Chapter 139 Collecting Mutant Plant Seeds

The next day, Ruan Ning and his two companions arrived at the outer city's mission hall with a large fire.

The hall was noisy with people, and various tasks scrolled across the screen: clearing zombies in a certain area, collecting specific supplies, escorting caravans, exploring designated locations, and so on.

Rewards are mostly settled in points, with a small amount also paid in barter.

Ruan Ning went directly to the "Exploration and Gathering" task area. These tasks were high-risk, but relatively free, and offered a greater chance of encountering mutated plants.

She chose two tasks:

Investigate areas with reported vegetation anomalies along the eastern edge of the Qilian Mountains (approximately 15-20 kilometers from the base), record the types and distribution of mutated plants, and collect samples of designated medicinal plants. Reward: 200 base points, with additional points based on sample value. Time limit: Five days.

Collect ten "Adiantum capillus-veneris," a known variant fern with leaves as tough as wire, often used to make armor linings. Reward: 150 points. Time limit: Five days.

To accept the mission, team information needs to be registered. Ruan Ning registered the team name "Ning Huo," using her and Da Huo's names, with three members and one dog.

After completing the formalities, they returned to their lodgings and began preparing their gear for the mountain trip: enough food and water, weapons, medicine, ropes, gathering tools, protective gloves and masks, and the military communicator Qin Li had given them, which would allow them to stay in touch with him within a certain range.

“The mountains and forests are not like the wilderness. Visibility is obstructed, and mutated plants and animals can appear from anywhere.” Lin Yan examined the dagger. “Especially now that the plants are growing wildly.”

Zhou Min was organizing the medicines: "Fire is sensitive to the scent of plants and can give early warnings. But we still need to be extra careful."

The fire seemed to know it was going into the mountains and appeared somewhat excited, running around the yard a few times.

They set off at dawn. Driving their own off-road vehicles, they left the base and headed towards the eastern section of the Qilian Mountains.

An hour later, the road came to an end. Ahead lay a dense, almost impenetrable primeval forest, with towering trees blocking out the sun, various vines intertwined and hanging down, and a thick layer of fallen leaves and rampant shrubs covering the ground. The air was filled with the strong scent of grass and wood, mixed with a faint, indescribable sweet and fishy smell.

Ruan Ning put the car into his spatial storage, took his equipment, and hiked into the forest.

As soon as we entered the woods, the light immediately dimmed. All around was silent; even the chirping of birds and insects was rare, save for the rustling of footsteps on fallen leaves and the mournful sound of the wind whistling through the treetops.

The fire was at the very front, its nose twitching constantly and its ears perked up alertly.

"Watch your step and your head," Ruan Ning whispered. Her mental energy remained in a small-scale alert state, while she silently sensed the rich wood-type life energy around her. Her newly awakened first-tier wood-type ability core was slightly warm, seemingly sensing the environment.

After walking about a kilometer, they encountered the first clearly mutated plant. It was a clump of dark red thorns, as tall as two people, with thick branches and shiny black thorns, and some dried fur and bones of small animals hanging on it.

“Go around it,” Ruan Ning said. The thorns were clearly aggressive, but their range of movement seemed limited.

They carefully circled around it. They hadn't gone far when Zhou Min suddenly stopped and pointed to the trunk of a large tree to her left: "Look there."

A large patch of silvery-gray moss clung to the tree trunk, undulating slowly and rhythmically, like the breathing of some living thing. Faint phosphorescence occasionally flashed across the surface of the moss.

“It’s the ‘fluorescent moss’ mentioned in the mission. It has a weak paralytic toxicity, but it can be extracted to make analgesics.” Ruan Ning compared it with the picture provided in the mission, “Collect some, and put on gloves.”

She carefully scraped off a portion with a dagger and placed it into a specially made sealed box. During the collection process, the undulations of the moss noticeably increased, and the surrounding air seemed to become sweeter.

"Is it releasing pheromones? Or poison?" Lin Yan covered her mouth and nose.

"Maybe. Hurry up." Ruan Ning quickly finished collecting the data, and the three of them immediately moved away from that area.

As they ventured deeper, they encountered more and more mutated plants, each one increasingly bizarre. There were giant pitcher plants that spewed corrosive sap, strangler figs with vines that swayed slowly like tentacles, and eerie shrubs whose flowers emitted a hallucinogenic fragrance.

One of their mission objectives, the maidenhair fern, was also found. Growing in shady rock crevices, its leaves were indeed as tough as iron, requiring special scissors to cut. With the help of the fire keeping watch, they quickly collected ten plants.

At noon, they rested in a relatively open area with a stream flowing through it. The stream looked very clear, but after Ruan Ning used her mental power to probe it, she discovered that there were some transparent algae that were difficult to see with the naked eye attached to the bottom of the water, which carried a weak neurotoxicity.

"You can't drink the water directly." She condensed a clean water ball and distributed it to Zhou Min, Lin Yan, and Da Huo.

While eating, Ruan Ning tried to activate her wood-based supernatural abilities. She placed her hand on the ground, combining her mental energy with the wood-based energy, which slowly seeped into the soil.

Her perception changed instantly. She could "feel" the intricate network of roots underground, "hear" the faint pheromone exchanges between plants, and "see" the flow of life energy within each of the surrounding plants—some peaceful, some violent, and some filled with a greedy, predatory desire.

She tried to make contact with a relatively gentle shrub with small blue flowers, conveying the message of "friendship" and "asking for a few leaves." The shrub seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then a few leaves fell down on their own, without any wind.

Zhou Min and Lin Yan were both somewhat surprised by what they saw.

"Is this the wood-type ability?" Lin Yan asked.

“Basic communication.” Ruan Ning picked up a leaf. “To stimulate and control combat plants, more energy and practice are needed.”

She stood up and looked deeper into the forest. "This afternoon, let's see if there are any mutated plants suitable for storage as 'seeds'. Ideally, they should be resilient, have some degree of aggression or special effects, and be relatively easy to control."

After resting, they continued their exploration. Ruan Ning's wood-type perception was fully activated, making her like a living plant radar.

Soon, she sensed an area ahead with unusual energy fluctuations. Carefully approaching, she discovered it was a low thicket covered in sharp, purple thorns. In the center of the thicket were several plants bearing black berries with golden veins on their surface.

“The thorn bush has highly poisonous berries, but the thorns are tough and grow quickly.” Ruan Ning recalled the information she had read. “Try collecting some ripe berries and healthy branches as ‘seeds’.”

The collection process required extreme caution. Ruan Ning first tried to soothe the thorny thicket with her wood-based abilities, conveying the message of "harmlessness." The thicket's hostility seemed to lessen somewhat.