After reaching the outskirts of the biodome once more, they set up camp and prepared to travel the following day. Their routine would be to hike from early in the morning until mid-day. When lunch was over, they would train until nightfall and then relax for the few hours they had before bed.
Since they had begun drinking more heavily, everyone had developed a good rapport with each other. Constantly spending two and a half months of your life with the same people did that. The drinking, however, made people far more vulnerable. Everyone had been extremely guarded since they were in nearly constant danger. Being able to drink meant that they would drop their defences.
There had been quite a few breakdowns recently, which only made them closer since everyone could empathise with their plight. They were all in the same situation, after all. Even Tom was being a lot more friendly. Logan and Amelia had argued a few times over the possibility that something had happened between Stephanie and Tom, but she asked her friend and found out that nothing was going on.
Tom was simply happy about how things were going. During the day, he would primarily spar with Amelia. Logan had wanted to train with her since she had the most robust defences and was the only other person to learn an intermediate technique, but Tom had more or less forced him to back off.
Logan still had a chance to spar with her, so he didn’t see the point in arguing. A match or two with Amelia was enough to test out his ideas. It was just that the rest of her afternoons were dominated by Tom.
***
Three days after setting up camp on the outskirts, Logan found a way north that was actually safe. It had been extremely difficult for several reasons. The biggest one was that the jungle dominated nearly all of the space within the biodome, vines and creepers even growing hundreds of metres up the rocky walls in some places.
They assumed most of the perimeter would be like their original campgrounds. For some reason, the southwestern corner of the biodome had a gap of about ten to thirty metres where no plants, vines, or trees grew. The floor was solid rock and clear of grass, making them think that it was the same all the way around. That would’ve been great since it allowed them to see quite a ways ahead and even have a buffer from the dangers of the jungle.
However, once they reached the western perimeter wall, Logan and the others realised that the extra space was only on one side of the biodome. Trees were up against the walls, dense vines grew everywhere, and thick underbrush made it almost impossible to travel through. If not for the fact that getting lost was so easy in the jungle, they might’ve decided to track back and continue on as they had.
After three days of slow hiking, however, they discovered a problem.
“This is difficult,” Logan muttered, dousing the flames around his body. He had just been attacked after encountering a monster less than a minute before. The jungle was too dangerous, forcing him to turn back. It would take a few minutes to get back home, allowing him to daydream about how fantastic their current spot was.
They had set up their tents under the roots of a massive tree. It was inconvenient to move around, but it provided cover and made it very difficult for a monster to get through, which was a form of protection in itself.
Also, it was super cool! The tree was thicker than a boulder, and its trunk floated above the ground thanks to its robust root network. Each root was the size of a normal tree trunk and was tougher than iron, which made complete sense as to how it could hold up the hundred-metre-tall behemoth. It also had some fruits growing in its canopy, each worth a few hundred thousand credits.
Logan and the others had eaten them over the last two days, choosing not to sell any despite their high prices. The main reason was that they had already run out of cultivation medicines in the Shop. There were still the medicinal baths and some other pills and elixirs, but they could all be used indefinitely and weren’t considered as anything more than a supplement to regular training.
The fruits growing on this tree, however, could only be consumed a few times before they lost their effect. They were real treasures, which made them far more effective and valuable than most items in the Shop. Besides, there were only fourteen ripe fruits on the tree, and Logan already had a few million credits in his account. If he couldn’t use those credits to boost his strength, then why would he sell a treasure that could?
The fruits were called Heaven-Gathering Melons. While that name sounded ridiculous, it was actually an accurate description. The melons were each the size of a head and were covered in an electric blue shell that reflected an unusual amount of light. Logan hadn’t believed it at first, but once he picked a fruit and touched its surface, he confirmed that the shell was made of metal.
He also pricked himself quite badly on the spikes. The shell was similar in pattern to a turtle’s since it had hexagonal plates connected to each other through seams. Only instead of being flat, they arced up into hooked spikes.
Logan had been extremely cautious when grabbing them, not even touching them with his bare hands. He had wrapped them up with a blanket first, but little did he know that touching one would shock him. It hurt so much that he seized up and fell out of the hundred-metre-tall tree, only surviving thanks to the egg.
After touching it, he got a System analysis that explained more about them. Each Heaven-Gathering Melon was a potential seed to grow another Heaven-Gathering tree. After a century, the hundred fruits resting in its crown would be struck countless times by lightning, tempering them through the power of the Heavens.
Every year, the weakest fruit would wither and have its lightning energies sent to the remaining survivors. Logan counted that there were only thirty left, meaning that the tree was over a hundred and seventy years old since it took a century to mature in the first place. Once it reached two hundred, there would only be a single fruit remaining.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
What didn’t make sense to Logan was that over fourteen fruits had ripened and were ready to eat. That also meant that all fourteen of them could theoretically be planted. The System prompt hadn’t said anything about how many should ripen, only that the strongest would remain after a century, the others sacrificed to increase the odds of another Heaven-Gathering tree being born.
Either way, they enjoyed fourteen delicious fruits, and Logan almost died fourteen times. He might’ve burned the tree down out of anger if they didn’t taste nice, but they were actually the most delicious fruits he had ever eaten. It had a creamy white flesh that tasted like mango and custard, and since they were bigger than a regular watermelon, there was more than enough to go around.
Each bite caused a wave of electricity to pass through the body. Logan didn’t know what was happening until he finished his first fruit. The little arcs of lightning bounced from cell to cell, burning away flaws in his body by directly zapping the life energies. This effect would build up until the whole fruit was consumed, setting off a storm around a cultivator’s lifeline.
As a result, everyone made a breakthrough in their cultivation. Logan reached the fifth stage of Body Tempering while the others barely managed to step into the fourth. This caused Ron to appear even younger. He had virtually no wrinkles anymore, and his chronic conditions had faded away for good. His training in a life force manual had also reached the peak of the second stage now, meaning he had lost his beer belly.
It cost a ridiculous sum of money for Ron to become healthy again, but the benefits were nothing to scoff at. Until he reached the end of his lifespan, he would be about as spry and healthy as a thirty-year-old. Only when he was close to death would he begin to rapidly age, taking less than a few months to decline to his previous state. Of course, Logan hoped they could help him advance a few more times, giving the old bastard another century or two.
Finally, Logan made it back to camp and called everyone over.
“So, what did you find?” Amelia asked, putting her spear down and wiping her face with a towel. “Judging by your expression, it wasn’t good, right?”
“You are correct. About a kilometre ahead of us is an incredibly strange area. There’s no jungle for about half a kilometre, but the field is covered in massive holes.”
“Holes?” James muttered, looking down at the ground. “How big were they?”
“Relatively large. Some are too small to fall into, but others are tens of metres across. Luckily, there’s a path that we can take to the other side.”
“I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’,” Stephanie added, giving him a cheeky smile.
Logan scratched the back of his head. “There is a path, but at its narrowest point, it’s barely wide enough to put our feet on. Even worse, it goes on for nearly twenty metres with two massive holes on either side.”
“Can’t we just go around?” Deon asked.
“Well, I thought about that and went to explore. The only problem is that a nest of giant ants have taken up residence in the area. And even if we did manage to sneak past them, we would most likely get trapped.”
“Trapped? Have they dug traps in the ground or something?” Stephanie wondered aloud.
“No, the ants produce a sticky sap-like substance that they use to make traps, allowing them to catch anything that wanders through their home turf. I saw a bird land on a branch coated in the substance. It freaked out, eventually falling over and getting completely covered in the viscous substance. A few minutes later, an ant the size of a dog crawled out of a mound of dirt, scooped it up in its mandibles, and carried it under the earth.”
“That’s pretty disturbing.”
“Maybe there’s a medicine we can use to neutralise the stickiness?”
“No, that definitely won’t work. The only medicines in the Shop are for healing or cultivation. Nothing that could affect the environment.”
Everyone fell silent, thinking about their options until someone spoke.
“Can’t we just go around the ants as well, genius?” Tom muttered under his breath, but it was obvious that everyone heard him.
“That was my first thought, which is why I tried to walk around the perimeter of the ant’s territory and almost died. By the time I gave up, I was so scared that I genuinely ran for my life.”
“Scared of what? The ants?”
“No,” Logan said, shaking his head. “The monsters deep in the jungle. I came across a giant snake, its stomach full to bursting with some unfortunate creature the size of a car. After that, I bumped into a jaguar that could blend into the shadows. It pounced on me and almost ripped my head off before I exploded with flames and scared it away.”
Amelia frowned. “So, we have three choices.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Stephanie giggled. “Either we fall into a ditch, choke on some goo, or get preyed on by some creepy monster. Sounds like a typical Friday night back in college.”
***
The next day, everyone packed up their tents and prepared to move out. It only took about twenty minutes to reach their destination after breakfast. Logan guided them all to the edge of the jungle, which ended on a stone bridge that was wider than a car. There was no real danger despite the area seeming quite scary.
It almost looked like the surface of a pumice stone, only instead of being relatively shallow, each hole was so deep that he couldn’t see the bottom. The field was a novel experience, but it wasn’t that interesting. After arriving, the group only spent a minute or so looking.
“How deep do you think it is?” Stephanie asked, talking an unusual amount, even for her.
Amelia just shrugged. “I can’t see the bottom, so deep enough to kill us, at least.”
Stephanie walked over to a rock the size of her head and kicked it down the hole. She mouthed each second, adding them until the rock landed at the bottom. Strangely enough, it didn’t smash into the earth. It actually didn’t smash into anything. Instead, it splashed into a reservoir of water.
“About six seconds,” Tom said, nodding his head. “We could probably survive that if we fell in.”
“You might survive the fall, kid. But how would you get out?” Ron said, earning nothing but silence in response.
With nothing else to say, they continued on with their journey. Some spots required a bit of caution, while others were so large that they could walk side by side. It wasn’t until they reached the deadliest point that things became worrying. Everyone paused at the tiny bridge and began to discuss their options for safely crossing.
Soon, they devised a relatively foolproof plan without the risk of falling and drowning. All they had to do was use ropes. One person would cross at a time, a rope tied around them in case they fell, and the people on either side could keep them up if they lost balance or pull them to the other side if they fell.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was more than good enough. The only problem was who should go first and last, and the reason it was a big deal was quite simple. If the first or last person fell, the rope would pull them back towards the rest of the group. Back, and into the wall of the pit. It would hurt like hell and might even kill one of them, so Logan volunteered to go first.
After that, everyone went across one at a time. With a rope tied between the people on both sides, it was incredibly safe. There were a few times when people looked down and lost balance, but they kept the ropes taut so they could be used to lean on. They all crossed one by one, each person volunteering until it was finally Stephanie’s turn.
For some reason, she didn’t attempt to cross even after a few minutes ticked by. She put her foot on the tiny stone bridge at least ten times but never so much as put her weight on it before running back. After her latest attempt, she froze in place for over a minute until someone called out to her.
“Are you okay?” Amelia shouted.
Stephanie furiously shook her head, her face paler than a ghost’s. “Is this a bad time to tell you all that I’m afraid of heights?”