Surviving in the chaos of war begins in the wilderness.

Chapter 120 Gem Lake

More than two months later, at the entrance of the alley outside the city, Zhou Ye was chatting with a group of middle-aged women.

"Ah Ye, you seem to have been staying home a lot lately. Why haven't you been going hiking?"

"Sigh—!" Zhou Ye sighed with a bitter face, "There are too many bandits outside. Last time I almost didn't make it back."

"Huh? No way?"

"Why not? I was carrying a load of charcoal when I encountered some robbers. I was puzzled. Why would they even try to rob a poor woodcutter like me? So I threw down the charcoal and ran away. They were still shouting after me. The things they shouted almost scared me to death on the spot."

"Terrified? What were they yelling about?"

"They were yelling right behind me—'Grab him!' They even pulled his pants off completely!!"

Sure enough, the older women burst into laughter. They especially loved these kinds of lighthearted little stories.

"Ah Ye, so you're not going anymore?"

"Of course I'm going! I'm heading into the mountains again in the next few days. Look at the state of the county town now! Prices for everything seem to be skyrocketing, almost depleting my savings. If I don't go into the mountains soon, I'm afraid I'll starve!"

"Exactly. The price increase is outrageous! I heard that grain prices have gone up again."

"Huh? It's gone up again? How much is it now?"

"It's 86 wen per catty, right?"

9

"Damn! Looks like I won't even be able to save up for a wife. I'd better buy some food and store it at home."

"What's wrong, Ah Ye? Do you still have enough money for a wife? Missing out on getting married?"

"That goes without saying. If you don't care about your wife, why bother trying so hard to preserve your innocence?"

The surrounding area immediately erupted in giggles.

After making a splash in front of his neighbors, Zhou Ye leisurely returned home. As soon as he closed the gate, a smile immediately appeared on his face.

In just over two months, Zhou Ye has broken through to the mid-stage of Ming Jin, and the density of his Qi and blood has increased by about a quarter.

And received the maximum level reward: +10 health, +1 agility, and 3 natural attribute points.

Health Points: (130/130) → Health Points: (140/140)

Agility +7 → Agility +8

Now I have 5 natural attribute points. Without hesitation, I'll add them to Constitution. Constitution +6 → Constitution +7

The Wind and Thunder Grappling Hand technique was also maxed out, earning a guaranteed reward of 1 point of natural attribute.

Furthermore, after integrating with the Azure Dragon in the Blue Waters, he has already mastered the Azure Dragon (Second Rank) technique.

In addition, two more batches of demon beast meat were delivered to the He family, the Gu family, and Wang's Pharmacy. Approximately 5000 jin of demon beast meat have been sold. Zhou Ye now has over 7000 taels more in silver notes.

They also obtained the crocodile skin armor from the Gu family, which they named the Oil-Skin Armor.

Since the main material of this leather armor is crocodile skin from the early Ming Jin period, after testing, its defensive power is about three times that of chainmail.

There's also the private tutoring business. The junior sister introduced five or six people here and there, essentially "squeezing every last drop" out of all the disciples who failed to break through to the next level.

However, Zhou Ye had already agreed with Du Juan to take a break for a while. They would resume the private coaching business next spring when the number of customers had increased slightly.

Now that my strength has greatly improved, it's time to go to the Gray Swamp.

During the upcoming autumn and winter, try to master one or two more third-rate martial arts skills, and it's best to save up more natural attribute points.

This time, the priority upgrade is for advanced poison skills.

Although I can't improve my cultivation level in a short time, poison can definitely help.

The scene at the dockside teahouse, in particular, still haunted Zhou Ye, instilling in him a strong sense of crisis. He was determined to develop poisons effective against late-stage Ming Jin (明劲), and even against An Jin (暗劲) and Hua Jin (化劲).

More than a month later, Zhou Ye was walking on a grassland in the gray swamp.

Since it was already late autumn, most of the grass had turned withered and yellow. Only the venomous snakes that were startled in the grass kept jumping up, which Zhou Ye swatted away with his steel gun.

Zhou Ye glanced at the few clumps of herbs nearby and stepped over them without any interest.

The area they've explored so far has already passed Crocodile Island, and they're about sixty or seventy miles away. Therefore, Zhou Ye completely ignores the monsters and herbs. What he's most curious about is where the Gray Swamp ends.

However, Zhou Ye had already discovered that Crocodile Island seemed to be located in the center of the Gray Swamp. The farther away from Crocodile Island, the lower the concentration of miasma, and even the level and number of monsters gradually decreased.

Because of this, Zhou Ye became quite confident that he would be able to cross this gray swamp in a few more days at most — Holy crap!

When Zhou Ye came to a gentle slope, the view suddenly opened up before him.

A few miles ahead, a vast lake came into view.

In the areas along the lakeshore, all the miasma has dissipated.

The lake's surface rippled with turquoise water, resembling a giant emerald. Flocks of birds soared among the blue sky and white clouds. What a beautiful scene of water and sky merging into one, as if stepping into a fairyland!

Zhou Ye immediately named the lake Gem Lake. He planned to establish a forward camp here to facilitate further exploration of the surrounding area.

But no matter what, I've finally made it out of that gray swamp.

Three days later, Zhou Ye set up a camp on a high ground by the lake.

Since it was still a temporary campsite, it was just a very simple fence with two wooden sheds built around it.

However, gazing at the picturesque Gem Lake, Zhou Ye's mood became quite pleasant. No matter how simple the campsite was, it could still be considered a sea-view room, right? It seems like all I'm missing now are a few young models, huh? *cough cough*

There was still enough time to perfect the camp before winter set in. Therefore, Zhou Ye didn't rush to continue construction. He collected some herbs from the surrounding area and spent a whole day carrying them all back to his small home. Then he spent another whole day carrying over a thousand kilograms of salt and some daily necessities from his small home.

Zhou Ye has made his decision: he plans to use this place as a base for the upcoming winter training exercises.

That day, Zhou Ye arrived at Gem Lake. He was getting tired of eating pickled monster meat all the time, so he wanted to catch some fresh fish to change things up.

However, as soon as Zhou Ye arrived at a large reef, he prepared to fish with the fishing rod he had made himself. Suddenly, he saw a group of fish floating belly up to the surface of the water, and soon a large area of ​​them were covered.

At this moment, Zhou Ye was stunned into silence. What was going on? Could it be that there was a beautiful and kind-hearted sea snail maiden underwater who, seeing his excellent character and temperament, had offered him fish on her own initiative?

But before long, the lake began to boil.

Then a group of large fish with strange single horns, several feet long, rushed out of the lake. They scrambled to eat the dead fish floating on the surface of the water, and the single horns occasionally released long and short arcs of electricity with a "buzzing" sound.

What the hell!

So they were a group of electric sturgeon? They use electric discharge to hunt?

Zhou Ye's hand trembled, and he had replaced the fishing rod with a gillnet. With a single cast, he accurately caught two unicorn electric sturgeon. In no time, the two sturgeon, weighing 5-600 pounds each, were hauled ashore.

To be honest, sturgeon is one of the more delicious fish. Its belly, in particular, is full of fat that melts in your mouth. Whether used in soup or fried, it's incredibly flavorful.

These two electric sturgeon, one was at the early stage of mastering the technique, and the other at the middle stage. But they couldn't withstand their electric discharge, so they used the shaft of a steel spear to smash the two fish to death one by one.

Zhou Ye didn't dare clean the two fish by the lake. What if the group of electric sturgeon were still there, and they all started discharging electricity together? That would be a huge mistake!

Since that was the case, Zhou Ye carried the two unicorn electric sturgeon and walked towards a stream a few hundred paces away.

The campsite was actually located on what was roughly a peninsula. Although the area wasn't small, it was backed by a gray swamp and surrounded by lakes on two sides. The only land route to the outside world was a large hilly area across the stream.

Because he was busy building the campsite and could get water from Gem Lake, Zhou Ye hadn't been near the stream many times and wasn't very familiar with the area.

Of course, Zhou Ye was somewhat confident in his decision to build the camp here.

In any case, the area around the Gray Swamp is still considered the outer edge of the deep mountains, the boundary between the deep mountains and the outer mountainous region. You generally won't encounter many Ming Jin stage demonic beasts there. Truly powerful demonic beasts have to venture deeper into the deep mountains.

Just like that Woodcutter Brother Stone from the Woodcutter Gang, wasn't he just a beginner martial artist? Yet he still led a group of people into the deep mountains. To be honest, if you're not particularly unlucky, you might not even encounter a demonic beast at the Ming Jin stage.

So he went to the stream and cleaned up the two unicorn electric sturgeon. Since he had nothing better to do, Zhou Ye leaped across the stream and looked around with interest—wait, what?

Unexpectedly, a pleasant surprise appeared; we actually saw hundreds of demonic pines ahead!

The demonic pine is a type of demonic plant, a pine tree imbued with demonic energy. If felled and brought back to the county town, it can still be worth a considerable amount of silver.

However, Zhou Ye wasn't very interested. The wood of the demon pine was both heavy and didn't fetch much money. It was nowhere near as valuable as demon beast meat or medicinal herbs. He'd rather collect more pine cones.

With these pine nuts, at least we'll have more snacks.

A quarter of an hour later, Zhou Ye nimbly dodged left and right, avoiding the attacks of the demonic vines that grew alongside the demonic pine. He then leaped into the air and swiftly plucked several pine cones.

After leaving the area surrounded by the demonic pine, Zhou Ye had two large bags full of pine cones beside him. If he were to take all the pine nuts from here, it would probably weigh several dozen kilograms—right?

However, at that moment, Zhou Ye suddenly felt a foul gust of wind from his side, and a dark shadow lunged at him—