Chapter 8 “Exotic Treasure Name”: Lion’s Mane Mushroom Seeds
This Monkey-Head Ghost was still alive.
One could clearly see it opening its mouth to roar, yet not the slightest sound could be heard. It appeared extremely agitated.
It raised its head toward Chen Fan, opening its bloody maw wide and baring a mouthful of fangs as it roared soundlessly in threat.
It struggled with all its might, but could not break free at all.
Each time it swung its claws, it left a trail of black qi in the air.
“Schlick!”
Lame Monkey, standing to the side, had already thrust out his spear at the first opportunity, striking precisely into the Monkey-Head Ghost’s mouth. He swiftly pulled it out and stabbed in again. Before long, the Monkey-Head Ghost lost all signs of life and collapsed where it was.
“Well done.”
Chen Fan let out a long breath of relief. From the looks of it, things were going fairly smoothly. Tonight, he might be able to harvest more than ten eerie stones!
This was an excellent start.
Tomorrow, he could use these eerie stones to forge more beast traps and keep snowballing from there. Before long, he would be able to escape his current situation of scarce resources.
The original knife was too short.
It was far too easy to get injured.
So he had dismantled a stick from the wooden hut, tied the knife to its tip, and made a crude spear. The results were not bad.
“Dig out the corpse.”
Chen Fan tossed the beast trap back into the darkness and gave the order.
The eerie stone dug out now could be used again to forge another “beast trap.” Although he had no extra hemp rope left, if he threw it into the darkness, it could still be used once more tonight. No matter how small a mosquito was, it was still meat—not to mention this was not mosquito meat.
For the time that followed,
Chen Fan kept his eyes fixed on those hemp ropes, like an old fisherman, while his mind continuously pondered his next plans.
Manpower was a major problem.
So far, he only had Lame Monkey as a helping hand, which was not quite enough. If he had one or two more people, they could be weaving hemp ropes for him right now.
Soon—
An eerie stone was dug out from that “Monkey-Head Ghost’s” skull and placed quietly on the ground. Just then, another hemp rope began to shake. Chen Fan immediately sprang up from his chair and pulled hard on the rope.
Another Monkey-Head Ghost trapped in a beast trap was dragged into the camp.
Lame Monkey, who had long been waiting, thrust his spear out once again.
The two of them worked together with a certain tacit understanding now.
Another eerie stone was in the bag. Only this time, an additional object dropped as well. After the Monkey-Head Ghost died, a clump of something emitting white light spilled out from its mouth, like a handful of sand and gravel.
“Young Master!”
Lame Monkey’s eyes lit up. “It dropped an ‘eerie material.’ After some eerie creatures are killed, fragments of their corpses can form ‘eerie materials.’ For example, the ‘Eerie Hide Map’ is made by artifact refiners using the scalp of a Human-Skin Ghost as material.”
“The private tutor talked about it in class.”
“It’s just…”
“This doesn’t look like an eerie material. After all, the other Monkey-Head Ghosts didn’t drop this, and the Monkey-Head Ghost is an eerie creature without any eerie materials. This is more like an ‘exotic treasure’…!”
“Exotic treasure?”
“It should be an exotic treasure. A very small number of eerie creatures and eerie monsters carry special exotic treasures. After killing these eerie creatures, you can obtain those exotic treasures, such as building blueprints and the like. Their value varies. They’re all treasures that can only be obtained by chance from killing eerie monsters and can’t be artificially crafted.”
“But you need to go to the market and find an appraiser before you can know exactly what it is.”
“…”
Chen Fan did not speak. He picked up the clump of sand-like grains from the ground. It was wrapped in an almost transparent membrane, like fish roe. Before him, a panel slowly popped up as well.
—
“Exotic Treasure Name”: Lion’s Mane Mushroom Seeds.
“Exotic Treasure Grade”: White.
“Exotic Treasure Effect”: Must be planted in “farmland.” Maturation period is three days. After maturing, consuming it can strengthen the body’s constitution.
—
He nodded thoughtfully. A seed-type item.
Did this require an appraiser?
Wasn’t it written perfectly clearly on the panel?
He more or less understood this world now. Whether it was building blueprints or exotic treasures, their panels could be viewed directly. But the natives of this world could not see panels, causing the whole process to become extremely cumbersome.
In that case…
Perhaps he could go sweep through the goods at “Jiangbei Market.” He could see the panels of all exotic treasures. Wasn’t that far more direct than any appraiser? He might even be able to pick up a bargain.
“I know what this is.”
Chen Fan stuffed the clump of seeds into his robe and took the eerie stone Lame Monkey handed over after digging it out from this Monkey-Head Ghost. With exactly two stones gathered again, he made another beast trap and tossed it into the darkness before saying, “Work first.”
Time trickled by.
Suddenly,
the dense, viscous darkness all around quickly receded. Eternal Night ended, and the morning sun once again shone over the entire world.
Day had broken.
“Huu…”
Chen Fan let out a long breath and rubbed his slightly sore eyes. After being busy the entire night, he was somewhat exhausted too. He really did not know how those fishermen managed to fish for a whole night. This was physical labor as well.
Yet in his weary eyes, there was an irrepressible trace of delight.
Last night’s harvest had been extremely bountiful.
They had killed a total of thirty-seven Monkey-Head Ghosts!
Of those, he had invested two eerie stones into “beast traps,” leaving him with thirty-five eerie stones in hand.
The current total assets of the camp were:
five beast traps and thirty-five eerie stones.
“You go sleep first.”
Chen Fan waved his hand, signaling Lame Monkey to enter the hut and rest first. He did not continue investing in “beast traps,” mainly because he was unsure whether there were only that many Monkey-Head Ghosts nearby. The first half of the night had been filled with harvests; every so often, one would take the bait.
But in the second half of the night, there had been very few.
It took a long time before one took the bait.
He suspected that there might only be that many Monkey-Head Ghosts in this area, or perhaps eerie creatures simply preferred to move about during the first half of the night.
“…”
Just then—
His brows suddenly furrowed. He looked outside the safe house and saw a lone beast trap sitting on the wasteland. Caught on the beast trap was a strand of white monkey hair.
By now, he was already very familiar with this hair.
It was precisely the hair of a Monkey-Head Ghost.
Only, this had clearly fallen off when it broke free. But Monkey-Head Ghosts could not break free from beast traps, unless…
He stepped forward to retrieve the beast trap. At the same time, he picked up that strand of monkey hair and rubbed it between his fingers.
It was harder than the fur of an ordinary Monkey-Head Ghost.
Could it be… the leader of this group of Monkey-Head Ghosts?
Had it sensed that a large number of Monkey-Head Ghosts had died here last night and come to inspect the situation? Then would it come again tonight?
“…”
At that thought, his eyes narrowed slightly. When that green-robed man left, he had made it very clear: aside from some weak eerie creatures, most eerie creatures merely detested eerie fire and were unwilling to approach it too much. It was not that they were incapable of approaching. If things were as he thought, there might be a great crisis tonight!
He had to prepare in advance.
He had originally wanted to build a patch of farmland to plant the Lion’s Mane Mushrooms, but that plan had to be set aside for now. First, he had to get through tonight’s crisis.
He shifted his gaze to one of the basic buildings on the Lord of Eternal Night panel.
Level 1 Arrow Tower.
It could inflict a certain amount of damage on low-level ghosts. Required to build: ten eerie stones.
This was it!
He placed ten eerie stones on the ground, slowly closed his eyes, and confirmed the construction with his will inside the panel.