NABC Chapter 29 Predators by the Lake
Chapter 29 Predators by the Lake
Yu Xiaogang was in a hurry to report on the King-level Soul Beast, not because he was worried about the safety of Xiao Yan and the other person.
This is a soul beast with king-level bloodline. The person who discovered it, like myself, will surely receive praise from the Spirit Hall.
He stumbled to the outer entrance of the forest. The captain of the guard looked at him with suspicion, noting that the two children behind him had disappeared.
"Sir, why did you come out by yourself? Where are the two children who were following you?"
"Quickly, contact the Spirit Hall's enforcement team. There are spirit beasts with king-level bloodlines in this forest."
After Yu Xiaogang finished speaking, he collapsed to the ground due to the exhaustion of his soul power.
……
"Brother, don't you think this master is ridiculous? He actually told me to absorb a Guzhu bamboo that's been around for over ten years. Is he really a master, or has he been possessed?"
"Well, otherwise he wouldn't be over fifty, his soul power wouldn't be older than his age. We should be getting close to our destination soon. We need to be careful, since even on the outskirts of the forest, there are many miscellaneous soul beasts." Xiao Yan squatted down and touched the soil on the ground. It was relatively moist, with good water content, so the water source should be nearby.
"Okay, big brother."
Since parting ways with Yu Xiaogang, they had encountered quite a few soul beasts along the way. However, all of these soul beasts were too young and simply not suitable for Tang San. The two could only continue their search. During this time, Tang San actually suggested that Xiao Yan set a fire, which would allow soul beasts with water attributes and other life abilities to appear. Xiao Yan's eyes widened in surprise upon hearing this.
Not to mention that you have to burn the right spot for people to come out and put out the fire, if you provoke some poisonous spirit beast, the fire and the poisonous smoke will wipe you out.
The one who set fire to the mountain, and burned the Soul Hunter Forest at that, wouldn't even get a chance to sit in the Spirit Hall's prison; they'd throw him straight into the Slaughter City. However, given that the two of them are still young, their crime doesn't warrant that.
It seems that the three sons' ideas are still too selfish and self-centered. They should be educated again when the opportunity arises.
Although the environment in a forest is naturally better the deeper it is, with mountains and water nearby, the soul beasts in the outer areas also need water to survive. This is the kind of place that Xiao Yan and Tang San are looking for.
Furthermore, with Yu Xiaogang in the way before, many of his methods were inconvenient to reveal. Now that he and Tang San know each other well, they can fight without any scruples.
Before long, as the surrounding soil became increasingly moist, Xiao Yan finally found a small lake.
The calm lake surface was peaceful, making one forget that this was a forest composed of soul beasts that killed each other. Several grass deer were licking the lake water with their heads down, as if they had been thirsty for a long time, and their heads had been buried in the lake and had not come out.
"Big brother, can this grass deer also be used as my spirit ring?" Tang San asked after confirming that no other spirit beasts were approaching from the shadows.
Xiao Yan nodded: "That's natural. After all, if you force things, it will only affect your cultivation progress. Although they are animal-type soul beasts, they are all herbivores with healing abilities. It's a pity that you can't hunt any of these grass deer."
Before Tang San could even utter the three words "why," he noticed a hint of purple in his elder brother Xiao Yan's eyes.
He initially thought Xiao Yan meant that he couldn't deal with the group of soul beasts gathered together, but it seemed that there was something else going on in the lake. Seeing this, he also activated his Purple Demon Eye.
His understanding was higher than Xiao Yan's, and he saw things more clearly. In the lake, there was a dark shadow slowly approaching the deer drinking water, but the three deer on the shore seemed completely unaware of it.
So Xiao Yan didn't mean that they couldn't hunt the grass deer, but rather that these grass deer were already someone else's prey.
"thump!"
When prey hunts, it often happens in an instant. A huge, sharp-shelled turtle leaps out of the water and swallows the entire head of a deer drinking in the grass.
The gore from the act of gnawing made Koromon cover its eyes.
There is no such thing as a calm surface; the law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak, has always been the law of the jungle here.
The tortoise was so fast that the deer in the grass didn't even have time to scream. What puzzled Tang San was that, despite its companion dying in front of him, the remaining two deer remained in their drinking posture, without moving an inch.
Just as he was about to ask, Xiao Yan reminded him, "Little San, look between the legs of those two deer."
Upon hearing this, Tang San stared intently at the two surviving deer and realized that the grass deer's limbs were trembling, clearly trying to escape quickly. However, it was as if they were desperately trying to break free of the iron filings of a magnet, wasting their efforts.
"This is an electric snapping turtle. Even in water, it moves very slowly, but its methods are truly remarkable. It releases an electric current powerful enough to paralyze the deer while they are drinking. With water as a conductor, although it is not fast, once the prey gets close, there is no chance of escape."
Its flesh is extremely resistant to electricity, which is why it's unaffected. Judging by its size, it's probably over a thousand years old.
"A thousand-year-old soul beast? But isn't this the outer edge of the forest?" Tang San was shocked.
"Well, turtles don't have many other advantages, except that they live a long life. If they were willing to stay at the bottom of the water, who would bother to gnaw on a turtle shell?"
"So, we came to this lake for nothing? If only this turtle's lifespan were only four hundred years." Tang San was somewhat disappointed. A turtle-type soul beast of this size that could live for a thousand years was here, and it was also a predator. It was conceivable that there were probably no other suitable soul beasts around this lake.
"No, even if this Thunder Fang Alligator Turtle is only a hundred years old, I don't recommend you absorb it. This Thunder Fang Alligator Turtle isn't known for its defense. As you can tell from its name, its most powerful feature is the mouthful of sharp teeth. The Blue Silver Grass is rooted in the earth, and its electrical dissipation is already sufficient. Xiao Zhi can handle the amount of electricity from the few known electric attribute martial souls on the continent."
Tang San didn't know who Xiao Zhi was. After all, Xiao Yan often used words he had never heard before, so he had gotten used to listening more and asking less.
"Brother, where should we go next? It's already past noon." He didn't want to return empty-handed, but if they stayed in this dangerous forest overnight, he wasn't sure if they could survive.
"Don't worry, Yu Xiaogang left a few sleeping bags for camping in my Twenty-Four Caves. If it's really not working, we can find a safe place to rest and continue tomorrow. But we don't need to leave." Xiao Yan wasn't afraid of any punishment that Gangzi mentioned. As a six-year-old Soul Master who already had a hundred-year Soul Ring, what Yu Xiaogang was afraid of was that the whole school would recognize him, Xiao Yan.
As Xiao Yan spoke, he picked up a pebble from the ground and, without any regard for the alligator snapping turtle that was still eating, threw it into the lake.
"Big brother, wait a minute."
Tang San could see that he couldn't interrupt the crocodile turtle's meal at this moment, but before he could stop it, Xiao Yan had already thrown the stone in his hand.
"Thump." A pebble fell into the lake, creating ripples.
The alligator snapping turtle, its meal interrupted, looked around in displeasure. It then fixed its gaze on the hiding place of Xiao Yan and his group, but once it felt no threat, it continued eating on its own.
"Brother, you were too impulsive just now. What if this thousand-year-old alligator snapping turtle attacked us?"
"Don't worry, with its speed, you could stand here and let it chase you for half an hour without any trouble." Xiao Yan dared to do this because he was confident in his abilities.
As he spoke, he beckoned Tang San to join him in picking up more stones and throwing them in. Although Tang San didn't understand his intentions, he did as he was told.
Even with the enhancement of his Purple Demon Eye, Tang San couldn't discern anything about the small lake; he could only watch as the pebbles created beautiful splashes.
Judging from the muffled sound coming from the lake, the lake is at most two meters deep, indeed a small lake that isn't very big.
After a period of silence, the stones that Xiao Yan had been throwing out finally started to react.
To Tang San's astonishment, the two turtles actually surfaced again.
As the saying goes, "one stone stirs up a thousand waves," and since this lake is not deep, it must be a shallow lake with many turtles.