Han Ning had originally planned to add a few points to Yin Yi’s Attributes first, to let it get used to its newly advanced body.

But after adding a few points to its physical Attributes, he discovered they had once again reached their limit.

[

Power: 23 (Limit Reached)

Body: 24 (Limit Reached)

Agility: 23 (Limit Reached)

Spiritual Energy: 80

]

’It seems that as Yin Yi transitions toward a Spiritual Energy focus, the limits of its physical body are getting lower and lower.’

Han Ning closed the panel and turned to look at the others.

Everyone was immersed in the joy of their Soul Beast’s evolution. He didn’t disturb them, instead picking up the remaining Wood Attribute Crystal Stones and heading toward the Ant Queen’s cave.

At the entrance to the cave, two towering Soldier Ants blocked his path.

"HSSS!"

The two towering Soldier Ants blocked his path.

"Xiaohong, I want to see your Ant Queen," Han Ning said to the ant following him, pointing at himself and then toward the depths of the cave.

He had to explain it to Xiaohong several times before the little ant finally seemed to get the message and scurried inside.

A moment later, it came running back and chittered at the Soldier Ants guarding the entrance.

The Soldier Ants silently stepped aside.

Han Ning led Yin Yi and Egg Pancake into the spacious cavern of the Ant Queen.

The Ant Queen was watching him quietly, its insectoid eyes filled with an inscrutable emotion.

Its enormous, egg-shaped abdomen continuously produced new ants, as if it never knew fatigue.

"Ant Queen, I’d like to trade for some of your red stones," he said, "using these Attribute Stones."

He laid out some of the Attribute Crystal Stones he had recently acquired for the Ant Queen to see, then pointed to the mountain of red stones piled beside it.

The Ant Queen was clearly more intelligent than Xiaohong. After he repeated the gesture once or twice, it seemed to grasp his meaning.

Its antennae twitched, and a fist-sized red stone shot toward Han Ning with a WHOOSH.

Han Ning reached out and expertly caught the stone, turning it over in his hand to examine it.

A scorching heat radiated from the stone’s surface, hot enough to make his palm flinch.

’Probably seventy or eighty degrees Celsius...’

With his current skin toughness, seventy or eighty degrees was just barely tolerable.

’It must have Fire Attribute Energy inside, but... how can I get Egg Pancake to raise its Fire Element Affinity...’

Han Ning didn’t rush to absorb the Energy from the stone himself. Instead, he placed it in front of Egg Pancake.

"Egg Pancake, can you eat this? Or is there some way for you to absorb the Energy inside?"

’Egg Pancake is an Earth Attribute Soul Beast. It should have some way of dealing with stones...’

"Chirp?"

Egg Pancake took the stone from Han Ning, holding it between its claws.

Then, its claws began to glow with an earthy-yellow light. A thick sludge oozed out, enveloping the red stone.

As the sludge seeped into it, the stone gradually softened from the outside, its form melting until it became a pool of red slurry that shimmered with a faint crimson light.

Seeing this, Egg Pancake let out a "Chirp!" and swallowed the red slurry whole.

"Chirp!"

It raised its head to look at Han Ning.

It was as if asking, ’Like this?’

At the same time.

Lines of light blue text appeared before Han Ning’s eyes.

[Fire Element Affinity +0.01]

[Fire Element Affinity +0.02]

The text updated every few seconds, indicating that Egg Pancake was rapidly absorbing the Fire Element.

However... ’That means I can’t absorb the Energy from the stone now.’

"It works."

Han Ning nodded. He pointed to the pile of Crystal Stones on the ground and asked the Ant Queen, "I’ll trade these for them. How many can I get?"

His finger gestured back and forth between his Crystal Stones and the red stones.

"Hsss..."

The Ant Queen let out a low hiss and slightly raised its forelimbs.

With a RUMBLE, a number of red stones equal to the Crystal Stones on the ground were pushed in front of Han Ning.

"Thank you!"

Han Ning didn’t leave right away. Instead, he took out his phone and a map. He pulled up a photo of the Insect-man and held it in front of the Ant Queen. "Ant Queen, do you recognize this? Can you understand a map?"

The maps had been printed on A4 paper and distributed to all the students who went out exploring. Since they weighed next to nothing, no one had bothered to discard them during the escape.

The same went for their phones.

But...

The Ant Queen merely stared silently at the phone screen displaying the Insect-man’s image, and then at the map, giving no reaction.

He waited for a full minute or two, only to realize the Ant Queen had already returned to diligently producing more ants.

’Sigh... looks like it doesn’t know what this is. Or maybe the Ant Queen is such a homebody that it’s never even seen an Insect-man.’

Han Ning didn’t press the issue. He gave the Ant Queen a small smile, gathered the red stones from the ground, called to Yin Yi and Egg Pancake, and turned to leave the cave.

When he returned to their corner, his three companions had also calmed down from their earlier excitement.

"My Xiaoyu finally evolved! Han Ning, what kind of Soul Beast do you think it is now? It’s not a Silver Lotus Wood anymore, right?"

Lin Tianhe looked his Xiaoyu up and down, his curiosity palpable.

"I don’t know either... I guess you could call it a Tree Spirit now. You can come up with a name for its Race." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Han Ning shook his head and looked at Lü Xiuning. "Teacher Lü, what’s our next move?"

In contrast to Lin Tianhe’s excitement, Lü Xiuning was much more composed. "Our purpose here is to find traces of the Insect-men or other civilizations. This mountain range we’re in should be marked on the map. Let’s try to pinpoint our location."

With that, he took the map from his backpack.

The four of them leaned in, using the red glow within the cavern to examine the Insect-man map.

On the map, crisscrossing lines depicted various types of terrain.

Above the simple topographical drawings, there were twisted characters serving as labels.

"It must be here," Han Ning said, pointing to a mountainous area near the bottom-right corner of the map. "This style of drawing is a bit like contour lines. Next to it, there’s an area drawn with rolling, wavy lines—maybe a swamp? And there’s a mushroom-shaped symbol over the mountain range."

To be honest, the mushroom drawing was rather abstract; the cap and stem were practically a single shape. If they hadn’t encountered the real thing, they would never have been able to identify it.

"Based on what the map shows, the place Han Ning pointed out is the best match for our current location," Lü Xiuning said. "But we can’t be certain our position is even on the map at all. Let’s work with an assumption for now. Let’s assume we are here."

Lü Xiuning pressed his finger on the mountain range’s depiction and traced a path toward the upper left.

He discovered that this single mountain range covered a quarter of the entire map. The mushroom symbol was only the third marker along the range; to its left and right were several other, even more abstract symbols that were impossible to decipher.

"So you’re saying... the path ahead is all mountains and forests?" Luo Chen frowned. "We’ve already seen how powerful those mushroom creatures are. Without the Soldier Ants’ help, it would be hard for us to get very far, even with our evolved Soul Beasts."

"Besides, the Soldier Ants already took us on a flyover. We flew north for half an hour over the Mushroom Forest, which must be a few dozen kilometers right there. And we were still over a hundred kilometers from the giant mushroom. All told, that’s a distance of nearly two hundred kilometers."

"There are markers to the left and right of it. Given how dangerous the mushroom creatures are, the Soul Beasts in those other areas can’t be any weaker... and they’re all at least a few hundred kilometers apart. It’s too dangerous. Should we really go?"

Hearing Luo Chen’s words, Lü Xiuning fell into deep thought.

——————

This plot arc is about to come to an end. I originally wanted to show the different facets of the wilderness and gradually expand the scope of activity by having everyone follow the protagonist’s perspective, but I discovered that this writing style might not be the best. Still, what’s written is written. A new plot is about to begin. This novel will always revolve around the theme of Beast Taming, survival, and exploring the environment, so readers don’t need to worry about it going off-track.

One more Chapter to go.