Chapter 2715

(Wait to modify) It’s three against two, so he shouldn’t be the one making decisions here. But thinking of his talent, Pu Yu and the others didn’t say much, of course, they wanted to find the bones and leave as soon as possible.

Since everyone agreed, they didn’t waste any more time and used short-distance teleportation props to quickly shuttle along the passage. But after a full ten minutes, they were still surrounded by the same passages that twisted like snakes underground, as vast and intertwined as a maze, seeming endless in any direction.

"We’re far from the Sky Pit now." Uncle Qiao reminded Pu Yu.

If this wasn’t the entrance to the underground ruins, there would be no reason for so many passages to exist, so it’s very likely they were created by mutant animals. However, after walking for so long, they hadn’t encountered any mutant animals nor seen anything resembling shedded snake skin or snake scales, which was not a good sign.

Because usually, creatures that survive underground for so long don’t suddenly all die, it’s more likely they are hiding or were driven away. Whatever is capable of driving off these dominant creatures might be related to why the instance was upgraded to Rank-A.

"Out of the range of the locator." Pu Yu closed her eyes briefly. Regardless of whether it’s underground ruins or not, they were very far from the locator her aunt left behind.

"Don’t the people at Rank-A Wormhole Points have special chips implanted in their bodies?" Xu Huo said, "Even if damaged and unable to locate, the materials used shouldn’t disappear easily. Can’t the detector find them?"

"Very unlikely," Pu Yu replied, "The chip material is very special, its purpose is for locating, not for recovery after death, so this function was excluded during production."

"If the Sky Pit was deliberately made by someone, maybe underground ruins did have inhabitants once, we don’t see any buildings or people now, maybe they were all eaten by mutant animals." Xu Huo glanced at Yan Jiayu, "Can you still smell the scent from when we first came in?"

Yan Jiayu occasionally took off her helmet to sniff the air. She differentiated for a moment and pointed to a passage, "The scent is strongest here."

Pu Yu looked at her detector. The analysis report showed that the air impurity levels in all the passages were similar, with none having as clear a difference as Yan Jiayu claimed.

At this point, another Rank-A Player removed her helmet. She was a middle-aged woman with a buzz cut. She used her sense of smell to judge and nodded to Pu Yu, "The young girl spoke correctly, the passage does differ from the others, it might be an area where mutant animals are active."

If the underground ruins were devoured, they would have to try finding mutant animals first.

"But if the bones have been eaten for this long, they’ve probably been digested, haven’t they?" Yan Jiayu looked at Pu Yu, "Can you take her relics back?"

"It’s better than bringing back nothing," Pu Yu responded.

The group continued forward, but this time they slowed down, not moving very far each time, to avoid rushing into a snake den.

Along the way, Xu Huo was studying the plants in the passage, while Yan Jiayu inspected the stones. After a while, she suddenly stopped, "That’s it, Old Xu, come here quickly."

Xu Huo walked over quickly and saw her picking a flower. She squeezed out its juice and held it out, "Smell this."

"Indeed, it’s a mixture of fishy and fragrant scent. The scent comes from the plants, not mutant animals?"

"It’s this," Yan Jiayu pointed at the colorful spots inside, "The plants absorbed mineral components from the rock surface, creating this special scent. The minerals probably have a smell, perhaps it’s the excretion of mutant animals. Over time we’ve stopped smelling it, but the plants that grew from above retained this smell."

"Isn’t it incredible? The mutant animals here can digest minerals."

This was her main point.

If even minerals can be digested, chances are Pu Yu’s aunt’s relics became plant nourishment too, and the props and instruments may not be preserved as well, so she might end up just taking a stone back.

There hadn’t been any good news all along, and Pu Yu remained unfazed, planning to follow her previous thoughts for searching.

"Better put the helmet back on," Xu Huo advised, "though there are instruments, it’s better to be cautious."

Yan Jiayu deftly put her helmet back on.

"It’s been a few more days, when are you entering the instance?" Xu Huo asked.

"Probably in a day or two," Yan Jiayu wasn’t too sure, "computing with our zoned time converts to this, though I’m not sure if there’ll be deviations between the random instance and the ultra-high energy zones, but I heard there’s system notices before teleportation, I’ll let you know then."

The group passed a fork in the road when a sudden lunge from the side passage swallowed up the female player. The next second, the closed passage showed two cuts, with the player bursting out, instantly teleporting sideways, raising her hand to slice apart the entire passage with a Sword!

The part of the "passage" that fell down bled, and its backside revealed large snake scales—it was actually a snake head!

The adjacent passage turned out to be a lurking Giant Python with jaws waiting!

"Granny Qiao, drag it out for a look," Pu Yu told the female player.

The female player referred to as Granny Qiao stepped forward, felt around the side of the passage, then with a forceful pull, extracted a giant snake corpse that had been clinging to the rock wall.

Looking at the snake corpse lying horizontally like a building, Pu Yu frowned and said, "This snake turned its abdominal cavity into passageways."

*

They discovered nearly all had very small colorful spots, resembling sand mixed in, sparse on the front, more on the back.

"Maybe it’s the stone’s characteristics," Pu Yu looked at the two behind her, "Uncle Qiao, could you please?"

The man among the two approached, casually broke off a piece of stone, extracted instruments from the luggage cabin and proceeded to process, filter, and then decompose the components in detail.

"It is indeed a mineral component, but not native to this stone path. The stone path’s rock is just regular class B, while this one is class A, with mining value." Uncle Qiao said, "It’s spread quite evenly, possibly brought by plants, or some kind of mutant animal."

"You mean this might be inhabited by giant reptilian species?" Pu Yu showed some surprise, "This passage scale is quite significant."

If dug out by mutant animals, its size wouldn’t be small.

"The worst outcome would be snake species," Uncle Qiao said, "Ultra-high energy zones and normal zones differ greatly, snake species might grow to such a scale."

"The outside Sky Pit..." Xu Huo frowned.

"That shouldn’t be," Uncle Qiao glanced at him, "The scale and shape of the Sky Pit contradict biological characteristics, more likely created by weapons."

Xu Huo thought of the Nüwa Stone, considered the abnormal growth of mutant plants in this zone, and said, "Stop geological detection, speed up."