Chapter 199 (2/2)

Meanwhile, Hao Ren had detoured from the official route, out of Becky’s sight. However, he did not dare go too far off; although there were magic lamps made from divine crystals on both sides of the official route, the area outside the energy range of the magic lamps was still a world of monsters. He went to the back of a shrub. As he unlid the pot, Lil Pea poked her head out, splashing water as if she was greeting him.

Hao Ren used his finger to pet the little mermaid’s tiny head as sign of affection. He then spoke to the MDT, “Get out of there. I need you to scan the surroundings in high power mode.”

“Now you sound like you mean business,” the MDT whined as it got out of the pot. Lil Pea looked on. It rose in the air and glowed with a blue light.

The high powered radar scanned the ground and analysed the underground structure.

“A massive root system can be detected, just like the maiden said—the forest is a single living organism.” The MDT started showing a hologram of the entire Gnarled Grove. The stunning images shocked him: the ground was filled with a web of roots, which radiated outwards for many kilometres. The roots were entangled together and formed a giant, compressed, gully-filled, oval-shaped ball. It was a little like a deformed walnut.

And, it was disgusting.

The MDT explained, “If the roots disappear, a large hole as big as a hundred kilometres across will be left behind and everything above it will be swallowed. Now you know how massive this thing is. But that’s not all, the maiden is right about one more thing too: the root system hasn’t just extended under the Blood Lake, but past it. It has almost reached the plain and mountain range in the far west. But strangely, half of the roots have died, probably because of soil problems in the crystal plain.”

“It’s kind of hard to imagine that what’s underground is so much more massive than what’s above ground.” Hao Ren was totally overwhelmed by a feeling of awe. He was not awed by the ancient miracle but, by nature itself—just like the nature of Raven 12345.

“There’s another thing that may be worthy of investigation,” said the MDT all of a sudden. “The entire forest…no, it fact, it’s the entire Beinz Blood Lake region; the ecosystem is incompatible with the outside world.”

Hao Ren was at a loss. “Incompatible?”

“This is the topography of the region.” The MDT spun the hologram around so that they could have a bird’s eye view. “You can see the entire region of the Beinz Blood Lake is a closed system. Dragonspine Ridge in the east, the sacred mountain of the mountain people in the west, the grand canyon in the north, and the ocean in the south; all these places are natural dividers to the ecosystem. That’s how Beinz Blood Lake became an ecosystem on its own. The plants in this area—of what I’ve detected so far—will not grow outside of the region. They have a unique way of using nutrients, which can only be done in the environment provided by the Beinz Blood Lake.”

“Totally unadaptable to the outside world? They wouldn’t survive at all?”

The MDT affirmed categorically, “Not at all.”

Hao Ren was becoming more curious about the Beinz Blood Lake.

The lake was sustaining an ancient ecosystem. But, what was inside the lake?