Chapter status: Unedited
During the morning in the desert, the temperature was still very low.
Cang Xu breathed out a puff of white fog.
As he walked, the old scholar used both hands to pull the goatskin coat more tightly around him.
The goatskin coat was something he had gained when the exploration team massacred the goats. The goatskin coat’s workmanship was crude but now Cang Xu greatly treasured it. He knew that this unremarkable article of clothing had saved his life last night.
The bonfire ran out of fuel in the middle of the night.
Without a fire providing warmth, the four people were tormented by the cold. Zhen Jin and Zi Di, Cang Xu and Bai Ya huddled together for warmth.
But everyone was able to press on.
Just as dawn appeared, Zhen Jin and the others continued their journey.
Although it was still quite dark, they had to move without delay to warm their bodies.
Cang Xu’s lips were a frozen purple and although his steps warmed his body, it also made him feel hungry.
There was no food and only a tiny bit of water remaining.
Their future seemed as dark as the world around them.
Cang Xu began to cherish the roasted lizard he ate last night.
“What a delicacy it was!”
“I should have saved a little so I could eat it now. Alas……”
Zhen Jin still walked ahead with Bai Ya on his back.
Bai Ya was still unconscious.
Zi Di also had a goatskin coat that covered her apprentice mage’s gown. She put on her hood but was still shivering. But at that moment, her amethyst eyes suddenly brightened.
“Look everyone!” She suddenly pointed ahead.
There were many shadows spreading ahead.
It was the silent granite boulders.
Cang Xu laughed as he came over: “It seems my guess last night was not wrong. The granite boulders were near us and now we have returned once more.”
“As expected of you.” Zhen Jin exclaimed in admiration; however his heart was not surprised.
Last night, he had already come here.
He put down Bai Ya: “You two stay here and keep watch, I will go investigate first.
Cang Xu and Zi Di had no objections.
This time the granite boulders were not safe.
The acid green lizard group were using the heat of the granite boulders to warm themselves and increase their mobility.
The spear scorpions also came here to crush and eat the granite boulders.
“You must be careful my Lord.” Zi Di warned with concern.
Zhen Jin nodded: “I’ll be right back. If you have no choice but to move, use the pink compound to mark your route.”
“I understand my Lord.” Zi Di nodded repeatedly.
Although Zhen Jin was not sure about the three’s safety, there was no other way, he had to go alone.
Fortunately, Zi Di, as a pharmacist, was not unable to fight back when confronted by danger.
“If something truly dangerous shows up, can’t I still come back quickly at such a short distance?” Zhen Jin could only console himself.
With Cang Xu and Zi Di silently watching him, Zhen Jin quietly walked into the granite boulders and his figure disappeared.
Hiss hiss hiss……
Just as Zhen Jin entered the granite boulders, he heard the hiss of a serpent inside the granite boulders.
Zhen Jin’s heart immediately became happy.
He had experienced the green acid and knew what a beast sounded like when it spat it.
Sure enough!
He followed the sound and discovered dozens of acid green lizards hidden in the granite boulders.
“Good, very good!”
Zhen Jin’s brow rose in joy.
The acid green lizards really appeared!
Them showing up was very timely.
At the moment, Zhen Jin and the others did not have any food, lizard meat showed up just at the right time.
These acid green lizards were lying down with their bellies on the granite boulders. Some on the ground leaned their thick backs against the stone with their long tails wrapped around the boulders, almost forming a circle. Their two forelegs were on the stones, while their hindlegs were on the gravel. Their heads were held up high, constantly hissing from open mouths.
The serpentine hissing Zhen Jin heard was mainly caused by these lizards.
There was no wind. There was also no wind gap.
Zhen Jin stealthily approached with as little sound as possible.
With the help of the large granite boulders covering his figure, he ensured that he was always out of the lizards’ line of sight.
But soon after, the outermost lizards saw Zhen Jin approaching and their faces became vigilant.
“I can’t get any closer.” Sensing that he was detected, Zhen Jin stopped behind a granite boulder.
He was a sixteen-year-old youngster with a comparatively small build and the lizards could not see him as his body curled up behind a boulder.
But the lizards did not investigate just by using sight, they also had taste, smell, and the intuition of wild beasts.
As a result, they noticed something was fishy in the area.
Zhen Jin moderated his breathing and did not recklessly take a peek.
His face became carefree as he took off all of his clothes and became naked once again.
Compared to yesterday, his body was already in a much better condition. The wound on his left shoulder blade had already scabbed and the other scars were clearly fading. Maybe because stuffing himself last night now allowed him to display his formidable healing ability again.
Zhen Jin activated his magic core and turned into a complete silver level spear scorpion once again.
The acid green lizards detected the red light behind the granite boulder and became alarmed.
Countless eyes closely stared at the granite boulder.
Serpentine hisses clamored.
At that moment, the acid green lizards saw a dark golden spear scorpion crawl from behind the granite boulder.
Its scorpion carapace was thick, its pincers were like large shields, and it was formidable. It had a long scorpion tail behind it that was both somewhat graceful and callous.
The lizards immediately felt threatened and became more agitated!
Because for the last several days, the lizard community had been massacred by the scorpion group.
More crucially, Zhen Jin now emitted a very strong silver level life aura that made the iron level lizards feel the gap of life level between them.
Seeing Zhen Jin slowly approaching, the lizards frantically stood up and the volume of their hisses reached their peak. They wanted to intimidate Zhen Jin with an obvious bluff.
In contrast, Zhen Jin felt fantastic.
He found that his field of view had become shorter than a human’s. However, his field of view had become wider a result.
“Humans have their eyes on the front and top of their head, however, not only do spear scorpions have two eyes in front of them, they also have two eyes on the sides of their bodies.
Zhen Jin was trying his best to adapt to the spear scorpion’s form.
All of this was so new!
Although this was the second time he had transformed, the first time happened late at night. Besides, he was very hungry at that time and all of his attention was focused on eating.
Now that he was already full, he began to truly sense how a spear scorpion lived.
Because of the adequate light, Zhen Jin found the things he saw through his eyes seemed more vivid than what he saw through human eyes.
This illustrated that a spear scorpion’s vision was better than Zhen Jin’s.
Clang clang.
Zhen Jin lifted his huge pincers and cracked them together to create the sound of a metallic collision.
This minor act was without doubt a demonstration of force and a threat in the lizards’ eyes.
The lizard group became even more restless with most already jumping on top of granite boulders to tower above Zhen Jin while also opening their frills like umbrellas in order to display their physique as much as possible. The serpentine hissing seemed like thousands upon thousands of vipers that would destroy anything that offended them.
Zhen Jin used his many eyes to gaze at these lizards while looking at his large pincers at the same time.
Humans had two hands and ten fingers, they never had large pincers.
Zhen Jin looked at his pincers and sensed that they were thick and hard.
“These are my shields that can block any acid sprayed at me. If not, then it would be like before where I had to dodge left and right and being even a little careless would result in a serious injury.
Zhen Jin once personally witnessed the silver level spear scorpion fight these acid lizards.
He knew that even if a silver level lizard leader sprayed acid, the scorpion’s leader carapace would not corrode.
It gave him a strong sense of security while also being amusing.
“If a lizard neck or tail was wedged in my pincer, would it immediately cut through it?”
After thinking of this, Zhen Jin was eager to give it a try.
“Come, I do not fear your acid.”
“Charge!”
After shouting in his heart, Zhen rushed towards the lizard group.
The lizards became frightened.
After all they still hadn’t produced a silver level leader to hold the line and were like hyenas encountering a lion.
When a lion charged, the hyenas didn’t lack the strength to retaliate, but no single hyena could resist the lion.
The two lizards closest to the charging Zhen Jin even jumped onto granite boulders and fled from him.
But at that moment, Zhen Jin fell into the sand with a plop. The entirety of his scorpion body was on the ground, the sand chaffed the bottom of his body, and because of his charge, he slipped forward quite a distance.
Acid lizards: ??!
In a split second, the serpentine hissing stopped.
The two lizards that ran away also turned around in the sand to look at Zhen Jin with shock.
What did they just see?
A silver level scorpion leader actually tripped itself?!
Zhen Jin felt his face heating up, if he was in human form, he might be blushing.
He never thought he would commit such a basic mistake.
As a knight, he actually tripped over himself while charging!
“I am not a real spear scorpion, and this is my second time transforming into one.”
“Ordinarily I could use my instincts to handle the scorpion body and walk normally.”
“However, in a fight confusion will arise when my body cannot keep up with my consciousness and thoughts.”
Humans only had two legs.
Not counting the pincers, spear scorpions had four legs.
For a moment, Zhen Jin could not adapt when running with four legs causing him to slip up and trip.
The lizards were motionless after seeing the spear scorpion trip.
They seemed to think: “Is this spear scorpion stupid?”
For a moment, the situation was caught up in a strange standstill.
Suddenly, the iron level lizard with the most majestic build broke out in lizard hisses and took the lead in charging Zhen Jin.
The surrounding lizards were aroused as they charged one after the other.
For a moment, smoke and dust flew everywhere.
The lizards surrounded Zhen Jin and constantly attacked from all directions.
They trampled him, rammed him, and used their teeth to bite him, struck him with their tails, or slapped him with their claws.
Zhen Jin was attacked from all sides and fought back as he took a beating.
He took many more blows than he delivered.
The scorpion carapace was a formidable defense that withstood all the attacks.
Zhen Jin only used his scorpion tail to retaliate.
Although the scorpion tail rarely counterattacked, each time it did, it would take away one lizard’s life.
The lizards were on the offense, yet Zhen Jin was the one winning.
At first, when the lizards saw the spear scorpion leader was passively taking a beating as if it were a clumsy thing that could only rotate in place, their vicious nature was greatly excited.
But gradually as they sensed that their companions were getting fewer, the lizards also began to feel that they were wrong.
An iron level lizard swelled its Adam’s Apple and then spat acid at Zhen Jin.
Zhen Jin had a vast field of view and already found that the lizard was raising its head to spit acid.
As the acid approached, Zhen Jin calmly turned around and raised his right pincer.
The pincer was like a large umbrella that stopped most of the acid.
The remaining acid splashed onto his body, but Zhen Jin did not feel anything!
The silver level spear scorpion could originally resist the lizard leader’s acid, the acid the iron and bronze level lizards now sprayed could not threaten Zhen Jin one bit.
In addition, the silver level lizard leader was different from these iron and bronze level lizards because it did not sink into a weakened state after spraying acid.
Zhen Jin marked the lizard that just sprayed acid.
He took the initiative to attack it.
He took a beating while advancing.
The targeted iron level lizard ran away, however its speed greatly decreased and it lacked its previous disposition.
After Zhen Jin advanced a bit with difficulty, his scorpion tail suddenly stabbed.
The scorpion tail was very long, thus its attacking range was huge.
In an instant, the scorpion tail precisely hit the iron level lizard’s head and immediately killed it.
Zhen Jin was not accustomed to using his scorpion pincers or feet, but he was very proficient with his tail.
“On the one hand, this is not the first time I have used the scorpion tail. On the other hand, perhaps it is because I cultivated my clan’s battle skills like Hundred Needles Wind, which mostly use thrusts. Therefore, attacking with the scorpion tail fits me well.”
Zhen Jin secretly evaluated himself.
Although he was not used to a scorpion form and could not run swiftly, his solid and deep understanding of combat allowed him to quickly exploit his strengths and compensate for his weaknesses, in order to find the most suitable way of fighting at the moment.
The acid was considered the lizard’s strongest weapon and seeing that it had no effect, the lizards were destined to lose long ago.
After losing ten lizards, the remaining ones accepted reality and fled from Zhen Jin in a panic.
“You cannot escape!”
Zhen Jin’s heart shouted as he immediately gave chase.
The battle had excited his instincts and given him experience so he no longer tripped. The four legs scuttled in turn like moving clouds and flowing water as Zhen Jin accelerated!
But at that moment, there was a bang.
Zhen Jin ran into a granite boulder.
He could not control his direction when running fast.
His grand and ferocious pursuit came to a spontaneous end.
The fleeing lizards that saw this scene stared blankly at it again.
But shortly after, they fled even faster.
Notes
Zhen Jin is like a console player who finally ascended to PC and found out that an FOV slider exists in the settings. Unfortunately with great power and visibility, comes great disorientation and confusion thus leading to Zhen Jin wall banging himself on a rock because of inexperience. I love that the natural result of getting a new body is to immediately fall on one’s face and run into stuff like a console player attempting to adjust to a mouse and keyboard setup. I personally run a 95-105 FOV if anyone is interested.