Chapter 563: Return (2/2)

Ye Chong decided to build a base in Darkniss no matter what. However, he would have to think about exactly how he was going to achieve that.

Ye Chong made detailed markings on his map for these three locations.

When the Spider brought all four of them to Mei Wu's place, Xuan Ning took one look at it and felt like crying. ”You … You've been staying here all these years?”

It was a cave, fitted with some simple furniture made of rocks. The ground was covered with a thin and soft layer of brownish grass. It was very bare. The only things that suggested this was a human's house were the artificial lights in the cave and a food heater. These were the most basic appliances in a normal house. The light and heater both ran on energy crystals, but they consumed energy at a very low rate. The heater would not attract wild animals since it did not generate fire when operating. Just a small distance away from the cave was a source of spring water.

Even the poor people of Eastern Cloud lived in better conditions than this. The thought of Mei Wu living in this cave by herself all this while, isolated from society, and having to hunt for her own food, made Xuan Ning's heart ache for her.

When Sun Sieha was a young man, he liked to travel around the world. Xuan Ning was his guard back then. He knew all about His Majesty's relationship with Mei Wu. As the three of them travelled around together, Xuan Ning came to think of Mei Wu as the King's rightful partner. Later on, Sun Sieha and Mei Wu got into a quarrel, and Mei Wu abruptly left him. Mei Wu was being childish back then, but still mild compared to her solitary and unpredictable nature right now. Ever since that incident, His Majesty's character changed. He turned colder and apathetic. The King never had a partner after that, and many of the government officials worried about it.

Xuan Ning had thought that Mei Wu would surely become the Queen of Eastern Cloud. Hence, seeing Mei Wu living like this in Darkniss brought tears to his eyes.

Mei Wu seemed to read his thoughts. She softened a little and said, ”Life is alright here. The dangerous and harsh training that I went through all these years made me improve so quickly you can't imagine it.” She paused, and then continued, ”You just reached Level 9. You don't know what it's like to be Level 9 yet. You know too little about parapsychic control. Living in Su City, you will never achieve Level 10. Others have taken the path I chose now. Don't waste your time persuading me. I will not leave here until I reach Level 10.”

Xuan Ning assented quietly to her wishes. He knew how obstinate and extreme Mei Wu can be. There was nothing he could say to change her mind.

Ye Chong was not interested in the history between Mei Wu and Sun Sieha. He took out half of the energy crystals stored in the Spider and gave them to Mei Wu. Life in Darkniss was much better than Ye Chong's life on the trash planet, and still better than the Sang Tribe's life in Archipelago. Before the Sang Tribe met Ye Chong, they did not even have metals, much less advanced weapons like laser guns.

That night, Ye Chong and his group stayed in the cave. In actual fact, it was impossible to tell day from night in Darkniss, as the sky was always dark in here. On the second day, Mei Wu led them in the Spider to continue their exploration of Darkniss.

The whole exploration took 25 days, as Mei Wu was familiar with a huge part of Darkniss. Sometimes, they encountered wild animals on their way. It was then that the three outsiders experienced exactly how strong Mei Wu was.

Her strength was not only expressed in her shooting skills. It was hard to imagine a shooter climbing 30 metres up a smooth cliff. In addition, she moved with great agility. Ye Chong thought she was fit enough to learn proper combat. He also thought her parapsychic control was far superior compared to Xuan Ning. She could also restrict her opponents with her parapsychic waves, much like how mentalists restrict their opponent's movement. Her parapsychic waves were much stronger than Xuan Ning's, but they could cover a wider area. She also used her parapsychic waves in many extraordinary waves. Xuan Ning and Sha Ya could only watch in fascination.

Xuan Ning could see that he would never reach Level 10, unless he left everything behind and dedicate himself only to being a shooter, just like Mei Wu. Without doing this, Level 10 would forever be out of reach.

Ye Chong said to Mei Wu, ”The next time I enter Darkniss, I'll bring you the Spider.”

”Alright.” Mei Wu looked assured. She believed that Ye Chong would not lie to her. ”You should leave now. I'm going out to hunt.” Mei Wu nodded to the three of them and turned to lead the way, vanishing quickly into the darkness.

Xuan Ning watched her retreating figure with mixed emotions. He wanted to say something, but could not find the words. ”His Majesty should decide on this,” Xuan Ning sighed inside.

Thus, Ye Chong's trip into Darkniss concluded. He was quite happy with the outcome.

His experience at the entrance to Darkniss told him that Celest's dimension keystone had an effect on spatial windows. He also collected tissue samples of the snowshade leopard. There were many more other specimens in the storage room. He had drawn a detailed map of one part of Darkniss, including the locations of the minerals. There was also a clue to the colloid germ – the Sea of Threads.

For a single investigative trip into Darkniss, he had learned far more than he expected.

Ye Chong and his companions left Darkniss without delay. The road back was much smoother. Mei Wu had marked the general territorial boundaries of the wild animals on their map. Hence, Ye Chong and his group made their way out of Darkniss with relative ease.

The path that their Spider cleared out in the Mist was still there. The plants here grew quickly, but not quickly enough to cover the path. They had no incident in the Desert as well. There were no sandstorms, and the sandscorpions were pretty much wiped out by Ye Chong. The trip was smooth, but Xuan Ning, who should have appreciated this rapid travelling the most, looked occupied with his thoughts throughout the journey. Ye Chong and Sha Ya were not the talkative type, and so the trip back was largely completely without conversation.

Once they arrived at Yedda, a transport aircraft was there for them. They took the aircraft back to Su City.

Ye Chong began to organize the results of their expedition. There was a lot of complicated information to sort through, and none of them immediately applicable.

”Sigh, there's so much to be done,” Ye Chong sighed to himself as he thought of the huge pile of specimens waiting for him. He felt daunted but fulfilled.