Lin Tianhe stood to the side, grimacing, not daring to speak.

Truth be told, he had also wanted to get closer to check on the mushroom-headed creature.

It was all because the thing looked so harmless. Luo Chen had been completely fooled by its appearance.

"Luo Chen, you didn’t sense its killing intent just now, did you? I didn’t either."

Han Ning took out his Compound Bow and used its tip to poke at the mushroom-headed creature’s round head and shattered corpse. Amidst the remains, he saw some strange structures that looked like a combination of flesh and mushroom mycelium.

The flesh wasn’t red. Instead, it was lumpy, resembling the legendary "meat Ganoderma" of folklore.

Its enormous mouth, which could open at least 50 centimeters wide, was shockingly elastic and lined with dense, sharp spikes.

One could only imagine that if that mouth had bitten down, even if Luo Chen’s leg hadn’t been broken, a huge chunk of flesh would have been torn off.

"Creepy... So creepy. To think such a violent, bloodthirsty desire was hidden beneath that cute exterior. It seems Teacher Lü was completely right. No matter what kind of creature it is, if we’ve never seen it or studied it, we can’t get too close."

Han Ning shook his head. He hadn’t found any crystal-like substances inside the mushroom-headed creature.

’Perhaps its power was too low.’

It was a good thing its power was low.

Any stronger, and Luo Chen might have lost the entire lower half of his body.

’But... since it’s a Wood Type creature with the same attribute as Yin Yi, it’s very likely to have Wood Type Crystal Stones inside.’

Han Ning stood up, scanned the dense crowd of fallen green and purple mushroom-headed creatures around them, and said: 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"These mushroom-heads are Wood Type Soul Beasts. They contain a certain amount of Wood Type Spiritual Energy. The more powerful individuals will likely have Wood Type Crystal Stones. Let’s gather them up first and feed them to the Silver Lotus Wood. They can have a good meal."

"Yin Yi, protect us."

Normally, when faced with a field of corpses, Han Ning would have Yin Yi loot them directly. But Luo Chen’s recent experience had startled everyone. Worried that something else unexpected might happen, it was better to be safe.

"Egg Pancake, you don’t run off either! Stay right here with me!"

Han Ning saw Egg Pancake trot over to a mushroom-head’s corpse to start looting and quickly called it back.

The little guy was only at Entry Level I. If it ran into a slightly stronger mushroom-head that wasn’t completely dead, it would be swallowed whole.

"SQUEAK SQUEAK~" Egg Pancake froze, then obediently ran back and sat down next to Han Ning.

While the other Silver Lotus Wood were collecting the mushroom-head corpses, the four of them, under Yin Yi’s protection, walked over to the large, red ant that had chirped at Luo Chen earlier.

"Was it trying to warn Luo Chen just now?" Lin Tianhe stared at the ant’s pale red compound eyes and ferocious mandibles. He never expected that the relatively "ugly" one would take the initiative to help Luo Chen.

"We can’t be sure... Maybe it just made a sudden noise," Han Ning said, sizing up the large, red ant, which was also quietly watching them.

However, he didn’t sense any hostility from the large ant.

"RUSTLE~"

The large ant didn’t understand what the humans in front of it were saying. It lay weakly on the ground and struggled to turn over, revealing its round, egg-shaped abdomen.

Its abdomen was covered in a layer of purple slime with the consistency of thick phlegm. The slime was rapidly corroding its red carapace.

"Are you asking us to save you?" Han Ning vaguely understood the ant’s intention.

"RUSTLE~"

The ant clearly didn’t understand Han Ning’s words. It just presented its abdomen and let out a weak chirp.

"Han Ning... can we save it? No matter what its motive was, it still kind of saved me," Luo Chen bit his lip, his tone almost pleading with Han Ning.

"Come on, don’t talk like that..."

Han Ning waved his hand and immediately signaled to Yin Yi. "Use Healing on it. Let’s see if we can get rid of the poison."

"Ling~"

Yin Yi extended a Vine Whip and pressed it against the ant’s abdomen. A green light began to flow.

TSSSSSS~

The moment the purple liquid came into contact with the green light, it instantly turned into thick white smoke and quickly dissipated into the air.

Soon, the part of the large ant’s abdomen that had been corroded by the purple liquid returned to normal.

"RUSTLE~ RUSTLE~"

With the poison gone, the large ant regained its vitality and began circling Han Ning and Yin Yi endlessly.

"Is it thanking us?" Han Ning asked, confused.

"Maybe... I’ve heard that ants have a specialized system for exchanging information." Lü Xiuning watched the circling ant with great interest.

Just then, the Silver Lotus Wood had gathered all the corpses of the long-dead mushroom-heads and were now waving their Vine Whips, trying to dig out the Crystal Stones inside.

Han Ning happened to see one Silver Lotus Wood use two Vine Whips to rummage inside the cylindrical torso of a 50-centimeter-tall purple mushroom-head, pulling out two soybean-sized Crystal Stones.

One was green, the other purple.

"Hmm?"

He continued to watch.

A short while later, another Silver Lotus Wood dug out a larger Green Crystal Stone from a green mushroom-head that was about the same size as the purple one from before.

’The purple mushroom-heads actually contain two types of Crystal Stones. Could it correspond to its Wood and Poison Attributes?’

The Poison Attribute wasn’t hard to guess. Both the purple liquid on the large ant’s abdomen and the spores in the air were obviously toxic.

"So a single Soul Beast can hold two different Crystal Stones. I’ve learned something new. I thought the two attributes would be entwined within a single stone," Lü Xiuning said, a look of realization on his face after hearing Han Ning’s thoughts.

A few minutes later, the three Silver Lotus Wood finished sorting, separating the Crystal Stones from the mushroom-head corpses.

They didn’t touch the corpses of the fire-red ants. After all, the large ant had just warned Luo Chen, so they had to show some respect. They couldn’t just dig up its companions’ bodies for Crystal Stones right in front of it.

Lin Tianhe finished counting the corpses and walked over. "A total of 232 mushroom corpses and 103 Crystal Stones. Ninety are Wood Attribute, and thirteen are Poison Attribute. How should we split them?"

"Let’s split them evenly. Consider it a windfall," Han Ning suggested.

"Sure, I agree," Lü Xiuning nodded.

"I... I shouldn’t take any... After all, I caused trouble for everyone..." Luo Chen, who was usually the most enthusiastic about splitting the loot, now spoke meekly.

"Cut the crap. To put it bluntly, if you don’t take your share, your Soul Beast’s power won’t keep up. Won’t you just be dragging us down again then?" Lü Xiuning shot him a sharp look and chided.

Luo Chen pursed his lips. "Uh... then... I’ll go with whatever everyone decides."

After the distribution, Han Ning received 23 Wood Attribute and 2 Poison Attribute Crystal Stones. Luo Chen had insisted on taking a smaller share.

Han Ning drained the Energy from the 23 Wood Attribute Crystal Stones of various sizes and tossed them all to Yin Yi to eat.

Total gain: [Energy +28.7] [Wood Type Affinity +2.6]

Yin Yi’s Wood Type Affinity, which had stagnated for a few days, finally started to increase again.

"RUSTLE, RUSTLE!!"

Just as everyone was having their Silver Lotus Wood absorb the loot...

...the large, red ant that had been circling Han Ning and Yin Yi suddenly let out a series of urgent chirps.