Chapter 27: He’s Still the One to Rely On!
Night fell, and the cave became even darker. A cold wind, carrying fine yellow sand, blew in from the entrance. Li Xiang, who was sitting quietly, couldn’t help but shiver.
‘Crack—’
Jiang Ning’s light blade pierced into the body of another spider.
This was already the fifth one.
She pulled out the blade, and a few drops of blue blood were drawn out. They landed on the ground, brightened for two seconds, and then dimmed again.
“How much longer?” Jiang Ning asked Li Xiang.
“Almost there,” Li Xiang’s forehead was covered in a layer of fine sweat, and his face looked a bit pale. The psychic energy in his body was almost at its limit.
Generally, the psychic energy contained in a spirit tool itself was small, and its internal structure was also very precise and complex. It was not designed to be used up all at once.
The healing method was something Li Xiang had figured out on his own. It was hard to say whether the method of use was accurate or not. At most, he had only used it to treat small scrapes. Being unconscious and having a scrape were two completely different levels of difficulty!
He directed the wood-type healing method to continuously flow into Ke Lai’s body, but Ke Lai’s eyes remained tightly closed, showing no signs of waking up.
Jiang Ning squatted down beside Li Xiang. With each release of his perception, she could feel the faint flow of energy on his body.
A greenish-blue energy flowed from his fingertips into Ke Lai’s body.
Li Xiang had a wood-type ability, so his psychic energy was green.
Jiang Ning thought of how the white energy from her fingertips could accelerate the growth of the sunflowers. Changing her way of thinking, could she also inject her psychic energy into Li Xiang’s body to speed up his healing of Ke Lai and the others?
She mimicked Li Xiang’s way of circulating the psychic energy in her body and gently tapped her fingertip on Li Xiang’s shoulder.
Li Xiang, who was focused on saving lives, didn’t notice Jiang Ning’s action at all. He only felt his body suddenly relax, his blood flow quicken, and the depleted psychic energy in his mind become full again, even more abundant than before. The feeling was indescribably strange.
Li Xiang didn’t even think of Jiang Ning. He just thought that the spirit tool was finally working.
A sense of fighting spirit rose in Li Xiang’s heart, and he no longer used his ability so sparingly.
Ten minutes later, Ke Lai’s fingers moved. She slightly opened her eyes and slowly sat up from the ground.
“The effect of your family’s spirit tool is really good!” Li Xiang patted Ke Lai’s shoulder.
He didn’t control his strength well for a moment. Ke Lai had just woken up and was still very weak. She was almost knocked back by his blow.
Ke Lai: “?”
Jiang Ning removed her hand from Li Xiang’s shoulder. Li Xiang’s body once again felt the sense of being overdrawn. He said to the awakened Ke Lai, “Do you have any more spirit tools? Take out two more. There are still three people waiting to be saved.”
“Spirit tools?” Ke Lai looked at him in confusion. “My family’s spirit tools don’t have the effect of restoring psychic energy.”
“How is that possible? I just used your family’s spirit tool to save you,” Li Xiang said, not believing her. He took out the petal-shaped spirit tool Jiang Ning had given him and handed it to Ke Lai.
Ke Lai took it and carefully identified it. It was indeed from their shop.
Could it be that it always had this function, but no one had discovered it, so they never knew?
Jiang Ning interrupted the two of them, “Time is tight. Let’s save them first.”
Li Xiang no longer dwelled on the matter and turned to the other three.
Black Pearl and Scarface were experienced. They had used something to protect some parts of their bodies when they fell. Ji Fan was not so lucky.
His clothes had been torn by the rocks that had fallen with them, and his skin was red. The wounds were also contaminated with a lot of gravel, which caused an infection. His face was very pale, and he was at risk of dying from the worsening of his wounds at any time.
To treat him, Li Xiang first had to deal with his wounds.
Jiang Ning always followed behind him, supplying him with energy.
Now, she produced almost fifty to sixty suns every month and was not short of psychic energy at all.
Li Xiang continued to treat them until dawn. As the sky began to brighten, the remaining three slowly woke up.
Jiang Ning yawned, silently withdrew her hand, and cut off the output of her psychic energy. Without her psychic energy support, Li Xiang, who had been overusing his ability all night, collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
“So tired…” Li Xiang pointed at everyone weakly. “Thanks to me working tirelessly all night, I managed to save all of you. You all owe me a huge favor. You must repay me well when we get out.”
As expected, he’s still the one to rely on!
“Don’t worry. When we get back, I’ll treat you to a meal at Shi Shang Ju in the lower district,” Ji Fan said, patting his chest emotionally.
Shi Shang Ju was an interstellar chain restaurant that targeted the mid-range market, with a menu mainly consisting of Chinese cuisine.
“My parents and I often eat there. I have acquaintances there,” Ji Fan said.
Li Xiang: “…”
Ji Fan was still the same old show-off. He couldn’t go two sentences without showing off.
A meal at Shi Shang Ju cost at least five or six hundred star coins. Would Ji Fan’s parents be willing to take him there often?
In his dreams.
Li Xiang turned his head to the side. Ji Fan was still chattering on about how great Shi Shang Ju was. He really didn’t want to bother with him.
Suddenly, a figure walked up to him, blocking all the light from the cave entrance.
Li Xiang looked up and heard the figure say very stiffly, “Thank you.”
After thanking him, Black Pearl did not linger and turned to walk to Scarface’s side.
Even among bounty hunters, she was used to being a loner. Unlike Scarface, whose emotions were always on display, her emotions were always faint.
Jiang Ning’s perception was released. Since last night, strange fluctuations had been coming from the depths of the two caves, but now she could no longer detect that signal.
“We have to find a way to get up,” Jiang Ning said to everyone.
“Wait.”
Her words were interrupted. Jiang Ning looked behind her and saw Ke Lai staring intently at the depths of the cave.
“My perception has detected that there is at least a B-rank or higher mutated beast in there.”
Ke Lai’s exam had a time limit. She had to catch at least one B-rank or higher mutated beast within two days. More than a day had already passed. If she wasted half a day climbing up, by the time she reached the location of the B-rank mutated beast, plus the time to catch it, the exam time limit would have long passed, and she would have to repeat a year.
Ke Lai didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Her eyes swept over everyone’s faces one by one.
Li Xiang’s appearance clearly showed that he didn’t want to go any further in. Black Pearl and Scarface also clearly looked uninterested.
Ke Lai cast her gaze on Jiang Ning, awaiting her answer.
“The underground tunnels of insects are complex. If we miss this exit, it might be difficult to get out,” Jiang Ning’s thoughts were more conservative. For this kind of unknown danger, she could even say she was resistant.
But in that case, Ke Lai’s assessment would be completely over.
The two little people in Jiang Ning’s mind fought for a moment. In the end, a brief burst of passion won over reason. She said, “I’ll go with you.”
Ke Lai looked at her gratefully.
Li Xiang helped Ji Fan up from the ground and sighed silently. “What if you die in there without me!”
For these people, he had really worried himself sick!
Li Xiang once again felt the great pressure of being an ability user.
Since both Jiang Ning and Li Xiang were going, Ji Fan had no choice but to go, even if he was unwilling. Compared to the unknown danger, Scarface and the cold-faced, dark-skinned beauty beside him looked even more terrifying at this moment.
If something happened while he was with the three of them, Li Xiang could at least save him.
“Our cooperation ends here. You can go back first,” Jiang Ning said to Scarface. Entering the cave was their common choice. There was no need to drag Scarface and Black Pearl into it because of their cooperation.
They had hitched a ride with Scarface. In return, they had saved the two of them, so they were even.
“Okay,” Black Pearl nodded.
In her opinion, this was a group of kids going to their deaths. Even if Jiang Ning hadn’t said it, she would never have gone with them to their deaths!
“Let’s part here. We’ll meet again if there’s a chance,” Jiang Ning said.
“You say it as if we’re not coming back. It’s just a B-rank mutated beast inside. What’s there to be afraid of,” Li Xiang muttered discontentedly.
Five years ago, their group, with only Yan Zhou as an ability user, could deal with a B-rank mutated beast. Now, there were three in their team.
Jiang Ning ignored his discontent. She released her psychic energy and sent her perception down the tunnel.
If it was really just a B-rank mutated beast, it would be fine. She was just afraid that its rank was higher than B.
The four of them turned on the flashlight function of their Star Brains to the maximum, and the dark tunnel was barely illuminated.
After walking for a distance, the surrounding environment began to change.
“There are mutated beasts!” Ji Fan was frightened by the red, eye-like things that suddenly appeared on the cave walls. He exclaimed and hid behind Li Xiang.
“Where?” Ke Lai held up her flashlight and looked around.
“They’re on the walls, all over,” Ji Fan buried his head in Li Xiang’s back, only one eye showing, and pointed to the inner wall of the cave.
Jiang Ning brought the light source closer and found that the tunnel was covered with small, reddish-brown, scaly bumps.
Some of their spherical scales had a crack in the middle, blooming in a cluster. Each petal had many filamentous substances, and the flesh of the flower was peach-pink. From a distance, they looked like creatures with blood-red mouths wide open.
“Whip Parasite, grows underground in the desert, composed of thick and juicy roots. It mainly lives on the root systems of other plants. It will die if it leaves its host. You can think of it as a kind of parasite,” Jiang Ning explained to them.
This Whip Parasite was very special. Its appearance looked like some kind of fungus, not a plant.
“But this is the uninhabited zone. Where would there be plants for it to parasitize?” Ke Lai immediately heard the anomaly in her words.
Jiang Ning didn’t know either. Suddenly, her gaze noticed that white roots were exposed in the soil layer, intertwined and numerous, as if telling her that there were indeed plants here.
Jiang Ning thought for a moment and said, “Li Xiang, use your wood-elemental power to feel if there are any plants around.”