"Um..."

Long Ren hadn't expected this guy to have such big ambitions.

"Do you really think your team can beat that elephant lunatic's team?"

However, he voiced his skepticism.

"..."

Li Pu turned his head to glance at the other, contemplating.

"Damn, my team was in second place on the track... Now it's gone."

"... shouldn't we be more concerned about how we can get out of this instance now?"

Long Ren complained again.

"Leaving the instance, isn't that a simple thing?"

Li Pu stood up, dusted himself off, his expression returning to normal.

"Oh? Do you have a way?"

Long Ren's eyes lit up.

To be honest, there was even a moment when he doubted whether the two of them would have to spend the rest of their lives here.

"Just smash this instance into pieces."

"Find the instance core and destroy it."

When it came to this, Li Pu had experience.

As long as the instance core is lost, this instance will return to the real world of the Five Elements.

Then, they would naturally be spit out.

"That's right, there's also this method!"

Prompted by this, Long Ren realized it too.

He had indeed heard of this feature of the instance core.

However, dealing with the instance core is not something a first-year student has the skills and qualifications to experience, even for a standout like Long Ren from Imperial University.

But he never would have expected that standing in front of him was a first-year student who had done it before.

[Dragon Lady...]

Just then, that distant and near whisper came from the back of the valley again.

[Caocao!]

Straw Man: That thing is getting closer again!

[Dragon!]

Half-Dragon: Lord Dragon wants to fight!

[Eat~]

Bubu: Found another small radish!

"For now, let's think about how to leave this broken valley first."

Li Pu sighed slightly.

The whisper had been following them for almost half a day, yet its true form had never appeared.

Apart from reminding them of their current situation, it served no purpose.

This valley was strange too. They had explored for so long, yet there was no end in sight.

On the contrary, they encountered many branching paths with highly similar environments and landscapes.

They had come across so many that it was impossible to remember the subtle differences between each fork.

This made the two of them repeatedly suspect that they were wandering in this maze-like valley, going around in circles back to the same path.

"No choice, let's keep exploring."

Long Ren sighed, walking along with Li Pu.

However, perseverance pays off, and after another two hours of exploration, they finally reached a place they had never set foot in before.

It was a circular valley similar to the one with Dragon-Expelling Fruits, except this one was dozens of times larger.

The entrance was well hidden by numerous trees, and without the tenwood sensing ability of the Straw Man, they might never have found it.

On the valley walls, there were many rocks suitable for climbing and brief hiding. At this moment, Li Pu and Long Ren were lying flat on a rock five meters high, peeping sneakily downward.

Because as soon as they entered the circular valley, they felt something was off.

"What on earth... what are these things?"

Long Ren whispered in amazement as he watched the scene below.

The circular valley was filled with green phosphorescence.

Fist-sized wood element crystals were scattered quietly on the ground.

On top of each crystal grew a tree monster of various sizes.

The smallest ones were less than half a meter tall, thinner than an arm, essentially saplings,

while the largest ones were nearly five meters tall, very similar to the tough tree monster Long Ren encountered earlier in the second round.

At this moment, all the tree monsters had their branches drooping, eyes closed, as if they were in a slumber.

"Feels like... a breeding ground for tree monsters."

Long Ren shared his thoughts.

"Is that so? All I can see is a field of wealth."

Li Pu's eyes were fixed on the wood element crystals.

"Uh, you're not wrong."

Long Ren had to agree.

Based on the number of tree monsters, there were at least a hundred wood element crystals in this circular valley.

By the market average price of 3,000 each, that's a total of 300,000+.

He wasn't exactly wealthy himself; being able to summon the Half-Dragon was a stroke of luck and some fortunate opportunities.

"Fifteen grand each, are we doing it?"

Li Pu was straightforward.

"Let's do it."

Long Ren nodded, feeling that his reply sounded quite like the Straw Man.

With Long Ren's participation, Li Pu felt much more confident.

After all, the combat power of the Half-Dragon was still very strong. With the Straw Man and Half-Dragon together, they might even beat Li Pu himself.

So the two of them quietly discussed and decided to let the Straw Man go down to test the waters first.

Given its tenwood nature, it would have much better rapport with the tree monsters and wouldn't easily startle them.

[Caocao!]

Having understood Li Pu's meaning, the Straw Man raised both arms to indicate its understanding.

It then jumped down directly from the rock ledge, stopping by a young tree monster not even up to its height.

[Cao!]

With one outstretched hand, it pulled up the young tree monster and tossed it aside.

"!!!"

Seeing this, Long Ren grabbed Li Pu's shoulder in fright.

"..."

Li Pu felt speechless toward the Straw Man too.

Despite telling it to act cautiously, it turned out to be so reckless.

Fortunately, for some reason, the young tree monster lay silently on the ground, as if it had no awareness.

So under Li Pu's instruction, it didn't take long for the Straw Man to pull up a dozen or so relatively young tree monsters and retrieve the wood element crystals previously wrapped by their roots.

"This... is a bit too easy, isn't it?"

Long Ren was almost drooling over the numerous wood element crystals.

However, noticing that the larger tree monsters were difficult for the Straw Man to move, they decided to try sending in the Half-Dragon and Bubu.

Similarly, the Half-Dragon and Bubu operated without causing any tree monster to stir.

After observing and waiting for a while, the two of them jumped down as well.

"Feels like they're just vegetative people."

"That's not right, they should be plant vegetative people."

"In any case, they seem soulless."

They continued to talk as they began working.

Even the Fire Tongs Scorpion joined in, emerging from its storage space.

While everyone was moving the tree monsters aside to collect the wood element crystals, Li Pu was poking around here and there.

After checking a full circle, he regretfully found that the tree monsters' associated items only came in 5 to 6 types.

Only two of these were available in sufficient quantities, the rest couldn't make a complete set.

And these two were useless skills, classified as F-level and D-level.

Since both the Straw Man and Bubu were fully leveled, the skills were put away for later use.

Long Ren also scanned the various tree monsters with his wrist device, noting that the highest grade was a C-level, likely of the same type he had once battled against.

Given that he had enough storage space, he took some valuable parts of the giant tree monster to take with them.

Even this action didn't wake the giant tree monster in resistance, further confirming that these creatures might indeed be in a plant vegetative state.

With all the living dead trees laid low, the circular valley seemed much more spacious, at least the view was much improved.

But just as the group was about to thoroughly clean the battlefield one more time and leave, Bubu tugged at Li Pu's clothing.

[Eat eat! Eat eat eat!]

It pointed to a patch of grass in the corner of the circular valley, making a string of noises.

"Oh?"

Li Pu raised an eyebrow at this.

He had encountered this scenario before.

Only when Bubu discovered strange food buried underground did it display such behavior.

Thus, they called over the Straw Man and the Half-Dragon to start digging.

With these two and Li Pu, the digging speed with three shovels was phenomenal.

Yet even so, they found nothing after digging for several minutes.

Instead, they hit the bottom barriers a few times, forcing them to dig sideways.

"Looks like I need to find a digging skill when there's a chance."

Li Pu complained, drenched in sweat.

If not for his trust in Bubu, he would have stopped working by now.

Fortunately, patience paid off, and after he, the Straw Man, and the Half-Dragon kept digging for another ten minutes, something finally appeared in the large pit.

"Ah, this is...!"

Standing at the edge of the pit, Long Ren exclaimed.

...

...

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