“Seventy-one meters!”
Qimeng opened her eyes, her emerald-green pupils filled with pleasant surprise.
Originally, she thought adding about ten meters would already be quite good. She had not expected the result to far exceed her expectations.
Now, her perception network had not only expanded by half, but she had also completely enveloped that deep-red vein.
Countless roots wrapped around the crystals.
Although the absorption efficiency was not as fast as directly devouring magical beasts, its advantage lay in being stable and long-lasting. Even if she did nothing and simply lay there, the magic power inside her body would steadily grow on its own.
“This is the ideal way to grow.”
She stretched comfortably, her mood so good she wanted to hum a song.
Steadily accumulating power like this until she evolved into an unspeakable, terrifying existence that could make all living beings tremble was her true optimal path right now.
However, who was that?
Just as she was about to retract her perception, an unusual movement deep within the vein caught her attention.
It was a massive underground cavern, its scale far exceeding the beetle nest from earlier. In the center of the cavern, a massive clump of magic power pulsed rhythmically.
Just sensing it from afar caused Qimeng's root system to instinctively trigger an alarm.
“The vein is mine. As for the one inside...”
“I'll come back to have a nice chat with you after I evolve to a higher dimension.”
She was not some hot-headed hero, so she would never do something as foolish as taking on a boss before she had even properly leveled up.
She carefully evaluated the magic power capacity of both sides and came to a very rational conclusion. Right now, she would at most be considered an unripe snack in its eyes.
Since that was the case, why rush to deliver herself on a silver platter?
Once she gathered the resources of the entire forest into her sphere of influence, that entity would become the largest reserve food on her turf.
Unable to win?
No such thing.
The so-called gap in strength was merely a matter of not having enough time.
As night fully descended and the forest sank into silence, Qimeng made a brand-new discovery.
She did not need to sleep at all.
“Strange...”
The girl blinked, a bit puzzled.
“Why am I not sleepy at all?”
After being busy all day—hunting, mining, and tearing down the insect nest—she should have reached her bedtime by all accounts.
She tried closing her eyes, but her mind was entirely filled with the cool sensation of her roots touching the earth. This feeling was incredibly wondrous.
When she was a human, her body had always been full of various limitations: hunger, fatigue, and fragility. But now, she was more like a perpetual motion machine of energy.
Since her body did not need rest, wouldn't wasting that time be a huge loss?
“It seems this lady has no concept of sleep.”
As a humanoid clone, she was strictly speaking just an extension of that Demon Tree.
Thinking of this, Qimeng suddenly felt she had hit the jackpot.
Not needing to sleep meant she had a full third more time each day than others, which was equivalent to extending the length of her life out of thin air.
“What a steal. I'm practically a winner in life.”
She began to ponder how to maximize this extra gain.
Since both bodies could move, it would be a waste to only utilize one side. An efficient plan formed in her mind.
The tree body would be responsible for safely idling underground, continuously mining and expanding.
The humanoid body would be responsible for happily hunting in the forest, picking up easy gains everywhere.
Double the focus, double the efficiency.
No sooner said than done.
Qimeng's figure flashed as she vanished into the night.
The forest at night was completely different from the daytime. Many hidden magical beasts showed themselves, and before long, she discovered something highly interesting.
A dozen meters away, a long-horned deer was leisurely nibbling on a shrub.
Qimeng walked over in a swaggering manner, close enough to see the warm breath puffing from the deer's nostrils.
And what about the deer? It was completely unaware of anything unusual, still idly flicking its tail.
“This is the flawless young girl body I designed, you know!”
Qimeng sized herself up in a huff.
With jet-black long hair and a skirt woven from leaves, she looked so beautiful under the moonlight that she resembled an elf who had accidentally wandered into the mortal realm.
She deliberately struck a pose, but the foolish deer remained completely indifferent, its eyes reflecting nothing but apathy.
“How dare you ignore my charm? Just how bad is this deer's aesthetic sense!”
She grumbled in dissatisfaction. But she quickly suppressed this little bit of vanity because she realized the logic behind this phenomenon.
The magic power sustaining her body was supplied entirely by her underground root system, making her energy fluctuations almost completely imperceptible to the outside world. In the eyes of these creatures, she was merely a part of the forest landscape.
“So it's a natural stealth cheat.”
She realized that the greatest weapon of this body was precisely this near-absolute low presence.
For hunting, was there any advantage more terrifying than making your prey believe you were just thin air?
The long-horned deer a dozen meters away suddenly shivered. It was a warning stemming from biological instinct.
It alertly raised its head and looked around, but found nothing. With no specific enemy target, it could only flick its ears in confusion and lower its head to eat again.
To it, danger did not seem to exist. But danger was, in fact, right beneath its feet.
In the next instant, the ground split open.
Roots bursting from the soil wrapped around its limbs, pulling the panicked prey into the dirt.
The battle was over.
Qimeng fell into deep thought.
“This is way too easy.”
She looked at the deep, dark forest, suddenly feeling a slight trace of worry.
“At this rate of efficiency, am I going to collapse the entire forest's food chain by eating everything?”
She thought of things further down the line. What if she ate all the magical beasts here? Would she be forced to move?
But this thought only lingered in her mind for a second before she cast it aside completely.
She was just starting out now. Even if this forest eventually became a magicless zone, that would still be her achievement as its ruler.
She would worry about the future when it came; right now, the most important thing was to grow.
Over the next two hours, the nearby magical beasts welcomed a true nightmare.
The moment a nocturnal rabbit crawled out of its burrow, tree roots were already waiting at the exit.
The battle was over.
An iron-fanged boar was fast asleep when roots wrapped around its limbs.
The battle was over.
Even the nocturnal mice moving in packs failed to escape.
The battle was over.
As long as they stepped into this domain, it was her hunting ground. Here, she truly experienced what home-field advantage meant for the first time.
Every prey that set foot in this area turned into nutrients to nourish her main body.
Meanwhile, Qimeng sat in the shade of the tree, looking at the piling corpses of magical beasts, grinning with absolute smugness.
What adventure? What battle?
She felt those adventurers running around the wilderness, searching for so-called opportunities to grow, were simply laughably ridiculous.
This kind of leisurely life, where she could grow just by lifting a finger without being disturbed by anyone, was the ultimate satisfaction.
Rate on N.U.
