Chapter 6: A Phantom Image Appeared in Her Mind
Jiang Ning’s mind was filled with questions. She was very clear that this was her ability.
But, were all plant-based abilities like this?
Jiang Ning blinked.
She found a bag, carefully placed the sunflower seedling inside, and put it in the backpack she was carrying.
Then she opened her Star Brain and began searching on the StarNet.
When in doubt, consult the internet.
Jiang Ning typed on the virtual keyboard: 【Symptoms of a Plant-Based Ability User’s Awakening?】, and hit search.
The search screen was spinning. The signal in the uninhabited zone was poor.
Jiang Ning’s ancient Star Brain didn’t have any kind of satellite booster installed.
While waiting, Jiang Ning closed her eyes and carefully examined the plant seedling that had appeared in her mind.
Sunflower, an annual herbaceous plant, grows to a height of one to three meters. The main root is cylindrical, gradually tapering downwards. The leaves are alternate, ovate-cordate or ovate. The growth cycle is generally 85-120 days or more.
The seedling in her mind right now, judging by the form of the phantom image, should be in a cycle of about 25-30 days. At this stage, the leaves and flower primordia have already formed, and the flower buds will differentiate soon.
It seemed to have gone from sprouting to bud formation in less than half an hour.
Was it caused by the white energy that flowed from her fingertips?
While Jiang Ning was pondering, the StarNet had finished loading.
She came back to her senses and seriously scrolled through the information on the StarNet.
After a quick scan, she didn’t find a single piece of valuable information.
Other than the previously found article about career options for plant-based ability users, the StarNet only had information like 【Which schools offer a Plant-Based Abilities major?】, as well as 【Famous Plant-Based Ability Users】, 【Is the Plant-Based Ability really useless?】, and so on.
Compared to other ability types, the information on plant-based abilities was pathetically scarce.
Jiang Ning scrolled down the page. After a couple of swipes, the page was still refreshing. There was some signal near the beacon base station, but not much.
She had no choice but to exit the interface.
After putting her backpack away, Jiang Ning tightened her clothes, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes, preparing to sleep.
Late at night.
After the Li couple and the Yan father-son duo finished their watch shifts, Auntie Li quietly crept back into Jiang Ning’s tent and fell asleep beside her.
The uninhabited zone at night was wrapped tightly in silence. In the abyss-like darkness, the beacon tower seemed to be the only salvation.
It wasn’t until the sky began to show a faint fish-belly white that Jiang Ning woke from her sleep.
She checked her surroundings as usual and found that nothing had changed from last night. The last bit of hope in her heart was dashed once again.
Jiang Ning sighed, got up, and walked out of the tent.
Yan Zhengxiang had already returned to his own tent, leaving only Yan Zhou outside.
Before falling asleep last night, Jiang Ning had vaguely heard the Li couple and the Yan father-son duo outside mentioning that Li Xiang and she were still just children, and that the adults should handle the night watch.
And under extreme exhaustion, Jiang Ning’s brain had simply ignored the matter.
Thinking about it now, Yan Zhou was also just a child, only a little older than Li Xiang.
Outside the camp, Jiang Ning, with the soul of an adult, watched Yan Zhou who was yawning repeatedly but still forcing himself to stay awake. A pang of guilt suddenly rose in her heart. She walked over and said to Yan Zhou, “It’ll be a while before the sky is fully bright. You should go get some sleep.”
Yan Zhou turned around leisurely upon hearing her. “Why are you awake so early?”
“I went to bed early yesterday,” Jiang Ning said.
Perhaps because she had used up too much energy during the day yesterday, last night was indeed the soundest she had slept in the past three days.
Jiang Ning thought about the results of her StarNet search yesterday and decided to tentatively ask Yan Zhou. After all, among the people she knew, only Yan Zhou was an ability user.
“When your ability awakened, did anything strange appear in your mind?”
Yan Zhou thought Jiang Ning was still upset about last night’s events. His cold and sharp features softened slightly, and he comforted her in a gentle voice, “The awakening of an ability isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s okay if you haven’t awakened. Maybe this is a sign. If you’re suspicious, you can go to the detection center for an ability test after we get back.”
Jiang Ning stared at him fixedly. After a long while, she sighed heavily. “Forget it.”
Yan Zhou had misunderstood her meaning again.
Yan Zhou, however, thought she had taken his words to heart. The corners of his lips curved up, revealing a perfect, neighborly big-brother smile. “It’s good that you’ve come to terms with it.”
Jiang Ning found a spot to sit down next to Yan Zhou. In the end, Yan Zhou didn’t go to rest.
It wasn’t until the sky was completely bright.
Only then did everyone else wake up.
Today, they were going deep into the center of the northern uninhabited zone, so everyone was on high alert from the morning.
Seeing that everyone had gathered, Yan Zhou walked alone to the opposite camp.
“Scarface, you and I will take the lead later. My people will be responsible for restraining the mutated beasts’ movements. Your brothers just need to focus on attacking them. No matter what, we must leave before dark. If we can hunt even one mutated beast, it’ll be a win for both our districts.” He explained the plan to Scarface in full.
“Tch.” After listening, Scarface’s tone was dismissive. “You don’t need to remind me.”
Yan Zhou knew Scarface had heard him and turned back to his own camp.
The two groups got into their respective vehicles.
Scarface was familiar with the roads, so the people from the East District led the way, while Yan Zhengxiang drove the heavy-duty truck closely behind.
Jiang Ning leaned against the soft leather backrest in the back of the truck, observing the scenery outside.
After the truck had been driving for a while, fine droplets of water began to slide diagonally down the windows.
It seemed the further in they went, the more humid the air became.
The sky in the center of the northern uninhabited zone was gloomy, with signs of impending rain. The humid and stuffy feeling in the air was suffocating; the oppression could be felt even through the car windows.
Jiang Ning saw Scarface’s truck pressing two deep wheel ruts into the ground, marks that would never appear in the outer zone of the northern uninhabited zone.
This meant there was likely a swamp inside.
As Jiang Ning expected.
Five minutes later, Jiang Ning saw Scarface’s group stop their vehicle.
A short-haired woman with dark skin got out of their truck and walked towards their vehicle.
She knocked on the driver’s side window and said, “We can’t go any further. Ahead is the Death Swamp zone. No one has ever made it out of there.”
The group got out of the truck.
Everyone looked around. Ahead was a vast swamp, with some unknown flocculent matter floating on the water’s surface. The air was filled with an indescribable dampness and the stench of decay.
The moment Jiang Ning got out of the truck, she felt it was difficult to move. The soles of her shoes sank into the sandy mud, and there was a soft, dull sensation under her feet.
She looked into the swamp in front of her.
Several palm-sized ants were crawling on a pile of black carrion, gnawing on something. Their bodies were pitch-black, with only a section of their tails glowing with a bright blue light.
This is?
“Carrion Ant, F-rank mutated beast.” Yan Zhou noticed Jiang Ning’s confusion. He said, “They usually feed on carrion. Their mandibles have a strong bite force, but they generally don’t actively attack humans.”
F-rank, doesn’t that mean an ordinary person could deal with one with a single hand?
Yan Zhou held out a hand, a trace of psychic energy releasing from his palm.
One of the Carrion Ants was instantly pierced. Blue liquid flowed from its tail, dripping onto the mutated beast corpse it had just been tearing at. That small area of flesh was instantly seared, emitting black smoke and corroding a small hole.
“Because they feed on rotten mutated beasts year-round, their bodies also contain a certain level of contamination. After these pollutants are digested in the Carrion Ant’s body for a week, they form the bright blue tail wings we see now. In the early days, people used to extract the liquid from their tail wings to use as a corrosive agent. But these corrosive agents are formed from the pollutants filtered by their bodies and also contain a certain level of contamination. So now, corrosive agents made from Carrion Ants are no longer allowed on the market,” Yan Zhou explained to her.
He noticed that Jiang Ning seemed very interested in mutated beasts.
From the way she had blurted out “Thorny Devil Lizard” before, Jiang Ning must have specifically looked for books on this topic. It was just that ever since experts publicly stated that the contamination in Carrion Ants was harmful to the human body, the Federation had revised the descriptions of making corrosive agents from Carrion Ants in most books on the market. That’s why he had mentioned it to Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ning nodded, looking as if she had learned something.
After this small interlude, Yan Zhou’s attention became highly focused again. He constantly monitored their surroundings, not daring to slack off for a moment.
No matter what, an F-rank mutated beast like the Carrion Ant was still a rare sight in the uninhabited zone.
Yan Zhou walked to the front of the group. “Everyone, be extremely careful. The mutated beasts here are of a higher level than those outside, with a contamination level of at least C-rank or above. Be careful not to get separated.”
“Uncle Li, Auntie Li, you two stay with my dad. When we fight the mutated beasts later, you’ll be responsible for attracting their attention from the sides,” Yan Zhou said.
After he finished, he looked at Li Xiang and Jiang Ning, who were staring at him eagerly. “You two will be in the back, responsible for everyone’s logistics. If anyone gets injured, you’ll immediately take their place.”
“Why do I have to be with her! I don’t want to!” Li Xiang said discontentedly. He was still angry about yesterday’s punch.
“Are you scared?” Jiang Ning asked calmly.
“What am I afraid of?” Li Xiang sounded as if he had heard a joke.
Before he could finish, Jiang Ning said, “I request to change groups.”
“You don’t want to be in a group with me?” Li Xiang was both angry and resentful.
He could suggest it, but Jiang Ning couldn’t!
“I’ll do the opposite of what you want!” he squeezed out through gritted teeth.
Li Xiang: “That’s it! I’m not changing!”
Jiang Ning chuckled lightly. This kid was really arrogant and awkward.
The adults just treated this as a squabble between children and didn’t pay it much mind.
“Alright!” Yan Zhou immediately made the decision. “Everyone, try to stick together and don’t fall behind. The swamp area is not like the outside. A single misstep could be fatal.”
“Okay,” everyone nodded.
They began to patrol the surroundings according to the division of labor Yan Zhou had laid out.
Jiang Ning and Li Xiang circled around the truck.
Relatively speaking, the logistics they were responsible for had the lowest risk factor.
Jiang Ning carefully observed their surroundings.
The short-haired woman who had come to warn them earlier was now holding a detector-like device and walking back and forth in the area.
Even the usually arrogant Scarface was vigilantly keeping watch from time to time.
Everyone was filled with apprehension towards the Death Swamp.
She moved a little closer to the swamp, watching as the tops of her shoes sank deeper and deeper into the mud.
Strange.
There was no wind, yet the flocculent matter floating on the shallow water’s surface was also swaying.
Jiang Ning seemed to have thought of something, and alarm bells went off in her mind.
“Go!”
In the swamp, which was as calm as stagnant water, bubbles were continuously rising to the surface.
Jiang Ning grabbed the clearly clueless Li Xiang beside her and ran towards the crowd without a moment’s hesitation.
“Jiang Ning, what’s gotten into you! Why are you dragging me?” Li Xiang frowned, disgustedly shaking off the hand that was holding him.
Jiang Ning’s steps faltered slightly. She glanced at the bubbles behind them, which were now churning more violently, and her pretty brows furrowed into a knot.
She grabbed Li Xiang’s hand again.
As she ran, she shouted towards Yan Zhou and the others, “The mutated beast is under the swamp mud!”
Jiang Ning’s hand clamped down hard on Li Xiang’s forearm. The pulling on his arm was a bit painful, and Li Xiang was about to struggle free again.
The next moment, something was surging out of the swamp behind them.