This time, his movements were much more composed than yesterday.
First, he smashed his staff down to break the wolf's front leg, then immediately unleashed Redemption Strike, slamming it heavily onto the wolf's head.
The Shadowmane Wolf struggled a few times before falling completely still.
Phoebe walked over to tend to the wolf's carcass, and Bai Xuan let out a sigh of relief; he had barely consumed any mana in this fight.
“Let's keep moving forward,” Bai Xuan said.
After walking for a while, Bai Xuan suddenly felt that something was off—the surrounding bushes were far too quiet.
He stopped in his tracks, cautiously extending his mental energy to scan their surroundings.
“Be careful,” Bai Xuan warned in a lowered voice.
Phoebe immediately lowered the axe from her shoulder and gripped it in her hands, warily scanning their surroundings.
The two walked a bit further when the soil beneath their feet suddenly became soft, as if they were stepping on a thick pile of decaying leaves.
Bai Xuan glanced down and was about to keep going when the ground beneath his feet abruptly exploded.
Several grayish-green vines shot out from the soil like venomous snakes, lunging straight for Bai Xuan's calves.
He didn't have time to leap away, so he could only thrust his staff into the ground to pin down one vine, but two others had already wrapped around his ankles.
The vines tightened suddenly, their thorns piercing through his trouser legs and digging into his skin.
The strength of the vines was astonishingly immense, dragging Bai Xuan into a stumble as his body was continuously pulled toward the ground.
Phoebe reacted incredibly fast, swinging her axe and hacking fiercely at the nearest vine.
The vine instantly severed into two, splashing dark green sap everywhere.
Yet even more vines emerged from all directions—not just one or two, but more than a dozen.
They burrowed out from underground, thrashing wildly in the air like a pack of hungry vipers as they rushed toward the duo.
“Watch out!”
Bai Xuan shouted, unleashing Redemption Strike at the same time to smash the vines wrapping his ankles.
Golden light spread along the vines, causing them to twitch violently a few times before finally releasing him.
Instead of retreating, however, the vines grew even more frenzied.
They intertwined, weaving into a dense net that draped down heavily toward Bai Xuan and Phoebe.
Phoebe sidestepped to dodge a lashing vine, her axe cleaving another vine's main stem in two in one fluid motion.
But to their horror, tiny buds immediately sprouted from the severed ends of the vines.
Growing at an extremely rapid pace, they rejoined the assault in the blink of an eye.
Bai Xuan's heart tightened. This thing could actually regenerate.
“The root!” Phoebe suddenly shouted.
Ignoring the thrashing vines, she spun around and ran toward the center where the vines were emerging.
There was a slightly raised mound of earth, its surface covered in tiny roots that intertwined densely like human blood vessels.
Bai Xuan reacted instantly, swinging his staff to sweep aside the vines blocking his path. He quickly followed her and slammed his Redemption Strike heavily onto the mound.
Golden light exploded, blasting a deep crater into the mound.
A thick, dark green taproot was exposed inside.
Arriving just in time, Phoebe raised her axe high with both hands and chopped down with all her might.
The taproot snapped in two, dark green sap gushing out like blood.
The vines thrashing in the air instantly lost their vitality, drooping limply onto the ground like withered straw ropes.
“Are you okay?” Bai Xuan asked, quickly walking over to Phoebe's side.
Phoebe shook her head, shook the sap off her axe blade, and then squatted down.
She dug a dark green Magic Core out of the severed taproot and casually tossed it into her pouch.
A notification popped up on Bai Xuan's status panel: [Thorn Vine Monster, Lv. 7, Ambush-type Magical Beast.]
Bai Xuan stood up, looked at the withered vines around them, and said in a grave tone,
“This thing lurks underground, waiting for prey to approach before launching an ambush. We must be careful when walking in places like this next time.”
Phoebe nodded gently, indicating she had taken note.
“Let's go. We're heading back,” Bai Xuan said.
By now, the sky had turned completely dark. The light from the cavern ceiling had shifted from grayish-blue to a deep, dark blue-black, resembling night on the surface.
When they returned to the stone house, the glowing ores on the ceiling shone in the darkness, their faint glimmers resembling stars.
Sitting on the steps by the doorway, Bai Xuan watched Phoebe heat up the leftover soup by the hearth. He opened his status panel and cast his gaze over his experience points.
【EXP: 97% → 100%】
【Level Up! Redeemer Lv. 5 → Lv. 6】
【HP: 1105/1105 → 1310/1310】
【Mana: 450/450 → 590/590】
【Basic Attributes Increased ↑】
Staring at the panel, Bai Xuan couldn't help but curl his lips into a slight smile.
Phoebe walked over carrying the heated soup. Seeing his smile, she tilted her head in curiosity.
“I leveled up,” Bai Xuan said with a smile.
Phoebe handed the soup to him, squatted down to look him in the eye, and then extended a finger to draw an upward curve in the air.
Bai Xuan nodded. “I've reached Level 6. I'm quite a bit stronger than before.”
Phoebe drew an even longer curve, then pointed in the direction outside the barrier.
Bai Xuan instantly understood her meaning. Although he had leveled up, there was still a long way to go before they could walk out of this place.
“One step at a time. We'll get stronger,” he said softly.
Tomorrow, they would have to continue forward.
There were still more Level 7 magical beasts waiting for them at the edge of the barrier.
Besides that, Level 8, Level 9, and Level 10 magical beasts lurked in the dark.
With his current Level 6 attributes, dealing with Level 7 magical beasts should be much easier.
But facing Level 8 magical beasts would still be a bit of a struggle, unless they encountered another clumsy, turtle-type magical beast.
With these thoughts in mind, Bai Xuan opened his status panel.
During the battles of this period, the Shadowmane Wolves, Thorn Vine Monsters, and Rock-Shell Turtles...
Combined with the miscellaneous magical beasts, the Pleasure he had accumulated was already more than enough for him to perform multiple draws.
Staring at the Pleasure on the status panel, he couldn't help but feel a flicker of anticipation.
He was hoping for that splash of colored light to appear.
The colored light that appeared when he obtained the contract last time was something he had only seen once.
Bai Xuan shook his head gently and, with a thought, officially began the draw.
The light orb spun rapidly, and one white light after another bloomed in succession, yet the colored light he anticipated never showed up.
Class EXP (Small), Class EXP (Medium), Class EXP (Small)...
Occasionally interspersed with a Skill EXP (Medium) or two, there wasn't even a shadow of a special item.
Bai Xuan watched all of this expressionlessly, long since accustomed to it.
He gathered all the experience cards and, after a brief thought, poured all of them into his two skills: Redemption Strike and Concussive Field.
As for his passive skills, he chose to upgrade 【Healing Ascent】.
This passive only needed half its experience bar to complete its upgrade.
Moreover, with the class traits of a Redeemer,
the enhancement of his healing ability would simultaneously boost his own attack power. This investment was undoubtedly highly cost-effective.
Rate on N.U.
