Chapter 72: with translation of chapter title

At this moment, Chen Shicheng had already continued deeper into the inner palace along the passage.

With the two people from the Cultural Tourism Bureau Logistics Department showing the way, he no longer wandered about like a headless fly, after all, the direction they came from must be where the main force is.

Therefore, as long as he followed the traces left by those two and took the opposite route, he would surely not run into any official personnel.

"Swish!"

Chen Shicheng, using the Evil Ghost Pill for scouting, hooked his finger and unleashed a blade aura, cleaving a washbasin-sized deadly spider in half.

Because La Tiao had caught up on sleep earlier, it now regained its spirits, seeming interested in the spider's corpse, and hopped up to take a bite.

However, the fluffy spider legs didn't suit its taste, and it was immediately spat out.

Afterwards, La Tiao stood upright, twitched its little nose, as if sniffing something.

Soon its little ears perked up, it bit Chen Shicheng's pant leg with its mouth, and kept pulling hard toward one of the forks ahead.

"What's wrong? Did you find something good?"

Chen Shicheng couldn't resist La Tiao, so he followed its lead and entered that passage.

"Your marten seems rather unusual, huh?" Hui Siye said, looking at the spirited La Tiao, lost in thought.

"It has to be unusual — it's a purple marten, a state-protected animal; have you ever seen one so human-like?" Chen Shicheng said proudly.

"That's exactly its spiritual intellect."

Hui Siye wrapped his left claw around his chest, right claw tapping his beard, speaking somewhat uncertainly: "For a normal Qi Refining stage beast, its spiritual intellect may increase, but it's still not enough to understand human speech."

"This marten of yours probably ate some spiritual fruit that boosts the Spirit attribute, or else it has an extraordinary innate bloodline; otherwise it couldn't be this clever."

Chen Shicheng usually just kept La Tiao as a pet, never expecting it to fight, so he didn't pay much attention to its level and attributes.

But since Hui Siye brought it up, he simply used the Eye of Bai Ze to appraise it.

【Lv. 7 La Tiao (marten), Essence: 15, Qi: 8, Spirit: 5.5, Skill: Pounce, Breath Spirit Qi, Seek Spiritual Medicine (3.7%).】

【Seek Spiritual Medicine (3.7%): Driven by instinct, it has an instinctive ability to sense a certain specific spiritual medicine.】

"Oh ho."

Chen Shicheng looked at the appraisal information, somewhat surprised.

As a native creature, La Tiao, like the local aborigines, having its Essence, Qi, and Spirit attributes exceed those of players and refreshable wild monsters is no surprise, but that final skill of yours is rather odd.

It actually increases by percentage, just like his Slaying Immortal Sword Intent.

But how could a mere herb-seeking skill compare to the sword intent derived from the Slaying Immortal Flying Knife? Moreover, it can't sense all spiritual medicines, only a specific type.

Unfortunately, the game has no pet system, so he doesn't know La Tiao's upgrade conditions, let alone how to raise its skill level.

For now, he can only take it step by step; once La Tiao raises its own level, he'll learn the exact ability of this skill.

"And now isn't the time to think about these things."

Chen Shicheng sped up his steps to keep up with the ever-faster La Tiao, and casually sliced in half a spider that dropped from the passage ceiling.

Following La Tiao's lead, he had already penetrated deep into the underground palace; various insects and poisonous snakes were everywhere, but the most numerous were spider-type monsters, which would occasionally leap out.

Though their levels were generally low, he had to kill dozens to gain a few experience points — better than nothing, and he certainly wouldn't let them pass. Moreover, as he kept moving forward, some murals gradually appeared on the passage walls.

However, due to their great age, plus the ever-increasing cobwebs, he could not tell what was depicted on them.

"This place seems to be a spider's nest?"

Chen Shicheng furrowed his brow, tore off a strand of white spider silk from his head; the slime made it impossible to shake off. "La Tiao, slow down — there's danger ahead. Let me first send the Evil Ghost Pill to scout the situation before we move forward."

"Squeak squeak squeak."

Hearing its master's call, La Tiao stopped in place, but its expression clearly showed some anxiety.

It kept jumping up and down in place, looking at the cobweb-filled passage, as if urging Chen Shicheng to hurry.

Chen Shicheng caught La Tiao in one hand, stuffed it into his bosom, patted its head to calm it, then controlled the Evil Ghost Pill to become incorporeal and continued scouting ahead.

Once incorporeal, the Evil Ghost Pill ignored the sheets of spider silk, flew unimpeded into the depths of the passage, and soon reached the end.

At the same time, an ocean of spider silk appeared before Chen Shicheng; through the gaps he could see that this seemed to be a great hall, its space extremely vast, almost the size of a logistics warehouse.

In the middle of the hall stood a raised stone platform, around which lay piled cocoons of various sizes — the large ones about the volume of a sedan, the smaller ones resembling a person? However, these cocoons were wrapped in thick spider silk, obscuring their contents; Chen Shicheng couldn't determine what was inside, but it was clear he seemed to have touched the very heart of the underground palace.

"The people from the Cultural Tourism Bureau Logistics Department are so slow — they still haven't found this place?"

Full of doubt, Chen Shicheng went all out, and with the aid of his blade aura, quickly reached the hall's location.

La Tiao, which had been in his bosom, took the opportunity when he wasn't looking to leap out, and in the hall full of spider silk it kept sniffing around, searching for something.

After the Evil Ghost Pill scouted the hall and found no living creatures, he didn't call La Tiao back, letting it frolic about — perhaps it could find something good.

He, meanwhile, approached the edge of the stone platform and carefully controlled his blade aura to slit open a small cocoon.

The object revealed inside made his breath catch instantly.

Inside the small cocoon lay a corpse, its clothing exactly matching that of the corpses found at the bottom of the cracks outside.

Moreover, unlike the desiccated, stiff corpses outside, this one had turned soft into a puddle, as if even its bones had been dissolved.

"Isn't this just food injected with venom after being hunted? With so many of them here, is this the spider's buffet?"

Chen Shicheng blurted that out instinctively, then immediately realized something.

"Wait."

"A buffet?"

"Cocoons?"

A terrifying thought that made his scalp tingle suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Should someone with trypophobia even be alive!"

"Rrip."

Not far from him, a sound of tearing cloth suddenly rang out.

Chen Shicheng looked down and saw that the base of a large cocoon had been torn open by La Tiao, inside densely packed with spider hatchlings that, upon contacting the outside, scrambled desperately to crawl out.

(End of chapter)