Eerie Center

Shane was starting to dislike the taste but unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it so he gulped down the third set of potions.

There were still three sets of potions left for him to use and in total 12 hours left before Shane had to leave the Soul-Onyx-Jungle, after which, he wouldn't be able to see anything at all within the jungle.

He hadn't combed through the outskirts of the valley's lower part yet. He estimated that it would take another one or two hours before he would be done.

Shane expected to enter the main field sooner as more Nightshade flowers could be plucked within a shorter amount of time, even though there would be more Shadow-pythons to kill.

It was a high-risk opportunity but he wanted to take the chance. Thus, he collected all the Nightshade flowers from the lower outer circle of the valley in 90 minutes.

The bottom of the valley was full of Nightshade flowers and only a few spots were not occupied by the flowers. The abundance of the flowers caused Shane's eyes to brighten up, when he slowly descended to the valley ground, without letting his guard down.

Looking around, Shane noticed that the main field was divided into different sections. The outer field had a few dozen Nightshade flowers growing extremely close to each other and most likely a few Shadow-snakes and pythons hiding underneath them.

From his shallow experience that he accumulated over the last few hours, Shane knew that the more Nightshade flowers occupied a small space, the higher was the number and strength of the beasts hiding below.

As such, Shane used this experience to pluck the smaller Nightshade flower field in order to extinguish the smaller threats first.

But even so, the `smaller` bunches of 30 Nightshade flowers already inhabited two mid-Wild stage shadow-pythons. Shane fought them with a slight time disparity, as Umbra distracted the later shadow-python with his shadow needles.

This gave Shane enough time to use his tempered shiolite dagger to deflect the first shadow python's fangs that were about to pierce into his flesh. He lashed out with his spark dagger, piercing through the scales with a slight resistance, killing it.

Feeling the resistance, Shane knew that the spark dagger could only be used for mid wild stage pythons with their tough scales, and piercing through the endurable scales with his [Mortal-(Uncommon)] dagger was not possible.

As such Shane would have to use his shiolite dagger to kill the slightly stronger beasts, otherwise his spark dagger would either be damaged or break completely. That would put him in a risky situation and it was not something he wanted to happen.

There were more and more beasts, Shane had to kill and it took him slightly more time to come out victorious than before but even then, the number of Nightshade flowers he plucked within a few minutes, exceeded his previous gains by a large margin.

Shane felt weirdly uncomfortable as he circled around the Center with its hundreds of Nightshade flowers, He decided to ignore the feeling for the time being and avoided nearing the center.

Time passed in a blur and he had already consumed the fourth set of potions while he sent out multiple packages to the Corvi race, making his heart leap in joy.

Even if the packages with the Nightshade flowers were all at the trash quality, he would gain slightly more than 20 gold per Who would hate something like that?

He hadn't left a single flower in the outer parts of the valley ground. Shane came across a high-Wild stage Shadow-python that was more than 2 meters long, causing him to gulp nervously.

However, with the help of a surprise attack of the bright shining light caused by the prismarine-luminous crystals, he could kill it rather easily.

What astonished Shane was that the high-Wild Shadow-python was located far away from the largest field of the Nightshade flowers where hundreds of flowers were situated.

But even more confusing for Shane was that not a single beast could be seen close to the main field and he had a bad feeling about it.

The closer they came to the center, the more uncomfortable both Shane and Umbra became, and an eerie sensation overcame them.

Fortunately, there were more than enough small fields that were still occupied by a bunch of mid-Wild shadow-pythons and, far away from the eerie center.

When Shane gulped down his last set of potions, he almost vomited, as the taste turned even more disgusting. He swore that he would not drink these potions for the time being, if he didn't have to.

As he carefully singled out the areas with fewer Nightshade flowers, Shane noticed that there were only areas with at least bunches of 100 flowers left.

This told him that he had earned a huge fortune. However, if he wanted to continue, he had to face not only high-Wild Shadow-snakes alone but probably even multiple of them at the same time.

Tightening his grip around the shiolite dagger, Shane wanted to give it at least a try. He had already taken out a prismarine-luminous crystal to play it safe when he got closer to the smallest of the large Nightshade fields.

As long as he wouldn't come closer to the largest, extremely terrifying Nightshade flower field, everything would be fine.

Before plucking out the Nightshade flowers to enrage the beasts below, Shane carefully walked around, looking out for black scales sticking out of the soil. Unfortunately, there was nothing indicating a beast hiding below the flowers.

This meant that he couldn't assassinate the Shadow- pythons hiding underneath the flowers and now it was Umbra's time to shine.

Umbra emitted the same sound he had used, when Shane had kidnapped him Shane could notice obvious movements from below the mud. It was interesting to see the desire of Shadow-pythons to protect offsprings of other beasts of the same kind, even if they killed each other from time to time.

Goosebumps erupted all over his body when Shane noticed three large bodies with a size of more than 1.5 meters. When their heads emerged from the ground, they looked around to search for the culprit.

Seeing Shane, they hissed in wrath, and only due to him possessing the [Hunter's Mind] passive skill, he could barely hold himself together.

He immediately overclocked the prismarine-luminous crystal two times, causing it to shine in an even brighter light than it had ever been before. Shane threw himself to the ground with closed eyes, before he exerted the mana gathering technique He barely sensed a bunch of dark mana particles enveloping three large silhouettes that stuck out of the ground.

Over the last few hours, he found out that he could barely feel other beings with his closed eyes, once he exerted the mana gathering technique.

Using this advantage, he striked with his dagger at the first silhouette. Shane felt the tough resistance from the black scales of a high-wild stage beast before he pierced through it.

Blood splattered on Shane but he had no time to relax. He threw the already overclocked prismarine-luminous crystal in the air after which it scattered, releasing another bright shining light.

With this, another prismarine-luminous crystal appeared within his hand.

However, before using it, Shane appeared in front of a painful hissing silhouette, and he slashed at it without any hesitation.

He met some resistance even though his dagger was Tier-1 but that wasn't the main problem that caused Shane to be unable to sever the snakes with a single slash.

His shiolite dagger was sharp enough to do so, only his own physique hindered him in exerting enough strength, causing his rough movement.

When the light around Shane dimmed slightly, he overclocked his second prismarine luminous-crystal. A painful hiss was emitted by the last alive silhouette around him.

The last Shadow-python threw around its body in vain and a moment later, Shane's dagger had cut a deep gash through the snake's scales, finally killing it.

Once everything was over, the light diminished and Shane could open his eyes once again.

Without further ado, Shane stored the corpses inside his store and he began to pluck the Nightshade flowers, unbothered by everything.

Suddenly a loud roar filled the whole shadow-snake valley. Shane could see hand-sized black scales protruding out of the soil as the mud shifted in the center of the valley where the thousands of Nightshade flowers were situated.

Two Football-sized yellowish slits could be seen sticking out of the mud, the eyes bore into Shane's while they released a dense bloodlust with the distinct desire to tear him apart, causing cold sweat to run down his back.

Only now did Shane understand that the Lord of the Shadow-snake valley had revealed itself and its interest was none other than he, himself.

'F**K'

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