Chapter 45: Obtaining a Blue Quality Fruit

After a few more minutes of strenuous effort, Lin Yi finally squeezed his way through the dense crowd of corpse monsters to reach the base of the brownish-green tree.

The corpse monsters here were packed tightly together, their heads raised and blankly staring at the milky-white fruits hanging in the branches.

It was as if they expected the fruits to ripen, drop, and land right on their heads.

However, the pungent stench of corpses here was almost unbearable for Lin Yi. Even though he covered his nose with a cloth, he still felt a suffocating sensation, as if he might pass out from the foul odor at any moment.

"I can't drag this out any longer. If I don't make a move now, I'll probably be suffocated by this stench before my mental energy even runs out..."

The next moment, Lin Yi expanded the coverage of his white mist.

The fog billowed outward, enveloping an area of twenty meters around him, completely shrouding the entire brownish-green fruit tree as well.

The corpse monsters on the outer perimeter were somewhat dazed; the good things in their field of vision seemed to have been swallowed by the clouds in the sky.

As for the center, the corpse monsters trapped alongside Lin Yi and the tree began to roar, growing restless and anxious. Restricted by zero visibility, some had already started pouncing and brawling with one another.

Because he had enlarged the area of the white mist, Lin Yi felt a sudden, swelling pain in his head. Daring not to waste a single second, he immediately scrambled up the ancient brownish-green tree and began harvesting the milky-white fruits.

The moment the very first milky-white fruit was secured, the system notification finally popped up in his ear.

[Rotwood Fruit (Blue): A special fruit that grows in environments with extreme yin energy and takes hundreds of years to mature. When ripe, it emits the scent of decaying wood. Descendants who consume this fruit will gain a massive boost to their attribute points, but there is a high probability of causing bodily corruption and triggering unknown mutations!]

The moment he saw this description, Lin Yi knew his guess had been correct. This milky-white fruit truly was a rare heavenly treasure of Blue quality.

In the Apocalypse world, apart from the Holy Water given to him by Gu Chenghu, he had never laid eyes on a second item of Blue quality.

This time, he had struck gold!

There were a total of nine milky-white fruits on the tree. Lin Yi leaped and bounded among the branches, harvesting them like a madman.

In just a dozen seconds, all nine rotwood fruits were in his possession.

After stuffing the rotwood fruits into his spatial backpack, Lin Yi hastily jumped down from the rotwood tree, shrank the coverage of his white mist, and bolted toward the outer edge of the monster horde.

Roar!

Roar!!

Right at that moment, a cascade of overlapping roars erupted from the corpse monsters.

As it turned out, the monsters had realized not only that the fragrance of the fruits had vanished from the air, but also that looking up revealed completely bare branches. How could they not be furious?

Furious though they were, with their limited brains, they could never fathom that a fruit thief was hiding inside the white mist.

Lin Yi sprinted wildly through the white mist. He could already feel that his mental energy was on the verge of exhaustion, and the white mist shrouding him was growing progressively dimmer.

"Faster, faster, don't block the way..."

Kicking away yet another blocking corpse monster, Lin Yi felt as though he couldn't hold on much longer and decisively upgraded his level to distribute attribute points.

This time, Lin Yi leveled up twice in one go, dumping all ten attribute points into Agility.

Originally, Lin Yi's Agility attribute was 10 points—the absolute limit for a normal human.

After allocating the points, Lin Yi's movement speed instantly doubled, allowing him to weave through the crowd of corpse monsters with even greater ease.

About half a minute later, Lin Yi finally burst out of the monster horde. By this time, the white mist cloaking his body had turned almost entirely transparent.

Yet Lin Yi could not afford to release even a shred more fog, because his mental energy consumption had already exceeded safe limits, sending sharp, recurrent throbs of pain through his head.

If he forced out any more mist, he would likely pass out completely.

Roar?

Catching sight of a human figure, the outer circle of corpse monsters instantly grew excited.

Although the fruits that had attracted them were gone, getting to feast on fresh flesh and blood was still a fine consolation.

Lin Yi, now unshielded by the mist, was spotted by one corpse monster after another.

Seeing that numerous monsters on the perimeter were already charging toward him, Lin Yi attempted to log off and leave the game.

[Ding! Detected a large number of hazardous creatures in your vicinity. Log-out unavailable!]

Damn it!

What a trash log-out mechanism!

Lin Yi's expression changed drastically. He immediately stripped off the somewhat heavy defensive armor on his torso, shoved it straight into his backpack, and bolted away wearing only the leather boots and underwear provided by the system.

Right now, only one word mattered: run!

Run to a safe zone and log off!

Bolstered by 20 points of Agility, Lin Yi's speed was akin to a sudden gale, carrying him a hundred meters away in just a few seconds.

However, hot on Lin Yi's heels was a relentless swarm of corpse monsters.

Judging by the sheer head count, there were easily over three hundred of these monsters.

Among them were numerous Level 8 and Level 9 corpse monsters, whose charging speed was far faster than Lin Yi, even with his 20 points of Agility.

Left with no other choice, Lin Yi gritted his teeth and leveled up once more, pouring 5 points into Agility.

With the addition of those 5 Agility points, Lin Yi's sprinting speed surged up another notch.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Lin Yi saw that most of the Level 7 corpse monsters had been left in the dust, but a significant number of Level 8 and 9 beasts were still stubbornly clinging to his tail.

While running, Lin Yi repeatedly attempted to log out in place, but the system stubbornly reminded him that his character was not in a safe zone and therefore could not log out.

Damn it, it seemed he couldn't rely on the system's log-out mechanics at all.

"Qingshan, over here!!"

In the distance, a figure shouted toward him. Lin Yi squinted through the gloom and recognized Gu Chenghu, who had come looking for him.

Seeing Lin Yi pursued by a massive horde of corpse monsters, Gu Chenghu couldn't help but look utterly astonished.

Last time, Old Fourth Gu had used a divine talisman to blast apart a whole family of corpse monsters, and there had only been twenty or so. But the monsters chasing Lin Yi right now numbered in the hundreds, forming a dense, overwhelming sea.

Good grief, had Qingshan poked a monster's ancestral nest or something?

"Captain!! Run first, I can still hold on!"

"Stop talking nonsense! There are plenty of bushes and trees over here that can obstruct the monster horde. Head toward me!"

Frightening though the monster horde was, Gu Chenghu was hardly the type to abandon Lin Yi and run alone.

With no alternative, Lin Yi changed course and sprinted toward Gu Chenghu's location.

Though the undergrowth in the jungle was dense, tangled with thorns and thick saplings, the corpse monsters still barreled forward recklessly, seemingly guided by the faint residual scent of the rotwood fruit lingering on Lin Yi.

Although numerous thorn bushes tore large chunks of rotting flesh from the monsters' bodies, the creatures felt virtually no pain, and their charging speed was barely affected.

"Qingshan, what on earth did you do to draw out so many corpse monsters?"

Panting heavily, Lin Yi gasped, "Captain, let's talk about this later. Right now, we need to find a way to shake these things off. I don't think these bushes and thorns are going to stop them."

Gu Chenghu glanced back and indeed saw that the monster horde was still stubbornly hot on their trail.

Especially the leading Level 9 corpse monsters—they were a mere twenty to thirty meters behind them. If the two men let up even slightly, those monsters would pounce upon them the very next second.

At this point, having run at high intensity for seven or eight minutes, Lin Yi was beginning to feel his physical stamina flagging. He was debating whether to level up again and pump points into Stamina and Physique when he saw Gu Chenghu ahead draw his Dragon-Singing Saber and jam the blade forcefully into a towering ancient tree beside them.

The next moment, Gu Chenghu leaped fiercely, using the flexibility of the Dragon-Singing Saber to vault upward onto the massive tree.

Like an agile ape, Gu Chenghu hugged the trunk with all four limbs and scrambled upward, scaling to the top of the canopy in two lightning-fast seconds.

The sheer proficiency of his tree-climbing skills made Lin Yi blush with shame.

"Don't just stand there like a fool! Copy what I just did and get up this tree."

"Got it!"

Right then, the sickening stench emitted by the pursuing corpse monsters was already inches away!

At this life-or-death moment, Lin Yi dared not dawdle. He leaped onto the Dragon-Singing Saber, and the resilient blade bent slightly before catapulting him seven or eight meters high into the air.

Clutching the massive tree trunk tightly, Lin Yi scrambled with all four limbs, expending a great deal of effort before finally hauling himself up to the treetop.

Gu Chenghu frowned slightly and said, "Qingshan, your tree-climbing is way too slow. You need to practice this more in the future."

"Captain, spare me. I'll definitely practice whenever I get the chance!"

This was the first time Lin Yi truly understood how vital the tree-climbing skill was in the wilderness. He looked down and saw a massive throng of corpse monsters gathered densely beneath the tree, their numbers only continuing to grow.

Fortunately, the monsters possessed limited intelligence; they didn't know how to use the Dragon-Singing Saber to climb up, nor could they stack themselves into a human ladder. They were slightly inferior even to the zombies in movies.

Still, the monsters showed no signs of leaving, lingering and pacing restlessly at the base of the tree.

Seeing this, Gu Chenghu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Qingshan, you look pale as a sheet. Did you overuse your mental energy?"

"Yeah, Captain. Otherwise, I would have used the white mist to escape long ago."

Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, Lin Yi pulled a rotwood fruit straight out of his backpack and said, "Captain, this is the fruit I just snatched from the monster horde. The system calls it a rotwood fruit... Blue quality. Do you recognize it?"

"Rotwood Fruit? A Blue-quality fruit?"

Gu Chenghu took the milky-white rotwood fruit, inspected it closely, and realized he had never seen or even heard of such a thing.

"Based on what you said, this fruit isn't meant to be eaten raw, but since it's a Blue-quality item, it has uses even for professional-grade experts. If we bring it back to the village, we should be able to exchange it for a massive amount of resources from the village chief and the elders."

Down below, the sight of Lin Yi producing the rotwood fruit sent the monster horde into another agitated frenzy. A few particularly "clever" corpse monsters even began hugging the tree trunk—which was over two meters in diameter—and gnawing on it, seemingly hoping to chew the tree down so Lin Yi and Gu Chenghu would fall.

"Put it back in your backpack. The scent this thing radiates is alluring to a lot of creatures; we don't want it attracting anything else."

Tucking the rotwood fruit back into his spatial backpack, Lin Yi said, "Alright. But Captain, this one is yours—consider it repayment for all the help you've given me during this time."

Hearing this, Gu Chenghu burst into a hearty laugh, clapped Lin Yi on the shoulder, and flashed a row of white teeth. "Good lad, you didn't let me down! Though if you hadn't managed to harvest many, you should have kept it for yourself. Your captain here doesn't lack for this sort of thing just yet."

"It's fine, I harvested quite a few. Captain, you should just keep this one."

Lin Yi had always kept Gu Chenghu's previous gesture of using the divine water to boost his attributes close to his heart, and he had been deeply moved by it.

Sharing a rotwood fruit with Gu Chenghu now was not only a way to repay a favor, but also a subtle message: investing in Lin Yi was a deal that would never result in a loss.