Published: February 13, 2025
Zhao Xiangxue returned from her transformation state, gasping for breath.
Having regained her strength, she glanced at the densely packed, unhealable wounds on her arm, a hint of despair rising in her eyes.
She had been with the expedition fleet for a long time; she couldn’t remember exactly how long, but it had been at least two or three years.
From the beginning, when they were bullied by the strange monsters, to discovering that the glowing monsters within them could drop things similar to magic crystals, and then occasionally using these items to turn a surface wheel and gaining unimaginable benefits.
In such circumstances, she and a few others had survived to this point.
But the situation was getting worse.
The monsters that appeared were becoming increasingly powerful. Even now, with Zhao Xiangxue’s combat power having broken through to the level of a great master, she still found it difficult to cope.
More and more monsters were descending, some of which had even begun to consciously encircle them, and they couldn’t find the secrets below ground.
Zhao Xiangxue sat down beside Aslan, pulling out a dark chunk of something from a bag nearby and starting to chew on it.
The strength of several individuals had significantly improved since they arrived, but so far, only Zhao Xiangxue and Aslan were at the level of great masters, while the others were still falling short. Because there were no instruments to measure Fuleira's strength, they had no idea exactly where they stood, but based on experience, it was roughly around 120,000 to 130,000.
If they only wanted ordinary rewards, they could choose to place the crystals in the first slot of the first layer when spinning the wheel, thus receiving rewards from every cavity adjacent to the first layer after the spin.
However, spinning that massive wheel was extremely difficult.
Until recently, the surviving members of the expedition fleet had regarded solving this mystery as their only chance of survival.
There was no choice; although they had all regained their strength and had made significant progress, the monsters they faced were getting increasingly powerful, some of which they could no longer contend with.
She understood that the result of this spin would basically determine their fate.
The wounds on her arm were left by a certain type of monster. That monster was small in stature with weak defenses; if attacked, it was almost guaranteed to die. But this creature was incredibly fast, and very few individuals at the great master level could catch a glimpse of it. Its attack power was not high, but it carried a rare toxicity that left injuries slow to heal, continuously sapping the victim’s life energy.
So for a while now, Zhao Xiangxue and her surviving companions had been moving downwards, even though that was a place from which they had previously sacrificed many to escape.
So where had these powerful monsters' counterparts gone? Why did batches keep descending only to disappear? Was there something below? If there was, could it be easily killed?
Firstly, it was a complex multi-layered structure of a wheel, with a total of five layers, each requiring a different number of glowing crystals. The first layer, needing the fewest, still required thirty-seven pieces.
After eating a piece of meat, Zhao Xiangxue felt somewhat better; the nutrients from the meat absorbed through her powerful digestive system helped restore some of her strength.
Aslan glanced at Zhao Xiangxue's arm, his expression dim.
If they could master, no, even just utilize a bit of that, they could continue to hold on.
Secondly, spinning this multi-layered wheel did not guarantee rewards; there was an element of luck involved. Each layer had cavities, and only when the five layers' cavities aligned could they obtain the final rewards of the wheel.
That type of monster was now almost the only food source for the surviving members of the expedition fleet. If they went without for a period, they would go hungry.