Chapter 149: Fourth Ring?

Lin Wu opened the Beast Servant section and clicked on the location option. This directly took him to their current position on the map.

As of now, the Split thorn horn beetle was the farthest from him and had traveled to over 250 kilometers. Lin Wu could tell that it was heading towards the south western direction but didn't exactly know what existed there.

On the other hand, the Deep Earth Millennium Mole was traveling underground similar to Lin Wu. He was a mole beast and thus had an innate affinity to digging, quite like Lin Wu. But his speed was slower than Lin Wu's digging speed and he was about 190 kilometers away from him in the southern direction.

Even when Lin Wu was using his normal method of digging, he would have been faster than the Deep Earth Millennium Mole. But now with his Drill mode, he was very fast and could cover about two hundred kilometers in that mode.

But this wasn't without its cost focuser. Using the drill mode required him to constantly use his innate skills, which used up spirit qi. So if he wanted to travel so fast, he would have to consume additional spirit qi to do so.

Thankfully, Lin Wu's spirit qi stores were more than enough and if he were to use all of the spirit qi he had right now. He would probably be able to travel about five hundred kilometers before it would be depleted. But even then he would have the additional spirit qi in the system's storage that he could quickly use to replenish it.

Another thought that Lin Wu had was of digging straight underground. He didn't know how far deep into the earth he could go. If it was possible for him to travel about a hundred kilometers into the ground, he reckoned that even the strongest of cultivators would have a hard time finding him.

'I should test it out when I have some free time. But I'll need to create some kind of diversion with Shirong before that.' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Just like this, the night passed and the day came. But even then, the sunlight barely passed through the few open spots in the forest canopy. The tall trees covered a lot of the sky and created a shade that hid the floor of the forest. 

This would only get denser and denser as they went deeper into the Millennium forest and by the time they reached the fifth ring, they would see no open areas in the forest canopy. The only open areas were those that were created due to some trees naturally dying or some beasts breaking them down.

In fact, this was an important part of the ecological cycle of the millennium forest. The beasts in the fifth ring were much more stronger and violent than the other beasts. They would fight almost every day and in turn cause damage to the trees, breaking them down.

These broken trees would fall to the ground and would become the source of sustenance for some lower kinds of beasts. While the opening that was created due to this would give the opportunity for newer and smaller plants to grow.

Of course, this didn't last for long and the plants in the millennium forest grew very fast. A broken tree would quickly be replaced by either another tree that newly grew or an existing one that spread its crown of leaves, taking the opportunity of absorbing more sunlight.

This cycle was rather balanced, and if the core condensation realm beasts like those fought in the outer rings of the millennium forest, they would instead cause great damage to the forest instead of stimulating its growth.

Thankfully, the core condensation realm beasts chose to move to the inner rings once they grew stronger so that they could obtain more spirit qi. There were even some plants in the millennium forest that would start absorbing spirit qi and gain sentience.

Such plants were a bit different from spirit herbs and spirit beasts and were instead called natural monsters. Even other inanimate objects such as rocks, earth, or metal that absorbed enough spirit qi to give birth to sentience would have the chance to become natural monsters.

This was actually a unique path of cultivation that was only available to inanimate beings and objects. This was called as the 'Nature path'.

Shirong finally awakened as the rays of sunlight fell on his face. 

"Hmm… that was a good rest. Now to continue onward…" Shirong muttered to himself before picking up Lin Wu and flying ahead.

They followed the same routine as before and would slaughtered all beasts that came upon their path. By the end of the next day, Lin Wu had already obtained about half of the spirit qi that he had used to create the two Rhombus gems for the servant beasts.

At night time, he wanted to sneak away again but couldn't as Shirong seemed to be more alert today. Perhaps it was because they were now officially in the fourth ring that he was tense, or just because of the uncomfortable location they were in.

It had started raining and Shirong had no choice but to take shelter on top of a large branch of a tree. He had used a few large leaves to create a roof over his head by tying them with vines, but it wasn't the best one. The winds were also strong and would make it move, and the water would slide down from the corners, making his clothes wet.

Still, he was able to bear with it and spent the night in cultivation. The next morning, the rain had still not stopped and the floor of the Millennium forest had become muddy. But in exchange, the pleasant smell of petrichor was spread all around along with the aroma of leaves that had become rejuvenated.

Lin Wu took a look at the map and saw that they were about 25% of the way in through the fourth ring of the millennium forest and if they kept the same rate of traveling, they would need two more days to enter the fifth ring.

"Wait, what's that!"