Chapter 19

019 Treant Forest

In a forest, about 17 kilometers east of Maple Leaf Town, Team 8566 and Wu Wei carefully moved forward in their exploration.

A few hours ago, in Maple Leaf Town, Zhou Tian had invited Wu Wei to ‘pull a big one’.

He had said that the boss in this forest was infinitely close to reaching Stage 1 but was not yet Stage 1.

Zhou Tian asked Wu Wei if he was interested in hunting it.

Initially, Wu Wei had not been interested, but when he heard that the boss was a Treant, it piqued his interest.

In the last two days, Wu Wei had studied many Level 10 Runic Summons, but no matter how hard he studied, Wu Wei could not find any summons that satisfied him more than the Treant.

Initially, he had already planned to come here to farm some.

By happenstance, Team 8566 had also made plans to come to this area today, so Wu Wei decided to form a party with them to explore the forest.

What they were doing right now was based on Wu Wei’s suggestion that they first scout out the terrain before hunting monsters.

They had already been scouting for more than half an hour.

For Wu Wei, this much was nothing. After all, he had once scouted for over half a day. If it were possible, he would like to have done it even longer, but it was evident that Team 8566 had had enough.

Blondie, in particular, had grown sick of it after just half an hour. He complained softly:

“Say, do we have to be this careful?

The strongest boss in this forest is only a first-stage boss. Our party is not aiming to advance anyway. Moreover, we can easily sweep this entire place!”

After his blonde party member started complaining, the archer couldn’t help but chime in.

“That’s right. If you ask me, we should just start farming. We won’t encounter any danger anyway, and even if there’s real danger, we can just log out, right?”

As soon as he heard what they said, Zhou Tian could not help but frown, and the burly man also seemed conflicted.

The two of them were afraid that Wu Wei would feel offended.

But Wu Wei immediately raised a hand in apology.

“Sorry, sorry. I forgot that different parties have different styles and subconsciously followed my own. I’m sorry. I’ve overstepped my boundaries. Let’s do it your way!”

Zhou Tian’s answered tactfully: “It’s not your problem. There’s nothing wrong with being careful in the Runic World. However, we’re in a hurry. After dealing with this boss, we still have another objective, so…”

“It’s understandable. Let’s do it your way. I’ll fully cooperate!”

Since Wu Wei had said as much, Team 8566 happily obliged.

Blondie suddenly stood up.

“Alright, then. Let’s do it. Come on, let’s make things livelier!”

Next, he took out a small gadget and threw it on the ground, after which an ear-piercing ring sounded off.

In the next second, the entire forest, which had been silent just a moment ago, was filled with a loud noise.

This scene stunned Wu Wei.

He had asked Team 8566 to do things however they did, but he had not expected them to act so rashly.

Now, all the mobs in the forest would be rushing over. Would they be able to withstand it?

While Wu Wei was still dazed in disbelief, the faces of Team 8566’s members began to show excitement. Even the most ‘delicate’ burly man’s face had become flushed with excitement.

The worst of the bunch was Zhou Tian. With staff in hand, he glared around the forest, growling in his deep voice: “Come to see your father… and DIE!”

He had practically screamed out the last word, ‘die’.

The sound that that skinny and frail body of his could produce was utterly terrifying. Wu Wei, who was right beside him, felt his ears hurting.

But his actions were even more shocking and explosive than Zhou Tian’s voice. As he shouted out, he waved his hand, and a bolt of lightning struck around a hundred meters away, and when the smoke cleared, there was an aged-yellow, half-human half-tree Treant about 1.5 meters tall at the spot. It had been struck to death by one hit.

“[Uncommon] Runic Spell: Lightning Strike!”

Wu Wei immediately identified Zhou Tian’s first core rune.

As soon as Zhou Tian’s performance ended, the archer beside him drew out his bow to shoot a flaming arrow. The single arrow set another Treat alit. Next, he shot an ice arrow, followed by a wind arrow!

“[Uncommon] Runic Martial Arts: Enchanted Arrow!”

Zhou Tian and the Archer joined hands to put up a spectacular performance. One with thunder and the other with arrows. Together, they killed the Treants charging at them one after another before they could even get within 100 meters of range.

However, it was only two people, after all. Soon, the Treants managed to break through their attacks and approached closely.

The blonde-haired man and the muscular man did not simply idle about.

As he stood up, a Rune on the blonde-haired man’s forehead lit up, and he began to transform!

Within a few seconds, he turned from a human into a humongous yellow hound.

Next to him, the burly man’s entire body suddenly turned black.

“[Uncommon] Runic Transformation: Savage Hound!”

“[Uncommon] Runic Martial Arts: Ironclad!”

As Wu Wei observed their display, his eyes slowly narrowed.

He realized this team was very strong – or at least much stronger than his previous team, Team 8911.

In that team, only the captain, Zhou Hong, had high-grade runes, and the rest only had common runes.

In this team, however, all the members had high-quality runes. No wonder they dared to act so frivolously!

“However, if it’s only this level, I don’t think it will be enough!”

Wu Wei’s eyes narrowed. In half an hour of scouting, although he had not been able to thoroughly check out the entire small forest, he had gained a level of understanding of the situation within.

This forest was several times bigger than Wild Boar Valley, and there were many more monsters.

There were at least two to three hundred to start with.

These two to three hundred regular Treants alone would be too much for them to handle, and there were still the 10 to 20 elite monsters and even the boss that was pseudo-Stage 1!

If all they did was continue their charade, there was no way it would be enough.

As expected, after only a short moment, Zhou Tian’s spiritual power had almost depleted, and Treants were already approaching within 3 to 5 meters.

Now that they had approached so close, the Archer could no longer freely shoot his arrows. As for Blondie and Brawny, they were slowly becoming unable to hold on.

However, what made Wu Wei curious was that they did not seem to be in any panic whatsoever.

It felt like they had some kind of trump card, and Wu Wei could not help but look forward to seeing what it was.

Just as Wu Wei was anticipating whatever ultimate move they would pull to turn the tide of the battle, Zhou Tian suddenly spoke as he panted.

“It’s almost time!”

Are you finally going to unleash it?

Wu Wei’s face was full of anticipation.

However, Zhou Tian only said: “Let’s log out and come back when we’ve recovered!”

Hearing this almost caused Wu Wei to spit out a mouthful of blood. He thought Zhou Tian’s team had some massive reversal in store. To think that this much anticipated ultimate move was to abuse the ‘Speed of Light Logout’ exclusive to Rune Diviners levels 10 and below.

Wu Wei could not help but blurt out: “Aren’t you afraid that ‘Speed of Light Logout’ might fail? And what if you level up?

“Well, even if our levels are too high, there are still other methods. As for [Speed of Light Logout], how could it fail? That would be impossible as we’ve done it hundreds of times without fail!” Zhou Xin replied confidently. He then called out his Book of Runes, but when he tapped logout, there was a sudden buzz, and his face turned pale.

The impossible had happened!

Wu Wei’s face darkened. He was beginning to think that this group of dumbasses had been trying to pull one on him!