1018 Masterpiece
"What is this?" Fang Heng was curious.
Ku Nuo explained patiently, "It's a leaf from a tree called the dragon-spine fir tree. The smoke produced from burning them is quite effective against dragon mosquitoes. The dragon mosquitoes hate the smell, and they will be affected after inhaling large amounts of the smoke too. That way, if the dragon mosquitoes cross the river, we have a way to counter them."
Fang Heng nodded and picked up a few dragon-spine fir leaves from the ground, putting them into his backpack. He then continued to stand by and watch.
Soon, Ma Xiaowan arrived with the troops of the various mercenary groups.
Seeing the mosquito-surrounded tyrant Fusion forms on the other side of the river as well as the ravaging ghouls, the higher-ups of the major mercenary groups were surprised.
Flesh puppets? Ghouls?
Why were these undead creatures not afraid of death?
Was it the work of the two necromancy mages?
The mercenaries looked at Fang Heng with new fear in their eyes.
Necromancy mages were indeed as terrifying as the legends claimed.
They controlled life and necromancy, possessing ominous power.
Ma Xiaowan retracted her gaze from Fang Heng and shouted to the mercenaries, "What are you still looking at? Don't just stand there, move!"
Then only did the mercenaries snap back to their senses and began to arrange their formation, using bows and arrows to shoot crazily at the group of dragon mosquitoes across the riverbank.
A dense rain of arrows fell on the dragon mosquito swarm on the other side, greatly increasing the team's killing speed.
In just a short while, the opposite shore was covered with the corpses of the dragon mosquitoes.
The game's default setting was that Fang Heng and the mercenary groups were now in team mode. Therefore, when the mercenaries killed monsters, mutation crystals would also be produced, and Fang Heng still had the right to pick them up.
However, the drop rate would be lower in this state.
That being said, it was more than enough!
Fang Heng and Mo Jiawei exchanged a look.
Mo Jiawei had just used his detection skill on a few suspicious-looking guys in the team and confirmed that they were not players.
Fang Heng nodded and ordered the 20 or so normal zombies that had been lying in wait in the dark to walk out of the forest.
The zombies walked wobbly to the center of the dense group of dragon mosquitoes, then dragged the corpses of a few dragon mosquitoes. While still under the attack of a large number of dragon mosquitoes, they slowly stepped into the river, crossing the river and approaching the mercenaries.
The surrounding mercenaries immediately became alert. They stopped attacking and slowly retreated, pointing their weapons at the zombies.
"He..." Seeing the mercenary group so vigilant and terrified as if they were facing a great enemy, Fang Heng was quite amused.
He chuckled and took a few steps forward, then said to the crowd, "I just need to conduct some necromancy research. Please don't be nervous.
Necromancy mages were truly terrifying!
God knows what kind of research he would do with the corpses!
The flesh puppets might have been developed by him in this way.
They couldn't afford to offend such an existence, or they would be tortured even after death!
Seeing Fang Heng's eerie smile, the mercenaries felt even more uncomfortable. They made way for him and shrunk far away, focusing on attacking the dragon mosquitoes on the other side.
Many of the dragon mosquitoes' corpses had produced mutation crystals, something that only players could see.
If these crystals weren't picked up within 30 hours, they would disappear.
Fang Heng deliberately waited for a moment and found that no mercenaries sneaked up to pick up the mutation crystals. As such, he could roughly confirm that there were no players on the team.
With that, Fang Heng began to collect the evolution crystals boldly with peace of mind. At the same time, he let the zombie clones start to decompose the corpses with small knives.
Fang Heng concentrated on controlling the zombies to optimize their work efficiency and entered the hack mode again.
[Hint: You have obtained Tier-1 mutation crystal *23.]
[Hint: Your zombie clones (vine body) have obtained the dragon mosquito's needle through decomposition...]
The zombie clones hiding in the dark gradually revealed themselves.
They went back and forth, slowly moving the corpses of the dragon mosquitoes from the other side of the river to somewhere near the mercenary groups.
While Fang Heng was controlling the zombies to decompose the corpses, the mercenaries were getting increasingly fearful.
Only then did they realize that the undead creatures hiding in the dark were far more than they had imagined!
There was a large area of zombies on the other side! At least three to four hundred!
What were the origins of these two necromancy mages?
What seemed even stranger to the mercenaries was that they realized that the zombies could actually decompose corpses!
Ma Xiaowan had joined the mercenary group at the age of twelve and had committed countless gruesome deeds. Still, she felt extremely uneasy when seeing such a strange necromancy mage.
The Empire was right. Necromancy mages were indeed strange.
Ma Xiaowan took a deep breath and focused on dealing with the monsters.
She decided to have less interaction with the necromancy mages and leave immediately after completing the mission.
Seeing that no one came to disturb him, Fang Heng focused on controlling the production line.
After he gave the order to the zombies to start the production line, he could just wait at the side and let the hack run itself, reaching out to grab batches of mutation crystals from time to time.
He just had to gather 500 Tier-1 evolution crystals to complete the level-up.
The efficiency was pretty good.
At this rate, it would at most take an hour to reach his target!
Just as he was thinking such, two lines of red hints suddenly appeared among the densely-packed game hints.
[Hint: The player team has completed the current main trial mission, report. You will be rewarded with an extra 4 hours of trial time.]
[Hint: The player team has triggered the next stage of the main trial mission, the suspected traitor.]
Eh? Had Wei Tao completed his mission?
Fang Heng's heart skipped a beat. He opened the detailed information of the mission to check.
[Mission name: The suspected traitor]
[Mission description: After a series of tribulations, you have met the City Lord of Hani City, Klein. You have learned that the Empire is facing a severe predicament. You are certain that your trip has been leaked. Players, please find the traitor who is still hiding in Hani City and has divulged this trip to the outside world.]
[Remaining time for the trial: 21 hours and 49 minutes (the trial will be deemed as a failure after the trial time ends).]
What? A leaked schedule? A traitor?
Fang Heng felt baffled just by looking at the mission hints.
He just felt that the entire trial's mission line was in a mess and simply left them without any clue.
Fortunately, splitting up was the right thing to do.
Going to Hani City would be a waste of time.
He couldn't help with the delicate work that required brains like catching traitors.
He should just leave it to Wei Tao.
Fang Heng decided to continue farming monsters in peace and complete the mission before tomorrow morning. Then, he would rush to the city and meet up with Wei Tao.
Seeing that the zombie clones had gotten a lot of blood from the corpses, Fang Heng simply cleared out an open space in the surroundings and began to set up the blood altar on the spot, in line with the principle of not wasting blood.
The construction of the altar was not difficult. Basic stones and a small amount of magic array materials were enough.
Only a few of the materials were relatively rare.
Fang Heng had only prepared three sets of materials for this trial.
The mercenary team noticed that Fang Heng was setting up an evil magic array at the side. They immediately felt their hair stand on end and hid far away.
