Chapters [77 - 78]

Chapter 77. Tracking Footsteps

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It was a peaceful morning in the Wangyou Forest. The sun was shining through to the leaves on the ground and the drops of morning dew could be seen on the leaves, colorful from the refraction of light. Whiffs of a fresh green fragrance were sent by the wind into Lin Huang's tent. He was awake early that day and he had a good night sleep all through the night. Although he had Leng Yuexin's news on his mind, he did not worry about it as that would have been unnecessary.

He had breakfast and departed after dismantling his tent and packed it away. He chose Bai and the Viridian Wolf as his companions this time. If he summoned Charcoal, monsters that were below silver-level would run away from him but gold-level monsters might consider it a challenge. Moreover, there was a possibility that there was a transcendent monster in the forest. Lin Huang was mistaken as god's descendant the last time and that had attracted a transcendent monster. If Charcoal, his dragonkin monster was discovered by the transcendent, he could not imagine what kind of trouble that would bring him.

Moreover, flying above the Wangyou Forest would make him an easy target for an attack by powerful monsters as there would be no trees around. Although it would have been a different story with the Viridian Wolf. Its keen nose gave it a useful advantage against any lurking dangers as it could detect enemies from a distance. With its speed, the 300 kilometers to the coordinates where Leng Yuexin was last seen would only take the beast a mere two hours run.

Lin Huang and Bai rode on the back of Viridian Wolf. They made stops in between to rest up so in case a monster attacked them midway, they'd all still have the energy to fight even after the long journey. Whenever the Viridian Wolf caught the scent of a nearby strong monster, it would deviate to another route and continue. When it was close to noon, they finally arrived at the first coordinate where Leng Yuexin was last seen.

Lin Huang then activated Blood Hunt and caught the scent of Leng Yuexin and Li Yanxing. He followed the odor and arrived in front of a giant rock. It was a black rock that was 10 meters high, and a small part of it was buried in the ground while the top was showing. The smell was strongest near the giant rock so Lin Huang was sure that they made a stop at the giant rock or at least touched it as they traveled.

He walked around the rock but he could not find anything. However, it was absurd for such a huge rock to be lying there in the middle of Wangyou Forest. If it was a meteorite, there should have been craters around it, but the terrain was flat and undisturbed. With a few doubts in mind, Lin Huang browsed through the Heart Network for anything that mentioned a giant rock in the forest. Surprisingly, there was quite a lot of information about it and it was once a hot topic in Division7. How the topic of this black giant rock became popular was peculiar as it all started when many claimed that no one could move the rock. People saw the thread on the network and tried to move the rock but even a Gold Hunter who was among the top 10 on the leaderboard tried his best to no avail. The rock remained firmly planted in its position. That was why it became one of the hot topics for quite some time in Division7 as many were guessing the origins of the rock itself. Many of them thought it was a meteorite while others thought it was moved there by a transcendent out of boredom. There were even some that said it was a seal for the back luck of the city buried beneath it...

After browsing through the many speculated theories of the topic, he realized that it was totally unrelated to the transcendent monster. He turned off the network and looked around the place again. He could not find anything and left. 10 minutes later, Lin Huang and Bai found the second spot where Leng Yuexin was last seen. He activated Blood Hunt again and found the exact location where Leng Yuexin and the rest had been.

It was scorched ground - dead earth with cracks that looked like spiderwebs that spread as far as 10 kilometers. The burnt soil bulged around the cracks, seemingly cracking from the inside out. Lin Huang found a crack that was as wide as a palm and tossed a stone in to find out how deep it was. He did not hear any sound to confirm if the stone had touched the ground so he was not able to tell how deep it was. He browsed the Heart Network again but there was nothing about it.

"It seems like these cracks just appeared recently…" Lin Huang took a couple of photos of the cracks, looked around the area and left. Within half an hour, he found the third and fourth coordinates where Leng Yuexin and the rest were last seen and both had the similar strange cracks like the second location. Aside from that, he did not discover anything else. He took some photos once again and left. This time, he headed to the last location Leng Yuexin was seen at before she went missing.

Within 20 minutes, the Viridian Wolf brought Lin Huang and Bai to the final destination. They got off the Viridian Wolf's back and Lin Huang activated Blood Hunt again. Following the scent he was familiar with, he found the exact coordinates where Leng Yuexin had last been. The Mission Card showed that the coordinates were 300 kilometers to the north and Lin Huang found the location easily. It was a giant waterfall with a giant pool beneath the waterfall. Leng Yuexin and Li Yanxing's scent completely disappeared around the waterfall.

"There must be something here. Perhaps there's a cave behind this waterfall?" Lin Huang thought and frowned as he looked around the waterfall but there did not seem to be anything unusual.

He then recalled the Viridian Wolf and summoned the Specter. As it was a spirit, it was similar like the crows he saw previously, lacking a physical form so it was able to pass through objects.

"Specter, see what's behind the waterfall," Lin Huang instructed the Specter. The black phantom floated on top of the lake and disappeared into the waterfall. Soon, it came out from the waterfall.

"Is there a cave or cavern that connects to another location?" Lin Huang asked.

The Specter shook its head.

"No cave?" Lin Huang was skeptical. "It doesn't look like there's anything else nearby…"

Lin Huang then looked at the quiet pool and thought, "Could it be under this pool?"

"Specter, go underwater to see if there's an underground cave beneath the pool!" Lin Huang gave his instruction immediately.

The Specter dived into the water without making a single ripple on the surface.

Lin Huang sat by the pool and anxiously waited for the results. If there was no clue under the pool, he would have no idea how he would find Leng Yuexin at all.

It took more than half an hour this time. If it was not for Xiao Hei who would notify him if the Specter was dead, he would have thought that it had been killed by an underwater beast. 40 minutes in, the Specter finally emerged from the pool.

"Is there an underwater cave?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

The Specter nodded.

"That's it!" Lin Huang concluded that Leng Yuexin and the rest had dove down under the pool and prepared himself for the descent.

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Chapter 78. Encountering A Transcendent Monster Again!

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Looking at the quiet pool before him, Lin Huang frowned. Since the Specter needed more than 40 minutes to get to the bottom of the pool, that meant the pool was deep. Although he got a diving suit from Xue Jie during the Reserve Hunter assessment, he was not sure if he could dive that deep even with the suit. Furthermore, there was no way for him to breathe underwater. With his iron-level rank-1 body, the air pressure at such great depths could be an issue for him.

After much thought, Lin Huang came up with a plan. He would use a Provisional Transformation Card to transform himself into the Specter. As long as he was in spirit form, he could pass through things and even dive deep into the water without a worry.

"I still have five Provisional Transformation Cards, each card will allow me the ability to transform for an entire day. Even if this takes more than a day, the most I'd use up would only be two cards," he thought. After figuring out how many Provisional Transformation cards he needed, he took out one of them.

"Transform into the Specter," Lin Huang confirmed the monster that he was transforming into and crushed the card. After the card was crushed, it turned into a white glow that enveloped his body. Soon there were changes to his body. Within seconds, he became grayish black, translucent cloud. He looked exactly the same as the Specter. He recalled Bai and instructed the Specter, "Lead the way, I'll follow you into the water."

the Specter floated slowly to the middle of the pool and dove in the water. Lin Huang hesitated for a moment, but then followed suit. Although he knew that the form he was currently transformed into would not be affected by water, it was still uncomfortable for him. After successfully diving into the water, Lin Huang did not feel any pressure at all. He could only sense that the temperature around him was dropping. As he followed the Specter into the pool, there were no obstacles before them. It felt the same as when he was floating into the air. He also realized that in this form, breathing was unnecessary and he had no heartbeat. As he dove deeper, he began getting the hang of his new body.

More than 10 minutes later, Lin Huang arrived at the bottom of the pool with the guidance of the Specter. He noticed that the size of the pool was much bigger than the one he saw from above. the Specter then pointed in a direction and led the way for Lin Huang. Following the Specter, Lin Huang saw a slope towards an underground cave after about six minutes. Undercurrents were flowing into the cave.

"Let's take a look." Lin Huang instructed the Specter. It dived into the cave and Lin Huang followed.

The underground cave was long and narrow. Lin Huang followed the Specter for almost half an hour before they arrived at the other side of the cave. Coming out on the other side, he realized that they were at an underground river. He got out at the water and into an underground world. There was dry land next to the river with countless stalactites above, hanging almost 10 meters from the ground. There were so many caves around the place and Lin Huang had no idea which way he should go.

Lin Huang got out of the water. He then recalled the Specter and summoned Bai. Bai could attack at the longest distance and he was the second strongest among Lin Huang's monsters right after Charcoal. Moreover, his size was perfect for the mission. Although he knew that the river water had washed away most of the scent for Leng Yuexin and the rest, Lin Huang decided to activate anyway. He wanted to see if he could find even the slightest clue with it, which was better than nothing.

Lin Huang did not catch their scent after was activated, but he caught a whiff on the intense iron-like scent of blood in the air. Aside from blood, he caught the scent of an unfamiliar odor that was similar to a plant but was very unpleasant. Although his expression could not be seen as he was transformed into the Specter, Lin Huang was frowning. The pungent smell made him uncomfortable.

He hesitated for a while and decided to look for the source of the bloody smell to get to the bottom of the mystery. That was the one and only clue that might lead him to Leng Yuexin.

"Here…" Lin Huang pointed towards the direction of the smell. Bai nodded and led the way while Lin Huang followed behind him. In the complicated underground cave, Lin Huang and Bai made many turns as they followed the scent. Almost an hour later, they finally arrived near their destination.

"Slow down, be careful," Lin Huang said to Bai. Bai then slowed down after he heard Lin Huang's instructions. 10 minutes later, he saw a light after a turning. He peered around at the light source. It was a massive cave that was nearly 100 meters high. In the middle of the cave, there was a light blue semi-transparent monster that floated in the air. The light was coming from the monster's body. This monster looked like a deep-sea jellyfish from Earth. To be exact, it was more like a deformed deep-sea jellyfish. Not only was it many times bigger, there were countless eyeballs of different color on its body. Some were closed while some were opened. Those that were closed were filled with spots of various colors. Its tentacles were swaying in the air like the flowing dress of a lady during the summer festival.

Lin Huang recognized it as the transcendent monster immediately as the aura coming off the monster was even stronger than the black python that he encountered earlier. The unpleasant scent that he caught from Blood Hunt was coming from this monster together with the smell of blood. Lin Huang then activated Boundless Vision and looked around the transcendent monster. Aside from blood on the ground, he did not see Leng Yuexin and the rest.

"Could they have been eaten by the monster?" Just when Lin Huang was thinking, the transcendent monster seemed to sense a disturbance. Its light blue tentacles darted towards the cave entrance where Lin Huang was located at the speed of light. Lin Huang recalled Bai immediately and flattened himself against the wall. The light blue tentacles seemed to detect Lin Huang even though he went through the cave walls. It looked around the cave and retracted its tentacles. Since it did not find anything at all, the transcendent monster thought it was being too sensitive to its surroundings.

Lin Huang was drenched in cold sweat. If he was a second too late, he would have been crushed to death by the monster. The attack of transcendent monsters worked on spirit-type monsters. He did not dare look in the monster's direction anymore.

"Leng Yuexin and the rest should still be alive, if they were dead, Xiao Hei would definitely notify me that I failed the mission. The blood on the ground could possibly be theirs as they might have been hurt as they entered the underwater cavern. There were only two possibilities, they might be hidden by the monster somewhere else or they may have already escaped…" he thought.

"But if they've managed to escape, the description on the mission card would not ask me to look for Leng Yuexin and bring her back to Carefree City. The description was clear - Leng Yuexin was in some kind of trouble, so the first possibility was more likely. However, there's another possibility where they may have managed to escape the battle but were badly injured so they were unable to leave Wangyou Forest…"

Lin Huang analyzed the situation and came up with the two most likely scenarios.

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