CHAPTER 95: CHAPTER 95: MUTATED SNAKE FRUIT_1

「Dusk.」

All three teams responsible for finding food had returned to the Melted Cave.

"Where is Ke Lan?" Wang Zhan asked.

"She just sent me a message," Chen Mengshu replied. "She said she encountered a minor mishap but will be back soon."

Fortunately, the personal terminals used in this competition also had team communication capabilities, which prevented the teams from working in complete ignorance.

"Alright," Wang Zhan responded, then turned to the other two teams. "Mengshu and I explored an area of about twenty kilometers. We were quite unlucky, though; no gains. What about you?"

"We didn’t find anything either," Zhou Weiqing and Zhou Weiya replied, equally empty-handed.

The group’s eyes then turned to Song Dongming and Huang Pufeng.

As soon as those two returned, they put on an air of profound mystery. They must have found something, Wang Zhan guessed.

As expected, Huang Pufeng couldn’t hold back any longer. He immediately upended his backpack, pouring out a large pile of red fruits.

Instantly, a sweet aroma filled the entire Melted Cave.

"Oh, are these Mutated Snake Fruits?" Chen Mengshu exclaimed, her eyes brightening. She picked one up, took a bite, and her eyes narrowed into joyful crescents.

Seeing this, Wang Zhan subconsciously picked up a fruit and examined it for a moment.

Each fruit was about the size of a fist. It felt perfectly firm to the touch, and its fruity aroma was quite strong.

"Yes, Mutated Snake Fruit," Song Dongming laughed. "This stuff is rare in our country. Not only does it taste excellent, but it can also enhance a Martial Artist’s internal energy and restore their stamina."

"Neither of us expected our luck to be this good! We found a whole vine of Mutated Snake Fruits," Huang Pufeng said proudly.

"A whole vine?" Wang Zhan asked in surprise. "Are there many of them?"

"Yes, plenty of them. Enough for the seven of us for a month or two," Song Dongming nodded. "And Mutated Snake Fruit can be preserved for a long time without worrying about it spoiling too quickly. So, after Huang Fu and I found them, we picked a lot and made several trips back in advance."

With that, Song Dongming pointed towards the dark depths of the Melted Cave.

Only then did Wang Zhan realize that dozens of Mutated Snake Fruits were already piled up there in the darkness—enough for their group for a week.

"In addition to that, Huang Fu and I also found several Big-eared Rabbit lairs," Song Dongming continued, "but we didn’t act immediately. We decided to wait for you all to return before discussing it."

"Big-eared Rabbits? The ones from our Chu State Wilderness?"

"Yes, Big-eared Rabbits are a mutated product of an invasive species from Oceania. It’s not surprising that these beasts are here," Song Dongming explained.

Wang Zhan remarked with satisfaction, "Now that we have meat and fruit, at least our food supply is secured... But why hasn’t Ke Lan returned yet?"

Just as Wang Zhan finished speaking, Sun Kelan’s voice came from the cave entrance behind him.

"COUGH, COUGH. Sorry, I had a bit of an accident."

Everyone noticed Sun Kelan looked weak and hurriedly helped her into the cave to sit down.

"It’s okay, I’m a doctor myself. It’s not a serious injury," Sun Kelan shook her head. "Just a few tears in my intestines. I’ll just have to go hungry tonight; it should be mostly healed by tomorrow."

Sun Kelan was a Level 8 Martial Artist. What would be a severe injury for ordinary people was indeed nothing for her.

The recovery capabilities of Martial Artists were also astonishing.

"What on earth happened? Were you attacked by a beast?" Wang Zhan asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

He had witnessed Sun Kelan’s meticulous mind the day before; as a Martial Artist proficient in scouting and stealth, she shouldn’t have run into an accident.

"No, I encountered many soldier-level beasts along the way, but none of them could detect me. I was injured by people from another Martial Arts Academy," Sun Kelan said with a wry smile. "I ran into people from the Royal Martial Arts Academy."

"The Royal Martial Arts Academy?"

"We’ve run into people from the Four Major Martial Arts Academies so quickly?"

Everyone was taken aback. The competition’s mission area was vast; they shouldn’t have encountered each other so soon, especially not teams from the Four Major Martial Arts Academies.

The thought of having to compete directly with people from the Four Major Martial Arts Academies made everyone feel somewhat helpless.

"How strong are they?" Wang Zhan was most concerned about this.

Sun Kelan recalled for a moment, then said, "I used my mental energy to scout them. There were four at Level 9 and three at Level 8. Their auras were all very potent; they had all broken the Limit by at least 15% or more."

To prevent anyone from disbelieving her, Sun Kelan instinctively glanced at Chen Mengshu and said, "Mengshu has broken the Limit by about 15%, and their auras are all stronger than hers."

For a moment, no one could find the words to respond.

Zhou Weiya said bitterly, "So this is the strength of the Four Major Martial Arts Academies. We’ve heard our seniors talk about how formidable the Four Majors are, but we didn’t really take it to heart back then."

Sun Kelan nodded. "For this competition, we all stopped suppressing our realms and broke through ahead of schedule. We didn’t expect the gap to still be this large."

Hearing this, Wang Zhan was slightly taken aback.

"You all broke through to Level 7 and Level 8 ahead of schedule?"

"Yeah, just to perform well in this competition. Our instructors actually tried to dissuade us, but we chose to do it anyway," Zhou Weiqing said helplessly. "We didn’t expect reality to hit us this hard."

Talented Martial Artists usually choose to suppress their realm during the Martial Artist Stage to consolidate their foundation. These teammates’ premature breakthroughs would definitely impact their future development.

Wang Zhan had been somewhat curious before. During the ranking matches in the first half of the school year, most third-year students were typically at Level 4 or Level 5. The most advanced were only at the Level 6 Martial Artist stage.

So how, in the second half of the year, had even Level 8s started appearing?

It seemed that for this college competition, his teammates had sacrificed far more than Wang Zhan had imagined.

"Alright, stop feeling sorry for yourselves! So what if it’s the Royal Martial Arts Academy?" Wang Zhan frowned. "Think about the sacrifices you’ve made! If you lose your morale before even seeing the enemy, then what’s the point of competing? You might as well just fire off a flare and wait to go home."

"The Royal Martial Arts Academy really isn’t all that," Chen Mengshu chimed in while gnawing on a Mutated Snake Fruit, echoing Wang Zhan’s sentiment.

Wang Zhan turned his head and noticed this girl already had a pile of four or five fruit cores beside her.

"You’ve eaten that many already?" Wang Zhan found it hard to believe. He subconsciously glanced at Chen Mengshu’s still-flat stomach.

Each fruit is the size of a fist. She ate four or five, and there’s no reaction at all?

"They’re delicious..." Chen Mengshu mumbled softly.

Wang Zhan shook his head and no longer bothered with her, turning instead to Sun Kelan. "Are you sure you’ll be fully recovered by tomorrow?"

"I’m sure. Actually, the injury wasn’t that bad by the time I was returning. I’ll definitely be back to my peak condition tomorrow," Sun Kelan replied earnestly.

"You should know, now is not the time to be stubborn..." As Wang Zhan spoke, he noticed the firm determination in Sun Kelan’s eyes and conceded, "Alright, we’ll count on you being fully recovered by tomorrow then."

In reality, Wang Zhan knew very well that even for Martial Artists, injuries to internal organs couldn’t possibly heal overnight to a state where they wouldn’t affect performance at all.

"What? Are you planning to stir up trouble tomorrow?" Song Dongming, who understood Wang Zhan well, instantly caught his underlying meaning.

Wang Zhan sneered. "Of course! So what if it’s the Royal Martial Arts Academy? They hurt one of our people; this matter isn’t going to be over so easily! Tomorrow, Sun Kelan and I will act as one group. The five of you go pick fruits and hunt rabbits. Get us a month’s worth of rations."

"Don’t you need our help? Just the two of you are going?" Song Dongming asked, a little worried.

"I have a plan. Don’t worry," Wang Zhan reassured him.

「The next day.」

Song Dongming and Huang Fu led the other three to gather food, while Wang Zhan followed Sun Kelan to the place where she had encountered the Royal Martial Arts Academy team the previous day.

"I’m not sure of their exact location," Sun Kelan said, "but I’ve already mapped out the distribution of soldier-level beasts in this area. Given how those people from the Royal Martial Arts Academy operate, they’ll most likely hunt openly without any reservations."

Wang Zhan nodded, obediently following Sun Kelan with a relaxed smile.

Actually, after hearing yesterday that people from the Royal Martial Arts Academy were nearby, Wang Zhan had already formed a bold plan.

When he killed the Single-horn King Fairy two days prior, he had, as expected, acquired extreme attributes. Currently, Wang Zhan’s extreme attributes were not far from the Martial Artist Stage’s maximum value of 1,600.

If circumstances allowed, Wang Zhan could fully cultivate his extreme attributes through body refining and then break through to soldier-level in about half a month.

However, the current environment clearly didn’t permit that.

So, after hearing Sun Kelan describe how the Royal Martial Arts Academy dealt with soldier-level beasts, Wang Zhan made a decision. The Royal Martial Arts Academy is so powerful; helping him kill a few soldier-level beasts shouldn’t be a big problem for them, right?

Besides, they even injured one of ours. What’s wrong with them giving a little compensation?

"Captain, actually, the people from the Royal Martial Arts Academy didn’t do anything too outrageous to me. Maybe we should just let it go?" Sun Kelan said, looking worried.

She believed Wang Zhan was second to none. However, just the two of them going to find trouble with the Royal Martial Arts Academy... isn’t that a bit too reckless? Sun Kelan worried.

"Don’t worry about it; I know what I’m doing." Wang Zhan waved his hand dismissively. "Once we find them, you just hide yourself well. I can handle it alone."

Hearing this, Sun Kelan didn’t try to persuade him further.

About an hour later, after successively passing through the territories of three soldier-level beasts, the two of them finally found the Royal Martial Arts Academy’s team.

It was an open area where the seven-member team from the Royal Martial Arts Academy was currently besieging a lower soldier-level beast.

Seeing this, Wang Zhan felt a surge of anticipation.

"Ke Lan, go hide somewhere and wait for me."

Sun Kelan knew she wouldn’t be much help, so she proactively retreated and disappeared from sight.

With no more worries about her safety, Wang Zhan stopped concealing his presence and walked boldly towards the Royal Martial Arts Academy’s team.

Meanwhile, on the Royal Martial Arts Academy’s side, the battle was nearing its end.

The lower soldier-level beast had no way to resist their seven-member team.

But just as they were preparing to kill the beast, Ally was the first to notice Wang Zhan’s approach.

"Someone’s approaching," Ally said, frowning slightly.

"Who is it? The Royal Martial Arts Academy is hunting a beast! If it’s none of your business, get lost!" William shouted loudly.

With a faint smile on his face, Wang Zhan slowly approached the group.

"I’m here to collect a debt."