Book 4, Chapter 271: Enter The Region For Food

The next morning, Chen Chuan checked out and took the airship to the undeveloped area marked on the map.

It would take a few days to reach the place, so he continued training on the airship, even though the intensity wasn’t too high. Whenever he had free time, he flipped through a bestiary of the most common merged space creatures.

He had gotten it from the National Martial Artists Council. It had descriptions of the specialties and weaknesses of the creatures in the depths of the merged space, along with what parts of their bodies had the nutrients as well as what sort of benefits they would bring.

However, the creatures in the merged space evolved quickly. Sometimes, the entire species could evolve too. Every merged space had different merged space creatures as well. Some martial arts masters also couldn’t be bothered to report new species, so the bestiary was far from an accurate representation of the complicated world that was the merged space.

Fortunately, Chen Chuan didn’t need to know everything. As a martial arts master, he could tell precisely what he needed during the hunt.

After three days of flying, he looked down at the land completely removed from civilization. It had an air of primordial wildness to it that screamed that it had never been developed before. Its vastness and beauty far surpassed those of the other undeveloped areas he had been to before.

Since the merged space creatures were strong and brutal, only martial arts masters could venture into it. Even the regular soldiers from the imperial army seldom went into it.

Chen Chuan took a deep breath. To martial arts masters, this place was perfect. The creatures could provide them with all the nutrients that they needed to train and fight. This was their hunting ground.

A combatant came over and saluted him. “Director Chen, in thirty seconds, we’ll reach the furthest fort from the military base.”

Chen Chuan took a look and saw a stone fort made in the way of the old era standing on top of a cliff. Before coming here, he had learned that this was a stone sentry tower built by the imperial army that the Great Shun Republic had repurposed. A martial arts master might have participated in building it so they could land here before going any farther.

There was no mooring tower at the place. Aside from being a place for martial arts masters to land, it also served as a landmark for them to not get lost. To prevent it from being destroyed by merged space creatures, the Great Shun Republic had exiled a group of dangerous criminals to it and airdropped some supplies to them every month. If they all died, the Great Shun Republic brought another batch over to make sure that there was always someone guarding the place.

“Stop there,” he said.

“Roger!”

The airship arrived above the fort. Despite the loud propellers, no one came out to welcome them or even stepped forward to receive supplies. It was silent below. Chen Chuan noticed tracks of human bodies being dragged along the road leading out of the fort. If he was right, the last batch of criminals had gone missing.

The archivist made a record of this and wrote a note to send another batch of criminals.

As for Chen Chuan, he picked up the suitcase containing the Frost King Saber, jumped down, and landed silently.

Dawncall flew out of the airship and circled in the air for a bit to scout the area. Even if Chen Chuan could detect dangerous creatures ahead of time, he couldn’t win against how far Dawncall could see from the sky. Most of the merged space creatures were more dangerous the larger they were. While this principle didn’t apply to all of them, it was the case for most of them.

Chen Chuan gave a nod to the airship before walking into the fort. The place was a mess, so it was obvious that a fight had happened here. There were empty cartridges and broken arrows everywhere, but no corpses nor a drop of blood.

This wasn’t strange. After all, they were in the merged space, where creatures consumed even the tiniest bit of tissue and bodily liquids. Not a single bit was wasted.

Chen Chuan had no interest in how the criminals had disappeared. After a brief glance around, all the overturned tables and chairs floated up before landing upright.

It was a little past 4 p.m., so Chen Chuan planned to stay for the night before heading out early in the morning.

When the sentry tower was repurposed, the Great Shun Republic had used a lot of defensive materials so that the people staying inside could survive through the night.

But the deeper a place was located in the merged space, the greater the effects at night would be, which meant that the fort needed new materials from time to time. The criminals exiled here had to apply them, or they wouldn’t get supplies and bullets.

After taking a quick glance, Chen Chuan found that the previous batch did a pretty good job touching up the place. It didn’t need any fixing.

His experiences in the merged space at night had given him an understanding of what was going on. In simple terms, once night arrived, the other world’s influence over the merged space increased.

It was like a tug-of-war between the two worlds. Perhaps it could even be described as a tide. During daytime, the physical world had more influence, while at night, the mental world had more presence.

If a person had strong and stable defenses, they could stay firmly in the physical world. At most, they would be affected slightly by the other world and hear some unusual noises. As long as they didn’t panic, they would be fine. But if they were completely defenseless, then they were going to end up in a horrible state.

Since merged space creatures were exposed to this tug-of-war long term, they, of course, became more dangerous at night. Even the rituals Chen Chuan learned wouldn’t be able to protect him in this undeveloped area at night. Not only would the other world’s influence seep through them like they were nothing, but the merged space creatures could also tear through them.

Fortunately, he was a martial arts master now and could use his powerful biofield and mental energy to protect himself. It would use up quite a lot of energy, though. He wouldn’t be able to rest at night either. If he needed to fight during daytime as well, he would have little time to achieve anything.

That was why this fort was so important. He could come back to rest in the fort after a period of intense activity. This could be the real reason behind why the fort was built.

The two conqueror generals from the imperial army should have stayed here.

Since it was starting to turn dark, Chen Chuan called Dawncall back and shut the fort’s gate. He wasn’t going to train today, just rest.

The next morning, once the last shreds of darkness were chased away and light filled the land, Chen Chuan opened the gate. He picked up his suitcase and walked out toward the dense forest with his biofield released.

The place was quite different. It had plenty of creatures with vibrant life force. All the merged space creatures he met before couldn’t compare to them.

As he ventured deeper, he saw a Moss Reptile from the bestiary. It was more than ten meters in length from head to tail, and when it lay on the ground, it was more than two meters tall. It was covered in carnivorous, parasitic plants.

It wasn’t a high-level life form and became nothing more than food for Chen Chuan. After killing it with one punch, he yanked off its tongue, tore off the densely packed, tough tongue muscles, and pulled out a pink muscle that was the length of a finger.

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Chen Chuan ate it and felt his mutated tissue becoming more active.

This was the most nutritious part of the Moss Reptile. As for the rest, he just ignored it.

It didn’t mean that he couldn’t eat the rest of its body. It was just that when he was here, eating the rest of its body slowly would take him more time than hunting other prey that was about the same or had even higher nutritional value. That was why he decided not to waste time on it. The most efficient method was to tear out the most nutritious part and continue on.

After staying still for a moment, Chen Chuan picked up the Frost King Saber and left the place.

Soon after he left, many unidentified creatures crawled out from all sorts of places and climbed all over the Moss Reptile to start fighting over and eating the body. Even when Chen Chuan was far away, he could hear chewing sounds behind him. Before long, the creature would be devoured clean until not a single bone would be left of its body.

If Chen Chuan were to be considered part of this biosphere, he would be at the top of the food chain, so the other creatures only came out to fight over what he didn’t want after he picked his preferred part. It was precisely because of this that he called this place his hunting ground.

Of course, that didn’t mean that this place was completely without creatures that could threaten his life.

Some unique microorganisms could affect martial arts masters to a certain degree and even make them sick.

The benefit of joining the purity faction truly shone here. The Furnace of Heaven and Earth could kill those microorganisms, so he would remain clean at all times. Even without his second self, the Blinding Blaze could also ward off and get rid of all impurities and corruption from the other world.

Even when the purity faction members acted alone, they remained powerful, because they had ways to ensure their survival in the merged space.

As Chen Chuan went deeper into the area, he found more prey. He hunted a few more creatures listed in the bestiary. Before night arrived, the ingredients he collected far surpassed what he had expected. The nutrition and calories he got not only made up for the energy he burned during the day, but could also last him several days of training.

In the evening, Chen Chuan decided that he wasn’t going back to the fort, but set up camp in the wilderness. When he was about to do that, Dawncall discovered a Rusted Bees’ nest.

These venomous bees’ honey wasn’t just tasty, but also had high nutritional value and a lot of calories. There were millions of Rusted Bees in one nest, so they usually covered the whole area, which made it hard to get the honey.

It wasn’t a difficult task for Chen Chuan, though.

After taking a look, he had Dawncall fly into the sky before spreading out his biofield. Once he was in front of the nest, the Rusted Bees fell down like rain.

He cut the nest with the Frost King Saber and tasted a honeycomb. His eyes immediately lit up. A single drop of honey had made his mutated tissue stir awake.

He set down his suitcase and put the Frost King Saber nearby before moving into a stance. Light started shining from his body.

He made up his mind: He wasn’t moving from here. The honey was going to be used to advance his training.

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