Chapter 65: Making Preparations

In truth, this was Zhang Lie's first time at the Bear Spires, and he had no experience from his past life to draw upon.

Amidst the floating spires, Zhang Lie, cloaked in black, began to walk faster and faster. His slow, faltering steps turned into a fast walk, and then a rapid dash. He took only fifteen minutes to get used to the fluctuating magnetic field, then began to scout the region for traces of the bimu bear.

He acclimated so quickly not only because he had refined control over his body, but also because of the functionality of his new armor.

Once Zhang Lie found a bimu bear, he would be able to track down the location of the Bimu Harbor. After about ten minutes, Zhang Lie finally noticed traces of a superior-grade bimu bear within a valley.

This valley was a massive bowl-like depression, and at the very bottom, Zhang Lie saw two bimu bears playing with each other. Seven meters tall, weighing dozens of tons, white-furred all over, with sharp teeth and strong jaws—they were a fearsome sight to behold.

What distinguished bimu bears from their terrestrial counterparts was that they had three eyes lined side by side, making them all the more terrifying. According to rumors, adult bimu bears even had some ability to control the magnetic field around them.

That being said, Zhang Lie wasn't very interested in this pair, because they were both adult bimu bears, possessing frightening combat ability, and would be near-impossible to isolate.

However, after wandering around the spires, Zhang Lie noticed no other bimu bears around.

Fatigue drained his strength: traversing the complicated terrain and dealing with the field fluctuations took quite a toll on his body. Zhang Lie had no choice but to rest.

It took him two whole days before he eventually found the Bimu Harbor that he had only heard about in his past life.

Glancing at the pristine, snowy-white stone in front of him, Zhang Lie couldn't help but marvel at the majesty of the dimensional world, and also at the fact that rumors couldn't be entirely trusted.

After all, the so-called Bimu Harbor wasn't a harbor at all, but rather a large outcropping of white rock with a flat top. Against the backdrop of the deep blue sky, the outcropping looked as though it led toward an ocean of blue, granting it its name.

And on top of that outcropping lay the bones of a bimu bear.

The bear's-heart grass was, Zhang Lie thought, also rather inappropriately named. Rather than calling it bear's-heart grass, bear's-bone grass would be more suitable. The crystalline blades of grass grew not where the bimu bear's heart was, but rather on its bones. They were simply more concentrated around its ribcage.

However, even after finding the Bimu Harbor and the bear's-heart grass, Zhang Lie didn't make a move: right then and there, at this mass grave of bimu bears, there were at least a dozen aged bears still with some mobility and fighting strength.

Under such circumstances, Zhang Lie certainly wasn't going to act rashly. Instead, he began a second wait, one that lasted a whole week.

By then, half the aged bears had died, and none had entered within the last two days. There were only five elderly bears left, and Zhang Lie's chance was finally here.

He jumped up onto the outcropping, instantly noticing that gravity seemed to have increased by yet another magnitude. If he hadn't spent the last few days acclimating himself, he could well have dropped out of stealth.

As he got used to the even higher gravity, Zhang Lie approached the closest bear carcass and began harvesting the bear's-heart grass. His movements were gentle and slow, but exceedingly tiring in such a fatiguing environment.

Zhang Lie could sense the stamina draining out of his body at a rapid pace.

He had only harvested ten blades of grass before he felt as though he couldn't lift his arms any further. In fact, were it not for his armor, he thought that he might not have been able to move about on this outcropping at all. The armor was negating much of the increased gravity, and what he was experiencing was only a small fraction of its usual intensity.

Under ordinary circumstances, without the need for stealth, Zhang Lie would be able to revitalize and invigorate his body with genetic energy, but Zhang Lie had no choice but to overcome the magnetic field with nothing but his mortal body.

He lasted two more minutes, harvesting almost all the bear's-heart grass on the first carcass, before his stamina finally gave out.

He retreated from the Bimu Harbor.

The next few days were a cycle of resting, waiting, recuperating energy, and harvesting grass.

His muscles ached, and he was often bored, but Zhang Lie was proud of what he was able to accomplish.

Unfortunately for him, this idyllic period wasn't to last. In just three days, there were four more aged bears up on the Bimu Harbor.

Zhang Lie found it hard to imagine just how many bimu bears had to be wandering around the floating spires. After all, these were superior-grade creatures, which were relatively rare in the first realm of the dimensional world.

In retrospect, however, it shouldn't have been surprising. The unique geography and environmental factors in the region would prove a significant disadvantage to most hunters, even those at the top of the gene leaderboard. And if no one were to hunt these bimu bears, if they were at the top of the food chain, then certainly their numbers would just keep going up.

Zhang Lie rested for another three days.

On the last day, Zhang Lie found, at long last, an opportunity to give a dying bimu bear a lethal blow.

He didn't know whether the will of the world would recognize such a contemptible attack; as it turned out, it did. After the aged bimu bear died from Venombane, the will of the world spoke up in Zhang Lie's mind,

[You successfully killed a superior-grade bimu bear, but did not obtain a soulshard. For consuming the flesh of a bimu bear, you may receive one to ten superior gene fragments.]

Naturally, Zhang Lie, under the cover of night, stuffed the bimu bear he had killed into his potbellied-toad pouch.

And then he continued his harvest.

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

It took him two whole weeks before he was ready to leave, after having collected over a thousand blades of bear's-heart grass. At the same time, he trained and strengthened his body dramatically in the grueling high-gravity environment of the Bimu Harbor.

After his harvest was complete, he immediately left the Bear Spires, then headed back to the Blacksteel settlement as fast as he could. Of course, this time around, instead of heading to the Blackgold Inn, he went to the settlement-owned Blacksteel Inn. He didn't want to have another run-in with Chu Xun, nor for any rumors to spread about what they were doing in a room together.

After getting a high-class suite in the Blacksteel Inn, Zhang Lie prepared for a long stint of seclusion. During this period of time, he was planning to consume the bimu bear's flesh, concoct Potion #2, and advance all his genetic techniques.