53: Chapter 53 The Jujube Tree

After eating, drinking, and resting for a while longer, the two stepped into the Light Barrier one after the other, officially entering this dangerous region.

As soon as they stepped inside, a wave of damp air rushed toward them, mixed with the musky stench of wild beasts.

Chen Ze held his Tang dao, which gleamed with a cold light, in one hand, scanning his surroundings cautiously.

He quickly realized that this area was very different from when they had entered last time.

There were no dense bushes here; instead, giant mutated ancient trees a hundred meters tall stood right before them. Their thick trunks pierced straight into the dim canopy, and their intertwined branches almost completely blocked out the sky.

It seems they had arrived directly in the interior of the forest!

Chen Ze thought to himself, having assumed that no matter which direction they entered the Light Barrier from, they would first have to pass through bushes taller than a person.

Coming in this time, he had originally planned to search slowly on the periphery and pick more mutated fruits like tomatoes and wild grapes that could boost attributes.

But plans couldn't keep up with changes, and they had arrived directly inside the forest. Without needing to think, the mutated beasts here were definitely even more ferocious! If they fell, they probably wouldn't even have their bones left.

But then again, wealth is sought in danger. Since they were already here, Chen Ze would absolutely not leave empty-handed.

"Fatty, the mutated animals here might be even trickier than I anticipated. You must be careful. Without my order, do not act rashly!"

Chen Ze turned around and solemnly warned Fatty again.

"Okay!"

The latter nodded heavily, gripping his F-rank spear tightly with both hands.

Seeing this, Chen Ze nodded slightly, then turned and cautiously moved forward, holding his Tang dao.

His feet landed lightly on the layers of decaying leaves, making only the faintest muffled sounds. He kept his body low the entire time, his gaze vigilantly scanning the surroundings.

Fatty followed closely behind, maintaining a distance of within three meters at all times. He even placed his feet exactly where Chen Ze had just stepped, never daring to take a single step on his own for fear that his weight would snap a dry branch and create a noise that would attract the beasts in the forest.

As Chen Ze advanced slowly, he occasionally took out the mysterious beast hide from his pocket to scan it.

Large areas of small yellow dots were scattered across the hide, and many even overlapped with their own position. Clearly, those were the mutated creatures perched on the tree trunks above them.

Realizing that the detection effect of the mysterious beast hide was greatly diminished here, Chen Ze simply put it away and relied entirely on his own senses to perceive the movements around him.

The ancient trees in the dense forest towered into the sky, their layers of branches and leaves blocking out most of the light. The forest was dim and deep, with wisps of mist winding between the trunks, greatly reducing visibility.

The two moved forward hunched over, and Chen Ze carefully examined every plant they encountered along the way that might be useful.

[Ding! Detected green bristlegrass. Do you want to collect it?]

[Ding! Detected plantain herb. Do you want to collect it?]

[Ding! Detected mutated parasol tree. You can obtain 90 units of wood after felling it!]

A series of notification sounds rang in his mind, but Chen Ze couldn't bring himself to be happy at all; he only felt speechless.

Green bristlegrass, plantain herb—it was all useless weeds.

As for that hundred-meter-tall mutated parasol tree, while the wood yield looked generous, the trunk was so thick that seven or eight people couldn't even wrap their arms around it. It was impossible to fell silently, meaning it was something he could see but couldn't take.

Chen Ze felt secretly depressed, but his pace did not slow down in the slightest.

Suddenly, Chen Ze felt Fatty urgently tapping him from behind.

When he turned his head, he discovered that Fatty's eyes were filled with irrepressible excitement. His finger was pointing excitedly in one direction, trembling so violently it was like he was having a seizure.

Chen Ze looked in the direction Fatty was pointing, and his gaze suddenly narrowed.

He saw that a few dozen meters away, a "short tree" with gnarled branches stood silently. Compared to the giant ancient trees nearby that were often a hundred meters tall, it was only thirty or forty meters, making it stand out in the forest.

The tree's bark was dark red, with dense and numerous branches covered in sharp thorns. The leaves were small but grew extremely lushly.

Chen Ze didn't consider himself an expert on vegetation, but the longer his gaze rested on the tree, the stronger his sense of familiarity became.

When he looked up at the canopy, clusters of round, bright red fruits with a faint glow hung heavily from the branches. The sweet, fresh fragrance of the fruit drifted over with the forest breeze, instantly matching his memory.

Holy crap, isn't this a date tree?

This time, it was Chen Ze's turn to have a seizure.

He couldn't help it; he was too excited!

As everyone knows, the date tree is an absolutely high-yielding species.

He remembered that when he was a child, there was a date tree in his grandfather's courtyard. Even though it was only three or four meters tall, every autumn it would yield enough to fill a dozen woven bags.

And this date tree before him was a full thirty or forty meters tall. If he could pick them all!

My god!

Chen Ze didn't even dare to imagine it; that would be how many survival coins!

Just as Chen Ze was rejoicing, a hoarse "ho ho" sound suddenly came from above the canopy.

The sound was fierce and carried a touch of impatient competitiveness. The branches swayed, and a few fist-sized red dates rolled off the branches, hitting the decaying leaves with a "thump, thump" sound.

Chen Ze immediately raised his hand to press down on Fatty's shoulder, signaling him to hold his breath. The two pressed tightly into the shadow of a giant tree nearby, daring only to peek with half an eye to observe.

It turned out that they hadn't noticed that at the very top of the date tree's canopy, seven or eight dark figures with brown bodies and coarse, stiff fur were huddled together.

Chen Ze looked closely.

"Holy crap! Aren't these the Macaques from the tourist spots on Earth that steal bags from visitors?"

This group of Macaques wasn't much bigger than those on Earth, but their limbs were longer and sharper, and their claws gleamed with a faint cold light. They gripped the thorny date tree branches tightly, their movements ridiculously agile.

At this moment, the whole group of Macaques was in chaos, and the two largest Macaques were confronting each other on a thick branch.

The two troublesome monkeys had their fur standing on end, their mouths opening wider than the other's, as if they would start fighting the next moment.

[System prompt: Detected E-rank mutated Macaque!]

[Three-dimensional attributes: Strength 33, Agility 38, Constitution 31]

[System prompt: Detected E-rank mutated Macaque!]

[Three-dimensional attributes: Strength 38, Agility 50, Constitution 35]

The system notification sounded in his ears, and Chen Ze's heart sank to the bottom immediately.

"E-rank again. Are there no lower-level animals in this forest? How can every random one that pops out have attributes that can crush him?"

While complaining inwardly, his brain was rapidly calculating countermeasures.

There were seven or eight Macaques visible to the naked eye, and it was unclear how many more were hidden in the gaps of the surrounding branches and leaves; they were all E-rank mutated beasts.

Especially that monkey king, whose agility had reached fifty points. The date tree was its home turf, and if they really started a frontal battle, there would be no way to win.

Charging up to pick the dates was purely suicide, so he immediately vetoed that path.

Chen Ze swept his gaze downward and discovered that because this group of Macaques was making such a commotion in the tree, ripe red dates were constantly rolling off the branches with a "thump! thump!" sound, the movement like a hailstorm.

"Gulp!"

"Gulp!"

The two swallowed their saliva almost simultaneously, their eyes glued to the bright red dates on the ground.

"Damn it! I must get these dates today!"