Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

Chapter 139 Eat bread first, then fries

Daisy, sitting opposite, seemed completely unaware of the brief, unspoken exchange between the two, or rather, she simply didn't care.

She took out a yellowed sheepskin map from her handbag and spread it on her lap, her brow furrowed as she pondered: "If we want a good harvest, we'd better go deeper. The materials on the outskirts have already been taken by those scavengers."

She drew two winding routes on the map with her finger and casually said to Susie beside her, "Susie, what do you think we should do this time?"

Susie was idly fiddling with the edge of her cloak when she heard the question. She paused, looked up at Daisy with her bright eyes, and answered very seriously, "Bread and fries."

Daisy rubbed her forehead in exasperation and sighed, "I mean, this is our first time leaving the safety of the city for the wilderness, so we need to do a lot of preparation and have contingency plans. Where do you think we should begin?"

Susie blinked, as if she had given it considerable thought, and then said firmly again, "Eat the bread first, then the fries."

As Xilun watched this scene, the corners of his usually cold and hard lips twitched almost imperceptibly. He released his grip on the man and turned to look out the window at the receding gray buildings.

The steam train made a dull clattering sound on the rough rails, and after only half an hour, its speed began to decrease slowly.

With a screeching sound of brakes and a gush of white steam, the train came to a stop at its final destination, St. Albans East Station.

The four people got off the train one by one.

The air here is damper and colder than in central London, with a strong smell of decaying leaves and animal droppings.

Passing through the simple platform, one is greeted by a huge, long-abandoned building, the Gru Monastery.

The monastery's spire has collapsed halfway under the erosion of time, and dark green vines climb all over the walls. Several large ravens perch on the dilapidated cross, emitting eerie hoarse cries.

"This can serve as a temporary resting place for us to organize our equipment," Daisy said, pointing to the rickety wooden door of the monastery. "Through the backyard of the monastery, you'll find the real St. Albans countryside forest."

The four of them carefully made their way through the dark corridors of the monastery, stepping on the pebbles and fallen leaves scattered on the ground.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, with only the sound of their footsteps echoing in the empty building.

Walking along the muddy path leading into the dense forest, Daisy turned to look at the burly man who had been following closely behind her and asked, "Green, if we really encounter danger later, you'll protect us, right?"

The man named Green immediately straightened his back, patted his chest, and said loudly, "Definitely! Miss Daisy. Since I have come under the professor's orders, I will protect your safety with my life and will not fail in my duty."

Daisy smiled and nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

She took out a thick botanical encyclopedia from her bag and began to walk around looking at it, searching for any traces of herbs that might appear in the surroundings.

Green secretly glanced at Daisy's exquisite profile out of the corner of his eye, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He pursed his lips but didn't dare to say a word.

Then, he glanced at Xiren, who was walking on the outermost side of the group, with an extremely wary and complicated look.

The brief confrontation on the train had completely shattered his pride.

Xilen ignored Green's gaze.

He carried a black umbrella in one hand, walking along the roadside as if he were taking a stroll in his own backyard.

He took out a dry, hard loaf of bread he'd bought at the station from his pocket, took a bite without expression, and turned to look at Green while chewing. He asked in a flat tone, "Since you're a professional bodyguard, tell me, what specific dangers are around here? Are you aware of them? Tell me so everyone can take precautions in advance."

Upon hearing Xilen's question, Green's body tensed instinctively.

He cleared his throat, trying to regain some dignity as a veteran bodyguard, and began to explain, "The local gangs in St. Albans generally don't have influence this deep. But we still need to be careful on the outskirts."

The two closest gangs are extremely troublesome: the "Ghostly Gang" and the "Street Racing Gang."

Green frowned, seemingly quite averse to the two names: "The people in these two gangs aren't very mentally sound. Many of them are lunatics on hallucinogenic drugs. They'd chop someone into mincemeat for a few shillings."

If you encounter them, it's best to avoid any contact with them and simply walk around them.

Xilun swallowed the bread in his mouth and nodded slightly to signal him to continue.

Seeing that Xilen did not refute him, Green became a little bolder. He pointed to the increasingly dense and darkening forest ahead and continued, "As we go in, besides being wary of the alien species that might suddenly appear and the hunters who make a living by hunting alien species, what we need to be most wary of are actually other mystical scholars."

At this point, Green's expression became extremely serious: "Some seasoned mystics who spend their years in the wild, in order to prevent being ambushed, will raise a special mutated creature called the big-eared fox."

You must be careful; these foxes have extremely sensitive hearing, able to hear the sound of leaves falling from a hundred meters away. They are specifically used for surveillance.

Green stopped and turned to look at the group, emphasizing his words: "If you see a fox in the forest with unusually large ears and sickly yellow fur, it means there is definitely a senior mystic hiding nearby, which could be very dangerous."

At that moment, we had to retreat immediately and not cross the line.

Xilun stuffed the last bite of bread into his mouth, brushed the crumbs off his hands, and gazed into the dark depths of the forest. He asked, "So, what types of wild mutants are there around here? How dangerous are they?"

Green shook his head, a hint of relief in his voice: "Actually, there's usually not much danger. This forest is mostly inhabited by ordinary wild animals."

Even if there are a few low-level mutants, with my strength and yours, we can easily escape unscathed.

Animals are driven by a natural instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm. When they see humans, upright-walking creatures equipped with weapons, they will absolutely not launch an attack unless they have an overwhelming advantage or are driven into a corner.

Siren wholeheartedly agreed. Even now, with the awakening of extraordinary powers, humans remain at the top of the food chain on this planet.

Although these alien species possessed extraordinary powers, they were often intellectually deficient.

Especially when facing their team, which is escorted by two baptized beings, any monster that isn't starving will choose to retreat.

However, Green suddenly changed the subject, a hint of fervor and seriousness flashing in his eyes: "However, there are always exceptions."

If you encounter wild boars, black bears, or tigers—three types of lower-level alien species that have undergone a transformation—in the forest, you need to be extremely vigilant.

Green swallowed hard, his voice sounding somewhat hollow in the quiet forest: "The strength of alien species, besides being related to the extent to which they absorb mysterious factors, also largely depends on the original nature of the creature."

Those already dominant and extremely powerful beasts in nature, once they cross that threshold and become a different species, will experience a terrifying leap in strength.

"The wild boar mutant has thick skin and flesh, and when it goes berserk, it's like a steam-powered war machine running at full speed; the black bear mutant has astonishing strength, and can smash a tree trunk as thick as a bowl with a single slap. But these two are alright, as long as you don't get close to them, there are always ways to deal with them."

Green took a deep breath, his eyes gleaming with an almost morbid excitement: "The most troublesome and deadliest of them all are the tiger variants."

This mutant is simply a perfect killing machine.

They are not only incredibly fast, able to climb trees and ambush silently, but they can also swim in fast-flowing rivers.

Their locomotion is exceptional; they are so agile that even bullets struggle to catch them.

Even more terrifying is their formidable fighting power; their claws and teeth can easily tear through steel.

Green clenched his fist, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force: "In battles of the same level, few extraordinary beings can rival the tiger-like mutants. They are born to kill."

At this point, Green seemed to sigh with some regret. He looked at the deep, dark forest in front of him and said arrogantly, "It's a pity that I've been in this business for so many years and have never seen a real tiger-shaped alien species."

Otherwise, I would really like to test just how powerful this terrifying alien species, which is described so powerfully in the rumors, really is!

Let's see if its claws are harder, or my fist!

Upon hearing this, Xilun abruptly stopped in his tracks.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at Green walking ahead and spouting nonsense, and a strong sense of unease suddenly welled up in his heart.

In the world of the extraordinary, there is a mysterious law: when you extremely crave or extremely disregard a certain deadly danger, that danger is often already lurking in the shadows, watching you.

Siren's right hand slid down silently, his fingertips lightly touching the cold grip of the "Resentment Revolver" at his waist.

He ignored Green's arrogant words and instead pushed the perception of the "Great Sea Whale Guiding Technique" to its limit, with his life magnetic field spreading out like invisible tentacles towards the surrounding dark bushes.

A cold wind swept through the woods, rustling the leaves.

In this suffocating silence, Xiren seemed to smell a very faint, very faint scent of blood belonging to an apex predator.

Deep in the woods of St. Albans, a persistent layer of grayish-white mist lingers year-round.

The sunlight here has lost its original warmth, barely penetrating the layers of towering trees to cast dappled and bleak patches of light on the muddy ground covered with thick layers of decaying leaves.

The air was filled with a strong smell of humus, mixed with the fishy sweetness of unknown fungi, and every breath felt like a wad of damp, cold cotton stuffed into your chest.

The four of them walked deeper into the area.

The dry branches underfoot made a dull snapping sound under the stomping of military boots, which sounded particularly jarring in the dead silence of the forest.

After a while, Daisy will stop.

Today she was dressed in a dark hunting outfit that allowed for easy movement, her long legs encased in tight leather boots. She carefully crouched down, her fingertips, gloved in deerskin, gently parting a clump of thorny bushes to pluck a herb from the ground whose leaves had a faint purple hue at the edges.

She brought the herbs close to her nose, carefully discerning the faint, sour smell, her brows furrowing slightly.

Then, she turned her head, handed the herb to Susie, and whispered something to her.

Susie remained shrouded in her grey cloak. She listened blankly to Daisy's words, her unfocused eyes appearing even more vacant in the dim light.

She didn't reach out to take it; instead, she brought her small nose close and sniffed it like a small animal sniffing its prey.

After that, she would nod or shake her head.

Whenever Susie shook her head, Daisy would not hesitate to abandon the herb in her hand, which seemed to be of excellent quality and might even be worth several silver coins on the black market, and casually throw it into the muddy water.

Xilun walked at the side and rear of the group, holding the bulletproof black umbrella in his hand, the tip of the umbrella poking deep holes in the mud.

Mu watched this scene thoughtfully.

Susie's judgment seemed to require no reliance on any alchemical instruments or the reading of those heavy esoteric texts.

She could accurately eliminate inferior products that had lost their medicinal properties or were contaminated with trace amounts of toxins, relying solely on her instincts.

Is Mo Qian Su Xi also a seasoned scholar of the occult?

Siren secretly speculated in his heart, then looked away and stopped trying to find out Susie's secret.

Mu is well aware that everyone has their own trump cards, and excessive curiosity is often the beginning of destruction.

He refocused his attention on his surroundings.

The "Great Ocean Whale Guiding Technique" within his body was operating at an extremely slow but continuous rhythm.

Each heartbeat felt like a deep-sea monster churning out dark currents, forcefully repelling the damp, cold miasma in the air that tried to penetrate the pores.

Mu's blood and qi surged through his veins, carrying a faint, muffled rumble.

Suddenly, Xilun paused almost imperceptibly.

The light pierced through the tangled, brightly lit shrubs ahead and locked onto a patch of dark bushes about fifty meters to the right.

The shadows there seemed to be darker than around them.

"There are two wolves ahead," Xilun suddenly said, his voice calm and undisturbed, as if he were stating something completely unrelated to himself.

Green, the bodyguard leading the way, suddenly stopped and his right hand instantly pressed against the hilt of the heavy machete at his waist.

Mu's burly body tensed instantly, his muscles bulging beneath his rough hunting attire, and the aura of a first-tier mortal cultivator was released without any concealment, causing the surrounding withered leaves to tremble slightly.

Green squinted and stared intently in the direction of Xilen's gaze for a long time.

Sure enough, through the gaps in the bushes, two pairs of narrow eyes, glowing with an eerie green light, were coldly staring at them.

>