Somewhere in the forest.
A female voice could be heard
"Junior brother, come here."
Grim went to her location and asked. "What is it, senior sister?"
"Look at that cave. Don't you find it unusual?"
She pointed at the cave.
Grim looked at the cave and saw a faint aura around it.
"It does seem unusual."
"Right? Let's call senior brother and explore the cave." Gu Lan said with excitement.
Grim nodded in response and called for the senior brother.
"Senior brother, please come here."
Soon, Ren Dan arrived. They gave him the details and all of them agreed to explore the cave.
The trio made their way inside the cave.
***
The insides of the cave were dark and damp.
So, Gu Lan produced a ball of fire for light.
The walls of the caves were wet, and the ground was filled with black soil.
The cave was giving off a smell of petrichor(an earthy smell that rises from the ground after the first drops of rainfall).
They decided to venture further into the cave.
***
After walking for half an hour, they saw rays of light in front.
A bit of inspection led them to the source of light. The source turned out to be the small holes that were on the ceiling of the cave.
They resumed their journey again and arrived at the end of the cave after a few hours.
The end of the cave was spacious, and a quick look revealed the luminous plants that filled the cave.
The walls were lined with luminous moss and the grounds with luminous plants.
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It was a beautiful scene like out of fantasy.
The trio admired the beauty for a while.
Gu Lan blurted. "There must be around a hundred plants here."
Then, Ren Dan issued an order.
"We will harvest the strong ones at evolution grade and leave the weaker ones at refiner grade."
All of them agreed.
They were about to start. Suddenly, a pungent smell assaulted everyone's noses.
Grim couldn't help but ask.
"Senior brother and sister, do you smell it too?"
They nodded in response and checked their surrounding. But, couldn't find anything.
Gu Lan responded.
"It must be the decaying plants. Let's harvest and get out of here."
They all went back to harvesting.
Unbeknownst to them, red dots started appearing on the ceiling.
***
Grim and his trio were focused on harvesting.
Suddenly, they heard multiple high-pitched noises.
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
The noise was coming from directly above them. So, they looked at the ceiling and got goosebumps.
There were hundreds, if not thousands red dots in the ceiling.
Ren Dan asked, "What the hell is that?"
Grim responded.
"I don't know."
Gu Lan was panicking. So, she launched a fireball at the ceiling in response.
The fireball struck at one of the red dots and burned it. They were able to get a clear view of the ceiling and it was filled with bats.
Soon, all of them faced the trio and started squeaking.
Ren Dan shouted. "Get ready for battle."
Soon, a battle broke out.
***
Grim started spamming 'solar wave'.
Gu Lan spammed 'fire arrows' and Ren Dan spammed 'lightning slash' respectively.
As the battle continued, the air inside the cave started thinning out due to Grim's solar wave.
He switched to 'storm'. But, some of the bats managed to dodge the attack making it less effective.
Grim gave a suggestion.
"Brother Ren, sister Lan. The air is thinning out here. I think we should retreat outside the cave and deal with them there."
Both of them nodded in response and started retreating.
Seeing their retreat, the bats began attacking even more ferociously. They even used their echolocation ability for the attack.
The ability was useless when used by an individual bat. But, the effect could be strengthened if used by multiple bats.
There were still more than half-bats remaining. So, Grim volunteered to be at the rear.
He could withstand their combined attack with 'earth shield' and 'vigor'. But, the pressure was piling up on him even with his abilities.
***
They arrived at the entrance of the cave an hour later.
Now, they were free to go on a rampage.
Grim canceled 'earth shield' and started spamming 'solar wave'.
The other two also used their area skills.
The trio had formed an attack barrier, and they would kill any bats that tried to come out of the cave entrance.
***
The battle lasted for hours.
There were only a few bats left at the end. So, they fled.
The trio breathed a sigh of relief and went inside to complete their harvest.
They had caused a commotion, and others were likely to arrive. So, they had to be quick.
They harvested the plants and left within an hour.
After an hour or so multiple groups arrived at the scene.
They went inside the cave and harvested everything they could.
The cave was left barren.
***
Few hundred kilometers away.
Grim and his trio were taking a rest and checking their harvest.
They had managed to harvest 20 entry-evolution-grade herbs and 10 mid-evolution-grade herbs.
Their total score was 1200 points, leaving 400 points for each.
However, Grim had made an additional harvest.
He had earned around 50000 Evo points.
[Evo points left: 178,750]