Chapter 144: Peculiar Specimen
"It’s not apparent yet since it’s only been a few hours since this trial began, but I’ve been keeping my eye out for changes to the rankings, and I can already see a trend..." Uhtred said, pulling up his ranking panel.
On it, the top ten ranks remained fairly the same as they had been since the end of the previous trial. The Homo erectus general’s name was no longer on the list, and the number one within the trials was that female ancient variant again.
In second place was Diya. In third place was Krijn, and in fourth place was Uhtred. The rest, all the way down to number 9, were ancient variants, probably commanders within the Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and the last strain of the ancient variant populations.
Then, at the number 10 position was Zara.
Seeing her name there had been particularly surprising to Uhtred when he first saw the list back at the border. Of course, he knew she had fought Krijn to a standstill, but doing that wasn’t nearly enough to warrant a leap from her previous twenty-something rank all the way to number 10.
The girl clearly held secrets that she wasn’t willing to divulge. But in any case, that wasn’t Uhtred’s main focus here. Rather, his eyes moved down to the lower ranks within the top 100.
From the 20s all the way to the 90s, the previous positions of the human rankers — people like Mateo, Antoine Blanc, King Alexei, and a few other ascenders who had been within the top 100 — had started to shift down in rank.
More ancient variants were starting to climb up in their stead, and Uhtred attributed this to that "Inheritance Shard" they had received as a reward.
The name alone was very telling. The fact that it was called an Inheritance Shard clearly meant there was something to be inherited, likely cultivation techniques and even more things Uhtred could not even imagine.
It was why he was filled with urgency to study these beasts and analyze their essence cultivation method.
He wanted to create a technique of his own and spread it among the human population. That was his first goal here, catering to the collective.
Of course, his goal of advancing his own cultivation was still most paramount, but at the same time, he didn’t want to neglect the collective advancement, and that was why he wanted to do this first. He didn’t want any distractions later when he began to focus on his own cultivation.
Zara moved between the beasts she had killed and the one Uhtred had. She harvested both cores and tossed them to Uhtred.
"You’d better not kill the next beast then. Even though I also want a better cultivation technique, I’ll go ahead and use what I have if you can’t study the beasts in the next Grotto Heaven."
Uhtred caught the tossed beast core as Zara was speaking. He nodded with a light smile before turning and heading toward the next Grotto Heaven on their map, with Zara in stride.
Together, they reached the next location after about an hour before they slowed their pace down and reined in their cosmic essence draw. They tried to make themselves as invisible as possible. They moved slowly, coming up behind a large tree to peer toward the far distance where the Grotto Heaven was located on their map.
"Well, that’s new..." Zara commented, raising a brow and standing up straighter from her hidden position.
Uhtred mirrored her movement, also standing up straighter and looking at the distance more openly.
About a hundred meters away, the large trees of the forest had given way to a red sandy spot devoid of any sort of plant life, save for the single monstrosity right at the center.
The plant was massive, towering over the other trees like a strange, ugly pillar. Instead of normal branches, thick, rope-like vines grew out of its wide base. They looped upward into the air and then hung back down to the ground in heavy, wet folds.
A dull, rhythmic throb emanated from it, low enough that it couldn’t be perceived by the ears, but present enough that Uhtred could still sense it with his heightened perception.
Around the base of the monstrosity, the red, bare earth was littered with streaks of tiny black lines like a spreading necrotic rot.
This dark corruption didn’t stay confined to the bare patch alone, it even seeped outward into the surrounding undergrowth, turning the vibrant green grass at the edges of the bare patch into a sickly color.
As if this uncanniness wasn’t enough, the plant itself didn’t stay still. It was moving in a weird twisting motion, swaying from side to side in some sort of unnatural dance.
The movements were weird and erratic, looping back on themselves without any apparent pattern or purpose.
As Uhtred and Zara watched the uncanny display, a look that was a mix of confusion and repulsion crossed their faces.
The look was brief, but it was completely warranted. Seeing something as weird as this, even for both of them who were high-leveled and had faced beasts of different varieties, their disgust was more than justified.
Uhtred recovered first, activating his Inspect skill.
[Level 24 Poison Titan Kelp Flora]
Level 24?!
He stared at the translucent text, a frown creasing his forehead. This was the first time he had seen a true plant-based beast of such a level.
Of course, back on the main continent, he had stumbled across lower-level plants that popped up with descriptions under his inspection skill, but those had just been simple medicinal herbs, or plant beasts not worth mentioning.
This thing, on the other hand... there was absolutely nothing medicinal or simple about it. It was a full-on monster!
"Well, at least with this one, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have a problem leaving it alive," Zara said. "It looks like it can’t move. You should be able to study it easily, right?"