Chapter 18: She Simply Wanted to Eliminate Them
There was no day or night on Planet Aurora. The sky was always a grayish-bright, and the aurora was dreamlike, like a magnificent waterfall pouring down from the sky.
Jiang Ning took out the contestant instructions. The front of the instructions was a description of the rules, and the back was a map of the Mount Dora competition area.
Four different colored blocks on the map marked the different environments of the arena.
She should have been teleported to the rainforest area, which was the green area marked on the map.
There were many strange symbols in each area. Jiang Ning checked the index in the rule description. Those symbols probably represented the names of the plants in the three competition areas.
The large patches of green and purple shrubs in the rainforest were Red Umbrella Trees. Besides the umbrella tree clusters, the rainforest was also distributed with many ornamental Ghost Vines and Firefly Mushrooms. The symbols for these plants were all light yellow. The remaining orange and red symbols represented Carnivorous Grass, Devouring Ferns, Parasitic Vines, and so on.
Jiang Ning guessed that the darker the color of the symbol, the higher the danger level of the plant.
She put away the map and walked through the rainforest.
Compared to ordinary plants, interstellar plants had more peculiar appearances.
Jiang Ning walked for a long time. The dead branches and fallen leaves of the Red Umbrella Trees covered the ground. From a distance, the rainforest looked as if it were covered with a purplish-red carpet.
The more she looked at the unique plants, the more she liked them. She was just short of touching them directly.
The plants here were all very tall and sturdy, which meant the nutrient content in the soil was very high and very suitable for planting.
The thought of digging some up to take back with her sprouted in Jiang Ning’s mind.
She took out a set of farming tools she had assembled on Planet M412 from her nano-ring.
She found a suitable spot and began to dig.
The Yuan Xia Group had spent a fortune on the transformation of Planet Aurora. The planting soil was all from Planet Avitas, the number one planet on the planting soil bestseller list.
After an unknown amount of time, someone in the audience suddenly pointed to a feed and asked:
“What is that person doing?”
Among a group of headless flies searching for Spark Stamps, a figure was suddenly mixed in, engrossed in digging soil.
This was as strange as it could get.
Jin Jiu’s gaze followed the audience’s line of sight and found that this figure was the same kid who had been accused of being part of a setup earlier.
Jin Jiu watched for a while and, based on his years of experience, explained to everyone, “This contestant should be trying to build a temporary shelter by digging.”
“The wild is very dangerous. The locations of our Spark Stamps are all very hidden. It will take the contestants some time in each area. Choosing to build a shelter is also a wise choice.”
Jin Jiu felt that this explanation was very convincing. Just as he was about to switch the feed again, another reversal occurred.
In the feed, Jiang Ning clapped the dirt off her hands, climbed out of the half-human-high pit, picked up a few large leaves and green vines from the surroundings that looked to have good sealing properties, and sat cross-legged on the ground, placing the dirt on the leaves and wrapping them into small square bricks.
She wrapped a total of ten small square bricks.
Jiang Ning looked at the collected planting soil on the ground, her grin almost reaching her ears.
Hehe, what a profit.
How is this not better than the 5000 star coins?
Mount Dora was truly a treasure trove.
Jiang Ning no longer thought about collecting Spark Stamps to quickly pass the competition. She now just wanted to stay in Mount Dora for a few more days to fleece some more wool.
The audience had no idea what Jiang Ning was collecting the soil for. Their attention was all on the bottom of Jiang Ning’s shoes.
“What’s on the bottom of her foot?”
“A Spark Stamp!”
“No way, she got two in less than 24 hours?”
“It’s definitely rigged!”
“Wait, I don’t think that’s right. It seems like she doesn’t even know there’s a Spark Stamp stuck to the bottom of her foot.”
“How could she not know? What normal person would think of digging soil!”
“Exactly, exactly.”
On the judges’ panel, the few of them were almost blowing up their phones. No one knew who had found this kid.
And in the arena, a certain youth who had truly been given the script for a guaranteed win was currently trapped in a thicket of thorns in the desert.
“Damn it!” he cursed under his breath.
Those people couldn’t even teleport him to a better place.
These thorns had a growth property. Once they trapped an object, the thorns within a ten-meter radius would begin to grow wildly until they blocked all paths, and the prey would be trapped and die inside.
The youth used his ability to conjure a sword and continuously hacked at the growing thorns.
Unfortunately, the more he hacked, the faster the thorns grew.
On the other side.
After storing all ten blocks of planting soil in her nano-ring, Jiang Ning got up and prepared to go elsewhere.
Just as she took two steps, she felt a strange sensation on the sole of her shoe.
She lifted her foot and saw that something was stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
Jiang Ning pulled it out with force.
Another Spark Stamp was clutched in her hand.
Jiang Ning: “…”
Were the Spark Stamps in the arena really distributed so densely?
Jiang Ning tossed it into her storage waist bag, as casually as if it were a useless rock.
She continued to walk through the rainforest. Her gaze was suddenly attracted by a patch of yellow light ahead. From a distance, it looked like a flame.
Countless yellow, lighthouse-like mushrooms suddenly appeared at the foot of the hill.
“Firefly Mushrooms,” Jiang Ning murmured.
Firefly Mushrooms grew in humid areas, which meant that past this point was the wetland area.
At this moment, the cluster of Firefly Mushrooms was in a collective mature stage. The bright yellow caps were continuously spraying out mist-like spores.
The spores were scattered by the wind. As soon as they came into contact with an object, they began to grow wildly. In a short time, they could grow to their mature stage, covering the original plant clusters.
It seemed that Firefly Mushrooms had a strong parasitic nature and could quickly occupy an area no matter where they were.
But as Jiang Ning walked, she rarely found this kind of plant in the rainforest. Looking at the map, it was not marked in the wetland either.
It seemed that Firefly Mushrooms only appeared at the junction of the rainforest and the wetland. A little further in either direction, and the mushrooms couldn’t survive.
Jiang Ning stood outside the mushroom cluster and observed carefully for a while. Something was moving among the Firefly Mushrooms.
A Carrion Ant emerged from the Firefly Mushrooms and was gnawing on its cap.
The Carrion Ant took one bite at a time, its eating speed almost catching up with the Firefly Mushroom’s reproduction speed.
Jiang Ning watched boredly for a while.
Until the Carrion Ant had eaten the entire small patch of Firefly Mushrooms clean.
Jiang Ning discovered a green object on the ground.
“Another Spark Stamp?” The abundance of stamps made even Jiang Ning reveal a look of confusion.
She carefully stepped into the gaps between the Firefly Mushrooms and walked over. Just as she picked up the stamp from the ground and before she could put it away, a few strange noises suddenly came from behind her.
Two men and a woman walked over together.
Compared to the hot-blooded youths who liked to fight alone, the few adults chose the more stable option of grouping up.
“A Spark Stamp!” one of the flat-topped men pointed at the stamp in Jiang Ning’s hand and shouted.
Several gazes met at the same time.
“Kid, give it to us!” another slightly chubby man quickly stepped forward and was about to snatch the stamp from Jiang Ning’s hand.
Jiang Ning’s hand holding the stamp dodged back, and the chubby man pounced on empty air.
“Damn it,” the man cursed under his breath.
The flat-topped man had also surrounded her by now. He threatened, “You’d better hand it over obediently, or don’t blame us for being impolite!”
Jiang Ning looked at the three people surrounding her and frowned slightly. “Three adults bullying a child, aren’t you afraid of people calling you shameless?”
“What’s face? Only winning is the most important!” the woman snorted coldly.
5000 star coins was not a lot. Most of the people it attracted were bottom-tier citizens, here to gamble for a chance at wealth.
The three of them took out their respective weapons.
The two men’s weapons were cold weapons, a long blade and a long sword, while the woman’s was a flower-shaped object.
The woman threw her weapon first. The flower floated in the air and quickly separated into five petals, attacking towards Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ning used her waist strength, leaped lightly, and tapped the ground with her toes. To avoid touching the mushrooms, her figure was a bit wobbly.
Having witnessed the powerful reproductive ability of the Firefly Mushrooms, Jiang Ning was afraid of being parasitized by them and had to quickly jump out of the Firefly Mushroom cluster.
In the group of three, the other two saw that the petal blades had not injured Jiang Ning. So they exchanged a look and prepared to charge from the left and right to surround her.
“Don’t!”
Seeing the two of them about to rush into the mushroom cluster, it was too late for Jiang Ning to stop them.
‘Puff—’
The tips of their shoes touched the Firefly Mushrooms, and the yellow spore sacs burst out. The scattered spores immediately contaminated their pant legs.
“Take off your clothes quickly!” Jiang Ning said.
The two men’s ambush steps paused, and an itchy sensation came from their legs.
White mycelia quickly split on their pant legs, growing into spherical spore sacs. The white filaments formed a dense net, wrapping around their calves in a radial pattern.
The two, who had lost their composure while trying to dodge, were now in disarray.
Jiang Ning deftly took out the two men’s tinder from their waist bags, squeezed her palm slightly, and extinguished both tinders at the same time.
Two teleportation arrays appeared under the feet of the flat-topped man and the chubby man.
Then the system broadcast sounded again: 【Fang Dachuan, Zhang Yi’s tinder has been extinguished. They have lost their qualification to compete.】
“Dachuan, Zhang Yi!” the woman shouted anxiously at the two.
“Don’t go over there, those spores will parasitize you,” Jiang Ning flashed over and blocked the woman.
“You!” The woman’s eyes shot sparks of fire at Jiang Ning. “I underestimated you.”
Jiang Ning sighed helplessly. “I’m saving them.”
“Do you see that cluster of yellow mushrooms in front of you? They are Firefly Mushrooms and are highly parasitic,” Jiang Ning said, pointing ahead.
The woman came to her senses and stared blankly at the front.
Firefly Mushrooms…
She had indeed heard of them. They had stumbled here by mistake.
The woman’s gaze towards Jiang Ning became subtle.
“Why did you help us?” The woman’s emotions calmed down, and her eyes were filled with confusion as she looked at Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ning thought for a moment and brought out the old saying in her mind, “Competition second, friendship first.”
Jiang Ning believed that the Spark Organizing Committee would not let them have a real accident in the arena. Although the Firefly Mushrooms were dangerous, they were not fatal. She had teleported the men out, firstly, for the sake of their health, and secondly, because she simply wanted to eliminate them.