"Lin Li."
Just as Lin Li was turning to leave, a familiar voice suddenly called out from behind him.
He stopped and turned around. Liu Jialin, tall with long, wavy hair, was looking at him with a pleasantly surprised expression.
"Hey, Liu Jialin," Lin Li said with a smile, greeting his friend. Then, his gaze fell on the person standing beside her.
"I knew you’d come to join the battle, but I never thought I’d run into you. What a coincidence!" Liu Jialin said with a laugh. Noticing Lin Li’s gaze on her colleague, she added an introduction.
"Let me introduce you. This is my colleague, Wang Jing. You probably saw her earlier; she was fighting that giant Peak Tier Two Wild Boar Beast by herself for a long time."
"I did," Lin Li replied with a nod.
After the intense battle, Wang Jing looked exhausted, having spent a great deal of Spiritual Energy and stamina. Following Liu Jialin’s introduction, they exchanged brief pleasantries. Then, she and Liu Jialin left together for the temporary rear base to rest.
Watching Liu Jialin and Wang Jing’s retreating backs, Lin Li mumbled to himself, ’That Investigator, Wang Jing... she seems a bit familiar.’
He thought back carefully, and an image surfaced in his mind.
It was a girl in casual clothes, bare-handedly lifting a flaming car over her head.
’So it was her! No wonder she looked so familiar...’
Lin Li remembered the viral short video he had seen before and finally understood why Wang Jing seemed familiar. With that, he turned and left.
* * *
WHOOSH—
RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE...
A gust of wind swept by, making the dense thicket of grass rustle. Lin Li had left the battlefield. He scanned his surroundings, and seeing no one around, he ducked into the tall grass in front of him.
"I collected so many Mutant Beast corpses just now. The progress bar must have gone up by a lot."
A voice was faintly heard from within the dense grass, and then, there was no sound at all.
On a leafy branch of a large tree not far away, an ordinary little bird stared wide-eyed at the grass, astonished at how the human who had entered it had managed to vanish into thin air.
On the Mysterious Small Island, shrouded in a vast white mist, a figure appeared out of nowhere.
Lin Li, having entered the Mysterious Small Island, stood before the Magical Little Tree. He looked at the egg-sized, fiery red Magical Little Fruit hanging from a branch, his face filled with delight.
A piece of information surfaced in his mind... Current Progress: 98.7%
"Huh? What’s going on? Why did the progress jump so much?" Lin Li’s delighted expression turned to one of confusion.
Although he had been secretly collecting unattended Mutant Beast corpses on the battlefield without keeping a precise count, he had a rough idea. At most, he couldn’t have collected more than fifty.
Based on his previous calculations, one Tier Two Mutant Beast increased the progress by 1.5%. Even if you counted all fifty beasts, that would be 75% at the absolute most.
But now the progress had increased by over twenty percent more than that, bringing it just shy of 100%. This was really strange.
Deeply confused, Lin Li raised a hand to stroke his chin, pondering this very surprising development.
Soon, he arrived at a guess.
’Uh... could it be because of the beasts themselves? Maybe they provide more progress than other Mutant Beasts?’
’Ah, forget it. I don’t need to waste so many brain cells thinking about this. As long as the final result is good, that’s all that matters.’
’Just 1.3% more, and I can harvest another mature Magical Little Fruit.’
’Including the previous ones, this will be the third red Magical Little Fruit I’ve harvested.’
’Eating the first red Magical Little Fruit awakened my Flame Superpower, which lets me use Fireballs.
Then I ate the second red Magical Little Fruit, which gave my Flame Superpower a new form, allowing me to cover my hands in flames.
’When I eat this third red Magical Little Fruit, what new change will my Flame Superpower undergo?’
A wide smile spread across Lin Li’s face as he looked at the nearly ripe red Magical Little Fruit hanging on the Magical Little Tree’s branch, his heart filled with anticipation.
’It’s only a little after nine. I don’t have to rush back to shower. As long as I head back before eleven, I’ll have plenty of time to get to Su Yue’s place.’
Lin Li’s eyes gleamed as he stared at the red Magical Little Fruit that was so close to ripening. Unbearably tempted, he quickly thought it over and made a decision.
He would use the time he had to hunt one Tier Two Mutant Beast. If he couldn’t find a Tier Two, he would hunt seven Tier One Mutant Beasts to make up the final 1.3%.
Having made his decision, Lin Li wasted no more time. He immediately left the Mysterious Small Island, vanishing from in front of the Magical Little Tree with a single thought.
The pigeon-egg-sized red Magical Little Fruit hanging on the branch flashed with a faint, pale-gold Spiritual Light, exuding an infinite allure.
* * *
The battle to ambush the Exotic Beast Group was over, and logistics personnel arrived on the battlefield to begin cleaning up.
One by one, the Mutant Beasts—which had mutated under the influence of the blood-red full moon and were killed today—were carried by the logistics staff to an open area and piled together.