novelbin Chapter 318: It All Adds Up
Chapter 318: It All Adds Up
The shrill scream came to an abrupt end.
The remaining bats that had been furiously attacking the Diamond Sand Cover began to scatter in chaos.
Nina Jacobs retracted the Diamond Sand Cover and dug a Beast Core out from the pile of charred husks.
"Was that a Sound Wave Attack that evolved from a Mystic Ice Core?"
Adrian Shaw asked as he walked over.
Nina Jacobs shook her head. "I’m not sure, but it should have had some kind of Spiritual Control, like how Treasure uses Hypnosis."
As if the Beast Core in her hand held some magical power, the bats swarming around all dove toward it at once.
Seeing this, the group worked together to eliminate the bats.
Nina Jacobs noticed that even after killing these smaller bats, the kills weren’t being counted toward her system mission.
The only one that had been added to the mission count was the human-like bat from before.
"If one of the bats absorbs this Beast Core, I’m afraid it will trigger a new round of evolution,"
Chase Gallagher said.
"What about in there? Are we still going in?"
Marcus Miller asked, pointing at the pitch-black cave entrance not far away.
It was completely silent inside and looked empty.
"We’re going in. But we should leave a marker first,"
Nina Jacobs said.
It was already dark out, anyway.
Going into the cave wouldn’t be much different from staying outside.
They left a marker outside the cave using Trevor’s method, and Shirley Lucas took several high-powered flashlights out of her space, instantly illuminating the cave as if it were daytime.
After the group had entered the cave, Nina Jacobs used her Earth Element Superpower to seal the entrance behind them.
This was to prevent anything from sneaking in from behind while they were scouting ahead.
"I remember Naji saying both ends of this cave were sealed off. If it’s relatively clean inside, we can rest here for the night,"
Shirley Lucas said as they walked.
They discovered the inside of the cave was not jagged and craggy as they had imagined.
Instead, it was a man-made tunnel.
There were even some man-made markings on the tunnel walls.
"I think that’s a good idea. It has to be safer than staying outside."
Leo Hale had now seen firsthand just how many Mutated Animals were at the bottom of the cliff.
In a single day, they had already been attacked by mutated ostriches, wild boars, a zombified black bear, a pack of mutated wolves, and those strange bats.
"I wonder if Greg Unger and his companion are safe."
Adrian Shaw didn’t want any casualties; after all, those Bishop Clan Members had come to the bottom of this cliff because of them.
"They’re familiar with the terrain here. They should be fine,"
Nina Jacobs said.
The group continued forward and found nothing else out of the ordinary.
However, they soon came to a fork in the path that connected to what looked like a natural cavern.
Several human skeletons, gnawed clean of flesh, lay scattered there.
The number of bodies matched the number of people in Lynch’s group who had entered the cave.
Nina Jacobs immediately used fire to burn the skeletons to ash.
Further ahead, the ground was covered in a thick layer of bat droppings.
"Looks like this is the bats’ habitat,"
Adrian Shaw said.
The smell, however, was not pleasant.
Nina Jacobs shone her flashlight upward, her gaze finally settling on a suspended stone ledge along the wall.
"I think there’s something up there,"
Nina Jacobs said.
"You’re right, there is. It’s hard to spot if you’re not looking for it,"
Beckett Abbott said, having climbed to a higher spot to get a better look.
It was something piled up from twigs, resembling a bird’s nest.
Nina Jacobs directly manipulated her Earth Element Superpower to lower the stone ledge.
Everyone’s eyes widened as they saw what was on the ledge.
"Unbelievable,"
Holden Shaw exclaimed.
It was a pile of Mystic Ice Cores, more than two hundred in total.
"Better to be lucky than to be early. Now there’s no one to fight us for them,"
Leo Hale said, glad that the other group had run off so quickly.
"I never would have thought these bats were so good at collecting these things,"
Adrian Shaw said, his mood so good that he didn’t even notice the cave’s stench anymore.
But the credit for finding these Ice Cores still went to Nina Jacobs.
"Remember to exchange them for Crystal Cores for me later,"
Nina Jacobs said, letting Shirley Lucas store them away.
"No problem."
Adrian Shaw was naturally happy to agree.
After leaving the natural bat cave, the group returned to the tunnel from before.
They ultimately decided to rest for the night on a relatively clean platform.
Shirley Lucas’s space seemed to contain everything; even resting here, everyone had their own tent and folding cot.
Lying in her tent, Nina Jacobs couldn’t shake the feeling that she had missed something.
While the others were sound asleep, she released the Little Zombie Rat from under her tent.
The rat returned to the bat cave and began to explore.
’Logically, tens of thousands of bats should have accumulated more than just this,’
Nina Jacobs thought to herself.
She controlled the rat, making it crawl slowly along the wall.
The rat’s perspective magnified every corner of the cave.
It finally stopped at a spot that was faintly glowing.
It was a crevice between a few rocks, right near the entrance to the bat cave.
The rat squeezed into the dark crevice and, just as she suspected, found something.
’So that’s how it is.’
Back in the tent, Nina Jacobs took out a bottle of Invisibility Potion and drank it.
She then opened her tent and quietly returned to the bat cave.
Inside the dark bat cave, numerous spots were glowing faintly.
They hadn’t noticed these spots earlier because of the bright beams from their flashlights.
Nina Jacobs observed the glowing stones and deduced they were likely some kind of mineral crystal that emitted a faint light in the dark.
The crevices nearby were stuffed full of Mystic Ice Cores of all sizes.
’This must be what they saw back then.’
Nina Jacobs now understood completely.
The group Alistair White had called into the cave earlier had clearly discovered something at first, which explained their initial cries of surprise.
But they had quickly discovered the swarm of bats and the human-like bat in the cave.
That group didn’t have flashlights; their only light source was the Fire Element Superpower User.
That’s why they had noticed the glowing rock crevices in the cave.
And discovered the Mystic Ice Cores inside.
It all added up.
Having figured it out, Nina Jacobs began to use her Earth Element Superpower to carefully move the rocks aside.
There were quite a few such rock crevices throughout the cave.
After working her way through them, Nina Jacobs managed to collect no fewer than another 400 Ice Cores.
After storing these Mystic Ice Cores in her system inventory, Nina Jacobs quietly returned to her tent.
’Right now, I need to focus on finishing the second 7-Day Mission as soon as possible.’
Nina Jacobs thought, looking at the 1/60 on her mission tab.
’The experience reward for the first 7-Day Mission was 20,000, and the second one is already up to 30,000. If it keeps stacking like this, the rewards will be substantial.’
’But we’ve already killed quite a few of the Mutated Animals at the bottom of the cliff.’
’I’ll have to go through this cave to get to the mountain on the other side.’
So, early the next morning, Nina Jacobs got up, only to find that someone else was already awake before her.
"How do you feel?"
Adrian Shaw asked, looking at Beckett Abbott and Marcus Miller.
The night before, just before bed, he had asked Shirley Lucas to give two Mystic Ice Cores to Beckett Abbott and Marcus Miller.
The two of them had Wood Element and Water Element Superpowers, respectively.
"I feel great!" Marcus Miller exclaimed, materializing an Ice Spike. Both his and Beckett Abbott’s eyes were filled with pleasant surprise.
"It’s much faster to channel my Superpower now," Beckett Abbott added. He was eager to go out and test it, wishing a zombie would appear right about now.