"I’m sure you’ve all noticed. As the strength of the contracted Silver Lotus Wood increases, our minds, memories, and vision... have all clearly improved, as if some strange energy is nourishing our brains."

Han Ning pointed to his own head.

"I call this energy Spiritual Power. The reason I was able to form a contract with Egg Pancake is also because Yin Yi successfully evolved, and my Spiritual Power reached a certain level."

"It’s true... I’ve also detected this energy, but unlike Spiritual Energy, it’s invisible, intangible, and very abstract," Lü Xiuning added, nodding.

"The liquid in this porcelain cup can most likely help us increase our Spiritual Power, but I can’t be certain."

"Alright... We’ll study it more carefully later." Dean Wu replaced the wooden stopper and continued to search through the other items.

There were pale green Crystal Stones, strangely shaped black ore, several bundles of green herbs with unknown effects, a waterskin filled with clear water, meat patties made from the flesh of an unknown creature, a map depicting simple terrain, a few pieces of Beast Hide inscribed with unfamiliar writing, and several pottery vials filled with black pills of unknown purpose...

"A map?"

Han Ning picked up the map and spread it out completely.

The map appeared to be made from the hide of some kind of beast and was about half the size of a table. On it, rolling mountains and flowing rivers were drawn in a red liquid, surrounded by a crooked, twisted script. The characters looked like slowly wriggling worms and were quite ugly.

Everyone craned their necks to get a closer look at the map’s contents.

Although they couldn’t understand the writing, they could vaguely make out the terrain.

After studying it for a moment, Dean Wu pointed to an area in the bottom-left corner marked with water ripples and a red dot. "Is this our location? Judging by how it’s drawn, it looks like a swamp."

"Er... Dean Wu, your geography is a little shaky, isn’t it? Aren’t these curved arcs supposed to represent the swamp?" Lü Xiuning chimed in.

"..."

With no points of reference, everyone could only guess.

"It’s no use. There’s too little to compare it with. We’ll have to go out and explore for a bit to find some more obvious landmarks before we can pinpoint our location."

After studying it for a good while, no one could determine their exact position.

They spent some more time sorting through the items. Other than the pottery cup with the mysterious liquid, the black worms, the map with its cryptic writing, and the Beast Hides, they were able to guess the purpose of most everything else.

The Crystal Stones, herbs, and meat patties were naturally for them to use or to feed to their Soul Beasts.

The ore was likely for crafting some kind of item.

Of course, the biggest mystery of all was the Insect-man himself.

His bodily structure was completely different from a human’s.

"Looking at these items, we can basically infer that somewhere, an unknown distance from our academy, there lives a race of intelligent humanoids. And they’re hostile toward humans..." Dean Wu said, frowning at the Insect-man’s bloody corpse.

"Dean, if the Insect-man’s companions realize he’s missing, will they come looking for him? What if they find us?" Lü Xiuning’s face fell.

’A single Insect-man could command a seven-meter-long giant beetle no weaker than Yin Yi, plus dozens of black beetles whose strength was on par with the mutated Silver Lotus Wood.’

’If a whole group of Insect-men like that showed up, how could they possibly resist?’

"Also... with this flood, our processing center is probably done for..." another student added, his face grim.

At these words, everyone fell silent.

"Sigh... What else can we do? We have to at least wait for the storm to stop and the floodwaters to recede before we can do anything."

After a long moment, Dean Wu finally broke the silence. With a worried expression, he glanced at the watch on his wrist and then at the pitch-black, rainy night outside before speaking.

"It’s getting late. We’ve all just been through a fierce battle and expended a great deal of Physical Strength. Let’s all go back and rest for now. We can continue our research after we’ve recovered."

"Han Ning, you’re the one who captured and killed this Insect-man, so the spoils rightfully belong to you. Take his things back with you. Just leave a little of each item for the others, to be distributed as battle rewards and for experiments. You don’t have any use for the corpse, do you? Leave it here."

"As for this bottle of liquid, first let the teachers and students from the biology department analyze its specific components. We’ll decide what to do after that."

Han Ning nodded. "Okay!"

After distributing everything, Han Ning left a third of each item behind as spoils for those who had helped and as research material for the teachers. All the students present used their phones to take pictures of the map and the contents of the few Beast Hide Scrolls so they could study them on the go.

Everyone was truly exhausted. After leaving a few students behind on guard duty, they all went back to their rooms to rest.

Yin Yi carried Han Ning back to his temporary dorm in Building C.

"SQUEAK SQUEAK!"

It wasn’t until they returned to the cozy, quiet little room that Egg Pancake, who had been hiding in his collar the whole time, zipped out and started running around the bed.

"Yin Yi, you play with Egg Pancake for a bit. I’m going to study these things first," Han Ning said, patting Yin Yi’s head.

"Ling~"

Yin Yi chirped in response and quietly floated behind Egg Pancake. She stealthily extended a vine and wrapped it around Egg Pancake’s tail.

"Squeak squeak?"

While running, Egg Pancake suddenly felt his vision spin. His eyes went wide as he saw Yin Yi, apparently standing upside down in front of him.

"SQUEAK!"

Egg Pancake waved his little paws, flailing about.

"Ling~"

Yin Yi casually placed Egg Pancake on the flower on top of her head, floated over to the comfortable mattress, took out a phone, and started playing a little game with him.

Literally playing a game.

Han Ning took out the remaining two-thirds of the strange liquid.

[Spiritual Energy detected. Absorb?]

’Just as I thought... it’s a liquid that helps increase Spiritual Power.’

Without any hesitation, he mentally commanded, "Yes!"

[Spiritual Energy +4.9]

’4.9?! That’s a lot!’

Han Ning was slightly stunned. He remembered that a single worm only gave about +0.1 Energy.

This two-thirds of a cup of liquid was equivalent to 50 worms.

Remaining Spiritual Energy: 5.1

After his surprise faded, he converted 5 points of Spiritual Energy into 2.5 Spiritual Attribute Points and added them to his status panel.

In an instant, an icy chill exploded inside his brain.

Immediately after, a sharp pain shot out from the depths of his brain.

Han Ning let out a muffled groan, clutching his head as he curled up on the bed.

"Ling?" "SQUEAK SQUEAK?!"

Seeing this, Yin Yi and Egg Pancake, who were nearby, quickly rushed over.

"I’m fine. You two go on and play."

Han Ning forced a smile at the two little ones.

If anyone else had been there, they would have seen that his face was abnormally pale, and beads of sweat were faintly forming on his forehead, as if he were enduring immense pain.

Time flowed on. It felt like a long time had passed, yet also like only an instant.

Suddenly, Han Ning felt his Spiritual Power climbing limitlessly. A strange, mist-filled space appeared in his mind.

His face, which had been contorted in pain, suddenly smoothed out. He opened his eyes, his expression now one of pure comfort.