Inside the cave, the couple had faces full of bewilderment.
They were unexpectedly still alive!
Zi Di got up first and looked at the footprints. The beast had created a shallow pit with every step.
This fearsome beast’s physique and power could be seen immediately.
Luckily, the couple were not stepped on.
“Lord!” Zi Di exclaimed as she attempted to use her arms to lift Zhen Jin up.
However, Zi Di was just a frail magician incapable of lifting Zhen Jin’s body weight and armor.
In the end Zi Di could only pull Zhen Jin a small distance and lean him against the cave wall.
1
At this moment, Zhen Jin was in a terrible shape.
When Zi Di touched his body, she found it as hot as the ores around them.
The effects of the potion had worn off and the stench from Zhen Jin’s body was more intense than before, nearly suffocating Zi Di.
Zhen Jin weakly spoke: “Go, Zi Di, leave this place.”
He couldn’t even move his head as swaying his head slightly might render him unconscious.
As Zhen Jin raised his hands in front of him, he saw numerous illusionary arms.
His skin had become red and swollen, his body temperature was also extremely high.
2
As his eyelids swelled, his field of view was severely affected.
Zi Di, upon realizing the circumstances, nearly drowned in despair.
She knew how terrible the fire-poison was.
Members of the exploration team had died from fire-poison.
These people had suffered before dying. At the time of death, their eyes swelled so much that they became blind.
Their throats and noses also swelled, making breathing difficult.
The cause of death was asphyxiation!
3
Although Zhen Jin had a silver level body, he was unable to resist the fire-poison.
Within his body was a lot of fire-poison.
4
Fire-poison was cruel, a true horror.
Facing Zhen Jin again, Zi Di shook her head: “I will not go. I will not abandon you. My lord, I may be able to concoct a potion, surely I can create the correct potion! We have a chance. We can’t give up!”
Zhen Jin’s vision was fuzzy. It was if his eyes were glued shut and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t open them.
In his blurred vision, he saw Zi Di sitting and crying as she took out every single potion from her small waist pouch.
She quickly poured a potion to corrode the ground and created a small hole in the ground.
Soon after, she began to mix many of the potions together. Then she took out many dried herbs and roots from her bosom and crushed them into a powder. Afterwards she poured them into the hole.
Gurgle…..
The potion in the hole began to bubble.
Zi Di gazed at the medicine, constantly mixing it and occasionally rubbing her eyes because the potion irritated them.
Zhen Jin wanted to advise her again but he soon discovered that he couldn’t speak anymore.
His throat was burning and swelling so much he had difficulty swallowing saliva.
His tongue was extremely numbed, as if his body didn’t have one.
His willpower and sense of his surroundings were quickly dissipating in his state of half-consciousness.
In the midst of his daze, he sensed a cool liquid in his mouth sliding down his throat.
Although his throat felt like it was closed off with a rock, the cool liquid still went down and rapidly melted the blockage, clearing a path.
The feeling of the cool liquid gradually spread throughout Zhen Jin’s body.
Zhen Jin’s consciousness rapidly returned.
Zhen Jin opened his eyes and vaguely saw Zi Di’s figure lying on him.
The girl’s hands had covered and smeared potions all over Zhen Jin’s body.
Because of the fire-poison, Zhen Jin’s skin had swollen and his clothes and chainmail tightened around his swollen skin.
With the help of the potion’s medical effects, his red and swollen skin quickly shrunk to its original size.
The subsequent bone piercing chill made Zhen Jin shiver.
Zi Di busied herself with smearing the potion, because the cave was too hot she started sweating profusely and her robe stuck to her body due to the sweat.
After smearing the potion, the girl’s purple eyes brightened up with hope as she stared at Zhen Jin unblinkingly.
Zhen Jin felt as if he were a drowning man that had reached land, slapping water out of his chest. He opened his mouth and gasped for air. After exhaling the hot air from inside his body, he felt as happy as one seeing rain after a drought.
As he gradually became conscious, Zhen Jin discovered he was drooling.
Zi Di saw clearly with her eyes: Zhen Jin’s entire body was rapidly contracting. His condition was clearly improving.
“My lord, you woke up!” Upon seeing Zhen Jin’s eyes completely open, Zi Di was pleasantly surprised. To be frank, she didn’t know how many potions she had mixed together.
“How long was I out?” inquired Zhen Jin.
“Only a minute” Zi Di replied.
Zhen Jin’s heart immediately relaxed: “We need to leave this cave now.”
Without a doubt, this was a dangerous place.
Previously, the fire-poison bee swarm had run away upon seeing the cave monster and that monster was likely to win.
Once the monster won and returned to the cave, the couple were sure to be prey for the monster.
Going deeper into the cave was dangerous.
Who knew if there was a path down there? If not, then this was a dead end.
Zi Di pulled Zhen Jin up.
Zhen Jin used the cave wall to stand up.
The glove gave off a foul odor as it burned on the scalding cave wall, but Zhen Jin was happy. Because regardless of whether it was feeling hot or smelling a burning odor, these were all normal bodily senses.
Previously, he couldn’t feel anything.
Now to Zhen Jin’s surprise and suspicion, he sensed that within his body was a new power, making him feel stronger.
Upon seeing Zhen Jin’s doubt, Zi Di said with a look of terror and guilt: “My lord, sorry, I mixed in too many berserker potions."
After drinking a berserker potion, one could temporarily draw a huge amount of potential from their body, giving them a massive boost to combat power. However, in exchange, it could greatly harm their body.
“You did the right thing! No need to blame yourself.” Zhen Jin patted her shoulders, clearing the uncertainty.
“We need to go now.” Zhen Jin urged as he attempted to walk.
Although his mind was still a bit dizzy, it had alleviated by a lot. Zhen Jin soon discovered: His body could walk and even run on his own.
With his body’s strength increasing, Zhen Jin felt that even his chainmail was as light as a feather.
"It seems that the berserker potion has fully stimulated my lifeforce. But what will happen when it wears off?"
This was a hidden danger weighing down on Zhen Jin’s heart.
Under normal circumstances, after using a berserker potion, a person would become extremely weak.
Zhen Jin’s body had fire-poison and Zi Di’s hastily created medicine didn’t really solve it. Only by using berserker potions combined with other medicines could Zhen Jin’s lifeforce explode and resist the fire poison. That was it.
“No matter how it was done, I will use this opportunity to escape. Even if I can’t, then at least I can save Zi Di!”
Zhen Jin was already dying.
He knew his time was short and his memory was damaged but knew: “Zi Di is my fiance and our relationship is somewhat complicated, who knows what ulterior motives she has.”
“But she stood by me from the beginning and would rather sacrifice herself instead. No matter the dangers she faced.”
“How can I repay such a girl?”
"Can I be called a knight if I can’t even protect my own fiance?"
Zhen Jin swore secretly he would give his all to protect this girl.
The two together rushed out of the cave.
They quickly arrived at the cave’s mouth.
From outside came the sound of beasts fighting.
The battle outside the cave was extremely intense.
Zhen Jin and Zi Di looked at each other in bewilderment, then decided to quietly sneak to the mouth of the cave to take a look.
The fire-poison bee swarm had already disappeared long ago. Now there were two other parties fighting.
One party was the monster that drove the fire-poison bees out of the cave.
This monster had a rock solid physique. Although it seemed to be a brown bear, it had a pink monkey tail. It stood like a man and its arms were not that of a bear but of an orangutan.
Its hands had four fingers and its sharp and long fingernails seemed to be made of pitch black iron.
5
The other party were black leopards. Their bodies were not covered in fur but rather in scales.
In addition they also had a sharp rhino horn on their heads.
In front of the monkey-bear were dozens of these single-horned black scaled leopards.
Judging from its aura, the monkey bear was a silver level magic beast. In comparison, most of the scaled leopards were bronze level magic beasts with only the leader and a few others having an iron level aura.
The leap of leopards sieged the bear from all sides.
The bear was powerful and none of the leopards could match it alone. The leopards charged forward only to be slapped back by the brown bear's palm. However, the leopards quickly got back up. They seemed very tenacious and could easily resist such attacks.
As Zhen Jin and Zi Di watched the two sides become deadlocked, they glanced at each other with worry.
If they went out, the leopards would surround them and tear them to pieces!
“My Lord if there is a chance, rush out. No need to care for me.” Zi Di said in a low voice.
Zhen Jin shook his head and rejected his fiance.
Even by himself, he didn't have a large possibility of breaking the leap’s blockade.
What made it worse was that he had to escape with Zi Di.
This was too difficult!
Besides…
Zhen Jin’s own situation was full of concealed concerns.
Once the potion’s effects wore off, the fire-poison would flare up and put Zhen Jin’s life in danger.
What should I do?
"If only I had battle qi, if only I could use battle qi…”
Zhen Jin felt depressed and distressed.
He had a weapon within his body but couldn’t use it.
Notes
Metaphors! Descriptions! The bane of all translators. On a more serious note, you can actually see the author project his own personal feelings through Zhen Jin and Zi Di’s situation. The last sentence is especially poignant considering the situation that he personally went through. Imagine spending a majority of your life honing a skill that was supposed to carry you throughout your life only for it to suddenly be ripped away. What would you do? This is the question that both the author and Zhen Jin have asked themselves. Would you learn a new skill from scratch or cling on to what you know?
Editor Notes (Deus)
author is telling us his problems. Zi di represents RI, Zhen jin represent his current situation, while the leopards represent the xi clan. He can't bear to abandon RI which he wrote for so long. The future is grim. Zhen jin is poisoned. Who knows his current situation. Maybe the Xi clan already got to him. The fire poison bees might represent his haters. They poisoned him. Lmao kek
Translation notes
Due to panthers normally being considered solitary hunters, I have changed the translation to the other possibility which is “leopards” to put it more in line with real life animal behaviors. Also to clarify a “leap” is the group name of leopards.
Also the term berserker potion can be translated as fury/frenzy/berserk but in the end berserker potion became the translation of 狂暴药剂.
I presume that Zi Di brought Zhen Jin to a gap on the wall that wasn't covered in ores. 又红又肿: idiom that means to become red and swollen. 整个人像是膨胀起来 translates to whole person is swollen which seems redundant to put into translation. I do what I want Deus, google is a thing. Using suffocation is for plebians The literal translation is hilarious. “His body saved poison very good” It was at this moment I realized why the Tie Clan from RI had an “Iron Mask” inheritance. Their clan is literally “Iron Clan.”