abcnovels
Chapter 17: Someone Is Calling for Help
Chapter 17: Someone Is Calling for Help
The couple had tried their best in picking the most precise direction.
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They were not good at finding their direction via the stars.
Zi Di was an expert of trade, with medicine and magic coming in second.
Zhen Jin only had general knowledge as his memory was badly damaged. Currently he discovered that he was an expert at fighting.
Who would have thought that they would end up shipwrecked while pursuing the position of White Sands City Lord? Who would have thought that the island they ended up on would be so dangerous and strange?
The two went in a straight line the entire journey, only stopping occasionally to check their direction.
Unlike yesterday, the exploration strategy was different and they quickly surpassed the range of yesterday’s exploration, reaching a completely new area.
“Be careful,” Zhen Jin reminded.
On their side was an immense cliff with a large and straight tree growing on its top. Only it’s numerous roots were exposed as they grew down the cliff.
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At the bottom of the cliff grew many trees, their canopy was higher than the cliff itself.
Zi Di nodded and followed Zhen Jin, carefully avoiding the cliff.
The cliff was very tall, falling off it would have severe consequences.
Bruises and bone fractures would be the mildest injury.
Within this forest, people were weak and frail beyond imagination.
Even a sprained ankle would likely cost them their lives. Because a sprained ankle can lead to loss of mobility and it would be difficult to escape if a beast were to attack.
And in the event one lost their footing and fell, even someone like strong Zhen Jin would suffer heavy injuries.
After all, he still couldn’t use his battle qi.
As Zi Di walked away from the cliff, she glanced back with fear.
During the day, this cliff could be easily avoided, but this was not the case at night.
It would be too difficult.
A human’s eyesight would be very limited at night.
Without the assistance of battle qi or magic, it was the same as being blind.
One moment you think you are safe, walking on flat ground when suddenly you trip on a branch and fall off the cliff!
“Fortunately we did not encounter this kind of terrain when we were fleeing.” Zi Di happily said.
“Yes,” Zhen Jin was also worried and understood Zi Di’s fear.
If they were chased off the cliff by the fire-poison bees that night, then most likely they would have become skeletons at the bottom of the cliff.
As they went farther from the cave, cliffs began to appear more frequently.
The terrain turned more rough and rocky as they continued onwards.
This change was not a bad thing.
Because sometimes, the couple would stand on the cliffs and they had a wide view of the horizon and could observe the distant areas.
Of course, this only happened occasionally. Most of the time, even if they were on top of a cliff, the tall trees blocked their line of sight.
There were trees everywhere.
A person could easily get lost walking in this environment.
Zhen Jin constantly wrote on the map to record their route——he drew a straight line.
However, were they really walking in a straight line?
The couple couldn’t be sure, as a matter of fact they had no confidence. Because they realized they lacked a reference point, they couldn’t guarantee their route was straight.
So, when there was a cliff with a wide field of view that allowed them to view the surroundings, they would cherish every glance.
Regular people could not imagine this.
While exploring the forest, an ordinary view into the distance would bring great joy and confidence to those trapped in the forest’s depths.
This was of course because Zhen Jin wasn’t good at climbing trees.
A knight’s training regime never taught them how to climb trees.
This was not strange.
Because knights were masters of battle qi, they were capable of jumping onto high branches and had no need for special tree climbing training.
Knights never fought alone.
They had mounts and retainers, and when the legion was fighting, they had infantry men scouting the path ahead.
Zhen Jin tried climbing a tree.
After climbing up three meters, he gave up.
He first needed to climb to the canopy to see far ahead. To accomplish this, he needed to climb at least ten meters.
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It was risky at that height.
If he lost his footing and fell, he would get injured.
He was a knight, one of the elite templar knights under Emperor Sheng Ming, but he couldn’t activate his battle qi. Without battle qi protecting him, his body couldn’t handle a fall from that height.
Moreover, he and Zi Di were vulnerable to attacks while climbing up the tree,
Secondly, it was harder to climb these straight and tall trees compared to the trees with slanted branches and twisting vines in the rainforest.
Lastly, he had to consider his physical strength.
Climbing up the tree would waste too much of his strength.?
If he exerted himself and sweated too much and got hungry, he would need to consume large amounts of food and water to replenish his strength. In particular, the couple did not have much reserves remaining of the latter.
Zhen Jin stood tall and looked far.
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“Look there, that area is a lowground,” Zhen Jin said.
They needed to get to the lowest ground possible.
That kind of area would most likely have water.
Replenishing water would greatly assist the couple, on the other hand they could find a river and follow it out of the forest.
It was because this island was surrounded by the ocean, and as water flowed down, it would eventually drain into it.
An ideal river might lead them to a beach or a reef at its estuary.
After sprinkling some of the marking powder on top of the cliff, the couple slightly altered their direction.
Not long after, they arrived at the lowground area.
Rather disappointingly, they did not find any water, much less a river.
This terrain resembled a large bowl with trees filling it.
However, just as they were about to change directions and continue, they suddenly stopped.
A leopard appeared before their eyes.
Its black body was covered entirely in scales and had a horn on its forehead.
It was a scaled black leopard!
As they discovered the scaled leopard, it had also discovered them.
For a split second, both sides stared blankly upon encountering each other, seemingly caught off guard.
Zhen Jin quietly gripped his spear and couldn't help but be nervous.
If it were only one scaled leopard, he wouldn’t be worried as he could easily inflict serious damage to it. But what about a leap?
What was more frightening was that, what if this leopard leap wasn't the one that attacked the monkey bear, but instead a completely intact leap?
Although most of the scaled leopards were only at the bronze level, there were many of them. A leap of many scaled leopards would dare to attack a silver level magic beast like the monkey bear when they encountered it.
If Zhen Jin was attacked by a leap, he would be helpless to protect himself and Zi Di.
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It was hard to do so.
However, there was nothing he could do right now but to play it by ear.
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Both sides remained still and the air seemed to freeze.
Zi Di held her breath, the pressure in her heart increased as her face began to turn pale.
After a brief stalemate, the scaled panther suddenly turned around and ran away.
An unexpected situation!
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“Chase it quickly, it might be trying to alert the entire leap.” Zi Di whispered a moment later.
Zhen Jin nodded as he remembered the fire-poison bee swarm had caused the leopard to flee. This had resulted in the entire leopard leap’s vengeance and eventually leading to their fight with the monkey bear.
“Follow closely, If you don’t……” Zi Di interrupted before Zhen Jin could finish his sentence.
“Don’t worry, we still have the marking powder and can meet up somewhere else!” Zi Di answered.
The two agreed on this method to prevent both of them from getting separated and lost.
Zhen Jin started running.
A tree nearly hit him in the face, but he quickly avoided it as he continued running.
With the wind blowing in his ears, Zhen Jin focused all his attention onto the figure of the panther while also guarding against any surprise attacks.
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It wasn't night but instead during the day, so Zhen Jin's field of vision was very good.
He took a big breath. His heart almost was bursting as it pumped blood into his contracting muscles, creating rigorous kinetic energy.
Zhen Jin ran so fast that he unexpectedly caught up with the leopard already.
This scaled leopard wasn’t very fast.
As he got closer, Zhen Jin was surprised to find that the scaled pather was injured.
“It’s injured, does that mean it participated in the attack against the monkey bear?”
Zhen Jin was somewhat relieved.
It was because the monkey bear inflicted heavy losses to that leopard leap and killed its leader, leaving only a few leopards remaining.
“I still need to be cautious.”
What if this is a trick the leopard leap uses to lure in their prey?
Zhen Jin had heard Zi Di’s words and knew that the sinister blue wolf had repeatedly attacked and killed the exploration team. The beasts of this island could not be judged by common sense. Zhen Jin would not be surprised if the leopard leaps used such tactics to lure in prey.
Once again, something beyond Zhen Jin’s expectations happened as the fleeing scaled panther suddenly stopped.
It made a whimpering sound as it whirled around and balked with unease as it appeared very impatient.
As Zhen Jin gradually approached the panther, the panther still continued its odd behaviour, as if something hidden in the forest ahead frightened it more than Zhen Jin.
For a moment, the youngster couldn’t help but reveal a vacant look in his eyes.
He didn’t attack the panther immediately but observed his surroundings
As a result, he quickly discovered the surrounding forest was darker than before. Although the trees were still straight, their leaves appeared to be sickly green and their surfaces showed signs of decay. The ground was covered in a thick layer of dead branches and leaves. The air was filled with a gloomy and cold aura.
As he didn’t see any other beasts, Zhen Jin focused his attention back onto the scaled leopard in front of him.
He slowly walked forward, and as the distance between them closed to a point, the leopard couldn’t hesitate anymore as it began to flee ahead.
Zhen Jin followed behind closely.
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Awoo——?
Not far ahead, the leopard suddenly gave a blood-curdling wail.
A net made of spiderwebs abruptly rose from the ground and wrapped the entire leopard inside then hauled it upwards.
The spiderweb was quickly hung in the air, and with its excellent adhesiveness, the more the leopard struggled, the more it became stuck in the spiderweb.
Soon the leopard’s entire body was covered in spiderwebs.
A pale white spider slowly descended from the canopy and onto the spiderweb.
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The spider’s body looked like a whetstone and it had eight long legs with each being at least two meters long.
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The spider landed on the web like it was gliding across ice and moved around very smoothly.
It quickly set out to work, and its eight legs were like a musician plucking the strings of a chordophone: quick but orderly. There was a hint of elegance as it worked.
The web trapping the leopard was originally a bit damaged, but the spider quickly weaved and mended the web .
The leopard’s struggles became fewer as the white spider tied it six to seven meters up between two trees.
Upon watching this scene of the spider’s successful hunt, Zhen Jin's heart trembled.
He slowly retreated, his nerves extremely tense.
The teenager not only kept his eyes on the spider who was still weaving threads, but also to what was under his feet.
Perhaps there was a spiderweb hidden nearby.
Luckily, the spider was done hunting and didn’t attack him, rather it disappeared into the canopy.
Zhen Jin didn’t dare to drop his guard. His heart was still tense.
Because within the canopy, he discovered other hunted prey.
They appeared to have all sorts of figures and shapes.
Most of them appeared to be leopards.
Zhen Jin immediately speculated: did all of the scaled leopards the monkey bear drove away end up over here?
He had already realized that the scaled leopard must have been afraid of this spider. Perhaps the leopard leap was ambushed here and was nearly wiped out
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with only one luckily escaping, resulting in it running into Zhen Jin.
The leopard was not intelligent enough and became panicked, resulting in it returning to where it had been previously,eventually ending in it being hunted.
Besides the leopards, there were also deer, foxes, hares, and more.
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There were even tigers and rhinos.
Only God would know how rhinos were even here.
Zhen Jin looked cautiously at them as his pulse couldn’t help but quicken.
Although he had only seen one spider, the canopy was sure to hide many more. If not, how could the leopards be annihilated by a single spider? Just one spider couldn’t have captured all of them.
Ordinary spiders hunted alone, but these spiders seemed to live in a group.
Zhen Jin was not surprised about these variations in habits.
He was about to leave when a faint sound called out: “Wait.”
“Don’t go.”
“Please, please save me, save me.”
Someone cried out to Zhen Jin for help!
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Behold! My stuff!
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Skurge
Meng Hao
Trazyn the Infinite
Brainiac
Every Rpg Protagonist
Spiders
Notes
I suppose it's time to talk about the overarching themes and plot of this story. One of the most interesting things I noticed while translating this is that ?? (The emperor/holy light) and ?? (Life) share similar pronunciations, Sheng Ming. Now such wordplay is not beyond CN authors as demonstrated by Er Gen in
Pursuit of the Truth
. It is my personal belief that the story will end up with Zhen Jin exemplifying the ideals and morals of a knight but will end up not acting or behaving like what his society perceives as being an ideal knight. He is an outsider who tries his best to integrate with society for the benefit of him, his family, and his allies. However I personally believe that he will fail. Zhen Jin over the course of the entire story will have to choose between how he wants society to view him and how he wants to view himself. Ala, the balance between society and his own livelihood, the two sides of life every human must deal with. Unlimited bloodstone I feel not only could end up as a grand fantasy story but also an interesting character study if
the author can pull it off.
Deus’ Notes
Author adding trouble after trouble; obstacle after obstacle. If they were young masters instead of monsters I would have dropped this novel by now. My prediction for this novel is a different kind of philosophy to the one in RI. Maybe the author might fill it with “rebuilding the clan” “respecting the ancestors” and “filial piety” to smoothen up the Xi clan lol.
Author did say this would be very different from RI so we might actually see romance with Zhen Jin and Zi Di, which I probably won't enjoy that much.
If book 1 is intended to introduce the themes of the novel, then I can expect Zhen Jin’s journey filled with danger far beyond his limits.
He’ll probably be forced to choose a path he didn’t want to choose. This is my biggest prediction.
Translation Notes
(lol no ? here, nice typo author)
(????: sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces (idiom) )
(????: to stand tall and see far (idiom))
(????: powerless to defend oneself (idiom); helpless)
(????: see the opportunity and act (idiom); to act according to circumstances
/
to play it by ear
/
to use one's discretion)
(????: to concentrate one's attention completely (idiom) )
(????: to follow closely behind sb or sth (idiom) )
(whetstone is better that grindstone cause monster hunter ftw)
(????: total defeat of an army (idiom))
(??: Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus))
Editor notes
(10 meter canopy….thats f***** tiny. Is a cliff meant to be 10 meters tall lmao)
(Nobody expects the spanish inquisition)
(this is the only time the spider is refered to as blue, which is super fucking confusing cause elsewhere its refered to as white, should I keep it or change it to white to keep consistency)(change to white to keep consistency. It's not like the colour is going to matter)
[Here we go with the righteous MC nonsense. How about you instead let him die, then steal his wife.]