This lizard’s Life Energy was absurd. Even after being shot until it resembled a porcupine, it was still struggling tenaciously.
Its tail was still twitching, a pool of fresh blood spreading beneath it.
The pioneering team members wordlessly raised their Bow and Arrows for another volley.
After the second volley, the lizard was finished.
It lay motionless on the ground. Du Yu stepped forward and crushed its head with his Long Spear.
Someone remarked, "This thing’s hide is ridiculously thick. It took that many arrows and still almost survived."
Qin Ziwu stepped forward to inspect it. He lifted the lizard’s tail; it was thick and long, even sturdier than an adult man’s arm.
It took considerable effort to lift. "This is no ordinary animal. It must have broken through to the Extraordinary level. It’s an Extraordinary Beast."
Hearing that it was an Extraordinary Beast, many of the others grew curious.
"An Extraordinary was shot dead that easily?"
"Does that mean I just helped kill an Extraordinary?"
"I heard Extraordinaries are super strong. This thing is even rarer than the Tyrannosaurs."
"Hard to say. I heard becoming Extraordinary is about breaking a species’ limits. The stronger the beast, the more terrifying it becomes after breaking through. This lizard wasn’t very large, so it’s probably not as strong as a regular Tyrannosaurus."
"Sigh, then what about us humans? We only weigh a hundred-something pounds. After breaking through to Extraordinary, wouldn’t we still be at the bottom of the food chain?"
"Not necessarily. We can still use weapons."
"You have to admit, that massed Bow and Arrow fire was effective. We turned it into a porcupine."
Qin Ziwu had someone lift the lizard’s corpse onto a pushcart.
Once this lizard was brought back, it could be converted into a Hunting Artifact.
’I hope this time it creates a weapon that suits me.’
When the rear party caught up, the few who had stayed behind handed the lizard’s corpse over to them, asking for help transporting it back to the Gated Community.
Inside the Gated Community, Qin Ziwen and Jia Liangcai stood guard at the south gate entrance.
This large-scale development of the Underground Forest was crucial. If they could clear this route, the Qin Alliance would finally be on the right track.
It would provide a steady source of both firewood and game.
Every so often, someone would bring back intelligence from the front lines.
They also brought back all sorts of new and strange materials for Qin Ziwen to appraise.
"These two types of mushrooms are inedible. Mildly toxic." Qin Ziwen put down the two mushrooms before him. The one on the left looked like a big red umbrella, the one on the right like a small white cap.
"Write it down, these two types of mushrooms are inedible!" Someone nearby took out a pen and paper to record it.
"President, the central pioneering team sent back the corpse of an Extraordinary Beast." Zhao Pu hurried over.
"Oh? I’ll go take a look." Qin Ziwen nodded.
After everything he had been through, he could now hear about an Extraordinary corpse with complete composure.
On a pushcart not far ahead, a grayish-yellow lizard lay. Because it was so large, a short section of its tail hung down naturally.
But despite being dragged along the ground for so long, the skin on its tail showed no signs of wear.
"Good Defense Power." Qin Ziwen picked up the tail and rubbed it gently. Although it was dead, he could still feel the tough tail muscles through the skin.
It was worthy of an Extraordinary Beast; the strength of its physical body was something no ordinary beast could hope to match.
An ordinary lion or tiger would be nothing more than prey before it, to be hunted at will.
But even an Extraordinary Beast like this was still easily surrounded and killed by ordinary people using weapons.
Its back was riddled with arrow holes. Though the arrows had been removed, one could still vaguely imagine the scene when it was shot full of them, like a porcupine.
’It seems,’ he estimated internally, ’that even a human who has broken through to the Extraordinary level would be in trouble if they were ganged up on by a volley of Crossbows, unless they awakened a Defense Attribute.’
"Take it back."
After the others had left, Jia Liangcai said, "My lord, it seems this Underground Forest is full of dangers."
"Danger is normal. In fact, I’m hoping for a few more surprises."
Qin Ziwen turned to Mogu behind him and said, "Mogu, if we run into any overwhelming danger later, I’ll have to ask you to make a trip."
Mogu said, "Leave it to me."
By evening, five hours later, the First Stage of the forest development was finally complete.
This Underground Forest was rich in species; they had discovered over thirty types of subterranean creatures alone.
These subterranean creatures came in all sizes.
The large ones included a nearly ten-meter-long earthworm that could burrow. It had escaped by shedding a four-meter-long section of its tail and disappearing into the ground.
The small ones were only the size of a fingernail—a type of moth. They were timid, as if forgotten and left behind during the evolution of the larger subterranean lifeforms.
It fed on the sap of vines. They were not numerous, but they were widely distributed.
As for Extraordinary Creatures, they had only found this one type of lizard. Five were discovered in total; two escaped, and three were hunted.
In addition, a new altar was found against the southern wall of the Underground Forest.
An [Extreme Breakthrough Card] was discovered on the altar.
The price of an item is always tied to supply and demand.
As more and more people within the Qin Alliance reached Five Stars, the price of the Extreme Breakthrough Card continued to climb.
This Card was placed in the Qin Alliance’s public exchange warehouse at a high price.
It was successfully exchanged less than ten minutes after being stocked.
Qin Ziwen knew who had exchanged for it—Wang Yun.
Although Wang Yun had kept a low profile since joining the Qin Alliance, he had been serving as the captain of a Hunting Team, and his hunting results were consistently among the best.
He consistently ranked in the top five.
He also had a Recruiter, Yang Cunshen, who held a position in the Qin Alliance and earned him a lot of contribution points.
On top of that, he had approached Yuan Dajun and Yuan Ming to borrow a sum of contribution points, with Qin Ziwen acting as the guarantor.
And so, he had successfully exchanged for this Extreme Breakthrough Card.
"President, the two altars are about a kilometer apart, one in the east and one in the west. The path between them has been mostly cleared."
"Mm, don’t waste these insect corpses... send them all to the feed processing plant. Store the excess firewood. See if we can roughly process these vines to improve their burning efficiency. If it requires fine processing, then forget it; the cost isn’t worth it."
After handling these matters, Qin Ziwen brought the lizard corpse to the Eternal Hunting Tomb.
The corpse wasn’t large. He quickly dug a pit and buried it.
The burial mound trembled slightly.
A mound of earth slowly rose as something pushed its way up from beneath.
Grains of soil trickled down the slope, revealing a grayish-white object.
Soft, thin, like some kind of root that had been buried for a long time.
This grayish-white section continued to push upwards, growing longer and longer, until it finally stopped.
It was a grayish-white long whip.
The body of the whip was entirely grayish-white, like dried lizard skin.
The whip’s end forked into two tails, one longer than the other, each tipped with an embedded barb.
[Hunting Artifact] Dual-Tailed Cloud-Probing Whip
[Level] 1 (0/1000)
[Species] Lizard/Tendril
[Hunting Exhibition]
First Stage: Sever and Regrow
Second Stage: Not Activated
Third Stage: Not Activated
Seeing that the lizard had transformed into a long whip, Qin Ziwu was a little disappointed.
Qin Ziwen stepped forward and picked up the whip. "The weapons these beasts transform into are random. If the Hunting Exhibition is suitable, you can use it for now and switch when you find something better."
"I know, but it’s a whip. If it were any other weapon, even a club, I could make do with it for now. But a whip is just too obscure," Qin Ziwu said, shaking his head.
"Are you sure?" A strange glint flashed in Qin Ziwen’s eyes.
After picking up the whip, Qin Ziwen had learned the effect of its Hunting Exhibition.
’This weapon’s Hunting Exhibition... is actually quite interesting.’
As soon as he finished speaking, Qin Ziwen gave a light flick of his wrist. The Dual-Tailed Cloud-Probing Whip in his hand suddenly grew longer, its body becoming exceptionally flexible. With a casual swing, it wrapped around the nearby Qin Ziwu.
Then, with a tremor of his wrist, the whip in his hand actually broke on its own, splitting in two just like a lizard shedding its tail.
One section of the tail remained on Qin Ziwu.
CRACK!
Qin Ziwen cracked the Dual-Tailed Cloud-Probing Whip against the ground, and the broken part actually grew a new forked tip, returning to its original form.
Seeing this, Qin Ziwu’s eyes went wide.
He tried to struggle, but the piece of whip wrapped around him was surprisingly tough. It took a great deal of effort to break free.
"This whip’s killing power might not be as great as other Hunting Artifacts, but its Hunting Exhibition effect is special. It could be quite useful at a critical moment. It all depends on how you use it."
"What a treasure, what a treasure!" Qin Ziwu took the Dual-Tailed Cloud-Probing Whip. The First Stage Hunting Exhibition was already this amazing; he couldn’t imagine what the Second Stage ability would be.
It seemed there were still plenty of these lizards in the Underground Forest. If they hunted more, maybe he’d have a chance to awaken the Second Stage Hunting Exhibition.
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