Wilderness: I Tame Beasts to Survive-Chapter 46 - 45: Everyone Gets Stronger

The four Silver Lotus Woods began to absorb the Energy within.

The Crystal Stones, enveloped by roots, began to emit a dense green glow.

This green light traveled up the roots and into their bodies.

A dense radiance enveloped them, and their bodies began to grow, section by section.

"They’re starting to mutate!"

Seeing this, the others followed suit, feeding the Crystal Stones in their hands to their own Silver Lotus Woods.

In an instant, brilliant rays of light illuminated the dark, silent clearing.

The light gradually faded.

Of the 16 Silver Lotus Woods present, 10 had changed in appearance.

Han Ning judged from their appearance that these Silver Lotus Woods were now at a level comparable to Yin Yi after her third enhancement. They were likely at Entry Level III on the status panel, still a considerable way from a true evolution.

The remaining six had also changed noticeably in size and looked to be on the verge of mutating at any moment.

Regardless, with everyone’s Silver Lotus Woods growing stronger, the academy’s overall strength had clearly increased.

Sixteen Entry Level III Silver Lotus Woods—each one was stronger than the White Rat King Han Ning had first encountered!

"I feel like my body’s gotten stronger! There’s a warm current flowing through me... it feels amazing!"

"Huh? My wound healed."

"So it’s true! When the Silver Lotus Woods get stronger, they empower us in return, making us stronger too."

The students whose Silver Lotus Woods had mutated stared at their own bodies in astonishment.

One of the bolder students even walked right out of the white mist-purified zone, threw his mouth open, and took a huge gulp of the air outside.

"HAAAA... PFFFFT..."

"Everyone, look! I don’t think the white mist affects me at all anymore."

The student who had inhaled the mist pounded his chest, struck a brawny bodybuilder’s pose, and, overflowing with confidence, bellowed, "I feel like I could knock out an ox right now!"

"COUGH, COUGH!"

But... he hadn’t even finished speaking when he started to cough softly.

"Hmm... The cough isn’t that bad. At least I can resist the white mist for a little while." He quickly ducked back into the area protected by the Silver Lotus Woods, closed his eyes for a moment, and let out a long sigh of relief.

The joy from their breakthrough and newfound strength helped to dispel some of the somber atmosphere.

Just then, Lü Xiuming shouted, cutting everyone off. "Alright, we’re outside the academy grounds. We still don’t know what other Soul Beasts might be hiding around here. We can’t linger. Finish collecting the other corpses, and we’ll head back immediately."

"Oh, and one more thing. We’ll give this white Crystal Stone to Han Ning. Any objections?"

"No objections!"

Lü Xiuming smiled and tossed the Iron-toothed Giant Snake’s white Crystal Stone to Han Ning. "Since no one objects, it’s yours."

"Okay." Han Ning nodded. Without saying anything more, he put the Crystal Stone into his bag.

Aside from the dozen or so precious Crystal Stones, there were also numerous Soul Beast corpses. These were valuable treasures and couldn’t possibly be abandoned.

The 20 of them spread out, stuffing the scattered corpses one by one into the burlap sacks they carried with them. With each person taking on average more than ten snake corpses and the remains of one Tree Spirit, the load was manageable.

Just as the cleanup was wrapping up, a student’s shout came from a short distance away. "Everyone, over here! I’ve found something new!"

"What is it?" Hearing this, the others instinctively dropped their burlap sacks, fell into combat stances, and moved closer.

The student who had shouted was standing a bit beyond where the Tree Spirits had been resting. He had his arms around the trunk of a large tree, his body leaning forward as if there was something ahead.

The group quickly gathered behind him, peering ahead through the gaps between the blades of grass.

There, standing in the grass, were about five small tree stumps, 15 to 20 centimeters tall. They were brownish-black in appearance, with dark purple leaves growing from their sides.

The gentle breeze rustled the small stumps’ tender leaves, as if they were completely unaware they were being watched by twenty terrifying upright apes.

Their appearance was eighty percent similar to the Tree Spirits they had encountered before. The stumps also had the same crisscrossing, wrinkled bark, only they lacked the pair of "eyes" surrounded by green light.

"’These little stumps... could they be the juvenile form of those Tree Spirits?’"

Han Ning was quite surprised. He patted Yin Yi’s back. "Yin Yi, be a dear and bring one over for us to see."

"Bloop~"

Yin Yi understood. It floated lightly over one of the stumps, flicked out a Vine Whip, and casually plucked it from the ground.

The small stump was lifted from the ground, its dense roots swinging left and right now that they were free from the soil.

The small stump’s intelligence and Power were clearly not on par with a Tree Spirit’s. It repeatedly struck Yin Yi’s body with the tender branches on its sides, making crisp slapping sounds. THWAP, THWAP, THWAP.

Yin Yi paid it no mind, brought it before the group, and tossed it to the ground.

"RUSTLE, RUSTLE~"

The small stump finally seemed to sense how terrifying the crowd before it was. It tried to scuttle away on its roots, only to be snatched up by Han Ning.

THWAP, THWAP, THWAP~

The branches struck his arm, leaving behind red marks, but the blows weren’t very powerful.

"’It’s more intelligent than a young Silver Lotus Wood, and stronger, too. It must be a plant-type Soul Beast.’ Han Ning held up the small stump, looked at Shi Ming, and smiled. ’Shi Ming, your Silver Lotus Wood was killed in action. How about you try forming a contract with this one?’"

Shi Ming still hadn’t recovered from the death of his Silver Lotus Wood. He stared blankly at the small stump struggling in Han Ning’s hands and mumbled, "Will... will it really do?"

"The choice is yours. You could also pick a Demon Eye Frog, an Iron-toothed Snake, or one of those Monster Rats we’ve encountered. I’m sure they all have juvenile forms."

Someone had experimented with this before. Once a Soul Beast grew to a certain size and lived among its own kind for a period, it would gradually form its own simple "worldview." It was very difficult to form a contract with a Soul Beast at that stage.

Perhaps only those Soul Beasts with weak intelligence, or those who were newborn with minds like a blank slate, were the easiest to form a contract with.

"There are five stumps here. Let’s take them back to study them first. Shi Ming, Yuan Ye, Yixin, you three can try to build a rapport with them. Try to get one of the stumps to grow fond of you before you make a decision," Lü Xiuming suggested, patting Shi Ming’s shoulder. He was addressing the three students whose Silver Lotus Woods had been killed.

"Yeah... okay."

The discovery of the juvenile stumps was a pleasant surprise. They were very weak, and the students had little trouble gathering them up and packing them into their bags.

...

After clearing the scene and making sure nothing had been overlooked, the students shouldered their bulging burlap sacks, carried the bodies of their three fallen classmates, and quickly began the journey back.

When they arrived back at the East Gate, Lü Xiuming gazed toward the Botanical Garden, thinking aloud. "I remember there’s at least one more Tree Spirit in the Botanical Garden... or maybe more. We’ll return for now, report what happened to Dean Wu, and rest for a bit. Then we can come back and clear out the Tree Spirits over here."

Everyone was already carrying a heavy load. Even if they killed all the Soul Beasts in the Botanical Garden, they couldn’t carry much more. It was better to head back first.