600 Varian [6]: Lurking

38th of Trian Month, Trian Ruins.

It was a sunny day, but as the fog above the valley blocked the sunlight, Varian had to wander in the shade.

He wouldn't have minded if the shade provided him some cover. But the nasty senses of level 7s weren't that faulty.

Left with no choice, he had to lurk in a cave far away. Varian extended his space sense out of the white-walled cave.

His space sense extended out from the cave he was, covered the huge mountain, which was but one of many in the continuous mountain range that bordered the valley, and finally reached that place.

Varian blinked and focused.

This was his sixth day and almost half of the journey was already finished. If there was something he learned, it was that pranking the travelers was the second best thing psychic plants loved the most.

The first naturally was breaking the travelers' brains and turning them into puppets.

He saw two princes fighting over a treasure and injuring themselves seriously. But they were both ambushed by a psychic plant and turned into puppets.

So, Varian remained cautious. Even though his space sense could stretch far and wide, he shaped it into a thin but extremely sturdy thread.

Then, like a fisherman throwing the hook into the water, he threw his space sense far into the distance.

It reached the first mile from him. Then, the second mile.

In no time, it hit the fifth mile and abruptly stopped.

Varian's expression turned serious and he focused his space sense.

In this special sense, he couldn't see things like normal vision granted him. But like how eyes could sense light, he could sense the space. Through it, he could understand the positioning of the things in said space.

It was hard to describe, but the closest sensation was diving into the ocean, shutting off all your senses.

In that void, you can't see the waves or hear their flow. Nor could you taste the saltiness of the water. Nor smell the staleness. You can't even feel the cold water wetting your skin.

In that void, however, you could feel the waves moving. You could feel them without touching, smelling, tasting, seeing, or hearing them.

Varian felt exactly that from his space sense as it stopped at a particular location.

"…This is a trap." He muttered.

He could feel a small object 'existing' in the fabric of space. It was a storage ring…no, there were multiple, bloodied storage rings.

Since the ones who entered this valley were princes, the values of the treasures inside the storage rings must be high.

Even for a relatively wealthy prince, so many treasures were a windfall hard to pass up.

It was thus clearly a trap.

"Clever." Varian nodded. His space sense, which remained in the form of a thin thread till now split into two.

The first part stayed in place while the second part, incomparably thin compared to the first and almost noticeable for the same reason, encircled around the rings before reaching them abruptly.

'Aha!'

There he saw it, a small plant with blue leaves, swaying gently as it shone.

Besides the blue plant was a pile of stones. They appeared as normal as any pebble.

But Varian wasn't one to fall for it. The thin thread of his space sense noticed the small but obvious trace of earth mana leaking from the stones.

'Stone man.' It was a creature that was able to disguise itself as a pile of stones and catch enemies by surprise.

Since it was an earth awakener, it had higher defense and was hard to kill.

Varian naturally didn't want to deal with it and withdrew both his second and first space sense threads.

Then, he circumvented the path and moved forward again.

On the second day of his journey, Varian realized that this valley was V-shaped. It kept expanding.

From around ten miles in width in the beginning to the current three hundred mile width. It was remarkable.

Of course, to level 7s, this wasn't a lot of distance. If not for the annoying psychic plants, their senses would've covered a large portion of the area around them.

But the same annoying plants were the reason Varian was able to hide only ten miles behind his target.

'Go!' Varian's space sense moved from the three-mile mark and encountered two more obstacles before finally reaching the location.

By now, the valley had expanded to at least a hundred and thirty miles. However, there were several small hills, patches of dense trees, and caves of monsters dividing the valley into multiple spots.

There were also psychic plants growing all around, blocking the senses from exploring the whole region.

Thus, the princes were only aware of the region they were in and at most, the immediate regions surrounding them.

So, fights were limited. But they occurred nonetheless.

One such fight was happening in a small bamboo forest. Unlike the psychic plants, the bamboos here didn't belong to the mind path.

Instead, they all emitted lightning and attacked the intruders near the center of the forest.

The most precious of all such bamboo was the bamboo older than a hundred years.

In the forest, there was one such bamboo.

Only one.

Varian let his mind sense trace the route along with his space sense and reached the location.

Finally, he was able to get a clear, 360-degree view of the situation.

"Hey, take care of it!"

"You!"

"If we fight too much, we won't be able to reach there in time."

"Oh yeah? Then how about you give up?"

Two princes and two princesses glared at each other as they fought over a treasure they just encountered.

Lightning bamboo.

As simple as it sounded, it was a rare treasure. Its roots benefitted Plantae awakeners, its stem helped lightning awakeners and its insides were useful to body awakeners.

It was a treasure that guaranteed significant progress and for a prince, nothing was more enticing.

So, while the four princes kept tact in not trying to fight in the valley, no one backed down.

Sharing was out of the question. The bamboo had to be assimilated as a whole or most of its properties would be lost.

There could only be one winner.

"…How about a single attack to decide?" One of them proposed.