Chapter 368: Deeper into Pandora fores
Broiling projectiles silently whizzed out, piercing accurately into the armour of a direhorse; causing light yellow bodily fluid to splash out. Under normal circumstances, this timid horse would immediately take off. Yet during matting while it beared the painful torment, it swung its hateful gaze over. Raising its tremendous solid hoofs, it broke into a frenzied charge towards here!
Immersed in copulating, the pack of direhorse was now a chaotic mess. The foul fishy smell pervaded the air and assailed their nostrils. Female direhorses excitedly dug deeper into the soil, awaiting the duelling victor of the incessantly colliding stallions. Thus, such a wildly furious and deserting direhorse behavior went completely unnoticed.
When the direhorse charged into the thicket, it was instantly slowed down by Reef's raging 'Shattering Cardiac Roar'. In a split second, the contestants lying in ambush pounced up like wolves and tigers; one-sided assaults came pouring down in torrents, directed towards its legs.
The direhorse had astonishing defence, but after two legs were fractured, its movement speed greatly plunged. Immediately, the squad shifted their assaults to its chest. The direhorses had many vertically arranged operculum* on the chest muscles, which allowed them to increase the amount of air they intake with each breath. Thus, this allowed the direhorses to reach greater speeds and endurance.
(TN: *Nostril-like opening)
But due to that fact, it became an area that lacked protection and was exceptionally weaker; which was most probably the vital spot, frequently resulting in greater damages.
Sheyan took special notice of Lille and Uzel, whose performance had been merely average. Lille's offence was rapid, biting and sleek, with blood trailing from every blade ray; a melancholic display of blood. As for Uzel, he carefully aimed his pistol and fired, seemingly dishing out pretty decent explosive strike rate; supposedly traversing the path of single-unit high damage output.
In a short span, that direhorse was mercilessly cut down, displaying discolored lifeless eyes as it twitched. Due to the earlier pact - 'every single battle loot would be monopolized by party Ace during the process of accomplishing the milestones', Sheyan blatantly picked up the dropped white key. Thus, he successfully acquired a longhorn required by the milestone 'Penetrate'.
At this moment, Jin Ximin had begun raising his sniper rifle and continued his stealthy seduction. However, this time, his bullet landed inside the eye of a unlucky direhorse, who was in the midst of a duel. That direhorse neighed furiously, abandoning its opponent as it galloped over. As for its male opponent, it wasn't willing to take things lying down, as it pursued hot on its heels; "You little guy trying to run after kicking and biting me??? No way!" (Horse neighing)
Undoubtedly, Sheyan's squad simultaneously accepted the two ordinary direhorse. As time trickled by, they slaughtered through the entire pack of direhorses within 1 hour; of which, only a few female horses seemed to have awoken from their dreams and fled hastily. Amongst the dropped loots, apart from rolls of leather, horse bone etc, there were 3 direhorse neural whips (The antenna) that were branded as valuable objects. Those 3 whips should possibly worth much back in Hell's Gate base of the RDA company.
At present, everyone managed to receive two direhorse longhorn. Delivering them to the realm through the nightmare imprint, Sheyan received the notification:
"You offered two direhorse longhorn."
"You receive the title 'Penetrate'."
"Penetrate: When attacking an enemy, 0.3% - 0.8% chance of neglecting defence and dealing full damage. (Chance corresponds to attack speed, faster will be 0.3%, while slower 0.8%)"
"You can only equip one title at one time, do you wish to equip the title 'Penetrate' ?"
"Advance milestone: 'Pierce' activated."
"Pierce milestone requirements: Acquire 5 direhorse crystal longhorn."
"Details: Direhourse crystal longhorn can only be obtained from elite-tier creatures."
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After accomplishing the milestone 'Penetrate', two contestants had paid a fee in accordance to their contract and left; both uninterested in the remaining two milestones. However, they felt that this tiny party Ace was indeed pretty trustworthy, and thus recommended another contestant who was interested in accomplishing the milestone 'Plunderer'.
Following Sheyan's schedule, the next milestone to accomplish was 'Plunderer'.
This milestone held a requirement of gathering 1,000 units of Pandora's Unobtanium (Crystal's purity must not be lower than 16.8%). However, Mogensha had already accomplished this! Back when he stayed for a prolonged period of 7 days back in the Starship trooper world. The unobtanium crystals he harvested using the arachnid drone then, was in fact shockingly usable in this world!
More importantly, the purity of those unobtanium in the Blackthorn tribe was astonishingly over 95%. This further implied that Mogensha only needed to fork out merely 200 units of the Starship Trooper world's unobtanium, to accomplish this milestone.
According to Uzel's earlier report; within a 50 kilometres radius, there were a total of 6 Pandora unobtanium mines. However, the mines were relatively small in scale; to the RDA workers, the costs of extracting those mines wasn't worth it. Hence, these mines were neglected by the RDA company. Amongst the 6 mines, 3 had crystals of purity exceeding 30%.
Naturally, according to percentage, visiting those 3 mines would be most suitable. Because once a high purity unit of unobtanium were to be extracted, it would undoubtedly equate to several units of lower purity crystals.
As the saying goes, risks and rewards are inseparable. Monumental Hometrees (Na'vi tongue: Kelutral) would naturally grow on unobtanium ore veins beneath it. The more abundant the unobtanium ore veins, the larger the Hometrees.
Even though the gigantic trees wouldn't pose a threat, to Na'vi clans adept at combat, the Hometrees were literally their homes. Naturally its hollows and caves were their houses, where the na'vi clansmen would sleep, eat, weave, dance, ****, and celebrate their connection to Eywa......
Bluntly speaking, those areas were where unobtanium crystals thrives the most. The larger the growth of the Hometree, the more Na'vi residents and the larger their clan. Yet crucially, all Na'vi clans treated these high purity unobtanium with the highest devotion......these fanatical zealots of religion held beliefs deeply rooted in their hearts; no matter if it was a civilized or barbaric na'vi.
Hence, trying to extract unobtanium crystals there would be equivalent to intruding on their homes; akin to digging inches deep into their homes without paying respects, and even plundering the resident's ancestral idols. If one encountered such a thing, wouldn't one immediately pick up knives and go after them?
Sheyan didn't know if humans would, but he knew Na'vi folks would. Hence, nearing a kilometre away from their destination, they proceeded with utmost caution. In actual fact, advancing through such a dense tropical rainforest, was essential a relatively difficult task. Snake-like purplish vines drooped down, along with knee-high fat oddly yellowish-green plants and many interweaving ecological layers. Earthen green mushrooms that would explode when ripe, and many other fearsome and repulsive insects and organisms.......
Even their ears found no rest; a symphony of cicadas singing, the buzzing of insect wings and even toad croaking sounds.......multitudes of decaying trees and fallen logs, giving rise to the moist and humid climate, just like an evaporated reservoir. Countless species of tree frogs propagated, as they spread their acute toxins amidst the forest.
Reef deviated from the treading open pathway slightly, accidentally stepping on a twig causing a crunching sound to emerge. Suddenly, a yellow figure flashed out from the side! Reef instantly blocked with his shield. Caught off guard, Lille behind him immediately reacted, with twin daggers cutting out. Such a move didn't feel very fast, but was just like a casual breeze; instead, the yellow figure splitted into two.
After the yellow figure slumped to the ground, it bounced around frantically in its dying struggle. Only upon death could they differentiate it to be a serpent like creature. It had a triangular shaped head, prominent jaws brimming with sharp tooth as it tenaciously nipped onto a dried twig; as though trying to make reprisals even in death.
Beneath its head, grew a pair of mantis like blades, looking exceptionally incisive; as though it could easily carve out human flesh.
Reef glanced at Lille; his eyes contained no gratitude nor did he offer a word of thanks, but silently continued forward. Pertaining to such flowery behavior, Reef wasn't at all interested. Lille felt rather annoyed, his facial muscles twitched a little as he snorted and sheathed his daggers back to his waist.
The trees became sparser ahead, as bright and gratified red-orange vegetation appeared. They grew together in twos or threes, and were roughly 6-8 metres tall. There were no leaves on them, presenting itself as a translucent membrane state; as though numerous sea snails had piled up together, and constructed into a spiralling upwards trend.
Piloting the 'AMP Suit', Makaji accidentally touched a plant. This plant instantly reacted and coiled swiftly before retracting down, vanishing into the ground in an instant; it was completely hidden underground! From a distance away, light trampling of dried leaves transmitted in. Makaji observed, as his pupils concurrently contracted.
"This........is this a helicoradian? Everyone careful! We're now extremely close to our destination, na'vi folks may ambush us anytime!"
(TN: The helicoradian (Na'vi name: loreyu meaning "beautiful spiral") is a zooplantae (part animal, part plant) possessing a single leaf that responds to touch by coiling up and retracting to the ground.)