Chapter 106

Chapter 106

For the next half month, Xu Qiao and the others had been training in these mountains.

High-level mutated creatures would claim their own territories. To save time traveling to the next A-grade or a group of B-grade creatures, Sun Xuan would let Meng Li release the fire scorpion spiritual entity to fly the four of them around. During this period, Xu Qiao and the others battled from dawn till dusk every day, to the point that even Sun Fushan was too tired to type. Xu Qiao was so exhausted that she didn’t have the energy to chat with Qinchi in the evening, and each time he would just hold her for a while before she fell asleep.

When the nineteenth and final A-grade mutated beast in the mountains was killed by the trio, Sun Xuan stood halfway up the mountain, looking at the red sun about to set, and said, “Set up camp. I’ll stand guard tonight. You all get a good sleep, and we’ll change locations tomorrow.”

Sun Fushan lay on the ground and used his remaining mental strength to form the character for "earth" before asking, “Why are there nineteen here?”

Typing requires moving his fingers, but using his ability only requires mental energy.

Sun Xuan replied, “If there were more, the number could be five or six times the current amount. The reproduction rate of mutated creatures is extremely fast. It only takes three to five years for them to evolve from E-grade to A-grade.”

In a natural state, an area would typically have around five hundred A-grade creatures. While psychics could quickly reduce or even eliminate the A-grade creatures in a short period, as long as the psychics didn’t kill all the mutated creatures, the remaining lower-grade creatures would naturally evolve and upgrade until a new king appeared.

This was the difference between mutated creatures and psychics. The former couldn’t use abilities but would evolve on their own, while the majority of psychics' spiritual entity levels were fixed. Additionally, psychics had to be sixteen years old to awaken their spiritual entities. In those sixteen long years, the external mutated beasts had already reproduced multiple generations.

The enemy and our side—one side relied on numbers, and the other relied on abilities and technology, barely maintaining a balance.

Xu Qiao silently set up her tent and thought about the various danger zones scattered around the base.

After each danger zone was assigned a level, a patrol team would be arranged. In addition to protecting the mercenaries entering the danger zones, they were also tasked with promptly detecting and clearing any newly emerged high-grade mutated creatures in the danger zones.

It could be said that the mutated beasts outside the base could never be completely eradicated.

But as long as the human population continued to grow, more bases were built, and there were enough psychics to maintain the stability of the bases, humanity still had hope of restoring cities to their former size. It would require a new way of coexisting with the mutated creatures, the new form of nature.

The survival environment in the new era is harsh but not without hope.

After a good night’s sleep, the fire dragon quietly departed before dawn, and the four team members gradually woke up.

Xu Qiao stepped out of the tent and saw Sun Fushan leaning towards Sun Xuan, with a line of text displayed on his wrist device: “I feel like my mental strength has significantly improved after more than half a month of training. I know you brought the detector, so measure mine to see how many points I need to reach the next level.”

On the first day, it took the trio three hours to kill an A-grade water pine, but yesterday, they killed an A-grade black bear in just half an hour.

Sun Xuan, expressionless, said, “When your strength reaches it, you’ll naturally upgrade. Looking at the data won’t help if your strength isn’t there yet.”

Sun Fushan: “……”

Sun Xuan suddenly looked at Xu Qiao, “Do you want to measure?”

Xu Qiao shook her head.

Sun Xuan then lectured his brother, “What’s the point of measuring? It’s just data that serves no purpose other than satisfying vanity. Strength is always the most crucial. There are countless examples of A-grade psychics being defeated by B-grade ones. I’d rather see you have the combat power of an A-grade while you’re still at the B-grade level than wait to upgrade to kill A-grade mutated creatures.”

Sun Fushan obediently walked away.

Xu Qiao increasingly felt that Sun Xuan had the potential to be a military academy instructor.

After breakfast, Meng Li released the fire scorpion, and the four of them jumped on it one by one.

The journey of over ten kilometers was covered at a leisurely pace by the fire scorpion, and before it landed, a lake came into view from the ground.

Sun Xuan opened the detector, and two A-grade red dots immediately appeared by the lake, along with several clusters of C-grade yellow dots surrounding the lake, each containing over ten yellow dots, interspersed with occasional B-grade orange dots.

Sun Fushan typed, “Is this the red dot we saw a half-month ago? Why is there another one? There are more yellow dots too.”

Meng Li said, “That day, we probably only detected a portion of this lake.”

Xu Qiao had already identified a group of C-grade mutated creatures standing in the shallow water: "Heron."

The heron was a protected wild animal in the old era as well. The southern populations were mostly resident birds, while the northern ones would fly south to spend the winter.

Unfortunately, after the great mutation, many ordinary people had become prey to once harmless mutated creatures.

The C-grade heron was about four meters long, standing like giant bird sentinels by the water's edge.

The fire scorpion landed in a forest by the lake.

Sun Fushan typed to his older brother: "Two A-grade and over thirty B-grade, plus more than a hundred C-grade, and they're all flying creatures. Though our strength has indeed improved, isn't it a bit much to jump to this level of difficulty all at once?"

Sun Xuan: "I have confidence in you."

Not looking at what expression his brother had, Sun Xuan concisely assigned tasks.

"Two A-grade, one for Fushan, one for Meng Li."

Sun Fushan had strong defenses and, with the A-grade battle armor, even if he couldn't eliminate an A-grade heron in a short time, he could still hold it off.

Meng Li was skilled in using wind, fire, and poison, already possessing the strong combat ability to eliminate an A-grade heron on her own.

Finally, Sun Xuan looked at Xu Qiao.

Xu Qiao: "...All the B-grade ones are mine?"

If they were immobile B-grade mutated flora, she could handle killing them in batches, but B-grade herons flew too fast. Standing on the ground, Xu Qiao would just become a target for the flock of birds.

Sun Xuan: "Rivers, lakes, and oceans are the most favorable battlefields for psi-users. You only need to draw on the existing water without expending mental energy to condense water elements from the surroundings. So, your first task is to eliminate the B-grade and C-grade herons. Your second task is to create a water current or ice shield over the lake to prevent the A-grade herons from escaping."

"As for the shield, I will assist if needed, but you can't stop trying."

"I only assign tasks. You decide the tactics."

Sun Xuan handed the detector to Xu Qiao and sat aside by himself.

Xu Qiao stared at the detector filled with dense, multicolored dots. Sun Fushan looked at Meng Li, who said, "...It's challenging, but not hopeless."

Sun Fushan: "Mostly, Xu Qiao’s part is both numerous and demanding."

Sensing the abundant water elements in the lake, Xu Qiao's shock had turned into eagerness to attempt it. "Let's try a sneak attack. Captain, follow me. Meng Li, support us from the ground."

Meng Li: "Be careful."

Xu Qiao put on her helmet and said to Sun Fushan, "Birds have exceptional eyesight. Let's go underground."

Holding the detector, Sun Fushan watched as a secret passage entrance quietly formed under their feet.

As they walked in, the soil layers ahead quickly shifted to the sides and then behind them under Sun Fushan's control, while the upper soil layer remained fixed, keeping the ground calm without causing any disturbance that might alert the herons.

Near the shore where the first group of C-grade herons gathered, two soil-covered helmets cautiously poked above the surface, pausing once their eyes were visible.

A few meters away on the water, fourteen C-grade herons rested. One of them looked over this way, as though it had noticed something, but all it saw were reeds and wet mud.

The heron turned its head back and opened its long beak to the sky, revealing two rows of sharp, tightly packed teeth.

Perhaps hungry, it walked toward the deeper water to hunt.

The other herons continued to rest.

At that moment, the water around them seemed to suddenly come to life, rapidly climbing and spreading out to the tops of every heron's head, carrying an icy, biting temperature. When the heron flock realized the danger, they had already become standing ice sculptures, unable to struggle, forced to endure as a stream of water surged into their bodies, freezing their blood and internal organs completely.

The surrounding water continued flowing gently, and the bloodless deaths did not attract the attention of other mutated bird flocks.

Sun Fushan thumbed up to Xu Qiao.

Burying the frozen bird corpses under the ground, the two walked into another tunnel.

Using this method, they cleared out three groups of C-grade herons, and by the time they reached the fourth, there were twelve C-grade herons and two B-grade herons.

The B-grade herons stood eight meters tall. As Xu Qiao froze the C-grade herons, she formed two water blades and slashed them towards the thin necks of the B-grade herons. The water blades completely cut through the herons' necks, instantly freezing them in place, solidifying the blood at the wounds and preventing the herons' heads from falling into the water and causing noise.

They killed and buried the herons, but for the success of the overall mission, they temporarily avoided extracting the crystal cores from the herons' bodies.

Carefully sneaking up near the third to last group of herons, it seemed their luck had finally run out. As Xu Qiao and Sun Fushan emerged from the ground, they faced a C-grade heron that was about to land there.

The heron didn't recognize the ability users in the dirt, but it became interested in the two round, egg-shaped objects and walked over, pecking Sun Fushan's helmet.

"Clang," Sun Fushan's helmet remained unscathed, but the tip of the C-grade heron's beak was uncomfortable, flapping its wings and letting out short cries before extending a claw to step on the two round objects.

Xu Qiao had originally planned to wait for the heron to lose interest and for the flock to calm down before making a move. However, not only did this heron continue to peck and claw, but others also showed interest, swarming over in a rush.

The spherical helmets couldn't withstand the continuous pecking and clawing from the sharp beaks and claws of over a dozen C-grade herons.

Xu Qiao decisively launched a counterattack.

Sun Fushan controlled the soil layer beneath, submerging the dozen ice sculptures, and quickly took Xu Qiao away from the area.

As soon as they left, a bird call came from the reed bed diagonally across from them.

As if on command, a C-grade heron flew over to check why things had suddenly disappeared here.

It wasn't obvious while standing, as each group of herons was quite far apart, but when the heron flew into the air, it discovered not only had the nearby group disappeared, but all the other groups along the lake shore had vanished without a trace.

The heron couldn't understand it, as no companions had flown away during this time.

It continued to fly higher and finally spotted the two ability users, one hidden behind a tree, and the other lying arrogantly in the open field.

The C-grade heron let out three short calls.

As Xu Qiao and Sun Fushan looked up, they saw two A-grade herons with wingspans of thirty meters fly into the air, flapping their wings and sending out a spray of crystal-clear water droplets.