Chapter 64: Tears of the Star

Whoosh!

An arrow pierced through the head of an elite stone scythe specter.

It was the leader of the group. The surrounding stone scythe specters saw it dead and scatter as they couldn’t tell where the attack came from.

Ji Xinghuo emerged from his hiding spot and skillfully harvested some exotic species from the bodies.

“Rock skin, toughness…”

He shook his head. The stone scythe’s awakenable abilities are just a few that he’d seen many times with few surprises.

He had over a hundred rock skins in his backpack. This ability has little market demand. Offloading this many at once probably won’t fetch much money.

But exotic species are just a side issue. The most important is the psychic energy.

Ji Xinghuo opened the interface of the Wanxiang Star Pupils.

Since advancing his ether sensitivity to ether affinity, he’s continued to hunt in Peak Valley for five days. His level-up progress steadily advances, now at level three, 128 out of 1439. The freshly killed group of stone scythe specters provided him with 8 points of psychic energy, all of which he immediately put into his progression.

Looking at his new total of 136/1439, Ji Xinghuo couldn’t help but sigh, “This is tough!”

These days, after much hard work rushing around, he has traveled six or seven hundred kilometers, killed dozens of monsters and yet, his level progression isn’t even at ten percent.

And that’s just ether affinity.

The psychic energy needed for a magnetic field rotation and a thousand cunning hands is even more.

Ji Xinghuo took a short break, then continued seeking the stone scythe specter group.

He’s now very familiar with Peak Valley. Whenever he arrived somewhere new, just a few glances tell him if there are stone scythe specters around, where the monsters might be hiding, and where to walk to possibly gain psychic energy. It’s as familiar as his own home.

Star Realm has entered the ‘Singing Moon’ period, making the starry nights longer.

After a day’s hunt, Ji Xinghuo found a campsite as the night fell.

In the middle of the night, he sensed something and opened his eyes. Little Green Snake resumed its iron arrow green form, curled up in a corner of the tent, and was also looking outside.

“Monsters?”

Ji Xinghuo was puzzled as he didn’t detect any monsters with his magnetic field sense.

He quickly scrambled out of the tent and was shocked as soon as he looked up.

The sky which was pitch-black now had a light source coming from the far horizon, not glaring yet moving at high speed.

The light source moved very fast, growing closer and becoming clearer in his view.

“A meteor!”

It was a bright meteor emitting dazzling multicolored light, dragging a long tail across the high sky.

As it passed, it illuminated tens of kilometers of land.

Ji Xinghuo watched the meteor’s path; it was directly overhead, very high, perhaps 30,000 meters, until it disappeared over the horizon, followed only then by the sound of a loud boom from the sky.

“So this is a celestial phenomenon of the Star Realm…”

“Indeed, it’s spectacular!”

Soon after humans entered the Star Realm, they discovered it’s prone to various celestial phenomena, which are irregular and mostly unexplainable.

However, some phenomena’s outcomes are easily found.

Like the one just witnessed, called ‘Tears of the Star,’ it’s a strange object falling into the Star Realm from another dimension. Once it lands, only its core remains, its light retracts making it hard to notice.

If one finds a Tear of the Star, one could make a fortune.

Because a Tear of the Star is an expansion oddity. Superhumans or strong beings above rank four absorbing a Tear can merge with an additional exotic species.

Its effect is similar to that of a life-seed, but its value is over ten times that of a life-seed!

A superhuman can use a life-seed once in a lifetime but can use three Tears of the Star.

Super, Legendary, Celestial.

Each of these ranks can use a Tear of the Star for every evolution. If they receive a Tear at every rank, they can merge three additional exotic species.

One can imagine how much this enhances their abilities.

Moreover, a Tear of the Star contains massive amounts of ether energy. It can be directly absorbed and transformed into star force, boosting strength massively in a short time.

The Star Defense Council last century established three rankings; ‘Global Ladder,’ ‘Legends List,’ and ‘Celestial List.’ The strongest superhumans are recorded on the ‘Celestial List,’ currently totaling 49 globally.

Almost every one of the top twenty Celestials has absorbed three Tears of the Star.

Though not essential for becoming a Celestial, the significance of a Tear of the Star is indisputable from one perspective.

Its value is counted in billions!

Gazing in the direction of the fallen meteor, its altitude slightly dropped as it passed.

“The crash site shouldn’t be more than a hundred kilometers away.”

“There are definitely others in Peak Valley who saw the meteor. If I want to go, I need to hurry and get there before anyone else.”

Once a Tear of the Star hits the ground, its glow retracts, and its size is about as big as a fist, making it hard to find over an area of several hundred square kilometers.

Finding it is not easy; it depends purely on luck.

“Finding things is my strength, and I’m so close. I can’t miss this opportunity.”

Ji Xinghuo didn’t hesitate for long.

He quickly packed up his tent and belongings and traveled overnight towards the direction of the meteor’s fall.

After traveling for about six or seven hours through the night, by daylight Ji Xinghuo had covered over ninety kilometers and entered the meteor’s crash vicinity.

But others had arrived before him.

In his magnetic field induction, Ji Xinghuo detected two groups of superhumans. They were even closer to the landing site of the Tear, running towards it frantically.

He didn’t want to encounter others, so he avoided them completely.

“This place…”

Climbing to the top of a rocky peak, Ji Xinghuo looked out over the endless mountains and suddenly, the scene seemed familiar.

“Have I been here before?”

As he walked a bit further and gazed into the distant sky at a small suspended mountain shaped like a potato, he suddenly realized.

He and Sister Ren had been here before, exactly where they discovered the ether sensitive exotic.

“That means the Hong-grade giant stone scythe could be in this area.” Ji Xinghuo’s heart skipped a beat. He had intentionally avoided this area on his current trip into Peak Valley, not wanting to encounter that level of monster, yet here he was.

“I won’t provoke it, so there should be no troubles.”

“The stone scythe groups are mobile. That group numbers in the thousands, making a lot of noise. As long as I get close, I’ll detect them and can run ahead of time.”

Ji Xinghuo felt there was no need to worry excessively and began searching for the Tear of the Star.

His magnetic field induction has a range of 800 meters.

A simple calculation shows the area he can sense is just over 2 square kilometers.

Within this range, he can clearly sense all magnetic fields, but there’s a problem; the Tear of the Star is stationary and very small.

Typically, Ji Xinghuo ignores magnetic fields that are stationary and small when using his induction.

Otherwise, countless overlapping magnetic fields create a blurred mess, dizzying to look at just like static on a TV screen.

“I’ll have to take it slow.”

Ji Xinghuo adjusted his perception method. At each location, he examined all magnetic fields, big and small, within his induction range.

Although this reduced his efficiency significantly, he was still thousands of times faster than others.

Over the entire morning, Ji Xinghuo covered about 10 square kilometers.

Yet he found nothing.

More and more superhumans arrived, including hunting teams, lone wanderers, and various Star Realm exploration groups and mercenary companies.

Everyone was searching for the Tear of the Star, conducting a thorough, methodical search.

Initially, Ji Xinghuo could avoid others by using his magnetic field sense, but by the afternoon, he was encountering others nearly every two to three kilometers, making it impossible to avoid them.

Fortunately, everyone’s focus was on finding the rare object, so no conflicts arose.

After continuously searching for over forty hours covering nearly 50 square kilometers with his magnetic field induction, Ji Xinghuo felt utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally, and was forced to temporarily leave the area to rest for a few hours.

The next day before dawn fully broke, he resumed his search.

He continued searching until noon, finally sitting down to rest under a tree. His magnetic field sense detected two groups of people, one on the mountain, another in the valley.

“So many people…”

Ji Xinghuo shook his head helplessly.

At this rate, within three days, every hunting team in Peak Valley would have arrived.

Although Peak Valley usually doesn’t have many people, spread over nearly 50,000 square kilometers of mountains, when everyone gathers, there could still be a thousand or two.

And the news would quickly spread back to Olympia.

By the day after tomorrow at the latest, the first group of hunting teams with flying mounts would arrive, and the number of people would increase day by day, reducing his chances of getting the Tear of the Star.

Just as he was thinking this, Ji Xinghuo suddenly turned his head towards the east, the direction of Olympia.

Several dark shadows appeared on the horizon.

“So soon?”

Ji Xinghuo’s face showed surprise as the Wanxiang Star Pupils cleared up the images in the sky.

They were three huge beaked pterosaurs, the largest with a wingspan over fifteen meters, each sporting a disproportionately large pointed beak and sharp claws at the wing tips, making them very fast flyers. Each pterosaur carried three to four people on its back.

Alongside the giant beaked pterosaurs were other flying creatures.

Five were falcons, divided into two types: one with a wingspan of about three meters, the Wind Riding Falcon, and the slightly smaller, the Red-eyed Mountain Hawk.

There were also two stunningly majestic Silver-winged Pegasus, each wearing specially crafted horse armor and each carrying a fully armed superhuman on their backs.

A large group of blood crows circled one of the Silver-winged Pegasus, accompanying its master in flight.

This group of flying mounts swept over the forest and valley, heading this way.

Thump, thump, thump…

As the pterosaurs and Silver-winged Pegasus approached, intense sounds came from below their position, shaking the trees and stirring up dust.

A large group of monsters burst into Ji Xinghuo’s magnetic field sense.

Ironback Giant Bears, Stone Scythe Specters, Shadow Wolves, Poison Fog Spiders, Thousand Peak Retrievers, and so forth, each species having at least five or six individuals, some even more than a dozen, each wearing human-made armor and weapons, forming a monster army.

Ji Xinghuo’s face slightly changed.

This was a hunting team from the “Wan Beast Garden Group,” very famous.

The company uses Beastmasters as the core to create hunting teams. The team has a fixed staff of twelve people, with the team leader inevitably a super Beastmaster, and the assistant deputy leader also a super superhuman.

The other ten members include three Beastmasters, two Hunters, and two Rangers.

There 思维导图 3 流程 also a Star Torchbearer, a Plant Witch, and a White Knight each, responsible for healing and supporting other members and the battle pet army during combat.

The biggest advantage of such a hunting team is in numbers. Four Beastmasters and two Hunters jointly control dozens, even hundreds of战斗奇迹 페이지 4 battle pets, sweeping through enemies like an army. When they go out hunting, their presence is overwhelming and hardly anyone dares to oppose them.

Ji Xinghuo had heard of them before.

Seeing the Wan Beast Garden hunting team approaching him, he quickly stepped aside. Soon, the monster group thundered past him at a few hundred meters away, like a flood surging through.

Ji Xinghuo looked up at the two superhumans riding the Silver-winged Pegasus in the sky.

They were a man and a woman.

The woman appeared to be in her thirties, the Beastmaster team leader of the hunting group. She had an attractive demeanor, wore light armor, and a pure white parrot perched on her shoulder. Her stern gaze swept below.

When she saw Ji Xinghuo, she paused slightly then looked away.

The man was uniquely dressed, his hair dyed in a flashy pink-purple and styled into a flaming shape. He wore a stylish cape and had a long sword hanging at his waist.

Ji Xinghuo noticed the ether energy around him was constantly changing, taking on various colors like a dye vat, forming an almost invisible rainbow around him.

“He’s a superconductor!” Ji Xinghuo thought.

This phenomenon of ether energy gathering into a rainbow fits the occupational traits of a superconductor, coming from the core exotic ability ‘Star Force Superconductor’.