Chapter 57: Little Green Snake
Chapter 57: Little Green Snake
"Snake!"
Ji Xinghuo's first reaction upon seeing the green shadow was surprise that it was a snake.
His second reaction was how tiny it was!
The little snake was about the length of a finger, less than ten centimeters long, and thinner than a chopstick. Its body was a vibrant emerald green, its scales fine and smooth with barely any gaps visible. It was falling rapidly, and as it flipped over, its underside was revealed, adorned with golden patterns that didn't seem threatening at all.
The tiny green snake's magnetic field was incredibly weak, matching its diminutive size.
There were countless creatures of similar size in the Absolute Peak Valley, usually posing no danger. Hence, Ji Xinghuo tended to ignore such small and faint magnetic fields when sensing with his magnetic field perception to reduce interference when tracking monsters.
Moreover, he was on top of a tall pillar, where the risks were even lower.
As a result, he had been negligent and hadn't detected the little snake's approach beforehand.
Ji Xinghuo's eyes were focused, and in addition to his magnetic field perception, he could also gauge the strength of a target through his ether sensitivity.
However, the little green snake's ether reaction was equally faint, comparable to that of an insect.
"Something's wrong!"
Ji Xinghuo realized the anomaly. How could such a tiny snake eat such a large bird? "Where's my bird?"
He quickly scanned the area but couldn't find the roasted bird.
By then, the little green snake had fallen to the bottom of the pillar, and just below was the edge of the cliff, covered in dense bushes and crevices. If it wriggled into them, it would be challenging to find.
Without further ado, Ji Xinghuo grabbed his Eagle Bow and shot an arrow.
Pa!
The arrow descended vertically, catching up with the little green snake in an instant. It seemed to sense the danger and reacted swiftly, curling into a ball in mid-air, its head arched upward, mouth agape.
The arrow shot straight into its mouth.
And then it vanished.
"Uh..."
This time, Ji Xinghuo finally saw what had happened, and his eyes widened in surprise.
"How did it do that?"
"Where's my arrow?"
The titanium-aluminum alloy arrow was over 70 centimeters long, several times longer than the little green snake's body, yet it had been swallowed and disappeared without a trace.
After swallowing the arrow, the little green snake fell into the bushes and vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.
Realizing the snake's extraordinary ability, Ji Xinghuo knew he couldn't let it escape. His magnetic field perception had already locked onto it, leaving it nowhere to hide.
"Let's see where you run to!"
He hung the Eagle Bow on his back, drew out his Lightning Chase Battle Knife, and grabbed the nanometer rope fixed to the top of the pillar. With a leap, he descended swiftly, running down the side of the pillar as if he were running on the ground.
When he had descended halfway, Ji Xinghuo's instincts suddenly kicked in.
He flipped to the side.
An arrow shot out from the bushes below, as fast as lightning, grazing Ji Xinghuo's body and flying up into the sky.
"Holy sht!"
Ji Xinghuo broke out in a cold sweat.
That arrow had been the one he fired earlier, and it had come back with undiminished force and speed. If he had been hit, it would have been a joke.
"I almost killed myself..."
Ji Xinghuo landed on the cliff, his heart still pounding. Through his magnetic field perception, he sensed that the little green snake was moving swiftly through the bushes, heading deeper into the bottom of the cliff.
Given its tiny size, it was practically invisible.
All it had to do was lie flat in the grass—no sound, no breath, no scent—and no one would be able to find it.
But Ji Xinghuo could.
His magnetic field perception had locked onto the little green snake, and he instinctively reached for his Eagle Bow, preparing to shoot another arrow to at least flush it out of the bushes. However, he changed his mind after a moment's thought.
As he hesitated for a few seconds, the little green snake had already slithered seven or eight meters away, heading for a crevice in the cliff face that led deep into the rock peak.
If it crawled into that crevice, he would be helpless.
Without hesitation, Ji Xinghuo grabbed the nanometer rope and, like a diving goose, plunged downward.
Clang!
The stones scattered.
Lightning Chase slashed against the stone wall, precisely blocking the little green snake's path into the crevice, severing a large chunk of rock.
The little green snake had just emerged from the bushes when its path was cut off, and it fell back into the air.
At that moment, Ji Xinghuo was just a step away from it.
At such close range, he could clearly see the little green snake's appearance.
"Iron Arrow Green?"
Ji Xinghuo was astonished. This little green snake looked like a miniature version of the Iron Arrow Green, a common snake species in the Absolute Peak Valley.
There was a similar-looking snake on Earth called the Green Tree Snake.
But the Iron Arrow Green was far more formidable.
They liked to hide in trees and would suddenly pounce on their prey as it passed by, moving at incredible speed, like an arrow shooting toward its target.
The Iron Arrow Green was non-venomous, but when they evolved into monsters, they awakened an ability called "Iron Scales." Their scales became as hard as iron, covering their entire body, and their arrowhead-shaped heads could pierce flesh and blood, with a force comparable to a real arrow, or even stronger.
In recent days, Ji Xinghuo had killed more than a dozen Iron Arrow Greens.
This particular Iron Arrow Green was clearly different.
Ji Xinghuo stared at its amber-like golden eyes, and in that moment of eye contact, he sensed fear and tension in its gaze, indicating a certain level of sentience.
"A spiritual creature!"
It was actually a spiritual snake!
Ji Xinghuo was overjoyed. Spiritual creatures also evolved from ordinary starry creatures, but they possessed intelligence and were extremely rare.
The probability of starry creatures evolving into spiritual creatures was incredibly low, so low that it was practically impossible to quantify.
It was like a genetic mutation.
Generally speaking, spiritual creatures were much more powerful than monsters, awakening higher-level abilities, exhibiting greater might, and growing at a faster rate! Most importantly, spiritual creatures had a certain level of intelligence and could communicate.
If tamed, spiritual creatures made the best battle companions, far superior to ordinary monsters. They could accompany their owners through life and evolution.
One of the Thirteen Heavenly Kings of the Asia-Pacific Community, the globally ranked tenth "Master Chaofeng" Luo Yimeng, had obtained a spiritual creature battle pet, the "Crested Phoenix," shortly after becoming an otherworldly being. From then on, she soared to great heights and became renowned worldwide as the first Grand Master.
Ji Xinghuo let the little green snake fall off the cliff.
Its body was minuscule and incredibly light; before it even reached the bottom, the wind blew it about aimlessly in the air.
"Now how do I catch it?"
Reaching out and grabbing it was out of the question.
The little green snake seemed to possess the ability to swallow and transfer matter, and such space-related abilities were extremely fearsome. If it bit him, he might lose his entire hand.
Trapping it would be difficult too, as it could simply bite through any restraints and escape.
If he relentlessly attacked, blocked, and confined it, it might develop hostile sentiments towards him, and he couldn't forget that it possessed a certain level of intelligence.
His only option was to carefully observe and find its weakness.
Ji Xinghuo pulled himself back up the pillar using the nanometer rope, his mind constantly focused on the little green snake's movements.
It had fallen into the valley below the cliff and swiftly slithered dozens of meters before squeezing into a crevice.
For the next half hour, the little green snake didn't move, poking its tongue out every few seconds.
It was waiting patiently for its enemy to leave.
However, Ji Xinghuo was even more patient. He ate some dry food to fill his stomach, packed up his tent and belongings, and changed his plans. His top priority now was no longer hunting the Stone Scythe Monster but figuring out how to tame this little green snake.
Although he couldn't think of a way to tame it for the time being, tracking it down wouldn't be a problem.
The little green snake couldn't escape his magnetic field perception.
Ji Xinghuo climbed down from the pillar and took a different route to descend the peak, pretending to leave the area.
When he was over three hundred meters away from the cliff, the little green snake finally made its move.
"As expected..."
"It has a very powerful perception ability, likely a sense of smell." Ji Xinghuo guessed.
While snakes didn't have excellent hearing or vision, they possessed extremely sensitive olfactory senses. The forked snake tongue collected odor particles in the air and sent them into the nasal organ above the mouth, allowing them to discern minute differences in scents and pinpoint the precise location of their target.
Some powerful serpentine monsters could even smell prey from several kilometers away.
Ji Xinghuo walked another hundred meters away, which should have been beyond the range of the little green snake's sense of smell, and it slowly crawled out of its hiding place in the crevice.
Through his magnetic field perception, Ji Xinghuo saw the little green snake swiftly slithering through the valley.
He followed from a distance.
Moments later.
The little green snake crawled deep into the valley and entered a small cave hidden behind a bush, its interior a labyrinth of twists and turns. Some parts were flooded, requiring it to swim through, and at the very end was a warm cavern.
The cave wasn't spacious; a person would only be able to lie down and not even stand up.
But for the little green snake, it was more than spacious enough.
"This is too well-hidden..."
Ji Xinghuo shook his head; without his magnetic field perception, it would have been nearly impossible to find the little green snake's lair with any other perception ability.
As he was marveling at this, the little green snake opened its mouth.
It spat something out, which fell into the cave, its magnetic field shape resembling a bird.
"My roasted bird!"
Ji Xinghuo gritted his teeth. Anyone would be annoyed if food that was within reach suddenly flew away, regardless of its value.
The next second.
The little green snake's magnetic field suddenly expanded.
"Hmm?"
Ji Xinghuo was startled. It was still a snake, but its magnetic field intensity and range had increased by several dozen times, as if it had appeared out of thin air.
It was no longer the little green snake but a two-and-a-half-meter-long Iron Arrow Green! Its body was now roughly as thick as a human arm, making the once spacious cave feel cramped. It coiled around the roasted bird, opened its mouth wide, and devoured it whole.
The bird slid down the snake's throat and into its stomach in no time.
Within five minutes, the snake's belly had returned to its normal shape, having digested the bird completely.
After its meal, the large snake stopped moving, curling up in a ball and lying still in the cave as if it had fallen asleep.
Ji Xinghuo observed it while deep in thought.
"This snake has at least two abilities."
"The first one is unfamiliar; it can swallow things in its mouth and seemingly send them to another space before releasing them again."
"The second ability is most likely miniaturization!"
Ji Xinghuo recalled a video he had seen before that specifically introduced size-altering abilities, such as gigantification and miniaturization, which could increase or decrease body size by up to 50%. Some transformation-type abilities also altered the user's species, resulting in a change in body size.
Gigantification was the core ability of the "Giant" class.
Both gigantification and miniaturization were exceptional abilities, and the degree of size alteration usually didn't exceed 50% of the original size.
To become significantly larger or smaller would not be a mere physical change.
It would involve space and dimensions! Miniaturization was one such ability, allowing the user's body to shrink to a fraction of its original size, sometimes even by several hundred times.
In the American Federation, there was a King-tier mutant who was the only known human on Earth to possess the miniaturization ability. Although it was only a super-limit ability, it gave him a significant advantage in battles against peers and had a wide range of applications, yielding unexpected results.
As for the little green snake's ability to swallow and transfer matter, Ji Xinghuo speculated that it was likely a Starfall ability!
(End of Chapter)
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