Lin Huang slept from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m., he managed to catch up with some rest from their long journey last night. When he got out of his tent, he could still hear Fatty was still snoring loudly in his tent. Lin Huang then patted his tent, "Fatty, wake up. If we don’t move now, we will be wasting yet another day." Fatty continued snoring.
"Fatty, wake up. Monsters are attacking the cave! Quick!" Lin Huang shook Fatty’s tent hard.
Fatty sat up and went to get dressed instantly, then got out of the tent. He asked Lin Huang in shock, "The cave entrance is blocked! How are we going to escape?!"
"Escape what? There’s no monster at all, I just needed to wake you up." Lin Huang said casually.
"Damn you!" Fatty then took off his clothes and put them on properly. He was mad.
"Don’t you wear clothes when you sleep in a wild zone like this?"
"I can’t sleep when I’m fully clothed."
Lin Huang did not bother to say anything. He then kept his tent and went to clean up.
The portable tent could be shrunk to the size of a broad bean. There was a tiny button in the middle and when it was pressed it would expand into a tent with a sleeping bag, pillow, and eye shade. As soon as the tent expanded to its normal size, one could scan their identity to enter it. The same applied when keeping the tent. As long as there were living beings in the tent, including a mosquito, the tent cannot be shrunk.
Because of that, some portable tents were much more expensive than the others as it came with automatic cleaning functions. As long as the tent is activated, it would automatically kill all the insects in the tent. The entire process would only take a maximum of three minutes. The tent that Lin Huang bought was a high-end tent, its price was comparable with a piece of bronze-level equipment.
After he sorted out his tent, Fatty approached him with a packet of snacks and a milk-based drink.
"It’s not safe to cook in a level-4 wild zone, we have to survive on snacks now."
Lin Huang nodded and took the food from him. He brought snacks that he ordered from the network before the trip but he was sure that it would not taste better than the snacks Fatty had prepared.
He ripped open the packet of snack; besides dried meat, there was also dried vegetable. Lin Huang raised his eyebrow, "I didn’t know that having a balanced diet was important to you."
"I cooked the dried meat and my dad prepared the dried vegetable. He insisted that I bring it along. If you like it, you can have mine too."
"I’ve never seen you eat vegetable during the assessment." Lin Huang thought Fatty was a carnivore.
"A man once said ‘a man who doesn’t like meat is not a real man’." Fatty got himself the perfect excuse for not eating any vegetables.
Fatty did not make that up. Lin Huang had actually seen the quote on the network before and thought it was ridiculous. It was said by a transcendent in the past to mock another transcendent that he despised. He then became a demigod and that was how the quote went viral.
"Loving meat and not eating vegetable are two separate matters. In your case, it’s called being picky." Lin Huang corrected him. He tasted the dried vegetable, it was good.
Lin Huang was done with breakfast and Fatty had finished cleaning himself.
"What milk is this? It’s nice." Lin Huang asked after drinking the last drop of milk-based drink.
"This is the milk of five-flower cow on the Snowy Mountains, it tastes amazing. I got it from my dad and I brought 10 bottles along with me. If I don’t treat you like my bro, I wouldn’t share this good stuff with you."
Lin Huang had heard of the five-flower cow on the Snowy Mountains. They were one of the best cows in Division7. Although the monster was just iron-level, its milk quality was high that it was comparable to the price of a relic. It barely produces any milk though. It can only produce two to three liters of milk per day and each liter can only be sold up to a price of a bronze-level equipment.
That cup of milk that Lin Huang drank earlier was almost the price of two pieces of iron-level equipment. He initially planned to buy the milk as a thirst-quencher during the summer which was why he asked Fatty about it. However, after he was told that it was the five-flower cow, Lin Huang decided otherwise.
"I should have known that only rich brats could afford this…"
After breakfast, Lin Huang recalled the Demonic Dandelion Vine and the both of them got out of the cave. He then summoned Bai again,
"How many summoning monsters do you have?" Fatty asked.
"Three to four I guess." Lin Huang said as he recalled Fatty had only seen four of his summoning monsters.
"The vampire should be the most powerful among all, am I right?" Fatty remembered the scene when Bai killed the duo earlier.
"Hmm."
"I’m envious of you Imperial Censors, you don’t even have to fight on your own. Powerful monsters and cool flying mounts…" Fatty was envious of Lin Huang’s gift as an Imperial Censor.
"Everyone has gifts of their own, thus, the different development goals. It’s great that you’re going to be a Food Hunter, you could own your restaurant, many hunters would dine at your place and Life Crystals would come your way. That’s so much better than us who have to be out there fighting and sweating. Your work is much more relaxed and safe." Lin Huang thought Fatty’s dream was desirable too.
"That’s true; I prefer living a stable life. I would be exhausted if I’ll have to fight every day." Fatty thought what Lin Huang said made sense and he should be contented with what he was gifted with.
They left the cave that Bai dug and ventured into the Fog Canyon. If there was no fog, the structure of the canyon was complicated like a circular maze from an aerial view. There were monsters of different strengths and species that were spread out in different areas of the maze. The closer they got to the middle of the maze, the higher the combat level the monsters were.
The Vile Marionette that Lin Huang and Fatty were looking for was located at the border of the maze. However, they did not have the exact coordinates, only the rough direction. The area was covered in a fog all year long, making it hard for people to identify the direction they were headed in. There was no connection or signal on the communication device, they could not locate anything in the maze, including themselves.
Bai was leading the way so they wouldn’t get lost. Their journey was smooth-sailing because Bai would kill any monster they encountered with brevity.
"Turn left at the 12th fork… It should be this one." The duo had been walking for more than three hours. Lin Huang did not say much when they were on the way and allowed Fatty to lead. After all, he was here to help him level up to bronze-level. It would be strange if Lin Huang knew the way better than Fatty did.
Although Fatty noticed Bai’s unusual combat strength, he thought Lin Huang had some special way to train his monsters but little did he know... how powerful Lin Huang actually was.
"If what I read was correct, there should be a foothold with a Vile Marionette not far from this left turn." Fatty lowered his voice as he said to Lin Huang, "Be quiet, these monsters live in groups. All we have to do it to lure one or two of them out."
They slowed down their pace and walked towards the fork on the left. After 20 minutes of walking, they arrived at a dead end but they did not see any monsters. They then went back to a spacious area and realized there were traces of battle before they came. It seemed to have happened not long ago.
"The Vile Marionette foothold should be here but all the monsters have been killed by someone else, we are too late." Lin Huang concluded.
"Since there’s none here, let’s go to the other foothold." Fatty did not dwell on this too much.
Two hours later, they found the sign near the second foothold.
"A two-meter gigantic rock of the shape of a sphere, it should be this one!" Fatty pointed at the sphere-shaped gigantic rock at the crossing.
"If we turn right from here and walk for another 10 minutes, we will arrive at the second Vile Marionette foothold."
"Let’s go." Lin Huang nodded and proceeded to let Bai lead the way.
10 minutes later, they arrived at yet another empty area. There were no monsters. Similar to the first foothold, there were no traces of battle that happened not long ago.
"Someone killed all the monsters here as well?!" Fatty groaned, "Who are these people, why did they target the same monsters that we're looking for?"
"Fatty, did you tell the three adventurers about the Life Seed monster that you picked?" Lin Huang sensed it could be the dark and skinny man who did this.
Fatty was stunned and nodded his head, "They asked me so I thought it would be no harm if I told them. Are you saying they did this?!"
"It’s very possible." Lin Huang nodded.
"We have encountered attacks of other monsters along the way but none of them were completely killed. The person who took the same route as us did not kill all the other monsters along the way, which shows his target was not to collect dead monster bodies but he killed all the Life Seed monsters that you wanted too. It seems like he did it on purpose."
"That makes sense." Fatty nodded at Lin Huang’s analysis. "So what do we do now? What if he killed all the Vile Marionettes in the foothold…"
"I don’t think so. His speed is only slightly faster than us. From the traces, I think he was here just about an hour ago. Let’s skip the third foothold and go straight to the fourth foothold instead. Maybe we can catch up with him!"
There were only four footholds with Vile Marionettes in the entire canyon. If they did not make it there before dark and the other man did, Fatty would not be the only one who would have to change his choice of Life Seed monster. Lin Huang would be dragged into this matter as well.
"Alright, let’s go straight to the fourth foothold!"