Chapter 210: The World Where Food Reigns Supreme [Part 2]
Seeing that the gray cat, Scarlet Wind, Snowball and the rest of the animals were looking at him, Udoze obviously looked a little embarrassed as he rubbed his nose and changed the topic, “Hey, can you guys move a little faster? We’re going to leave after we mined the energy ores, and looking at your pace there seems to be a lot of places you haven’t visited yet. You should enjoy to your heart’s content since we rarely get a chance like this, you know?”
His sentiment was echoed by everyone in the gray cat’s gang. They immediately forgot the question as to how a person could defecate so much they couldn’t help themselves and went away to look for more novel plants.
Cary went over to check out Tico and Rikulab’s work in processing the medicinal plants while picking a bit of skill himself in the process. Udoze followed suit, but only watched for a short moment. His attention was grabbed by a beautiful plant.
The plant was pretty short and was less than two meters tall. There was a colorful feather-like thing at the top of the plant that made it look like a peafowl spreading its wings. It looked very beautiful, and there was a sweet scent emanating from it. It was a sight to behold.
Udoze couldn’t help but take out his filming device and take a photo of the scene.
Cillin was processing a plant when he saw the vines that had curled up because of his arrival suddenly stretched long, swift and excitedly towards a particular direction. The direction they were headed was where Udoze was standing.
At the same time, the vines around Rikulab, Tico and Cary had also stirred to life as they stretched swiftly towards Udoze.
“Watch out, Udoze!”
Cillin ran over at high speed, popped out his wrist blade and cut the stretching vines in half. He took out a spray and sprayed Udoze’s arm while the rest of the vines continued to stretch towards Udoze.
Cary and Rikulab had also came to help cut down those vines that were crawling in from all directions. They didn’t dare to use fire or an ultra low temp gun because their surrounding environment were unstable, and it was all too easy for external influences to alter them. Cutting the vines with their blades was the safest measure.
When Cillin put on a gas mask on Udoze’s face, the victim himself was still in a daze. What was going on? He was going to help cut those vines himself, but now he was being treated like a patient by Cillin even though he wasn’t hurt… Eh?!
Udoze looked at his arm and saw many bloody scratches. Some of them were even dripping with blood. Cillin closed up the wound after spraying it with the recovery spray so that it would stop bleeding, and after wiping the blood traces on Udoze’s arm he tossed the stained tissue far away. Then, he pulled Udoze away from where they stood.
After they had ran for fifty meters, Udoze looked back and saw that the place he stood had been completely covered in vines already. The place where the stained tissue had landed was where the vines were the thickest. It was obvious that these vines were attracted by Udoze’s blood.
“You absolutely mustn’t get hurt. Any bleeding will trigger a chain reaction,” Cary had lived through many experiences. He could already imagine roughly a couple of scenarios that might happen at first glance.
Thankfully, Udoze was the only person who got hurt among them. If everyone was hurt, they would have to deal with an entire floor of vines, which meant no time to treat the wound, stop the bleeding or clean up the blood traces. Judging from the fine sawteeth of the plants that had spread open because of the blood, the situation might have grown worse and worse.
Panting, the wounds on Udoze’s arms gradually transmitted pain to his senses after he had put on the gas mask.
“What’s going on? I didn’t even notice that my arm was cut earlier,” Udoze was very puzzled. He was just taking a photo, but not only was he cut without him noticing at all, he had even suffered multiple wounds and bled quite profusely.
Rikulab released a floating measuring instrument and allowed it to circle around the area once. It brought back some data for him to identify and analyse,
“Among the various gases that are released by that plant, there are a lot nitrous oxide. There’s also a small amount of gases released as a byproduct that are capable of affecting the nervous system, but not enough to knock out or kill a human being. Anyone who inhaled this mixture of gases would lose their ability to feel pain, but not their consciousness. The secondary gases ensured that the human body could continue to function normally, which is why Udoze hadn’t noticed anything at all just now,” Rikulab explained.
Nitrous oxide could inhibit release of excitatory neurotransmitters and the conduction of nerve impulses in the central nervous system. That was how Udoze was bled by the plant but felt nothing at all from the injury.
Udoze sucked in a deep breath. The only reason he had acted so boldly was because he saw that neither of them was wearing a protective suit. It would appear that he would have to exercise caution.
As a Hunter, Udoze still had plenty to learn. Vigilance couldn’t be nurtured through speech; he would have to go through some experiences before he could instill it inside him.
Despite the experience, Udoze was obviously not cowered into inaction. On the contrary, his interest actually piqued as he held a measuring instrument and went every in search for similar plants with his gas mask on.
Cillin didn’t try to stop him. This was also a kind of training, and it would be good for him if he could accumulate more experiences.
Further ahead, there was a lake with some algae but no fishes whatsoever. There were no aquatic creatures to be seen anywhere, and there were only countless nameless plants ranging from sizes of tiny to massive.
There was a huge tree on the other side of the lake. It looked like a giant that was proudly overlooking the tiny beings on the ground. Compared to the tree, Cillin and everyone else were as small as ants.
After walking over to the giant tree and inspecting its surroundings, Cillin came to the conclusion that it sat at the top of the food chain of this area. But there weren’t many such giant trees to be found. In fact, their numbers were pitifully few. This was the measure a living being assumed against its environment during the process of evolution. This was also a law of nature.
Cillin found a ‘giant’s substance’ inside the giant tree. It was this ‘giant’s substance’ that caused this type of tree to grow bigger and bigger. Cillin looked at the horizon after he had collected some primitive substances. Night was about to arrive.
Normally, a forest at night was filled with countless dangers and appearing animals. However, there were no animals in this place, so how did this forest look at night?
As light faded, twilight arrived.
The most obvious plant at night was the row of trees not far away from their position. Those trees had branches that stretched towards the outside, and every one of these branches had a big flower on it. The flower was about twenty centimeters in diameter, and they looked rather unassuming in broad daylight.
During the day, It was only natural that this unassuming green flower wouldn’t attract too much attention when the world around it was filled with all kinds of colors. But as nighttime arrived, the flowers gradually glowed white in color. The darker the night was, the brighter they became.
Plants who were attracted by light including the vines gradually moved towards this type of tree, and the other branches of the tree would grab the plants that had fallen for its trap firmly before cutting them away from their main body. Finally, they would turn these plant parts into their own nutrients.
This was the plant’s tactic to survive in the wild.
The atmosphere of this forest changed the night, so everyone put on a protective suit and a gas mask just in case.
Once the glowing plants had had a fulfilling meal, they would either dim their lights or turn them off entirely to conserve energy.
The night on this planet was short, but it was enough for some night crawling plants to enjoy a full meal. Most of the plants in the forest were asleep. They engaged in photosynthesis during the day and respiration, activity and sleep during the night. In a forest that was abuzz with the cries of insects, the only sounds that exist were slithering plants hunting down their preys.
During this night, Cillin’s group witnessed the nightcrawlers’ hunt and the changes in the area’s atmosphere. No wonder there were no animals in this place. Most animals wouldn’t be able to survive such an atmosphere at all.
This was a world that belonged only to plants. When there were no outsiders, they were the rulers of this world as they fought and reproduced by the way of the plants.
The next day early in the morning, a dull thumping sound resounded when the first ray of light hit this plant covered area.
It was a tree with a trunk so wide it would take five people to hug it. It was very tall, but couldn’t compare to the giant trees of course. There was a bell shaped flower at the top of the tree, and the thumping sound had come from it.
When natural light had touched its exterior, the bell-shaped flowers began to shake and let out distant rings. They announced the end of the night and the beginning of the day.
Once the bell-shaped flower was done ringing, the flowers that had closed themselves during the night gradually bloomed as the sleeping plants came to wakefulness once more. They were perhaps pondering about the next target to hunt.
Cillin and everyone else looked at the light stretching from the horizon. Then, they continued to work on their unfinished tasks.
A new day had begun once more.