Chapter 6 Testing Strength

Chapter 5 Local Monsters <TOC> Chapter 7 First Visit to Grub Grain Town

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Translator: SumTLMan

Night Claw began to recount the distribution of local monsters.

This area, with the oasis belt as its core region, is bordered by the territory of Claw Boars to the north, the ever-expanding Mushroom Forest to the south, the Dead Sea, where various monsters may appear, to the east, and the Death Dunes occupied by Stinging Antlions to the west.

Unlike the Claw Boars that move in herds, Stinging Antlions are solitary creatures. They are colossal in size and create sand pits and quicksand terrains in the dunes to hunt unsuspecting passersby.

They slumber beneath the sands year-round, each dividing their own hunting grounds.

During the day, Stinging Antlions sometimes emerge from the sand to bask in the sun and the deadly rays, absorbing energy. At night, they retreat beneath the sands to rest. Once they sense creatures approaching the dunes, they awaken to hunt.

“We Claw Boars are also hunted by them,” Night Claw couldn’t help but lament: “Compared to Stinging Antlions, we’re much more disciplined. Claw Boars only defend our territory and attack intruders. Our main goal is to find a space where we can survive, and we bear no particular hatred toward humans. In fact, we often coexist in the same area as humans.”

“Because the presence of humans proves that there are no super monsters nearby. After all, among the Light Absorber species, we’re at the bottom rung, not much better off than ordinary humans.”

“But Stinging Antlions are completely different. They transform the soil, turning any kind of land into desert to facilitate their hunting. They create decoys, love hunting humans, and when they go mad, they’ll even kill their own kind. They’re dangerous monsters, and once they mature, their strength can reach class D.”

Zhou Yi mounted his vehicle, leading the team all the way to the dune region in the west.

Here stretched an endless desert.

Under the blazing sun, it appeared particularly vast and desolate.

Zhou Yi gazed around and suddenly noticed someone slowly crawling out of the sand not far away. The person shook off the sand on their body, looked around, and then staggered toward the depths of the desert.

“Master, that’s a decoy of the Stinging Antlion,” Night Claw said beside him: “Someone always falls for it.”

Zhou Yi looked at the remote control in his hand.

Zooming in, the sand walker was merely a human-shaped object reduced to bones.

Thorny brambles filled its skull and chest cavities, wrapped in clothing on the outside. The humanoid decoy was manipulated by the spiky brambles, making it hard to recognize without close observation.

The Stinging Antlion has long, spiky antennae on its body, which serve as its limbs. It manipulates the decoy like a puppeteer to lure other creatures into approaching.

From the daytime aerial view, one could see many such decoys in the desert: wandering humanoid decoys, Claw Boars with hollowed-out bodies, carts disguised as trapped in the sand, and boxes that seemed to contain something valuable.

If you approach these decoys, you’ll enter the trap of the Stinging Antlion.

Zhou Yi looked at the humanoid decoy closest to them.

“Let’s start with you and test the strength.”

“Switch to ranged weapons.”

At his command, the Warrior Crabs all pulled out various kitchen knives from the weapon straps on their abdomens, including traditional chopping knives, cleavers, pointed fruit knives, serrated knives, and more.

“Target: humanoid decoy.”

“Maintain distance, and execute free-throw attacks.”

Receiving the order, the twelve armored warriors immediately formed formations, their large pincers aiming at the target.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Various knives flashed silver under the sunlight.

Under the wild brute force of the Warrior Crabs, the knives spun and slashed at the humanoid decoy thirty meters away. Just one round of volleys reduced it to a pile of shattered bones.

The severed spiky antennae writhed in pain, finally pulling out the main body from under the dunes. First emerged a pair of spiky, pincer-like jaws, followed by more spiky antennae emerging from the sand, crazily rushing toward them like serpents.

The Warrior Crabs split into two groups, swiftly scuttling left and right, and continued to throw all twelve knives they carried. Then, without a backward glance, they retreated to the safe area behind.

At this moment, the weakness of the Stinging Antlion was revealed. It is a master of positional warfare, but once its trap is exposed and it enters mobile combat, its rigid body, the spiky antennae covering it, and its suction on the sand become difficult to utilize.

After angrily chasing for a distance, it finally chose to give up. The antennae retracted back beneath the desert.

But soon, the Stinging Antlion began to writhe frantically again, churning the entire dune into boiling yellow sand, causing the visibility nearby to decrease.

Night Claw was stunned: “What’s making it go berserk?”

“Is it losing its mind due to a failed hunt? This state doesn’t look right…”

Zhou Yi pulled out a can of cola from his backpack.

Two Warrior Crabs immediately opened umbrellas, shielding him from the flying sand ahead.

Zhou Yi pulled the tab on the can and took a sip.

“You’ll see in a moment.”

The Stinging Antlion’s movements became increasingly sluggish, and after a few minutes, it completely ceased moving.

The dust gradually settled.

The Warrior Crabs confirmed the death of this dune killer, dug its body out of the sand, and laid it on the ground.

Thus, Zhou Yi finally saw the full appearance of this creature.

The Stinging Antlion was about six meters long, with a wide, shield-like yellow-brown layered exoskeleton, four legs also covered with hard shells ending in trident-like spiky claws. Its head was very small, with large pincer-like jaws, and spiky antennae grew on both sides of its body. These were more like flexible limbs and natural weapons, with bits of white bone hanging from them.

At this moment, it was already stiff all over.

The Warrior Crabs performed another round of stabbing on its neck, chest, and abdomen to confirm its complete death, and then began to retrieve the knives they had thrown earlier.

“Why did it suddenly die?” Night Claw’s small eyes were full of confusion.

Zhou Yi didn’t explain, thinking to himself: “That’s because it was poisoned by my knives.”

He placed his hand on the hard shell of the Stinging Antlion, and then the monster’s corpse emitted a faint glow, gradually condensing into a white light sphere, which he gently grasped.

This was a [Light Seed].

By integrating it into his own mechanical body, he could use this highly concentrated energy to directly enhance his strength.

Among health, defense, and energy, he chose to replenish energy.

[Energy +40]

His panel energy recovered to 1,732 points.

Since his health and defense had reached relatively high values, Zhou Yi began to convert the harvested Light Seeds into energy.

He had explored the attribute point mechanism for a long time.

Health improvement is the most immediate. One Light Seed can increase health by 10 points, but the lost portion after being attacked does not recover on its own. It can only be replenished by acquiring Light Seeds later or by naturally absorbing the power of the Dead Sea, which is extremely slow.

In terms of defense, one Light Seed can bring an increase of 0.01 defense points. If an attack cannot cause damage exceeding the defense, it cannot harm Zhou Yi’s body. At least, the Warrior Crabs could no longer break through Zhou Yi’s defense.

But there are special ways to cause damage that ignores defense, such as poison.

The Warrior Crabs’ knives were coated with a poison from a small creature in the Dead Sea called the “Jumping Snake”. It would bounce around on the seabed of the Dead Sea like a spring, and when frightened or scared, it would spray poisonous juice. If a large monster accidentally absorbed a significant amount of poison, it would also be severely injured.

Zhou Yi managed to collect a lot of Jumping Snake venom and combined it with knives to form ranged lethal weapons, which had always been effective in actual combat.

The last element of his body is energy, which is also the key to maintaining the operation of his body.

As the commander and doctor of the Warrior Crab legion, Zhou Yi confirmed through extensive actual combat that whether in battle or survival, the energy of the Light Absorber species naturally gets consumed to maintain their powerful physiological functions. Especially for Light Absorber species with special abilities, like Red Falcon; without sufficient energy, they cannot use their skills.

So it’s necessary to always maintain a certain amount of energy reserves to heal and supply the Warrior Crabs, keeping them combat-ready.

If health represents the current survival state of the body, then the energy bar is the fuel and power source that keeps the Light Absorber species operating at high speed, the logistic lifeline that maintains competitiveness.

Even powerful high-class monsters will become food for the Bone Fish when their energy is exhausted.

The Warrior Crabs began to collect the spoils of the battlefield, especially dismantling the shell of the Stinging Antlion. It was a material with good impact resistance. They dismantled it and carried it away.

After this small test, Zhou Yi also had a practical understanding of the environment around his new home.

The local monster groups to the east, south, west, and north could all be handled with his own strength, ensuring basic safety.

He looked at the sky, and seeing that it was about time, he rode toward the Dead Sea beach to wait for the young A Jin.

Chapter 5 Local Monsters <TOC> Chapter 7 First Visit to Grub Grain Town

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