Chapter 185. Demons and Monsters (9)

     Half an hour later, the small stone monster rolled a few times towards the Raven Demon’s direction, but the moment it touched the Raven Demon, it braked abruptly and rolled back three and a half times.

     Hesitating for two seconds, it then moved forward two more times.

     After repeating this several times, the small stone monster stopped at a distance of two and a half rolls from the Raven Demon and looked towards the source of the noise in the small space.

     Then, it suddenly froze completely.

      At this moment, Ye Mo was conducting experiments to process materials, gaining firsthand knowledge of their performance characteristics, such as common sawing, bending, chiseling, filing, drilling, tapping, scraping, grinding, and riveting.

     Specifically, she was using a horizontal tensile testing machine on willow branches as thick as an adult male’s waist, using a hydraulic drill to bore blind holes symmetrically on the inside of aerial roots, manually grinding screw threads on banyan tree branch bolts and nuts, building a fitter’s bench mainly from peach tree trunks, and quenching fox tail feathers, etc. All of this was routine operation.

     For this, Ye Mo consumed one wood-elemental spirit stone, one peach tree inner core, and five monster beast crystal cores.

     In the small stone monster’s eyes, this was spirit and monster dissection, no, it was dismemberment by five horses, especially when Ye Mo was dissecting the peach tree inner core and melting it at high temperature.

     “If you can’t watch this Raven Demon, then you will replace it.”

     Thinking of Ye Mo’s words, the small stone monster trembled and rolled two more times towards the Raven Demon, until the moss on its body touched the Raven Demon.

     It absolutely couldn’t let the Raven Demon escape!

      …

     “Chirp cough—”

     When the Raven Demon made a slight sound, the small stone monster reflexively played dead.

     “Cough cough cough.”

     The Raven Demon twitched a couple of times. Let alone extending its wings, even turning over and standing up was a bit difficult. Only then did it recall its situation before losing consciousness and open its eyes.

    It was pitch black.

     His severe injuries even affected his vision.

     The raven spirit closed his eyes again for a moment. When he opened them, he finally saw the surroundings clearly. It looked like an ordinary black hole, and the wood-based spiritual energy inside was very dense.

     However, he didn’t quite dare to openly heal his injuries, because the demon in the center of the cave who called herself a traveler was not a rat demon, but a human-deer half-demon!

     A very ugly half-demon with very little fur!

     “Cough cough cough!” The raven spirit’s injuries hadn’t recovered at all. Most of his most prized purplish-black feathers had fallen out, leaving him bald and very ugly, making him cough up blood in anger.

     Ye Mo was currently carving arrows. Hearing the sound, she glanced expressionlessly towards the corner of the cave, causing both the raven spirit and the little stone monster to stiffen simultaneously.

     The little stone monster rolled over and instantly stood up, stammering a warning: “Y-y-y-you, you’re not allowed to run!”

     The raven spirit was startled by the little stone monster. When he spread his wings, he pulled his wound again, coughing violently for a good while, and spitting out a lot of blood in the process.

     “?!?” Seeing that he was almost vomiting up his bird innards, the little stone monster suddenly gained a lot more confidence and threatened, “Don’t run, or the human-deer demon will draw your tendons, flay your skin, and pluck your feathers to make clothes.”

     “You-!”

     The raven spirit’s beady eyes almost glared the little stone monster to death. When had it come to this, that he was being threatened by a useless half-demon? Cough cough cough, he was so angry he kept vomiting blood.

     In the end, he couldn’t even cough up much blood anymore, becoming increasingly weak.

     Sentient creatures really do have fierce tempers.  

     Ye Mo spared the raven demon’s life, not wanting him to die right away. While continuing her work, she casually said, “Little stone monster, stop its bleeding for now”

     The little stone monster stood frozen for a long moment before realizing the human-deer demon was talking to her. Her innate affinity was for wood and stone, and wood-based creatures naturally had some healing ability, but she had basically never even healed herself.

     It was a miracle she had survived until now.

     “Y-yes, Lord Demon,” the little stone monster said. A lot of moss grew on one side of its stone body. The moss separated into some soft filaments and reached out to touch the raven spirit, who was lying on the ground on the verge of death.

      Uh–

      “Cough cough cough!”

     The little stone monster’s healing spell didn’t have much effect. The soft filaments caused the raven demon to cough up even more blood. What was more painful than death was being unable to die.

     “Stop, stop, stop!”

      “???”

      The wood-based spiritual energy in the cave was very abundant, and the raven demon also had a wood-based talent. He began to heal himself.

     The little stone monster felt both frustrated and embarrassed. As a 50-year-old demon, she couldn’t even cast the most basic wood-based spell. How weak!

     The cave fell into a long silence.

     About half an hour later, the bleeding from the raven demon’s wounds had stopped by a third. The speed of the hemostasis finally increased a little. At this moment, however, Ye Mo stopped her strange work, put those strange things into her spatial storage, and walked towards him.

     To be precise, she was walking towards both the raven demon and the little stone monster.

      Raven demon: “What exactly do you want to do?”

     Ye Mo didn’t answer him. With her left hand, she made a throwing gesture, and two silver metal rings flew towards the raven demon’s left and right wings, firmly binding them.

     Metal counters wood.

      In an instant, the raven demon could no longer feel any spiritual energy in the environment. Not only that, but even the wood-based spiritual energy within his body, once used, would almost immediately be completely absorbed by the silver metal rings.

      “$@@@&!”

      More profanity. Ye Mo wasn’t merciful towards someone who wanted to kill her, nor did she waste any words. Her mental power directly attacked the raven spirit.

      At the same time, questions were thrown out one after another:

      “What kinds of talents do you have?”

     “…”

     “Who is the strongest in your clan?”

     “Chirp chirp chirp!”

   【Detected survivor Ye Mo breaking through the mental power critical value, Spirit attribute +1.】

     “Where have you seen any half-demons recently?”

      “…”

    【Detected survivor Ye Mo breaking through the mental power critical value, Spirit attribute +1.】

     This was the first time Ye Mo had directly pierced her mental power into the brain of an intelligent being, and a demon at that. Obtaining information based on the memories that surfaced in its brain was indeed difficult; three questions were already the limit.

     The raven demon’s mental abilities weren’t high, and it hadn’t lived for more than a hundred years. It didn’t realize its brain’s memories were being peeped at, but it refused to answer Ye Mo’s questions.

     “I’ll give you the rest of the night to think. Once you’ve thought it through, answer me after dawn.”

     Ye Mo looked at the little stone monster, who blinked its eyes and gave a flattering smile.

     She handed the little stone monster a brown diamond-shaped wooden ring, with a formation engraved on the inner wall of the ring and a simple pattern engraved on the outer wall of the ring: “You have passed the task of guarding, this is a reward.”

     “Reward?”

     The little stone monster didn’t know what it was. It seemed different from the metal ring of the raven demon. With a nervous mood, she watched as the diamond-shaped ring slowly fell.

     With a click, it was locked.

     The diamond-shaped wooden ring was only slightly larger than her body, and it was just right.

     After a while, the little stone monster could feel that the wood spirit around her was about 3 times denser. This was so magical that she couldn’t help but turn around.

     “Wow!” The girl’s voice was very sweet.

     “Little stone monster, but you failed the task of stopping bleeding.” Ye Mo pointed out. “I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Identify these stones and find any among them that you’ve seen before.”

     Having said that, a mountain of stones piled up on the ground, almost every single one different.

     “For example, this one, this one, and this one. Our cave already has these three types of stones.”

     The little stone monster nodded its moss-covered head frantically, identifying the stones. This was something it was particularly good at.

     Not a problem at all!

     “Very good.”

     Ye Mo’s affirmative response gave the little stone monster an unprecedented sense of mission and accomplishment. Its trapezoidal eyes seemed to be glowing, although their pupil color was still green.

     “…”

     Ye Mo encouraged the little stone monster and the tiny stone monster, and gave a warning look to the raven spirit. Ye Mo teleported away from the small stone room in the space.

     Leaving behind the lifeless bird, the energetic stone monster, the dizzy tiny stone monster, and a pile of ordinary unintelligent and spiritual stones.

     …

     After arriving in the adjacent small stone chamber, Ye Mo first set up a defensive array, then took out the jade bed, bedding, rattan table, rattan chairs, and other items from her storage space one by one.

     After a simple arrangement, plus a lamp purely for adding atmosphere, the stone chamber instantly transformed into an ordinary room, with even a little bit of warmth.

     Hawk Eye floated out from above her head, shrinking to the size of a gem, and hung in mid-air. It circled around, finding it a little simple.

     Ye Mo sat down and chatted with it for a while: “Little Hawk, this is also an E-rank instance dungeon like the World Tree, and the Banyan Tree Spirit, like the Norse Aesir and Vanir gods, can sense your gaze.”

     Regarding this nickname that had started at some unknown time, Hawk Eye rolled its white eyes.

     Ye Mo ignored the eye rolls: “Everything can become sentient, and you are also a kind of spirit.”

     If only Hawk Eye could cultivate like a demon, then it could speak, eat, and grow. Their team would gain another member, not counting the young velociraptor in Wang Xue’s life space for the time being.

     This was the first thought she had when she saw the fox spirit in the swamp.

     “The world is full of wonders, perhaps we can really find a way for you to cultivate.”

     Being able to fight alongside Ye Mo and broaden its horizons was infinitely better than staying in the Asgardian temple. Although Hawk Eye wanted to go further, the mission was still the priority at the moment.

     It gave her a look: Don’t you dare die!

     Their high level of comrade understanding allowed Ye Mo to instantly grasp the meaning: “Don’t worry, I will definitely not let you be recycled by the system.”

     Banyan Tree Spirit, wood-elemental inner core, Peach Tree Spirit, wood-elemental inner core; Oilbird demon, metal and wood elemental inner core, Taro Spirit, wood and earth elemental inner core, X-Tailed Fox, wind (which is wood), elemental inner core, Butterfly Orchid Spirit, metal and wood elemental inner core…

     She now had metal, wood, and earth energy. What she still needed to replenish were water-elemental spirit stones and fire-elemental spirit stones.

     In fact, what is most lacking are space spirit stones and crystal cores. Fortunately, due to her experiences in the previous few instance dungeons, before entering this one, she had spent a mid-six-figure sum of points on spatial energy.

     After replenishing her metal, wood, water, fire, and earth energy, Ye Mo lay on the spirit-gathering jade bed and entered a brief but highly efficient period of rest.

     …

     The next day, she was awakened by the hourglass-style alarm.

     Ye Mo yawned and, after getting up, first asked the system, “Check instance dungeon tasks.”

     System: 【Current survivors: 26/31, Survival time: 1/100 days.】

     Only a little over a day had passed, and already five survivors had died. None of the participants in this instance dungeon were newbies, and there were still 25 from the top 100.

     E-rank instance dungeons were indeed not simple!