Yu Lingye stood in place, watching Kolo's figure disappear into the depths of the forest before slowly withdrawing her gaze.
This beastkin was actually more interesting than she had imagined.
Though they had known each other for only a few days, Kolo had left a deeper impression on her than most of the people in this temporary caravan.
Sharp, direct, and a little clever... but only a little.
Despite knowing that Yu Lingye was hiding something, Kolo hadn't rushed to expose her, let alone charged forward to pass judgment with a self-righteous attitude.
Most importantly, she played by the rules.
She knew what to do and what not to do, and she also knew when to bare her fangs.
Yu Lingye gently caressed her ring with her fingertip. For some reason, she had an intuition.
They would definitely meet again in the future. After all, that rabbit lady still owed her a favor.
A gentle breeze brushed against her cheek. Only then did Yu Lingye pull her thoughts back from Kolo, suddenly remembering someone else.
Milo.
She looked up at the spot where Milo had been hiding, only to find it empty.
Only a patch of wet mud, churned up by tree roots, remained on the ground. A few messy footprints were left in the mud, winding their way into the depths of the forest.
Some of the footprints were ridiculously deep, with handprints left beside them, as if he had fallen and scrambled back up on all fours.
Yu Lingye took one look and withdrew her gaze.
Her original goal had simply been to prevent Milo from revealing the location of the castle.
But now that he was mad, the words of a madman carried very little weight to begin with.
For a long time to come, at least, whatever he said would be dismissed as the ramblings of a lunatic, ignored by everyone.
Sometimes, the safest way to silence someone wasn't to make them shut up forever.
Rather, it was to let the truth they desperately screamed out turn into meaningless, mad ramblings in the ears of others. That was enough.
Yu Lingye looked around, her gaze falling back to the ground.
Scattered gold coins gleamed enticingly under the sunlight, and several treasure chests lay half-buried in the decaying leaves, their corners stained with wet mud.
The corners of Yu Lingye's mouth curled up uncontrollably. Sure enough, only when receiving a bonus... oh, wait.
Sure enough, only when picking up treasure chests did she feel that all her previous hard work was worth it.
This trip had indeed not been in vain.
In an excellent mood, Yu Lingye immediately stored the dozens of intact treasure chests into her Radiant Ring one by one.
Gold coins, magic ores, medicinal herbs, fabrics, spices, utensils... except for some already rotten food, she spared almost nothing.
With a rough calculation, adding the things she had plundered from the Holy Court, the wealth she had accumulated was already comparable to that of a true grand noble.
And a grand noble whose ancestors hadn't squandered the family fortune, at that.
When Yu Lingye reached for one of the black-lacquered wooden chests, her movements suddenly paused.
A faded rose wrapping gold coat of arms was carved on the lid of the chest, its petals wrapping around gold coins layer by layer. Though the pattern had been worn blurry by time, the sophistication of the old noble caravan could still be seen.
Yu Lingye's fingertip paused on the coat of arms.
She recalled the Rosalind family that Reece had mentioned earlier. Thinking about it carefully, half of the cargo here belonged to that family, including the miscellaneous chest she had chosen.
No wonder they had fallen into decline.
This cargo was originally the economic lifeblood that sustained the family.
Once caravans frequently went missing and cargo couldn't be delivered, the breach of contract fees, compensations, and losses from broken trade routes would be enough to slowly drag a noble family down.
But now, these lost goods had changed owners and found a better home, so they wouldn't go to waste.
Yu Lingye didn't open the chest.
She didn't have time to take inventory item by item right now. She only glanced at the seal on the outside to confirm there was no obvious damage before storing the entire chest into her ring.
Once all the resources on the ground were cleared, Yu Lingye checked once more to ensure she hadn't missed a single gold coin before looking up at the massive tree stump in the distance.
After the Treant King's death, its massive body had collapsed, leaving behind only a charred and dark-green cross-section and a large segment of fallen trunk.
The eyes on the trunk had vanished, and dense rings remained at the break, looking like marks carved out one by one by the passage of time.
Yu Lingye walked over, bent down to pick up a broken piece of tree root, and weighed it in her hand.
It was very heavy.
It looked like ordinary deadwood on the surface, but a dense amount of residual magic still lingered inside.
When she tapped it with her fingertip, it didn't make the dull sound of wood, but rather sounded like tapping on some kind of refined ore.
Her eyes lit up slightly, and she narrowed them to examine it closely.
This was a Treant King, after all.
No matter what, it was something that had taken root in the Mist-Dwelling Forest for an unknown number of years.
Having gone through the accumulation of time and mutated into a spirit, there was no way it could be ordinary wood.
It would be perfect to take back for Goldie's internal upgrades. Even using it to craft magic staffs would be extremely suitable.
As for those leaves...
Yu Lingye picked up one of them and examined it in her hand.
The dark green leaf was very resilient. Though its edges were somewhat charred, fresh veins still remained on its surface.
High-grade plants that retained their vitality could be used to brew high-grade recovery potions.
Even if they couldn't be brewed, using them as fertilizer wouldn't be a waste.
Her back garden was currently as barren as a graveyard, and she was just worrying about having nothing to nourish the soil.
Besides, she had just obtained the Ancient Flower Seed, so she could take this opportunity to try planting it.
What if she actually grew something good?
The more Yu Lingye thought about it, the more sense it made.
Since she was already here, she couldn't just let these materials rot in the ground. What a waste that would be.
She raised her hand, and her Soul Threads silently spread out, fine silver threads wrapping around the cross-section of the tree stump layer by layer.
In the next instant, the Soul Threads tightened abruptly, cleanly slicing the hard stump into several wooden blocks.
Standing in place, Yu Lingye collected the vast amount of fallen branches, leaves, roots, and wood around her into her ring without a change in expression.
She didn't even spare the wood chips that still seemed to have residual mana.
Soon, a light screen popped up before her eyes.
Obtained: Fully Packed Wooden Chest x 60
Obtained: Immortal Hardwood × 40216
Obtained: Vitalizing Leaf × 5489125
Yu Lingye stared at the string of numbers and fell into a brief silence.
This ring... should still have room, right?
Fortunately, she had a storage ring. Otherwise, with all these materials on the ground, she wouldn't even be finished picking them up by hand by next year.
She swept her gaze around one last time. Confirming there was really nothing else worth taking in the vicinity, she raised her hand to summon Moon.
Out of the residual mist, the Corona Unicorn stepped onto the wet soil.
Its mane fluttered slightly in the wind, and a few unextinguished golden sparks were still tangled in its braided mane, as if it had just walked back from a grand fire.
Yu Lingye reached out to stroke its cheek.
Moon lowered its head and affectionately nuzzled her palm.
Its gentle eyes still held a lingering excitement, as if it was highly satisfied with the coordinated attack they had just pulled off.
Yu Lingye couldn't help but chuckle. “Beautiful coordination this time.”
Moon let out a soft snort and circled around her, its warm, moist breath brushing against her fingertips. Yu Lingye couldn't resist pinching its soft muzzle.
After the treant's death, the smell of decay in the Mist-Dwelling Forest faded significantly.
Without the canopy blocking the sky, sunlight finally spilled through the gaps in the clouds, dappling the damp, decaying leaves and enveloping the person and beast in a warm glow.
The once cold and gloomy forest was now illuminated brightly by the sunlight.
A breeze blew in from afar, carrying the scent of wet mud, vegetation, and fresh sprouts.
Yu Lingye rested for a short while, then had Moon shed its unicorn appearance and turn into an ordinary black horse.
After confirming that the holy aura on its body was completely concealed, she mounted the horse and gently patted Moon's neck.
“Let's go. The grudges here have ended.”
Moon trotted forward, stepping over the damp, decaying leaves. As its hooves came down, the muddy water sank slightly, only to be quickly covered by the decaying leaves.
Caravans had been buried here, bones had been buried here, and the greed that a group of people couldn't let go of until death had also been buried here.
But the forest wouldn't stop because of anyone's death.
Rotten things sank into the mud, and new sprouts emerged from it once more.
Decaying and melting away on one side, breaking through the soil to embrace new life on the other.
Yu Lingye suddenly said softly, “That's quite fair, actually.”
She no longer looked back, riding her horse forward.
Behind her, the sunlight fell, and a few clusters of tender green seedlings sprouted from the overturned soil.
Rate on N.U.
