“We must leave quickly,” Ethan said as he looked at the bodies scattered across the ground.
Zoe swiftly stuffed all the corpses into the Shadow Pools of his clone and main body.
“This is so convenient. In the human world, magic items with spatial storage properties fetch astronomical prices.”
As they continued to flee, Ethan couldn't help but look at Zoe's storage capability with envy.
Although the [Shadow Pool] was highly convenient, it consumed quite a bit of mana.
Zoe was only able to keep the Shadow Pool active continuously because he digested food 24 hours a day to replenish his mana.
“You are very skilled with a hammer, I can tell.”
“You're a genius with it. A hammer is a very suitable weapon for you.”
The experienced and knowledgeable Ethan truly felt this way in his heart.
After all, Zoe had the talent bonuses of the C-grade [Wall Smasher] and the D-grade [Melee Genius].
“Do you have any skills related to the hammer?” Zoe asked expectantly.
With a talent like [Wall Smasher], if he could learn a basic hammer-related skill in this life, he might be able to farm a massive amount of proficiency.
“There is one skill, but it is a class skill of the Weapon Master. Without that class as a prerequisite, you cannot learn it.”
“However, I have a Forging Hammer Technique that is B-grade. With your talent for the hammer, you should be able to master it.”
A B-grade skill!
Zoe could feel Ethan's sincerity from offering such a high-level skill.
“But to learn this skill, you need to train Basic Forging to its absolute limit.”
Zoe's [Basic Forging] was still only at Lv3. To train it to its limit meant leveling it to the maximum?
“In the days to come, I will teach you this Forging Hammer Technique as much as possible. Just memorize as much as you can.”
The higher the grade of a skill, the harder it was to master.
Ever since [Dragon Body Fusion] reached Lv2, its proficiency had not increased at all in this life.
It had only increased by 10 proficiency points when Zoe developed the shadow biological armor.
Without a teacher's guidance, even if one obtained a B-grade skill, learning and upgrading it would be exceptionally difficult.
The two running through the swamp suddenly came to a halt.
Walking ahead, Ethan raised a hand, gesturing for Zoe to stay still.
“There is something in the air.”
Ethan had already activated his Golden Eye. His gaze swept around, piercing through the dense fog and dimness of the Death Swamp.
Under the gaze of his Golden Eye, the tiny particles in the air were continuously magnified.
Mingled within the mist were tiny, bacteria-sized seeds drifting toward them.
“It's a treant!”
“And it's not an ordinary treant, but a mutant—a magic treant!”
Ethan gripped his hilt, shifting his gaze constantly as he led Zoe away from the seeds floating in the air.
Treants were creatures with even greater diversity than goblins.
Among goblins, individual differences were massive—there were goblin kings and goblin high priests, as well as ordinary dwarf goblins.
Among treants, there were common varieties like oak treants, cedar treants, and fruit tree treants.
There were also rare magic treants.
The physical body of this type of treant was not an ordinary tree, but a magic tree possessing special properties.
Depending on the species, the gap between them could be as wide as that between a goblin warrior and a goblin high priest.
“Give me a greatsword.”
Ethan raised his hand, and in the next second, the pitch-black shadows condensed a massive, broad-bladed greatsword in his grip. He raised it high.
E-grade combat technique.
Overwhelm.
With a consumption of mana, the combat technique was unleashed, and the greatsword swung down heavily in a vertical arc.
The rushing wind wrapping around the greatsword acted like an invisible giant blade, blowing away the fog and seeds directly ahead.
“Run!”
Ethan shouted, charging forward alongside Zoe. Before the tiny seeds in the air could gather, they dashed through the path cleared by the wind.
At the same time, because the mist had been blown away, Ethan's Golden Eye successfully captured the treant's main body.
It was a massive, ten-meter-tall black tree covered in fine, pitch-black needles.
“A magic tree, the Black Needle Tree!”
[Black Needle Magic Tree Treant Lv38]
[Mana: 9634/10421]
The Black Needle Magic Tree was a magic tree with an incredibly hard texture. The hardness of its tree core far exceeded that of steel, yet it was much lighter.
All magic trees were quite rare and precious.
The matured core of a Black Needle Magic Tree was priced by the gram, making it a top-tier material for crafting magic wands.
And a treant formed from this kind of magic tree possessed unparalleled hardness and powerful magical traits.
Could they beat it?
Working together with Ethan, they could definitely win. However, if the fight dragged on and the commotion grew too large...
Even if they won, they would deplete their mana and risk being surrounded.
It would definitely not end well.
Therefore...
Dragon Flame Bullet!
Realizing the situation, Zoe spent less than 0.3 seconds thinking before mobilizing his mana to spit out a 600-mana Dragon Flame Bullet into the fog!
The blazing Dragon Flame Bullet tumbled and exploded, hurtling toward the treant.
All treants were weak to fire, to say nothing of a Lv4 Dragon Flame.
The seeds in the air were instantly incinerated into ash. The treant hurriedly pulled up its roots hidden beneath the swamp, forming a defensive barrier in front of its body.
Meanwhile, Zoe turned and fled at an even faster speed.
After his initial astonishment, Ethan also accelerated his escape.
‘What incredible combat awareness.’
Ethan couldn't help but marvel at Zoe in his heart.
Just moments ago upon seeing the treant, even he had been temporarily at a loss, yet Zoe was able to make a judgment in an instant and execute it without any hesitation.
Furthermore...
Why could a Dual Shadow spit out Dragon Flame, and even possess the trait of growing scales?
Could it be...
This was a Dual Shadow that possessed the bloodline of a giant dragon?
Did a dragon actually... No, a Dual Shadow could transform into all sorts of appearances. It was perfectly reasonable if its ancestors had bred with a giant dragon.
Keeping their heads down as they bolted, they threw the treant off their trail.
Although treants were powerful, their movement speed was slow. Normally, a treant would take root in one spot and rarely move.
“Where are we right now?”
Zoe had completely lost his bearings.
“We should be in the northeastern part of the Death Swamp.”
“The Death Swamp is covered in mist year-round. Even the most experienced adventurers have a hard time determining their direction here.”
But precisely because of this, they were able to rely on the Golden Eye to maneuver through the lizardmen's encirclement without being captured yet.
Six hours had passed, and Zoe's sleeping consciousness woke up. The second consciousness began to take over the sleeping role.
It was a highly bizarre sensation, a bit hard to get used to, and rather uncomfortable.
But he would have to do his best to adapt.
Zoe forced the second consciousness to quickly fall asleep. Enduring the discomfort, he had his other three consciousnesses brace themselves to maintain their wakefulness.
Meanwhile, Ethan pulled out a compass that was only the size of a fingernail.
However, the needle inside was spinning wildly, making it completely impossible to discern the direction.
“Our sense of direction is being interfered with. It seems to be the effect of a magic circle.”
Ethan put away the compass, chopped down a tree, and judged the direction through the tree rings.
“Let's keep heading north for now to avoid those lizardmen pursuers.”
After determining the direction via the tree rings, Ethan continued heading north.
To save mana and physical stamina during their trek through the swamp, neither Zoe nor Ethan maintained full speed.
They trudged along like this for another six hours, doing their best to avoid any monsters.
Zoe's second consciousness woke up, and his third consciousness went to sleep.
He felt... quite terrible.
Although this consciousness had received sufficient rest, a wave of nausea and dizziness similar to motion sickness washed over him...
The principle of motion sickness was that when your body wasn't moving, your brain perceived movement.
This conflict between physical sensation and cognitive perception made the brain feel like something was wrong with the body, thinking it might be a hallucinatory reaction from food poisoning.
Thus, it would trigger vomiting to throw up the poisoned food.
Right now, Zoe's consciousness was clearly awake, yet he had also received the restorative benefits of sleep.
This caused a misalignment in his soul's perception, making his soul feel as though something was wrong, thereby generating a sense of dizziness to force Zoe to truly fall asleep and correct the issue.
Under these circumstances, he had to fight against this reaction.
He had to make his soul adapt to this segmented sleep and realize that this sleep pattern was perfectly fine.
As long as he pushed through it, he would be fine.
Rate on N.U.
