at the half-remaining piece of the golden vine in his hand, Lu Yuan’s eyes flickered as he gently activated –

[Scholar of the Mysterious Department (Extraordinary)] profession skill: lv1 [Mysterious Perception]!

[Mysterious Perception] has a chance to uncover hidden information from an object that ordinary means cannot detect. Lu Yuan felt he might get some different clues from this.

As lv1 [Mysterious Perception] activated,

A flood of vague and chaotic information surged into Lu Yuan’s mind,

Which gradually pieced together into a series of intermittent images under his mental processing.

In the images, Lu Yuan seemed to see a wisp of faint golden-red mist falling from mid-air, touching a vine, and then quickly merging into it.

The once ordinary vine, influenced by the mysterious golden-red mist, gradually evolved into something extraordinary, eventually growing into its current form…

“What is that golden-red substance that looks like mist, smoke, or light? Is it related to the Phoenix?”

While speculating in his mind, Lu Yuan silently finished “eating” the remaining half of the golden vine.

After ingesting the entire golden vine, the evil deity factor caused the blood sphere within Lu Yuan to swell significantly, nearly doubling in density.

The surge in the blood sphere made his qi and blood churn. Although his values on the attribute panel hadn’t changed further, Lu Yuan felt he was close to his next natural attribute increase.

“lv7 [Martial Arts Grandmaster (Extraordinary)] is also about to advance to lv8. This truly is an unparalleled place for upgrading.”

Lu Yuan exhaled softly, having nothing to do for the moment, and then watched Lan Chen clean up the battlefield.

Lan Chen had already collected all the scattered third-stage armor fragments, but he wasn’t ready to leave yet. He even ran to the two Distant Star Federation men lying on the ground and began to secretly strip the remaining pieces of armor off them.

Lu Yuan noticed a slight twitch in the face of one of the Distant Star Federation men, who kept his eyes tightly shut, when Lan Chen tugged at his groin and leg armor.

Earlier, Lu Yuan had been very precise with his strikes, channeling most of the force into the men’s exoskeleton armor. The residual force only injured and knocked them unconscious, but didn’t kill them.

It seemed the two were now awake.

Lan Chen, immersed in the joy of his “harvest,” didn’t seem to notice this at all.

He stripped off every piece of exoskeleton armor he could from the two men, then ran back gleefully with a large pile of parts.

“OK!”

Lan Chen gave Lu Yuan a “mission accomplished” gesture and added, “Just wait a bit, I’ll call a drone to send this stuff back… I have to say, this pile is pretty heavy…”

“…”

Lu Yuan was silent for a moment, then couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t this a bit too much?”

Lan Chen waved dismissively, “Too much? They’ve done far worse to us Yellow Bear members before. This is just collecting a bit of interest…”

Seeing Lan Chen’s still resentful expression, Lu Yuan guessed he must have suffered significantly at the hands of Distant Star Federation explorers.

It seemed the higher-ups were likely adopting a “turn a blind eye” attitude toward the conflicts and frictions between different organizations within the secret realm.

Otherwise, Lan Chen wouldn’t be so bold and fearless.

Once Lan Chen’s summoned drone arrived, he asked Lu Yuan whether they should continue their exploration.

Lu Yuan’s answer was, of course, affirmative.

After a brief hesitation, Lan Chen decided to let the drone take the collected exoskeleton armor fragments back, deciding to continue onward with Lu Yuan.

If this had been before, Lan Chen would have surely chosen to return and safely pocket his gains. But now, with Lu Yuan-who was initially supposed to be the “rookie” he was guiding-suddenly turning into an expert capable of crushing third-stage combat power with his bare hands, Lan Chen naturally seized this golden opportunity to stick close to such a formidable ally.

Leaving behind the growth point of the golden vine, the two continued forward.

Along the way, they encountered two Ancient Evil Deity creatures. However, their strength was average, and the evil deity factor contained in their flesh and blood essence was far inferior to that of the golden vine, even less than the creatures Lu Yuan had encountered in the Elephant Deity Secret Realm.

Upon careful consideration, it made sense. The surviving creatures in the Elephant Deity Secret Realm had been filtered twice, once by the Elephant Man Tribe and once by the will of the Elephant Deity. It was only natural for their average strength to be formidable.

The two walked forward for about fifteen kilometers, and Lu Yuan stopped by a small forest stream.

Here, a beam of sunlight leaked through the dense primal forest, dyeing the entire stream a fresh, glowing orange-red color. One-inch-long silver fish swam rapidly in the creek, a truly pretty sight.

Lu Yuan checked the map of Embers Mountain and saw that this stream marked the boundary; beyond it lay the “Misty Zone.”

Meaning, it was a fog-of-war-covered area, almost entirely unexplored, where everything was unknown.

“Do you want to continue?” Lu Yuan asked, turning to Lan Chen.

Lan Chen looked conflicted, but finally gritted his teeth and said resolutely, “I’ll stay a bit longer.”

“Alright.”

Lu Yuan didn’t say much. The roles between them-“old hand and newcomer,” “expert and rookie”, “guide and follower”-had shifted quite naturally.

Lu Yuan was about to lead Lan Chen across the stream and step formally into the “Misty Zone.”

Just then…

“Cuckoo!”

An odd bird call suddenly echoed close by.

Lu Yuan turned abruptly, looking in the direction of the sound.

Lu Yuan caught a glimpse of a faint orange shadow from the corner of his eye. Without a moment’s hesitation, he kicked off the ground, shooting towards the spot like a dragon in flight.

Lan Chen, standing beside Lu Yuan, didn’t have time to react. He turned his head, and Lu Yuan had already disappeared from sight.

“Crap,” Lan Chen muttered, hurriedly activating his exoskeleton to chase after him at full speed.

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”

The bird calls continued to echo in Lu Yuan’s ears.

Moving like the wind, his speed had already broken the sound barrier, leaving behind a series of expanding white vapor cones in the jungle and creating blurred afterimages.

Yet, he still couldn’t catch up to the ethereal, melodious bird call.

The calls seemed to shift distance, sometimes near, sometimes far, now to the left, then to the right…

After a while of pursuit, Lu Yuan finally decided to give up.

When he stopped, the bird calls abruptly ceased.

“That was the call of a Hoopoe,” Lu Yuan murmured, standing on a giant moss-covered rock, his eyes gleaming with thought but his face remaining calm.

He had no idea why he suddenly decided to chase after the bird call.

Was it a spur-of-the-moment decision? Or an instinctive reaction?

One thing was certain: this Hoopoe making the calls was the same one he had seen at the forest entrance upon entering.

“This bird is unusual. It seems to be deliberately guiding me in a certain direction…”

“And the fact that I couldn’t catch up to it-how could an ordinary bird have such speed?”

Once again, Lu Yuan remembered the image of the Hoopoe he had seen through the chaos divination.

Although the Hoopoe is considered a symbol of “luck,” that interpretation was merely his own reading of the divination result.

Who knew what the divination truly meant?

It was similar to the proverb “rebirth through facing death” he had divined earlier. He still hadn’t figured out its exact meaning.

“I feel like something’s been watching me ever since I entered the embers mountain secret realm…”

“I just don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing…”

With these thoughts in his mind, Lu Yuan decided that, to be safe, he would ignore any future “guidance” from the Hoopoe.

If it tried to lead him in a certain direction, he would deliberately go the opposite way. Let’s see how it would respond.

As Lu Yuan was deep in thought, a streak of bright blue light suddenly shot out from the forest.

He was still contemplating how to explain his recent behavior to Lan Chen when he noticed Lan Chen’s face was filled with excitement and exhilaration. Eyes sparkling, Lan Chen urgently exclaimed, “Wondrous items!”

“Lu Yuan, on my way chasing after you, I sensed another energy fluctuation that seemed like a wondrous item! It’s even stronger than the previous one! Our luck is off the charts!”

Again?!

Hearing Lan Chen’s words, Lu Yuan didn’t feel joy; instead, his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

This was undoubtedly a trap.

This thing… there’s definitely something wrong with it!

Just as Lu Yuan steeled himself to tell Lan Chen they shouldn’t go…

Suddenly…

He noticed Lan Chen starting to tremble all over.

Lan Chen’s eyes were fixated, staring straight at something above and behind Lu Yuan, as if he had seen something extraordinary. He even started to stammer.

“Lu… Lu Yuan…”

With a strange expression, Lan Chen raised a hand and pointed upward. “Look at that.”

Lu Yuan turned around, and when he saw what Lan Chen was pointing at, his pupils instantly contracted, and he was engulfed in immense shock.