Underground tunnel

[Geno points acquired: 100 ordinary geno points; 34 primitive geno points]

Bian hunted for primitive creatures throughout the night, until the evening of the next day. Sadly they were far too little primitive creatures in the forest and he couldn't venture too far from the geno sapling.

"No, it should be called a geno tree now." Bian looked at the mighty tree before him, three car sized chests were growing from the branches, glowing with gold light.

[Acquired beast soul of ordinary mount, Bone Tamus x3]

Bian opened all three chests collecting three ordinary mounts, he could trade these for money at the market. Now that he had collected the fruits from the tree, it began withering quickly and was soon reduced to dust.

Bian's shirt had been destroyed before, he was wearing a primitive armor from a creature called the silver ant. It was a silver, full body, light armor, with black fabric present at the joints to allow for movement.

Thanks to his strengthened kidneys and heart, Bian didn't feel the least bit tired and decided to continue exploration before he headed back to the shelter. Although he wasn't sure of the full extent of his Emperical Aura, it could serve as a map scanner.

The light could penetrate the ground and trees awhile also revealing the lifeforce of different creatures and differentiating geno trees from ordinary ones. It was an indispensable tool to have.

An indigo light spread from the center of his body, overtaking the already weak rays of sunlight present in the forest. The indigo light travelled through the ground, trees and skies and scaring away the inhabitants of the forest.

"What is that?"

Bian felt multiple life forces moving in an underground tunnel. They belonged neither to creatures nor geno plants, they were spirits. The highest ranked spirit was a female knight spirit with all four of her gene locks opened.

"Is that my sword!"

The female Knight spirit had a katana that had the same dimensions as the black katana Bian picked up from the gold-horned shura. He couldn't see the color of the katana with the Emperical Aura, but Bian was sure it was his.

Redrawing his aura, Bian decided to follow the tunnel from above. Thankfully, the spirits didn't withdraw even after a strange indigo light penetrated the tunnels. They kept marching forward but summoned some beast soul pets to man the front.

The creatures they summoned were mostly ordinary and a few primitive ones. The tunnel wasn't large enough to accommodate huge creatures.

Bian used the dongxuan sutra to roughly sense their position as he advanced. He avoided using the Emperical Aura so as not to draw attention to himself in the forest, and so as not to spook the spirits once more.

Bian had to tread lightly, hiding his presence as much as possible. After travelling several kilometers, he felt the air growing heavy. He had to avoid several sacred-blood creatures moving about like colossal monsters, if even one noticed him, it could be his end.

Luckily, the path of the tunnel seemed to have less danger than the forest around. As Bian kept avoiding the creatures, he began to reconsider if he should head back. He had already followed them for over a day, and it was getting more and more dangerous.

'The forest around the shelters are safe, but there is a special way to pass to reach this area of the forest. If not for the tunnel, it would be difficult to reach this part of the forest. Maybe I should come back, when I am more prepared.'

As Bian was thinking this, he came across a large tree made of stone. The tree was also a geno plant with four stone treasure chests growing on it. The stone chests looked incredible heavy, as though they would drop from the tree at any moment.

A large pair of yellow eyes suddenly opened up on the tree, there were three pupils in each of those eyes. Bian instantly felt his armor get heavy, while his skin got a bit itchy.

Bian summoned a primitive arrow and threw it at the center of the two eyes. The arrow slowly turned to stone and broke, when a palm left the tree and swatted it away. A large stone lizard slowly came to view.

'A mutant creature with three gene locks opened' Bian thought, astonished that he had not sensed its presence with the dongxuan sutra.

[Your beast soul has been destroyed]

[Your beast soul has been destroyed]

As the arrow shattered, his silver armor turned to stone completely including the gap in between with the black fabric, everything turned to stone. The lizard climbed down from the tree, approaching him with its mouth wide opened.

It was three times bigger than Bian, and aimed to swallow him in one bite. Once it got closer to him, the stone armor around Bian shattered. He rushed towards the lizard, grabbing it and nimbly navigating around its body with ghost haunt.

The lizard recoiled, smacking itself against the trees and ground. Bian moved away right before it could squash him. He moved towards the thin neck, locking his arm around it.

The lizard tried flinging him off, but to no avail. He squeezed tightly, his jade-like skin closing in on the throat of the lizard like a unstoppable force of nature. The lizard struggled greatly, but the more it struggled, the tighter Bian's grip got around its throat.

"Die!" Bian gave one final squeeze, and with a cracking sound, the lizard collapsed. All signs of life from the giant lizard had been extinguished without spilling a single drop of blood.

[Mutant creature, Stone-Devil beast killed. The beast soul has been acquired. Eat its flesh to gain 0 to 10 mutant geno point randomly.]

Only after hearing the system's announcement did Bian let go. The battle seemed easily won, but he would have been in danger if not for the immunity jadeskin provided. Even with that immunity, Bian still felt an itch all over his body, he thought it was better not to try his luck against sacred-blood and super variants of this creature.

Claws grew on both of Bian's hands. He had given the lizard a bloodless death so he would be safe from predators randomly spawning due to blood. He struggled to pierce the flesh of the lizard, but eventually penetrated it.

[Flesh of Stone-Devil beast eaten. One mutant geno point gained]

...

[Flesh of Stone-Devil beast eaten. One mutant geno point gained]

After three minutes of using Vitality Drain, Bian finally turned the large corpse of the lizard to a husk. He placed a water drop from the black crystal on the tree, reducing their number to eleven, then he quickly followed the path above the tunnel, finding the group of spirits not long after.

'What type of Beast Soul did I even get?' Bian pondered, hoping it was an armor type.

[Type of beast soul of Stone-Devil Beast: Glyph]

Bian was a little disappointed it wasn't armor, he didn't fancy traveling through the forest with his bare chest exposed. He summoned the beast soul of the Stone-Devil beast, a black lizard tattoo appeared across his back.

Every part of his body instantly turned to stone, including his hair and his eyes. His body stopped moving, his chest also stopped beating. He became a lifeless stone statue.

'Nice, I can perfectly camouflage as a lifeless object. Sadly, I can't move while using the glyph.'

As Bian unsummoned the glyph, he heard a light thud from where he came. He quickly ran back to the stone tree, the life force was completely gone while the four stone chests had fallen on the ground. Bian cautiously opened the first chest from behind, not daring to stand at its front.

[Mutant Weapon Beast soul obtained; Stone Spear]

A light flew from the chest to his chest, entering into his sea of soul. Seeing that it was safe, he opened the other three chests.

[Mutant Weapon Beast soul obtained; Stone Shield]

[Mutant Weapon Beast soul obtained; Stone Great sword]

[Mutant Armor Beast soul obtained; Stone Armor]

"Maybe the Lizard was planning on trading these."

Putting on the stone armor, Bian felt it was a bit heavy. It was a knight-type heavy armor, with multiple vertical slits for vision. The gaps between the armor were narrower than the gaps in his former primitive armor, but the mutant armor didn't have any fabric between the gaps, leaving his skin exposed.

The stone armor was heavy and hard to miss, not useful for sneaking through the forest. Bian unsummoned it, running to catch up to the spirits in the tunnel. 

He heard a clash up ahead, the forest ground sloped downwards only to even out again. There in the plains below, Bian saw an open hatch. He presumed that was where the spirits emerged from.

The spirits in questions had summoned several weapons and pets to fight against a pack of green wolves. The wolves wielded the power of the wind, slashing out with lethal wind blades and combining their attacks to take down tough enemies like large turtles.

A beautiful spirit wielding a black katana flashed by three primitive wolf, beheading each of them. She seemed to be doing the most damage in the group with her fearful black katana. She killed a mutant wolf next, even though she was only a knight spirit. She was incredible skilled even without the black katana.