Chen He and Liang Peng observed the strange interaction between Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue but had no idea what was going on or why she had thanked him. However, due to the fact that they were on high alert for what was about to happen, neither of them dared to even look away from the mutated forest.
After saying words of thanks for the first time in so long that even she could not remember when it had been the last time, Shangguan Bing Xue put away the object that Bai Zemin had given her carefully and marched into the mutated forest alone.
Bai Zemin looked at her thin, small back that seemed as fragile as a glass window slowly disappearing from his sight. Then, he knelt down on his left knee and took out two bottles of Blazing Beetle's blood from his backpack.
He carefully scattered the blood in front of him until a bright red pool formed and then closed his eyes. Although he looked calm on the outside, his mind was working overtime imagining a spear as he began to move the Mana inside his body, this time without worrying about saving.
At the same time as his Mana began to be consumed at astonishing speeds, Bai Zemin began to use his Magic to control as much magical power as possible while the image of the best possible spear shone in his mind.
The tip had to be sharp to be able to pierce through any defense and destroy any impediment.
The sheave to be sturdy enough to not be easily destroyed by the enemy; to be easy to hold for throwing but difficult to withdraw.
Every line of the weapon flickered in his mind as Bai Zemin imagined himself wielding a hammer and pounding metal on an anvil using fire at high temperatures. Even without the tools, with Magic and Mana, he could create objects by adding his Blood Manipulation.
While it wasn't the same, creation was still creation.
The blood on the ground glowed crimson and slowly a spear with three blades began to take shape; the blood solidified, strange lines similar to engravings began to appear on the pulley and an end in a shape similar to a poker card trefoil.
What Bai Zemin was creating was not a normal spear, it was specifically a trident.
His face began to pale and beads of sweat began to form on his forehead as his 273 Mana points ran wildly outward as if a water dam had broken. If Bai Zemin's plan was successful then there was no need to hold anything back as he would be rewarded with far more!
* * *
Meanwhile, Shangguan Bing Xue advanced through the mutated forest, moving deeper and deeper, closer and closer to the center of the place.
The first thing she noticed was the purity of the air around her; the air was so pure that she could feel as if her lungs were being purified of all the polluted air she had breathed throughout her life. However, she soon realized that what she was breathing was not exactly the same air she had known since birth.
Mana! Such a thought flashed in her mind as she kept running deeper.
The air was charged with Mana and the closer she got to the center the denser the amount of Mana became. If the air outside this place, the air breathed by humans, was a composition of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and others; then the air Shangguan Bing Xue was breathing in right now also contained Mana as its main component!
Due to her agile speed, Shangguan Bing Xue was not paying attention to the beauty of the place or she would be surprised to notice how harmonious everything around her looked.
A few butterflies the size of basins flapped their wings gently while bees the size of adult human fists rested comfortably on flowers that reached almost a meter in height. There were even a few dogs sleeping peacefully with a few mutated cats beside them.
They all seemed to have made a tactical agreement not to fight and instead were concentrating on absorbing as much Mana as possible even while they slept.
About a minute later, Shangguan Bing Xue could not help but stagger slightly and her face changed completely as she realized that her blood began to slowly boil as if a volcano was about to erupt and she felt like vomiting due to the sudden discomfort.
The feeling was similar to the one she felt during the first day of the apocalypse just seconds before that strange message flashed in the retina of her eyes, signaling the beginning of a new era.
Humans were different from animals, bugs, or plants. Humans could not just casually absorb the Mana of the surroundings at will and that was precisely the reason why everyone had a small part of the world's Mana within their soul.
If that amount went beyond what was bearable by the user's soul, zombie-like mutations would begin to appear as the body would try to adapt to the change as best and as quickly as possible to avoid total death.
That was what she was experiencing at the moment.
She stopped breathing hurriedly to substantially slow down Mana's absorption and pushed her speed to the limit.
Although Shangguan Bing Xue was more focused on the path of magic, her melee prowess was by no means deficient. Even before the appearance of the Soul Record on Earth she was already a genius when it came to martial arts and thus she possessed the unranked passive skill level 3 Combat Expert.
Moreover, every time she leveled up, she added both points to Agility. As for the reason, perhaps only she knew exactly.
The reality was that she had currently reached level 24 the day before after acquiring a large amount of Soul Power from the Platinum Ape and was currently close to being able to start her first real evolution.
Therefore, 48 Agility points came from leveling up alone, currently reaching 109 points in total thanks to collaborating in the defeat and slaughter of two First Order existences, as well as her normal-grade treasure boots.
While she could not compare to Bai Zemin who had almost 130 Agility points even though he still had 32 status points reserved and a lot of Soul Power to be absorbed due to being stuck at level 25, her Agility was outstanding compared to most.
A few seconds later, she finally arrived at what seemed to be the center of the place, and even with her calmness she couldn't help but be terrified at the sight.
At that time, Chen He probably hadn't had time to look at the situation around him cautiously, or else he wouldn't have said that there should be at most a dozen First Order creatures.
Just by looking around a couple of times, Shangguan Bing Xue had already counted more than twenty!
After absorbing the Soul Power of the Platinum Ape, Shangguan Bing Xue had received a huge boost in her stats. Precisely because of that, she was confident in fighting one-on-one and killing a First Order creature below level 45; however, if they all joined forces to attack her and managed to surround her, then she wouldn't even be able to resist for a second before being killed!