The girl selling goods at the market had never seen money before.

Three is the limit. If we don't exceed this range, they won't mutate into monsters. We must successfully enter the portal this time.

Otherwise, he would really have very few cards left, and even if he reached the fifth underground level, he probably wouldn't be able to beat Bai Jinxuan.

You only have one chance. Abandon defense, unleash your full potential, and break through with all your might!

I bet you can't catch me!

Volume 1: Chapters 6-4: The Girl Stepping into a Foreign Land

Ding Hong finally landed in front of the vines of the Evil Heaven Tree.

Fortunately, he wasn't seamlessly connected to the Evil Heaven Tree and instead embraced the Great Tree Mother, where he was reborn and became one of the tree's most succulent fruits.

The thought of this scene filled him with such fear that he disregarded the injuries he sustained from falling to the ground and began to scramble forward.

The little golden statuette disappeared, and next up is an escape expert whose legs are so fast they're practically twisting together.

Bai Jinxuan had barely landed when he had already almost disappeared.

The speed increased by at least 1.5 times, which was obviously due to the use of Qi to strengthen the body.

"How can he still run so fast? His endurance after taking drugs is too strong."

At that moment, she realized firsthand what her situation was like in the fight if she couldn't take her medicine.

Mages have unlimited mana when they fight, so they can cast spells at will.

Martial artists are even more overpowered. They can use martial arts techniques at will, and if they're low on health, they can drink a potion and be fully healed in no time. They might even recover faster than you can fight them.

To win, the only way is to deliver a fatal blow, leaving them no time to even take their medicine...

Looking back on her past battles, Bai Jinxuan felt that she had only been able to win by using the artifact to launch a sneak attack and exploit the opponent's weaknesses.

Now, facing Ding Hong, whose combat ability is similar to his own, the difference between being unable to take medicine and not being able to kill him by sneak attack is immediately apparent.

If she can't be killed, she'll only deplete her own strength, which is tantamount to cutting herself. The longer it drags on, the worse it will be for her.

But right now, with the opponent activating their Golden Bell Shield, there's nothing I can do against them. I can only preserve some of my strength and wait and see.

She maintained her speed at a level that just balanced her energy expenditure, making sure she didn't lose her way.

At such a rapid pace, the Evil Heaven Tree and the tree spirits were quickly left behind, and before the newly encountered tree spirits could react, the two figures had already swept past the vines and headed into the depths of the forest.

Soon, they arrived at a desolate ruin.

Amidst the intertwining of many ancient trees and vines, a small altar carved from white bricks is radiating a green glow.

That's... a portal!?

Bai Jinxuan immediately saw through the true nature of the altar. It turned out that Ding Hong had suddenly given up the fight and was desperately trying to escape through the portal.

But why would there be a portal here? I've never heard of it before... Is the guild withholding information? Looking at all those vines around, it doesn't seem like anyone has been here before.

It's obvious that very few people use this portal. If the guild knew about its existence, they certainly wouldn't let it roam freely here.

In other words, the strange portal in front of them was one that the guild had never discovered before, and whose destination was unknown.

She hesitated. The dungeon was a very dangerous place. If behind this portal was a place that could block spatial teleportation, allowing entry but not exit, and spawning a large number of hidden monsters, then she would be in grave danger.

Rushing into the unknown is the number one cause of death for explorers. Countless newcomers are too confident in themselves, thinking they are strong enough to defeat all opponents, and rush into the undeveloped area on their first visit to the dungeon.

As a result, because he was unfamiliar with the nighttime environment, he was bitten to death by the phantom snakes that were crawling around.

Bai Jinxuan didn't want to be that kind of fool, but seeing Ding Hong's speed increase instead of decrease, her heart jumped.

Since Ding Hong has come here, his purpose must be the teleportation portal. If I don't follow him and let him go, I will definitely suffer the retaliation of the Undying Guild.

Whether at school or at home, they could be attacked, and even the Murong family could be implicated.

For a wealthy and fearless scoundrel like him, taking the lives of Yao's parents would be far too easy.

Therefore, we absolutely cannot let him go. No matter what, Ding Hong must die today.

So Bai Jinxuan quickened her pace and plunged into the portal.

After a brief period of dizziness, she slowly opened her eyes.

They found themselves in a cave, surrounded by even more vines than before. Not far away, a golden figure, radiating light, burst out of this perilous place.

Is this the first floor?

Bai Jinxuan slipped into the shadows, chasing after them while surveying her surroundings.

Soon, she realized something was wrong. Although these caves were similar to the first level of the underground city, they were much larger than the first level. They were more like huge caverns than caves.

And the surrounding walls are covered with countless magic crystals...

"Roar--!"

Just as Bai Jinxuan was observing, a strange-looking dragon covered in thick leaves crawled in from outside the cave.

Its tail, which resembled the tentacles of a giant Rafflesia flower, suddenly lashed out, sending Ding Hong flying and crashing into the wall.

The golden statuette dimmed instantly, which showed that Ding Hong was seriously injured.

That's... a herbivore-eating rhinoceros hornosaur?

Bai Jinxuan was stunned. She could barely make out the rhinoceros horn dragon's movements. It was hard to imagine that such a huge monster could be so fast.

Moreover, if I remember correctly, rhinoceros hornosaurs should live on the fifth underground level, right?

Could it be...?

She glanced around again.

Behind him, the altar was covered in vines, magic crystals shimmered with blue light, and a beam of light shone in from outside...

This isn't the first underground level; this is the fifth underground level. Behind us is a portal that leads directly from the second level to the fifth level. My parents disappeared here eight years ago!

Bai Jinxuan had thought that one day she would be able to personally come to the fifth underground level, but she did not expect that day to come so soon.

The dungeon has very strict rules; you can't just go down whenever you want. Besides, the deeper you go in the dungeon, the stronger the monsters become, and some of them might even be able to detect her when she's in stealth mode.

She can barely fight a level 3 martial artist now, let alone explore the fifth underground level. If she is discovered, it will basically be a dead end.

Fortunately, the rhinoceros horn dragon hasn't spotted her yet; its field of vision only contains the one who was just scattering...

A small figure emitting golden light.

It spread its deep red wings, as if asserting its dominion over the vines beside the altar. When it noticed the tree spirits on those vines slowly retracting their arms, a row of sharp teeth gleamed on its terrifying dragon head, and it pounced on Ding Hong.

"Damn it, why are they all targeting me?"

Ding Hong quickly scrambled out of the human-shaped hole in the wall, rolled over to avoid being bitten, and jumped down.

Ever since Bai Jinxuan smeared him with slime and pain potion, he has been in constant pain all over his body.

Not only that, at one point, he even had thoughts like, "It's not so bad to be caught by the Evil Sky Tree like this," and "After the Rhinoceros Horned Dragon's teeth are pulled out, is it soft inside...?"

That bitch deserves to die! Once I take care of the Rhinoceros Dragon, I'm going to kill her!

He grew angrier the more he thought about it. He had just arrived at the fifth underground level and encountered a rhinoceros horn dragon, which was still acting all high and mighty, thinking that it had victory in its grasp?

You forced me to do this!

In fact, when he came up with this plan, Ding Hong had already thought about what would happen if he encountered monsters on the fifth underground level.

He was only a Tier 2, and the exit of the portal was an undeveloped area. He was still quite a distance away from the location information left by his parents, which meant he had to cross this dangerous area.

If he's lucky, he might be able to reach the semi-developed area perfectly; if he's unlucky, he'll just be delivering takeout to the monsters on the fifth underground level.

Therefore, in order to avoid failing to reach his destination due to insufficient combat power, Ding Hong kept a backup plan.

That means taking an excessive amount of a powerful pill and undergoing a voluntary mutation.

The essence of the "power pill" is a pill made by combining pheromones synthesized from predatory plants with a life-giving potion soaked in the source of life.

The reason for the upper limit of three pheromones per day is that the human body's ability to receive pheromones is roughly limited to this amount. Once this limit is exceeded, the body will transform into the life logic of a demon.

During this period, the human part will gradually disappear as the monsters become more violent.

In other words, it means becoming a half-demon, half-human form.

Although there's a chance he might lose his humanity, Ding Hong doesn't care about that. For him right now, this is the optimal solution.

In fact, if Bai Jinxuan hadn't come after him, his original plan was to let Zhou Kai and Sun Haoqiang stall for time, while he exchanged the remaining 25 million for offensive items, and then head to the fifth underground level after everything was ready.

Unfortunately, Sun Ya was too useless. Not only did she fail to hold off the guild, but she also leaked her information. Otherwise, why would he have to run away before he could prepare the necessary items?

But that wasn't the end of it. Fate played a cruel trick on him. Not long after he started running, at such a crucial moment, he ran into Bai Ruolan's daughter. The other party was coming on strong, so he had no choice but to move his plans forward.

He didn't even have time to catch his breath throughout the entire process... so he had to reveal his final trump card.

Fortunately, even as his last trump card, he wasn't completely without protection.

He took an injection from his pocket and injected it into his neck.

This is a specially made blocking agent that prevents the mutation from affecting the brain. In addition, he also has an antidote that needs to be used in conjunction with bloodletting.

Of course, that's something to do only after killing both the rhinoceros horn dragon and Bai Jinxuan.

Ding Hong, filled with murderous intent, took out more than ten powerful pills from inside his clothes and swallowed them in one gulp, like eating rice.

Instantly, his body began to swell, turning green, and his fingers became long and sharp, making him look exactly like the Hulk.

Since the longer the transformation takes, the more severe the mutation becomes, he plans to finish the battle quickly.

The next second after transforming into a half-demon, he clenched his fist, quickly dodged the rhinoceros horn dragon's claw attack, and slammed it into the rhinoceros horn dragon's chest.

"Boom--!"

Pebbles flew, dust billowed, and with a sharp scream, the rhinoceros horned dragon was knocked to the ground.

This feeling... is really great!

The newfound power lifted Ding Hong's spirits. He rode on the back of the rhinoceros dragon, his fists raining down like a storm, green sap splattering on his face, but he paid no heed.

He only stopped moving and slowly stood up when the rhinoceros horned dragon had turned into a lump of meat paste and could no longer produce any juice.

Next up is Bai Jinxuan...

He let out a satisfied sigh and began searching for the girl.

Altar... there is none.

There was nothing in the cave either.

Where are they? Hiding in the shadows, huh?

Ding Hong immediately flew into a rage, disregarding everything else, and started tearing up any shadow he saw, turning the entire cave upside down. Even so, he still couldn't see the dark, rat-like shape.

"Bai, Jin, Xuan—!!!"

Meanwhile, outside the cave.

Bai Jinxuan hid in the shadow of a branch, silently observing Ding Hong's actions.

For some reason, the other person's frantic behavior made her want to laugh.

If he hadn't taken the power pills, I might have had to be wary of him. But now his intelligence is almost at the level of a monster. He looks stronger, but at best he's just a relatively strong fifth-level native monster.

Only a fool would fight him! He's covered in predatory plant attractants; he's just asking to box with other predatory plants!

And so, Bai Jinxuan once again proved herself to be a bystander.

In her view, the cave where the altar was located was actually just a small earthen mound with a small river at the bottom. There were three rhinoceros horn dragons around, two of which were drinking water, and another was circling in the sky.

Actually, when Bai Jinxuan went to the second level of the underground city, she had a question in her mind: Is the underground city really just an underground city?

The second level features a bright red moon, a wide variety of predatory plants, and a lifelike jungle environment. No matter how you look at it, it is a completely new ecological environment. The fifth level is even more outrageous than the second level.

A vast sky, clear water...

This is a completely different world, and most importantly, my phone shows the time as 17:10 PM, dusk is approaching, but the fifth floor is still like dawn.

Even time is different from that on the Earth's surface.

While Bai Jinxuan was pondering, Ding Hong seemed to regain his composure and leaped out of the broken cave.

Unfortunately, he stepped on the head of the rhinoceros horn dragon, shoving it into the river.

The rhinoceros was leisurely drinking water when it suddenly choked on it, which enraged it. It rolled over in the river and roared as it pounced on Ding Hong.

This commotion immediately attracted the attention of the rhinoceros horn dragon on the other side and the rhinoceros horn dragon circling in the sky.