What did Shang see in the hole inside the dead tree?

More Swamp Millipedes, but smaller.

No wonder that thing had its head pointed into the dead tree. It was probably nursing its young.

The little Swamp Millipedes were only around half a meter long and quite thin. At the moment, Shang could see them squiggling around in a ball.

'Lucky!' Shang thought with a grin. 'Those are at least ten, which means I get another 500 Contribution Points.'

Did Shang feel bad about killing them?

No.

First of all, they were a menace to nature, and second of all, they were insects. It was just natural for a human to feel less empathy for insects.

Shang looked at his left arm, which had healed by now.

Then, Shang put his hand into the hole and pointed it at the ball.

Shang used his Ice Blast, and the ball froze over in an instant. Of course, Shang's arm nearly burned off, but he quickly saved it by using a Fire Blast in a random direction.

However, his arm was still bleeding heavily, and it would need some time to heal. Luckily, the bone wasn't injured, which meant that Shang wouldn't need to use as much Mana.

The inherent Mana inside his body should heal the arm pretty quickly.

A couple seconds later, Shang's arm was fully healed.

However, his Mana was dangerously low.

In his spars against the other students, Shang had been able to heal his broken foot a couple of times, but that had only been a small foot. This time, it was his entire arm. His Mana had to heal way more mass.

After healing his arm, Shang took out the frozen ball of Swamp Millipedes and put it inside his beast sack together with the feelers of the adult version.

'That should be around 500 Contribution Points or something like that. Kind of hard to count how many young are inside the ball.'

'Let's see. I need at least 2,000 Contribution Points per unit of ore since the cheapest Rank Two ore cost that much. However, since I need ore with specific Affinities, I will probably need more. Additionally, I need two units per Affinity.'

'If I say that each unit of ore costs 3,500 since I have rare Affinities, I would need 28,000 Contribution Points.'

Shang took a deep breath when he finished his calculation.

'So, this ball of Swamp Millipedes isn't even a fiftieth of what I need. Oh boy,' Shang thought.

'That's a lot of work, but I think that's to be expected. The other students have been in the academy for over four years. Over four years, they have probably done a lot of missions.'

'If they earned 100 Contribution Points per day, which is definitely possible, they could have easily earned way over 100,000 Contribution Points in four years. It's definitely possible to earn 28,000 Contribution Points, but it takes time and effort.'

Shang sighed.

'I certainly don't like the thought of going into the wilderness every day to kill beasts that aren't even a danger to me, but I guess work isn't supposed to be fun. After all, it's work.'

'Anyway, I should continue,' Shang thought as he put the beast sack over his shoulder. It was very light at the moment since nearly nothing was in it, but it was still a bit annoying to carry it around.

'I need a Space Ring. However, I will also get something that allows me to store my stuff when I reach the General Stage. That kind of makes a Space Ring not worth it.'

As Shang continued towards the northeast, the sun continued going down. The afternoon had passed, and evening had arrived.

Shang saw several more beasts on his journey, but he still had no idea if he was allowed to kill them or not.

That was until he found some blood and signs of dragging on the ground.

Shang's eyes lit up.

Shang followed the signs and found a hidden burrow beneath a tree.

Just like the last time, Shang lured the Pest Cat out of its burrow by throwing his sword in front of one of the entrances, but this time, the Pest Cat fled out of another exit.

Shang quickly killed it, cut off its ears, and looked into the burrow.

After a minute, Shang came out of the burrow with a sigh.

'No young.'

Shang jumped back to the trees and continued journeying to the northeast. He had decided that he would go deep into the forest. Right now, he was still in an area where a lot of students and hunters went to, which meant that the number of killable beasts was relatively low.

If Shang wanted to make his trip profitable, he would need to enter deep into the forest.

A couple minutes later, Shang saw another Swamp Millipede, but this time, it was in the middle of a clearing in a big puddle. It was about as big as the other Swamp Millipede.

What was the Swamp Millipede doing?

It was oozing out purplish liquid like a slug and munching on the surrounding earth. Shang decided to watch the Swamp Millipede for a while.

Over the next minutes, Shang saw that the Swamp Millipede ate up all the grass in its surroundings and replaced it with black saliva.

Shang saw that black saliva slowly mix with the purplish liquid around the Swamp Millipede, and as soon as the two liquids came into contact with each other, they started sizzling.

A bit of black smoke came out of the sizzling liquid, and it entered the Swamp Millipede's body again.

'Did it convert the life energy of the fertile earth into smoke, which it then absorbed?' Shang thought. 'I mean, the Poison Affinity is a mix of the Water Affinity and Darkness Affinity. If my Darkness Affinity can absorb life energy, the Swamp Millipede can probably do something similar.'

After watching the Swamp Millipede for a bit, Shang charged at it with all of his speed. The last Swamp Millipede had been a problem since it had been positioned weirdly, with its head protected.

This one was just in the open.

The Swamp Millipede noticed Shang, but it was already too late. One shouldn't forget that the Swamp Millipede was at the Middle Soldier Stage while Shang was at the Peak Soldier Stage. Together with Shang's advantage of surprise and his impressive speed, the Swamp Millipede couldn't even react before Shang cut its head in two.

This one also didn't have a nest, sadly.

pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ After cutting off the feelers, Shang continued traveling to the northeast.

Over the next two hours, Shang killed a couple more Pest Cast and Swamp Millipedes. As his journey continued, they became more frequent.

Sadly, he hadn't found another nest.

Shang had just killed another Swamp Millipede and just wanted to go when he felt that something wasn't right.

For some reason, he felt really uneasy.

He felt like he was being watched by something dangerous.

Shang narrowed his eyes because he knew what was happening.

'Is there a Vanishing Snake eyeing me?' he thought.

Shang looked around, but he couldn't see anything.

He looked at the trees, the grass, the ground, the bushes, at everything.

However, he saw absolutely nothing.

Shang was pretty certain that a Vanishing Snake was around, but even when he knew that it was there, he couldn't find it.

Yet, a couple of seconds later, the feeling of being watched vanished.

'It probably saw that I noticed something and decided to retreat.'

'Fitting name. It's truly like it has vanished.'

'Now, I can understand why that older student always dissuades people from coming here. If someone doesn't have a lot of experience in the wilderness, the Vanishing Snakes would be the death of them. I knew it was there, but I still couldn't find it.'

'If that thing is that good at hiding, probably not even I would be able to react appropriately if I don't sense it early.'

'That thing truly is worthy of 2,000 Contribution Points.'