The giant glowing spider was sleeping, while sitting in the centre of an enormous spider web. The spider web covered the entire area of the forest in front of Yang Meng and Sofie. Blocking their path forward.
"S-should we go around it…?" Sofie said in a trembling voice as she already started to nudge Yang Meng towards the left side around the spider web.
"No, we can't go around it! Look there is even an herb in there and if I'm not wrong, it's a mid-mortal grade crystal flower!" Yang Meng said as he excitedly pointed at an area just below the sleeping spider.
A small flower was growing there, with two leaves glowing gently in the darkness below the giant glowing spider.
"NO-! "Sofie almost yelled immediately while forming an X with her arms, clearly indicating that she would have no part in harvesting a flower from under a giant glowing spider, even if it was asleep.
"Quiet down would you! If that crystal spider wakes up, getting out of here uninjured would be pretty hard!" Yang Meng said as he was covering Sofie's mouth, while looking over at the crystal spider to see if it woke up. Luckily, it was still sound asleep.
"Hah… I will go in and get the crystal flower, you just stay here and keep an eye on the crystal spider, if it moves, call out to me immediately!" Yang Meng said seriously, earning an obedient nod from Sofie.
"Good. Now, remember to stay quiet no matter what!" Yang Meng said as he moved his body towards the crystal flower.
Sofie almost forgot their current situation and was about to laugh out loud, as she saw Yang Meng sneaking towards the crystal flower with his oversized round body.
…
Looking up at the giant crystal spider in front of him, Yang Meng dodge the web all over the place as he made his way to the crystal flower.
Lowering his body, Yang Meng grabbed unto the crystal flower and pulled it out of the ground before putting it into a sleeve into a small box he kept in his sleeve.
Securing the crystal flower, Yang Meng slowly put the box containing the flower back into his sleeve and returned his attention to the crystal spider. Luckily it was still asleep.
From what he read back home, crystal spiders were smart and sometimes attached their webs to the crystal herbs, which they were most commonly found around. This crystal spider in front of him looked like it was on the more stupid side and had not attached any webs to the crystal herb it was looking after.
We are really lucky that it is only a small one….
Yang Meng thought to himself as he remembered the crystal spiders pictured in a book he read. The one in front of him was only a few meters in size, while the big ones in the book mentioned grew several dozen meters in size.
Shivering at the thought of such a giant crystal spider, Yang Meng quickly made his way back towards Sofie.
…
"Hah…" Moving further and further away from the crystal spider, Yang Meng released a sigh as he arrived in front of Sofie.
"D-did everything go well?" Sofie whispered in a concerned voice. Glancing at the crystal spider still sleeping close by.
"Yes, I got the crystal flower. Let's quickly get out of here before it wakes up, it will get quite angry when it discovers that the crystal flower is gone." Yang Meng said as he quickly moved in the opposite direction of the crystal spider.
Sofie did not say anything and followed after Yang Meng, just wanting to get away from the giant crystal spider as quickly as possible.
...
Yang Meng and Sofie both continued to walk through the glowing forest. Not encountering a second demon beast, to Yang Meng's surprise and Sofie's relief.
"Why is there so few demon beasts? There should be more and that crystal spider from earlier is way stronger than something anyone in the qi gathering realm could ever deal with…" Muttering to himself, Yang Meng looked confusedly at the tree in front of him.
"W-what do you mean something anyone in the qi gathering realm could ever deal with!? W-why did we confront it, if it was that strong!?" Sofie almost screamed at Yang Meng as she angrily looked at him. Waiting for him to explain why they were taking the risk of angering something stronger than the qi gathering realm.
"It's not like it woke up or anything and even if it woke up, we could just run… I think?" Yang Meng explained in a manner which angered people.
"W-what do you mean think! W-we would have clearly died if that spider woke up!" Sofie said in an angered tone as she lightly hit Yang Meng on the back. Needing to vent the anger she felt, but not daring to injure him inside of the underground forest.
"Well, all is fine, we didn't wake it up after all. No damage done." Yang Meng said in know-it-all manner.
Sofie decided it would be useless to argue any further with him and just ignored him.
"Ah, it looks like there is an opening in front of us!" Yang Meng said as Sofie, who had just decided to ignore him, seemed to forget about it and excitedly moved ahead of him and into the opening.
The opening was not really an opening, but the foot of a mountain…
A mountain inside an underground forest? How? What is going on?
Sofie felt her brain short circuit as she failed to understand how a giant mountain suddenly appeared underground.
The ceiling of the place holding the underground forest should at most be a few dozen meters in height. How come a mountain suddenly appeared inside of it?
"Hm… Looks like we arrived at the moonlight mountain… This can be either good luck or bad luck, at least the low-mortal grade moon flower should be present there." Yang Meng said as he had yet to discover the malfunctioning Sofie besides him.
Recovering a little upon hearing Yang Meng's voice, Sofie slowly turned her head and stared blankly at him, then the mountain, then him again.
"H-h-how?!" Was all Sofie managed to say as she looked at the mountain seemingly stretching on forever piercing through the clouds.
Wait… Clouds? Are we not underground?!
Sofie felt more and more confused the more she looked at the mountain in front of her. There were clouds covering everything above them. Not allowing one to see further than a few hundred meters up.
"This is the moonlight mountain, a special region within the moon garden. The only way to enter is through random spatial gates, that appears everywhere within the underground forest at random. Sadly, this also means that the only way to get out is through these random spatial, which disappears a few seconds after appearing…" Yang Meng said as he let out a heavy sigh, clearly not knowing what to do with the current situation.
"T-then how do we get out?" Sofie asked in an anxious voice.
"From what I know… There is only one way out and that is to climb the top of the moonlight mountain! Though, it is extremely dangerous. The only good thing for us is that we are in the first realm, meaning the strongest enemies appearing would be at the qi condensation realm and we can just dodge them." Yang Meng said, trying to cheer up Sofie.
"B-but what did you mean when you said it might be good luck, we ended up here?" Sofie said. Not understanding what part of getting stuck at the foot of the moonlight mountain.
"Ah, while it is indeed dangerous, we should be able to deal with it and the rewards we get at the top of the mountain… Is… Fantastic!" Yang Meng said as a greedy light not belonging to a child shone in his eyes.
"B-but…" Sofie did not really understand the benefits of the rewards and honestly didn't want to do something that could cost her life, just for a reward of some sort.
"The brat is right! The rewards we get here might even include spirit fruits!" A righteous voice came from behind them. Startling both.
"Y-Yue Wan?" Turning around, Sofie saw her roommate, Yue Wan. Standing there with a smile on her lips, clearly happy about something.