Legendary Traveler: By Earning Progress Points I will Become Supreme!-Chapter 209: Operation Set Up Cavern (7)

Having just wiped out a 2-star bug with little to no difficulty, yet generating a considerable amount of noise in the process, the fact that it didn't take Aoni long to find himself surrounded by too many bugs for comfort shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

His screaming alone drew the attention of tens of the weaker mob monsters, and although they couldn't necessarily swim fast, they arrived not long after he began searching for more to experiment with.

The only problem was…they came from the blackness.

Okay, well, he got the shit scared out of him. Sure, Aoni had expected a substantial number of mole crickets to be heading his direction; however, the way they eerily bobbed up and down, squirming side to side and drifting slowly, was unsettling.

Even so, that didn't stop the Lad from dispatching the bulk majority, leaving only a few alive for his… let's just call it what it is: inhumane torture testing.

Due to him being practically a fish among a group of helpless land animals, Aoni half rode and half pushed a number of these 1-star insects down the tunnel and out toward the main current.

'Right, so in theory, these big fuckers should all be cold-blooded, meaning they can't regulate their body temperatures. That being the case, their bodies have adapted to living in extremely cold environments, and when introduced to the opposite…' Treading water a few feet away from the main current, a twisted, uncharacteristic smile spread across Aoni's lips as he mercilessly propped both feet onto the back of the car-sized insect and kicked it forward with all his might.

Sure enough, the bug rocketed into the current before being swept away. Not wanting to let his efforts be in vain, Aoni darted into the current as well, swimming with it for a change and speeding up to the point that the water outside of the current blazed by in a blur.

Within seconds, he caught up to the poor mole cricket and was disappointed to find he'd miss the entire show.

Catching hold of the separating space between its head and back shell, he flinched away because the thing was scalding hot.

'What the fuck, did it boil internally? But the water isn't even that hot…'

| It is |

Kicking with enough force to push himself and the corpse out of the current, Aoni landed in more comfortable water and looked toward his Attribute Notice chat box.

'Uh, I am 100% certain that water isn't any hotter than the bath water I draw for the girls.' He retorted while using his Energia Crystal to examine the dead insect.

| That's because the Host now has a Heat resistance Passive |

| As such, the Host's threshold for hot temperatures has increased significantly |

'Huh, seriously? Then how hot is the main current? Because while the temperature of the lake is generally around 75ish degrees Fahrenheit, it sure as shit shouldn't be the case.' Finishing his inspection and even snapping off one of the insect's legs, Aoni found that, indeed, the bug had been cooked internally, killing it off within only a few seconds of entering the main current.

| It is estimated that what the Host has deemed to be the "Main Current" is roughly 287 degrees Fahrenheit |

| As for the natural temperature of the lake, due to the fact that it has been frozen solid to a depth of approximately 57 feet and has chilled to 43 degrees, a shift in the environment has occurred; however, that will be corrected over time |

| It has been determined that the extreme boiling water provided by the Aquifer is equally dispersed into the reservoir then into the lake, bringing it to a more neutral temperature |

With a blank, glazed-over expression, Aoni's mind tried to understand what he was reading. Still, even after a few minutes of scanning the contents of the chat box multiple times, he basically couldn't understand what was being explained.

'So, like, is it hot or not…'

| Lots of water makes the hot water not hot |

'See, why didn't you just say that before, tsk, always gotta be so complicated.' Rolling his eyes and Storing the corpse inside of a dead airbox, Aoni did a breathing cycle and headed back to the tunnel, where he then repeated the process with a few more bugs, some of which were 2-Stars, only this time, he went into the main current with the insects right away and watched what happened to them.

By the time he'd completed this action for the fourth time, he had his answers and fully understood that there was no conceivable way that neither the 1-Star nor 2-Star mole crickets would be getting anywhere near that central tunnel, and went through the process of closing up the left-most tunnel using not 2 not 3, but 5 of his remaining 25 Nodes.

The reason behind this decision was due to how deep he figured the tunnel went.

Pair that information with it being bug-made and not a naturally occurring structure, he wasn't taking any chances with missing some spots, and once inside the Mock-Builder's mode, his decision was swiftly rectified.

This chapter is updat𝙚d by freeweɓnovel.cøm.

'Damn, this thing goes out for at least two miles into the mountain; thankfully, I used multiple Nodes, or else I would have messed up and half-ass closed the tunnel, allowing for more to come through eventually.'

'Then again, the second that big fucker can come back into my territory, odds are it will dig a new hole, but I will be waiting for it this time around.' With that final thought, Aoni made his escape from the tunnel, closed it up like brand new, and hitched a ride back to his ice dive bell before breaking it down and heading back toward the surface.

However, upon his return, that was when he was met with yet another minor issue in his plans, and that was the fact that entombed in the layer of ice covering the lake were hundreds of dead insects, all of which were missing heads and contaminating the water.

"Sigh, I never seem to catch a break, do I? Seriously, I was gonna just melt the ice and bring things back to normal, but if I do that, won't I basically introduce a layer of crud to our water source," Scratching the back of his head and standing with his summons at either side, Aoni mused before crossing his arms and trying to figure out the most efficient course of action.