Star Farming, the eldest lady relies on alchemy to counterattack

Chapter 193 Stone Forest
Zhang Nan was about to step into the stone forest when he felt a sudden sharp pain in his head. It was a warning from his companion spirit, the golden rat.

Chen Nan was the first to notice that Zhang Nan’s face was pale. He reached out to help him and asked him what was wrong.
Zhang Nan looked at Min Wu who was planning to go into the stone forest with him. He didn't want people to think that he was timid and cowardly and didn't dare to go into the stone forest to gather information.

Zhang Nan endured the stabbing pain in his head and waved to Chen Nan: "Maybe I didn't get enough rest last night, it's okay." He pressed his chest pocket calmly, and his companion spirit, the golden chinchilla, was twisting restlessly there, conveying a stronger sense of crisis than ever before.

"Let's go." Zhang Nan took a deep breath and took the lead to walk towards the stone forest. He could see Chen Nan's worried gaze behind him, but he didn't look back.

The moment he entered the stone forest, the temperature plummeted. Though it was midday, the sunlight was shattered by the towering black stone pillars, casting eerie shadows on the ground. Zhang Nan noticed that the shadows seemed to squirm, but when he looked closely, they returned to normal.

"Min Wu, do you feel cold?" Zhang Nan asked Min Wu who was walking beside him.

Min Wu rubbed his arms and said, "It's a bit cold." Then he lowered his voice and said, "And don't you think it's too quiet here? It seems that there is no sound at all."

Zhang Nan nodded. The chinchilla was restless in his pocket. He carefully looked at the arrangement of the stone pillars and the terrain features around him, and injected a trace of energy into his eyes, activating the companion spirit's innate skill, the Eye of Truth.

Min Wu saw that Zhang Nan's eyes turned into a dark gray, and knew that he had activated his innate skills. Min Wu knew that his mission was to ensure Zhang Nan's safety and use his skills to get him away from here when danger came.

Zhang Nan activated the Eye of Truth. As soon as he activated it, he found that using this skill had greatly depleted the energy in his body. He scanned the area from all directions, near and far, front and back. The scene in front of him made him breathe hard - the bottom of the low stone pillar not far from them actually had a huge and dense root system growing at its base like a big tree. The roots were covered with blood-colored lines, and they were pulsating slightly like blood vessels.

And in the mottled shadows on the ground, wisps of black air were entangled and slowly spreading towards where they were.

"Min Wu, let's go quickly." Zhang Nan endured the strong dizziness and tried hard to see, memorizing the locations of the special stone pillars one by one.

At that moment, the ground suddenly shook violently, and three stone pillars near them exploded. Countless black tentacles, covered in sticky suction cups, shot out from the rubble, grabbing at the two men. Zhang Nan instinctively leaped back toward Min Wu's position. Min Wu grabbed him and activated his positioning flash skill. Just as the black tentacles were about to make contact with them, the two figures disappeared.

Min Wu and Zhang Nan were pale when they appeared in front of Ning Xuan and the others. Zhang Nan clutched his head and cried out, "My head hurts so much."

Min Wu also felt a tightness in his chest. He pounded his chest hard with his hand. Tang Xue nervously grabbed his hand, "What's wrong with you, Xiao Wu?"

"Xiaoxue, I feel uncomfortable in my chest." Min Wu gasped.

Ning Xuan had already given Zhang Nan three injections on his head, and Zhang Nan's headache symptoms gradually subsided.

"Xuanxuan, go check on Xiaowu quickly." Tang Xue called Ning Xuan anxiously.

Ning Xuan walked over and felt Min Wu's pulse, and found that his pulse was strong and rapid. She also noticed that his breathing was shallow and rapid, and his lips were purple. She immediately inserted needles into his Neiguan, Tanzhong, Baihui and other acupoints. After a while, Min Wu's breathing gradually stabilized.

After Zhang Nan's headache symptoms eased, he immediately took out a pen and paper, marked the abnormal stone pillars he had noted down, handed them to Ning Xuan, and told everyone what he had just seen in the stone forest.

"The flow of energy can be restricted in this stone forest. Activating the same skill is slow, and it consumes two or even three times more energy than outside." Zhang Nan expressed his feelings, and Min Wu immediately confirmed it.

"Yes, I can use Flash at least three times a day, but just now, I've used up all the energy," Min Wu said weakly. "I just had a headache. It was that shadow that swept over me. I didn't even make direct contact, but I could feel a chilling aura invading my mind," Zhang Nan added.

Ning Xuan nodded and gave each of them a bottle of energy replenishment potion and a bottle of mental strength recovery potion, allowing them to have a good rest.

Ning Xuan took the drawing drawn by Zhang Nan and looked at it for a while, then passed the drawing to others. Yun Han looked at it for a while with a serious expression.

"What's wrong? Did you see anything?" Ning Xuan asked.

"Master, I'm not sure, but judging from the arrangement in this corner, this one looks a bit like a formation I saw in a formation book." Yun Han said hesitantly.

"Zhang Nan, when you were drawing the picture just now, you said that these problematic stone pillars are all relatively low, right?" Ning Xuan turned and asked Zhang Nan.

Zhang Nan nodded affirmatively, "Yes, the other stone pillars have various shapes, but these stone pillars with roots at the bottom are all short and round."

"Yunhan, if you draw a larger-scale arrangement pattern, can you confirm whether this is the formation you guessed?" Ning Xuan asked Yunhan.

"As long as there is 2/3 more area, I can confirm it." Yun Han said.

"Then we just need to get above the stone forest, look down at the stone pillars below, and draw the positions of all the low stone pillars." Ning Xuan said.

Di Youlin immediately stepped forward and said, "Master, I can fly over the stone forest."

"I'm afraid that's not right. Have you seen the dried blood on those particularly tall stone pillars? The blood is flowing down from the top of the stone pillars." Yun Han reminded.

"Judging from the distribution of the bloodstains, they must have been left by someone who fell from the plane and hit the stone pillar, piercing through it," Yun Han added.

"That's true." Lin Mo nodded.

"Those that could fall down are probably just ordinary birds. I'm flying higher, so I'll be fine." Di Youlin said disapprovingly.

Hearing this, everyone had different expressions.

Ning Xuan frowned, "Don't be careless, Yun Han, what kind of formation do you suspect this is and what its purpose is?"

"A formation like the Dragon Trapping Formation is usually used to suppress some powerful monsters. It can extract the blood energy of the monsters to maintain the operation of the formation. At the same time, it can also absorb the energy of any person or creature that enters or approaches the formation." Yun Han said.

"Didn't this place just get invaded by strange beasts? And no highly intelligent races were found. Even if there were extremely powerful strange beasts, how could they be suppressed?" Di Youlin asked doubtfully.

Yun Han couldn't be sure based on that little pattern alone, so when he heard someone questioning him, he shut up.