Chapter 30

Qin Fei struggled to drag Xi Yuan’s body out of the cracked escape pod. At this moment, the pod, which had originally been an oval shape, had turned into an irregular piece of debris. But even so, it had fulfilled its purpose, ensuring their safe landing in this place.

In his heart, Qin Fei silently vowed that if they ever made it back, he would definitely bring several more escape pods of this model. After all, this one had saved their lives, and he could personally vouch for its quality!

Looking up, all he saw were towering trees.

Truly towering trees. The smallest of them was as thick as several people could hug, and every single one of them was incredibly tall and robust. The trees were dense, and the grass below was so tall that the shortest plants reached waist-high. Everything here seemed to have grown much larger than normal, creating an illusion that he had become smaller as he looked around.

He stored the wreckage of the escape pod in his spatial ring, picked up Xi Yuan, and felt lucky that they had landed here. Aside from some scratches, neither of them had any serious injuries. If they had been hurt more severely, Xi Yuan would have been in even worse shape.

Qin Fei’s light brain had no signal here. To ensure their safety in case of any potential dangers in the area, he took out a small protective talisman, forming a small light barrier around them, keeping them safe inside.

They needed to find a secure place to settle down and figure out where they were. Why was he unable to contact anyone with his light brain? Why couldn’t he receive any information?

He circled around the area, and all he saw were towering trees. He also encountered some creatures, such as a mountain chicken that was half his height, zergs with arm-length limbs, and mosquitoes the size of his fist… It was a primitive forest, and it seemed to have all the animals one would expect, except everything here was several times larger than what he was used to.

It appeared they had landed in an unknown forest on an unknown planet. There were no caves or shelters in sight where they could settle down. With no other choice, Qin Fei found a denser area of trees and chose the thickest one. He took out his laser sword and began cutting into the large central branch, hollowing out half of it to create a space of about three square meters. Seeing the size of the space, Qin Fei couldn’t help but marvel at the age of the trees here.

He then placed the cut tree bark back in its original position. From the outside, it looked like a complete tree, with no sign that there was a hollow inside.

He sprayed a layer of sealant inside the tree, and immediately, the surface of the cut tree hardened and dried quickly. When he knocked on it, it made a solid sound, as if it had been sun-dried.

In his spatial ring, Qin Fei had a camping sleeping bag, picnic tablecloths, as well as their daily clothes and blankets.

He took out a blanket, spread it out, and carefully placed Xi Yuan on it. Then, he used the remaining few vials of medicine to feed him.

He changed Xi Yuan into a clean set of clothes. The ones he was wearing now were wrinkled and had a strong smell of sweat.

He still had no idea where they were or if any zergs lived here. If there were none, how would they survive? Qin Fei racked his brain, trying to recall jungle adventure programs he had watched in the past. It seemed that in these primitive forests, the most dangerous things weren’t the fierce carnivores, but the small, unknown poisonous zergs that were everywhere.

His stomach growled, and he realized he was hungry. However, there weren’t many nutrients left. Thinking about the “mountain chicken” he had seen earlier, Qin Fei made up his mind. He also set up a protective seal on Xi Yuan, configuring the alarm to go off if necessary. He then took out his laser sword. Apart from a few daggers and different types of kitchen knives, this was the strongest weapon he had for self-defense.

After covering the tree hollow with the bark again, he tried to erase any trace of his presence nearby. He swung along the vines in the tree and headed toward the spot where he had seen the mountain chicken.

Although he had never done anything like this before and had no specific training, Qin Fei managed to completely mask his pheromones, extend his mental energy to search for a target, and easily sneak up on the mountain chicken. After quickly severing its head with a single strike, he realized that hunting wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined!

With his success, Qin Fei swiftly left the area. Shortly after he left, countless strange zergs, attracted by the smell of blood, emerged and began to slowly consume the traces of blood on the ground. Even the mountain chicken’s head disappeared without a sound. It was as though nothing had happened here at all.

He hurried back as fast as he could. Thankfully, nothing seemed amiss in the tree hollow. Xi Yuan was still lying in the blanket, his face pale, without a trace of color.

As Qin Fei prepared to clean up, he faced another problem. The creature he had caught, which resembled a mountain chicken, he decided to call it a “mountain pheasant.” After checking it over, he confirmed it wasn’t poisonous. However, given the small size of the space, it was already a challenge. To clean it, he would need water, but he had no water left to waste on cleaning. He had searched around earlier but hadn’t found any water sources. Moreover, this wasn’t the best time to venture out farther to search for one. With no other options, he decided to pluck the feathers, set up a smoking device around the area for barbecuing, and used his grilling tools to cook the meat. Afterward, he had a hearty meal that helped replenish some of his strength. Then, he lay down beside Xi Yuan, planning to get some rest. After all the exhaustion, he was too tired to do anything else.

He slept soundly, and by the time he woke up, it was already dark. Qin Fei didn’t go out again, instead, he finished roasting the remaining mountain chicken and stored it away. He also used the chicken feet and bones to make a pot of soup. He was grateful that the space ring was large enough, as it provided plenty of camping supplies, and the seasonings were sufficient to last them a year or more. They wouldn’t have to eat bland, tasteless food, and there were plenty of tools at his disposal.

The next morning, he gave Xi Yuan a hearty serving of the thick meat broth. After eating himself, he packed up and started heading toward the direction where the trees seemed to be thinner, carrying Xi Yuan on his back.

The forest wasn’t suitable for them to survive. Not only was it damp and pitch-dark, but there were also numerous strange and bizarre zergs. Right now, he could only feel somewhat relieved because of the protective barrier he had set up. Otherwise, he feared that even a single bite from one of those creatures could be fatal due to poison. Dying like that would be too humiliating.

Along the way, if he encountered any mountain chickens or other creatures that his makeshift survival indicator showed as non-toxic and edible, he collected them and stored them in his space ring. At night, he would dig a small hole in a tree to sleep for the night. Every morning, he would set off at dawn. While the ancients worked at sunrise and rested at sunset, for him, it was more like traveling at dawn and resting at sunset. This routine continued for half a month, and finally, he noticed a change in the trees around him.

After sticking to this path for another ten days, he finally emerged from the forest. He saw the long-missed sunlight and the vast open land, and the oppressive gloom of the damp, dark forest lifted.

He also spotted a river. Though there were still many trees, they were only the size of a washbasin in width and scattered sparsely, while the shrubs and grasses were growing thick and abundant. He even saw rabbits and herds of deer in this environment… though the rabbits were almost as tall as him when standing, and the deer were more than three meters tall.

He selected a spot by the river, near the cliffs in the valley, and spent three days carving out a cave about forty square meters in size using his laser sword. The hardness of the rock here was beyond his expectations.

The entrance to the cave was very small, only big enough for him to enter. The overall structure resembled a narrow-necked vase, with a narrow entrance that widened after passing through the bottleneck.

For now, he planned to make do with it. He would expand the space later when he had the time.

During this period, the distress signals he sent out had received no response, indicating that there were no zerg creatures living here. Moreover, the temperature had been dropping steadily, and the leaves on the trees were gradually falling and turning yellow. The animals he could find were becoming fewer and fewer…

This place seemed to be an undeveloped, wilderness planet that had never been colonized by the Zergs. With winter approaching, he wasn’t sure how cold or long the winters here would be. He needed to store enough food and firewood for both of them to survive the winter.

As for warmth, Qin Fei wasn’t worried. The clothes he bought on Aurora Star were still with him, designed to keep him warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If the temperature here dropped too much, he could always layer up and manage. His main concern was food. His supply of nutrition agents was running low, and he hadn’t managed to gather much food during this time.

If it weren’t for the fear that winter might arrive suddenly, he would have considered traveling further. This place wasn’t an ideal place to settle, but it was free of the numerous zergs and the humid, hot air of the forest. Spending the winter here would still be bearable.

After settling down Xi Yuan, Qin Fei began his diligent work of gathering food for the winter in the nearby area.

The most common animals in this area were rat colonies, wild rabbits, and deer herds. There were also plenty of carnivores following the deer, such as wild dogs and mountain leopards. Among these, the mountain leopard was a mutated beast. When they encountered it while hunting, the mountain leopard sensed the threat from the zergs with upright posture and actively left. Seeing this, Qin Fei naturally didn’t provoke it. As someone familiar with his own situation, he had never learned hunting or combat. His abilities were limited to healing and promoting reproduction, his mental power was only useful for environmental scanning and creating mental force shields for self-defense, with no offensive capabilities.

He was busy setting traps on the mountain, capturing passing wild rabbits and deer, searching for edible plant roots, wild fruits, and edible fungi on the dry trees in the forest, and fishing in the river using a fishing net woven from vines. After half a month of this, he had gathered what he thought was enough food for both of them to survive for half a year. He then shifted his focus. He had no choice but to do so, the weather had suddenly dropped, and animals were becoming rare. Except for fishing, it was becoming a matter of luck to find anything else. Since they didn’t have thermal sensors, they couldn’t easily track animals once they hid.

By this time, the space in his space ring was completely filled. The majority of his stock was fish, not just because of the convenience by the river, but also because these fish, rarely preyed upon by other animals, had multiplied in the river. Their vigilance was low, and he had easily caught a lot of them.

After putting Xi Yuan’s space ring on himself and filling the space with firewood, the first snow of the winter fell. Qin Fei then focused on expanding the cave. They couldn’t just have one exit, if something happened, they’d be trapped. Since most of the trees he had chopped down were still green, he cut one into a bed, started a fire to keep warm, and dried the wood at the same time.