403 Zero the Explorer (2/2)
”I will go for the vines, you can take care of the ants. Be careful, the vines shouldn't be damaged. I want to collect their slime for skin cream. I think the auction house would be interested in some natural beauty products.”
”Noted,” Truen said and they split ways. truen jumped off the sand walker and climbed up a tree, positioning himself so that he was in a good position. From up in the branch, Truen had a good view of the battle going on beneath him. Those giant ants had basic elemental magic too. The blue ants breathed fire and the red ants had ice magic. The irony made him chuckle and he readied his tracking arrows. It wouldn't take much for him to kill them in one strike. He just needed to know when Zero wanted to jump in.
With Truen on standby, Zero was more confident. He crept closer to the monsters and prepared a sleeping spell to be used on the vines. Looking up, he saw that Truen was also in position so he gave the archer a nod.
Seeing that Zero was ready, Truen released the arrows and killed all the ants in one strike. Zero followed up swiftly and cast an area effect magic on the vines who wriggled in vain for one second before flopping onto the ground.
Zero gave his friend a thumbs-up as Truen jumped from the tree and landed gracefully. He took a look at the giant ant corpses and took out his hunting knife.
”I'll harvest the crystals, you get the slime you want and we'll move a little deeper to see what else there are.”
Zero readily agreed and they remounted the sand walkers to find out what else this hunting ground had for them after they harvested what they wanted. Zero checked the minimap and pointed them in a direction that he saw activity.
As they travelled deeper into the hunting grounds, Zero carefully observed the new species of plants. There were a few types of plants that he couldn't identify and slowed down to collect samples. Who knew if they could be used as medicine. Now that Hua Tuo was busy in the hospital, it was up to Zero to continue updating the new kind of herbs they had in the medical journal he shared with his shifu.
Truen didn't mind. In fact, he was happy that Zero was enjoying this hunting trip as a distraction. The archer was still waiting for his small elemental golems to get back to him with useful results about that mysterious opponent.
They were making good progress in quite a peaceful manner until they heard a scream from afar. Truen quickly picked out the direction and Zero gave him a glance that made the archer sigh inwardly. Of course, Zero wasn't someone capable of leaving others in a lurch.
”Saddle up, we're checking it out but don't do anything rash and remember the rules,” he warned.
Zero agreed and quickly hopped onto Grigoria. Without urging the sand walkers, the trusty steeds took off running in a full sprint towards the scream they heard earlier.