Chapter 109: Sea Competition 16
Seeing this, Misty Cloud panted heavily and shouted, "Why are you running? We’re all human! We can only clear this game if we help each other! Hey! Hey! Didn’t you hear me? Come back!!"
Misty Cloud shouted for a long time, but the two of them never once looked back.
’Who would want to team up with them? Our tasks are already done. All we have to do now is wait for the game to end, and we’ll have cleared it.’
’Only a fool would believe her and team up with those people. You’d be sold out before you even knew what happened.’
Seeing that they had no intention of stopping, an annoyed expression crossed Misty Cloud’s face. She stomped her foot fiercely a few times to vent her frustration.
Although she hadn’t gotten a three-star task in this game, none of the three tasks she *did* get were easy to complete.
Misty Cloud, a stranger in a strange land, couldn’t even understand the mission descriptions. She recognized all the words, but when strung together, they made no sense to her.
Unable to complete her tasks, her only option was to gain stars by eliminating other players.
Just then, she heard the sound of hurried footsteps from behind. Misty Cloud immediately schooled her features, her expression reverting to its previous gentle and understanding guise.
「Meanwhile」
After running from the others, Moira Lynch and Kai York didn’t stop until they reached a thicket of dense grass.
Moira looked at Kai beside her and asked curiously, "How did you know someone was coming?"
Kai didn’t hide it. "I can sense the currents in the air," he explained.
Moira’s eyes widened in shock. ’He can do that?’
After resting for a moment, the two looked around. They found that every blade of grass around them was incredibly thick and tall.
Kai joked, "Moira, look. Doesn’t this look like the Sugar Grass we found on the Crino Prairie?"
Just as Kai finished speaking, the voice of Patience faded from Moira’s ear. She looked up at him. "This *is* Sugar Grass."
To be precise, this was an upgraded version. Its sugar content was several hundred times higher than that of normal Sugar Grass.
Normal Sugar Grass could be eaten directly to relieve hypoglycemia, but this kind clearly couldn’t. It was so sweet it would probably kill you. One could only imagine the sheer intensity of its flavor.
The Isle Turtle was the treasure trove of Planet Aelmar; everything that grew on it was a supercharged version of the original.
Moira and Kai took out their sickles and began harvesting the Sugar Grass. They cut a path through the field until they had filled an entire Space Button, only then emerging from the towering grass.
Before they left, Kai glanced back longingly at the remaining Sugar Grass.
Even though they had packed away an entire Space Button’s worth, from a distance, the field didn’t look diminished in the slightest.
Once they were a safe distance away, Moira stored the entire field of Sugar Grass in her personal space.
However, she seemed to have overestimated herself. The instant she took the entire field of Sugar Grass, her vision went black, and her body pitched forward uncontrollably.
Kai rushed to catch her, but he lost his footing and vanished on the spot.
Moira, who had just managed to steady herself: "!!???"
She went to the spot where Kai had disappeared and found a black, bottomless pit. There was no telling where it led.
Moira’s first reaction was that this might be some creature’s lair.
But on second thought, they had been here for a while and hadn’t seen any creatures besides that Magpie-plumed Fowl from earlier.
’But just because we haven’t seen any doesn’t mean they aren’t here.’
’If Kai gets eliminated by accident, the remaining three of us will be done for.’
Moira stood at the edge of the pit, thinking for a moment before tentatively calling out, "Are you okay?"
’Victory was so close. If my teammate gets eliminated now by falling into a pit, I’m going to cry my eyes out.’
Thankfully, Kai’s voice soon echoed up from the pit. "I’m fine! It’s just really dark down here. I can’t see a thing."
She was just about to get a rope to help him up when the voice of Patience suddenly sounded in her ear.
[Water Energy Stone: Condensed from the purest Essence of Water. Extremely rare. Absorption increases affinity with the Water Element, grants immunity to Water Element attacks, and can rapidly increase the strength of a Water Talent User.]
Moira blinked. She drew back the hand that had been reaching for her rope, then took a leap and jumped in after him.
Thanks to her Anti-gravity Shoes, Moira was unharmed on the way down. She executed a graceful turn in mid-air and landed perfectly.
Kai, holding a flashlight in one hand, applauded with the other. "I give that landing a ten out of ten. But why did you come down too?"
Kai took a deep breath. He had been counting on Moira to pull him up, but she’d jumped down instead.
"Did those people from before catch up to us?"
At his words, Moira rubbed her nose. "No, not that. Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?"
Kai looked at her. "What do you think?"
"I’m not guessing." As she spoke, Moira took out a flashlight and scanned their surroundings. "What’s so hard about getting out? Did you forget I have Anti-gravity Shoes? Taking you up would be a piece of cake. It’s way faster than you climbing a rope."
Kai paused for a moment. ’Whoops,’ he thought. He really had forgotten about that.
"Oh, right. What happened to you back there? Did your hypoglycemia act up?"
The memory of Moira suddenly collapsing still left Kai a little shaken.
Moira gave a vague nod, tacitly agreeing. ’I can’t just admit I almost fainted because I got too greedy and overexerted my spiritual power,’ she thought. ’That would be way too embarrassing.’
The environment down here was nothing like the narrow, confined space Moira had imagined. As far as the eye could see, the cavern was vast.
"I think there’s something over there," Moira said, pointing.
Kai looked in the direction she was pointing. The light was too dim, so even with his flashlight, he could see very little.
Only when they got closer could Kai finally make out what Moira had been pointing at.
They looked very similar to ferns, but they were blue. Each stalk was about two meters tall, and if you leaned in close, you could smell the faint scent of water.
Kai looked at Moira. "Moira, do you know what this is?"
Moira shook her head. "I don’t know, but it has to be something good."
The Learning Machine hadn’t shown any information about a Stone of Water, so of course, Moira didn’t know about it.
’As for these plants,’ she reasoned, ’they grow alongside the Stone of Water. Even if they aren’t as powerful as the stone itself, they must still be valuable.’
[Water Fern Grass: A plant created by absorbing the aura of the Stone of Water. Contains a large amount of pure water. Long-term consumption cleanses internal impurities and repairs damaged organs.]
’The effects of this Water Fern Grass are similar to the Bone Marrow Cleansing Fruit, but with the added ability to repair organs.’