After a night's rest, the next morning, three hours after setting out, everyone finally arrived at the edge of the dry grass wilderness.

In front of them was a forest that was gradually becoming denser, and under their feet was a thick layer of semi-rotten matter formed by years of leaves.

Under the dead grass is yellowish-brown soil, while under the woods is black soil, with a clear boundary between the two.

There was no time to be surprised. The team members who had been prepared began to perform their duties. It was the best time of the morning when the sun was shining. Fresnel, a strong man during the day, was carefully guarding his surroundings.

The other four people dispersed and collected things from this new area, including soil, rotten matter, and various biological samples.

The test tubes filled with collected samples were sealed and placed on the shelf behind Wang Xiao's armor, where good shock absorbers were installed, which could significantly prevent damage.

While collecting samples, Shi Jin and other members also began to look around and memorize as many creatures as possible that they had never seen before.

Unlike any of the official reference materials of Hope City, the trees here are generally grayish white in appearance, and through the gaps in the trunks one can vaguely sense that there seems to be a purple substance flowing inside.

There are things that look like tumors in many places on the tree trunk. Those hemispherical things are slightly bulging, as if they are nurturing some strange life.

Likewise, the leaves of these trees are not green as recorded, but a mixture of gray, green, and purple, like pigments being infused into each other on a palette.

"Stay alert."

"clear."

Everyone maintained their battle formation and continued to move forward.

And in Wang Xiao's helmet, Lin Qingliu's inner voice reached Fran's non-existent ears:

"Do you still have any impression of such a place?"

Fran used her illusory senses to perceive the surrounding environment, and after a while she responded:

“I was still sane at the time, but from the few memories I have left I do have some impression.

"But the place where I was born should be to the west of Hope City. There is a forest there that is different from this one. There is grayish-white fog that seems to have no end."

Lin Qingliu had seen a similar scene in Fulan's dream.

It was a forest in a strange symbiotic state, and all species in this area achieved a strange reconciliation under the influence of unknown forces.

Something like a cocoon would appear on those trees, and the strange beasts that had been plaguing Hope City for decades were born from them.

Although according to the current intelligence, the alien beasts may be just a means of the Supreme Will, but this move alone has already achieved a delicate balance between humans and alien beasts.

Moreover, humans can only survive with the blessing of the biofield and continue to fight with the other side...

Of course, mycelial life may not be able to truly corrode and infect humans on a large scale for this very reason.

The forest that Fresnel's team arrived at at this time was more like a simplified version of the giant tree forest in Fran's memory. Of course, without more information, it could be considered a different ecological community.

After arriving in the forest, Fresnel's abilities were partially weakened.

Because of the presence of some tree canopies and shade, the light he could gather was not as much or as intense as on the plains.

This might have been a problem for him before, but it was not so fatal to Fresnel who had undergone special training. If...

"careful!"

Suddenly, a woman's low growl came from behind Fresnel, and at the same time, he heard a slightly vague sound of rapid footsteps on the ground.

It's a strange beast!

Fresnel quickly recalled what he had learned during professional training and shouted:

"Everyone else, stay on the defensive and avoid seeing blood! Shi Jin!"

As the order came down, Shi Jin's body flashed out from behind the strange beast. With the help of the speed bonus brought by [Evanescence], she broke the beast's cervical vertebrae with one strike.

This strange beast, which looked somewhat similar to a hyena, let out a roar and fell onto the thick humus on the ground. Only half of its neck and head were still able to move.

Just as a howl was about to come from the strange beast's throat, a beam of light nailed it firmly to the ground.

The beam of light, as thick as a forearm, seemed to make the sky slightly dim. The high temperature it brought quickly carbonized the body of the strange beast, from the head to the neck, and then little by little downwards, sweeping across the chest, abdomen and limbs.

In less than ten seconds, the strange beast had turned into a piece of charcoal, completely stuck to the ground and blended with everything around it.

The team had already trained on these steps in the city in order to prevent any accidents.

The biggest difference between exploring outside the city and inside the city is that enemies may come from all directions, and countless previous beast tides have shown that the strange beasts can communicate with each other to a certain extent.

However, these exotic animal species also share some common problems with predators, which is that they guard their food to a certain extent.

Therefore, after first discovering suitable prey, they often choose to act alone, and only when they are in desperate situations and unable to defeat their opponents will they choose to call for support from other exotic beasts.

At the same time, the smell of their blood can be spread far away by the wind, which is why they deal with the strange beasts in this way. For such a lone strange beast, only by letting it die quietly can the impact be minimized.

Looking at the pile of charcoal on the ground, Shi Jin stretched out his hand and fanned his nose:

"Will such a strong smell be okay?"

"Don't worry, the only thing that will attract other beasts is the smell of blood."

Shi Jin nodded without saying anything more. Everyone continued to maintain their formation and began to explore forward.

Lin Qingliu watched all of this with the help of Fran's eyes. He used his mind to ask Fran:

"What do you think the level of that strange beast was?"

"It should be the green cocoon, the most common kind."

Lin Qingliu didn't ask any more questions. After so much time, he already had a certain understanding of the classification of exotic beasts.

Monsters like Fran and the hyena-like monster, which are similar to carnivorous mammals in prototype, come from the green cocoons on the trees in the Giant Tree Forest. Their rating on the human side is the first energy level.

The strange beast with the appearance of a mutated insect comes from a blue cocoon, which corresponds to the second energy level.

The bird-shaped beast that once grabbed Fran and flew into the sky, and then threw the kitten into the city like a bomb, came from a purple cocoon and corresponded to the third energy level.

The strange beasts whose prototypes are close to reptiles correspond to the fourth energy level. Fran has not seen the cocoons from which those strange beasts were born.

After briefly recording the monsters that spawned around him, Lin Qingliu continued to observe.

Behind them, beneath the brown-black humus on the surface, lines of hyphae slowly spread out from underground and began to spread towards the heap of charcoal.