Chapter 122: Lu Chen's Confidence

More than two months ago, a strange vine suddenly appeared on the large banyan tree at the end of the valley. It was covered with dense, pale blue leaves that looked enchanting and beautiful.

Golden Dot found a fruit on the vine and swallowed it. Immediately, his body began to change and kept growing continuously.

Hearing this, Lu Chen’s heart stirred. He quickly approached the banyan tree and carefully sensed it.

When he had lived in the hot spring valley, he had always felt something unusual about the cave beneath the banyan tree.

But at that time, his strength was too weak, and the hot spring’s water temperature was too high, making it impossible for him to dive to the bottom for exploration, so he missed the opportunity.

According to Lu Chen’s speculation, this place was very likely to have a spirit stone vein deep beneath the valley’s pool, much like the one at the bottom of the Bloodsnake Orchid Valley.

However, Lu Chen turned and thoroughly examined the area around the banyan tree but found no trace of the vine the monkey had mentioned. Perhaps after the spirit fruit was picked, the vine had withered and died.

Lu Chen felt regretful; Golden Dot was practically wasting a treasure. If it were him, he would have carefully tended the vine to continuously harvest spirit fruits.

But for now, he could at least explore the lake’s bottom.

After deciding, Lu Chen swam into the water, his massive body diving deeper and deeper.

Ten meters, twenty meters... the temperature steadily rose.

Protected by his thick scales, the scalding water no longer posed an insurmountable obstacle for Lu Chen.

Of course, this was also due to his greatly improved tolerance for heat.

The underground cave was not as deep as he had imagined. Lu Chen reached the bottom after diving just over fifty meters.

Then he looked ahead somewhat awkwardly.

Now over ten meters long and weighing more than two tons, his huge body completely blocked the fissure at the bottom of the cave, making it impossible to swim any further.

However, he did sense a faint energy overflow nearby.

The spirit stone vein must lie deeper underground, making it harder to mine.

Maybe he could use compressed energy bombs to blow open the mountain!

But thinking of the mountain hundreds of meters high outside, Lu Chen decisively abandoned the idea.

The scale of such a project was too large and the cost would far outweigh the benefits.

After much thought, he decided to start from the bottom of the small lake. The previous two spirit stone veins he had found were distributed in strips; if one existed here, it should be similar.

After surfacing, Lu Chen looked up at the sky.

Since rescuing several fishermen a while ago, he had noticed a drone hovering high above the valley, continuously monitoring him.

He never regretted it from start to finish.

As he always said: there are things worth doing, and things not worth doing.

To be honest, at Lu Chen’s current level, facing conventional modern human weapons was not necessarily intimidating. Furthermore, as his body continued evolving, he had a strong instinctive sense of danger.

This was likely derived from his “bloodline regression,” akin to what humans called “the way of utmost sincerity, enabling foresight.”

Even if he could not resist, many times he could avoid danger in advance... So long as the attack was not saturated or nuclear in scale.

Of course, if those behind the humans truly intended to strike him, Lu Chen would show no mercy.

He ignored the drone above and focused on the lake’s bottom.

After careful investigation, he chose a spot in the center of the lake.

This area was also rocky. Lu Chen released compressed energy bombs one after another to blast the area.

Fearing that the explosions would shake the surrounding mountains, he deliberately controlled the scale of the blasts.

Even so, the noise was loud.

The lake surface roared and huge splashes continuously rose.

After two or three detonations, Lu Chen began moving the rubble with his sharp claws.

Soon, a pit four or five meters deep and twenty or thirty meters long appeared.

However, after searching around, he found no trace of a spirit vein.

Lu Chen was somewhat frustrated.

There were two possibilities: either he had blasted in the wrong place, or the spirit stone vein lay buried far deeper than he had imagined.

He decided to stop for now and search for food.

The fruits the monkey had given earlier contained few energy points and were quickly digested after all the effort.

Lu Chen greeted Golden Dot and planned to leave the valley, but the little creature followed him.

Then, squeaking, it led the way.

As they left, the drone continued to follow from high above.

Following Golden Dot’s guidance, the monkey and the crocodile ran through dense jungle, soon arriving over a hundred miles away.

Just stepping into a pine forest, Lu Chen smelled a faint metallic scent and sensed a ferocious aura from a powerful being nearby.

He recognized the scent well — likely a black bear, ninety percent sure it had mutated.

The claw marks on the nearby tree trunks were as large as basins, indicating the bear’s weight surely exceeded half a ton.

Black bears had extremely keen noses. To prevent the beast from detecting him and fleeing, Lu Chen deliberately restrained his presence.

After running another four or five miles, he finally saw the creature’s true form.

Its dark gray fur shone with an oily luster. Its thick limbs resembled pillars, and its massive body looked like a heavy armored vehicle.

This was indeed a mutated black bear!

Before the great upheaval, even the strongest black bears weighed just over 600 pounds, standing a little over a meter tall at the shoulder.

Yet this bear towered over three meters at the shoulder and weighed at least 2,500 pounds. Its size was twice that of Kodiak bears, known as the “kings of bears.”

It stood still, exuding a fierce and bloodthirsty aura.

“Golden Dot is quite mischievous...” Lu Chen immediately understood why the little creature had brought him here.

This black bear king was likely the monkey clan’s natural enemy. They must have clashed many times, and now it wanted to use him to eliminate its rival.

Although he knew Golden Dot had his own agenda, Lu Chen did not resent it.

Such prime flesh and blood was something he desperately needed.

The black bear king roared fiercely upon seeing the monkey king and the unfamiliar four-legged reptile.

The deep, booming sound was like thunder, shaking the nearby leaves.

Birds perched in the surrounding trees flapped their wings and screamed in alarm before fleeing.

The bear turned to look at Golden Dot. The two had fought many times before, with no clear victor.

Then it shifted its gaze to the four-legged reptile.

Though Lu Chen deliberately restrained his aura, trying to appear ordinary and unremarkable, his enormous body could not hide the identity of a top-tier predator.

Moreover, the mutated black bear had an extremely strong survival instinct.

As expected, after hesitating for a moment, a flicker of fear appeared in its beastly eyes.

Like many other mutated fierce beasts, it turned and fled in disgrace the next moment.

Damn... Lu Chen suddenly felt bored.

Since evolving to the fifth tier, it had become increasingly difficult to experience the thrill of fighting enemies.

Most creatures’ first reaction upon seeing him was to run away...

The black bear galloped swiftly, covering over fifty meters in the blink of an eye.

Before Lu Chen could make a move, Golden Dot hurried after it and blocked its path.

With no way forward, the black bear king still refused to give up and leapt onto a nearby tree nearly sixty meters tall and as thick as two men embracing.

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