I Am Your Natural Enemy

Chapter 515: Chapter 208: Temples and Talismans, A Reminder Visit (5k)

Walking out of the room, Wen Yan glanced over the other gear prepared for him, starting first with the High-Energy Compression Energy Blocks.

Rumor had it the main material for these was a peculiar creature, somewhere between plant and beast, called the Half Moon.

It wasn’t exactly a new thing—in fact, it went extinct ages ago, only to be rediscovered in recent years.

Back when the Alchemy Dao started gaining traction, this was the main ingredient for refining so-called Fasting Pills.

Now, after some research by the Scorching Sun Department’s subordinate team, they’ve managed basic artificial cultivation—but the yield is super low, and not as good as wild-grown ones in natural conditions.

Plus, cultivating them is a mess, with a bunch of problems. The single biggest hassle: the Half Moon has this stage where it decides whether to be a plant or an animal.

If it turns into a plant or an animal, neither can be used as a material anymore.

The best effect is right before it undergoes this change, but no one’s really figured out the mechanism yet—the artificial cultivation has a harvesting window of just a few hours.

Harvesting is a lot like picking ginseng fruit: can’t use your hands; you have to use something that’s not gold, not stone, not wood.

That part’s actually simple—a few tries got it: high-density polyethylene works, which is what plastic bottle caps are made of.

Once they turn this stuff into blocks, a piece just the size of a fingernail is enough to fuel a Third Stage Martial Artist for an intense fight.

Because this stuff’s so valuable, they’re throwing a lot at it, always diving deeper with the research.

Sadly, with something like this, you’re just not going to see big breakthroughs in a year or two—adding a smidge of artificial cultivation already means the basics are strong, and some heavy hitter must have forced them to this point quick.

Cai Heizi’s got his professional skills on point—he got Wen Yan’s food and drink sorted first, before showing him the rest of the weapons.

As for guns and such, Wen Yan just glanced over them, totally uninterested—he knew what his own skills were like.

Unless you feed one of these things ten thousand rounds, in real combat, you’ve either got to press the muzzle to someone’s forehead, or the target’s the size of a mountain.

Otherwise? Forget about it.

His choices boiled down to two things: either close-combat weapons, or something with enough firepower to make up for lousy aim.

He picked over everything for ages and still didn’t spot anything suitable. As for melee cold weapons, none could top his Chunjun Mace.

Might as well stock up on Paper Money, good for feeding the horses later.

After picking through the gear, Wen Yan asked Cai Qidong,

”Is the situation that serious? Even bringing out the big killers?”

”It’s pretty bad, yeah. Daoist Master Qing Xuzi from Qingcheng actually had the guts to speak up on his own initiative.

But, based on our data so far, it probably doesn’t have much to do with Qingcheng.”

”Isn’t that a good thing?”

”No, not good at all. That just means there’s no target, and when you’re dealing with something like luck—totally impossible to quantify—there’s no control at all. We’ve already had two cases; who knows if we’ll see a third, fourth, and so on...

The higher-ups have already gone to ask the Old Celestial Master. He said he’s not particularly good at this stuff.

But Qing Xuzi did have one valid point—maybe we should include the Three Mountains and Five Ridges.”

”Efficient, aren’t they...” Wen Yan was a bit surprised; the initial investigation was done so fast, and they’d already gone to ask the Old Celestial Master. After that second Jinx showed up, everyone’s attention really skyrocketed.

”Priority’s up, so this kind of thing has to get nipped in the bud. If it weren’t for the fact firecrackers can’t get in there, you’d already see a mushroom cloud over that place.”

”These portable ones—are they a recent development?”

”Nah, actually been around since decades ago. Back then, they were called ’individual warheads’—four kilometers range, five kilometers blast radius; honestly, pretty useless, no real combat value. And in any actual war, we’d never use the stuff. We just developed it, shelved the data, and let it collect dust.”

”Ever used them before?”

”Used it once in that old Nether Soul Realm incident—worked like a charm, only that one was a bigger yield than this one.” Cai Qidong sounded almost nostalgic at this point.

”...”

Alright, Wen Yan didn’t bother asking more. If it’s not a new tech, it must be pretty stable. Otherwise, Cai Qidong wouldn’t be handing it over so casually.

This kind of thing—if you mess it up, you just break it open and it won’t even go off. The idea of it detonating on impact is basically impossible.

With the safety sorted, Wen Yan was relieved. Carrying not one but two Mushroom Bombs—definitely exciting stuff.

As a kid, Wen Yan did actually dream about what shooting with a real gun would feel like. Also wondered what it’d be like to drop a Mushroom Bomb himself.

Guess that dream’s finally come true.

”When do I leave?”

”The sooner, the better. It’s gonna be a tough one to find. Our people, when they entered the Netherworld, already started mapping it out. If there’s any intel, you’ll be informed right away.”

”Alright, I’ll go get some things ready.”

Wen Yan left the base, found an old desolate tomb, and gave Feng Wei a call, asking him for some help.

Back home, Wen Yan took the Chunjun Mace, pulled out a marrow bone from the new batch of Tiger Bone, thought it over, and grabbed the Everbright Lamp too.

Coming up from the basement, he found the whole family waiting in the living room.

Sparrow Cat, Little Zombie, Chen Qimo, Steward...

”Sir, let me go with you. I can look after you,” Steward was the first to speak up.