This is Charlie's first time venturing beyond the safety perimeter of Twilight Town, directly crossing the outer boundary of the "Clearing the Wilderness" task.
The trees in the dense forest are similar to the giant banyan trees on Earth, incredibly massive and twisted, each tree seemingly hundreds of years old, the lush canopy blocking out the sun, combined with the purple-brown twilight haze, even in the daytime, the entire forest remains gloomy, never seeing sunlight.
The air is cold and damp, in no time the clothes become soaked, sticking to the body, chilling, and the pervasive stench of decay makes one's chest tighten, very unpleasant.
After leaving Twilight Town, Charlie started using the chip to analyze the terrain modeling, the chip running at full speed, recording everything seen, heard, and smelled, a three-dimensional holographic map full of biological information constantly being refined in his mind, every detail stored in the chip.
Next time passing through, it will be Charlie's home turf.
At first, the entire hunting team advanced in a cluster, maintaining a rapid march, casually slaying any beasts encountered along the way, the carcasses of many low-level beasts simply discarded by the roadside, the large teams not wasting time here, smaller teams constantly breaking off from the main group, these beast carcasses providing basic income assurance for them, and due to the commotion, some higher-level beasts were either killed on the spot or fled, leaving the battlefield relatively safe.
Charlie's temporary team was sandwiched in the middle of the group, advancing deeper into the dense forest.
The traces of over 1,000 living beings were quite obvious, especially with nearly half of the group being undead creatures, with their simple intelligence, the word "avoid" does not exist, anything in front of them will be crushed.
Charlie noticed the forest had no path at all, the thousand-strong team leaving a 20-meter wide path as they went, the fresh soil exposed from the layers of decaying leaves.
Charlie couldn't help but ask the temporary teammate beside him, "Hasn't this path been walked before?"
The person shook his head, "The destination this time should be the Spore Forest, this is an old path."
Hearing this, Charlie felt strange, if it's an old path, why didn't the forest leave any traces of last week's activity?
Charlie raised this question.
"You don't even know this! And you're studying to be a ranger, really don't know what your teacher was teaching you!" Yulia sneered a few words, explaining, "The forest outside the Twilight Town safety perimeter is called the 'Rotting Forest', it has self-healing abilities, like the path we opened up today, it only takes three days to be completely erased and restored to its original state, so it's easy to get lost in the Rotting Forest, and it also means we have to get back within three days, otherwise, once these traces heal over, we may never be able to return."
As she spoke, she disdainfully looked Charlie up and down, "A ranger like you must stick close to the main group, otherwise you might just get yourself trapped in the forest."
Charlie didn't refute, casually breaking off a purple-black branch in front of him, the branch full of swollen buds, bursting with vitality, a drop of murky liquid oozing from the broken end.
Charlie hesitated for a moment, then put it in his mouth and chewed.
"Ugh! You're so disgusting!!" Yulia showed a look of disgust, stepping back half a step, "The forest is full of rotten leaves and beast droppings, what you just ate is the transformed product of all that, don't you find it revolting?"
Charlie asked in return, "Do you eat mushrooms?"
"Of course I do! So what?"
"Mushrooms are the reproductive organs, when you eat them, don't you find it revolting?"
Yulia's face flushed bright red, then she glared fiercely at Charlie.
The team leader spoke up, "Alright, you two stop arguing, Yulia, stop minding other people's business, what he does is his own business, what's it to you! And Charlie, as a gentleman, you should have some grace, don't be too petty, don't fight with women!"
Charlie smiled, "Understood!"
Yulia's bad temper is definitely a habit, either the team leader or the team leader's mother must have spoiled her, as a team leader, he doesn't even understand Charlie's purpose in chewing that, how can this team attract talent?
While the two were bickering, the chip provided the analysis result: the tree sap is rich in various energy substances, especially heat, equivalent to military energy ration, slightly toxic, can cause hallucinations, in times of food crisis, the tree sap can be used to stave off hunger.
The problem is, why can a tree produce such pure energy substances? That should be an animal trait, why would animal traits appear in trees?
Sensing this, Charlie couldn't help but shiver, looking around again, feeling like the entire forest was a giant beast with its mouth open, not knowing if it was a psychological effect, or his keen sense of smell detecting something.
Soon, after a few hours of travel, the thousand-strong hunting team approached the destination, this area being the buffer zone between the dense forest and the Spore Forest, the environment most complex, as this area contains abundant resources, it also has many high-level beasts lurking, an ideal hunting ground, of course, with the countless hunting activities that have taken place in this area, the beasts do not always play the role of prey.
Seeing the teams in their line of sight gradually thinning out, many small teams branching off in different directions to seek resources, until Charlie's temporary team was left alone in the forest.
The team leader threw down a stone with a rune mark, "I've left a magic mark identifier here, before we set out, I gave each of you an 'identifier stone', it contains the sensing method for the magic mark, so you can sense the direction.
But be aware that the stone's sensing has a range effect, in open areas, the sensing can spread up to 10 kilometers, but in this dense forest, don't exceed 3 kilometers, otherwise I can't guarantee the effectiveness of the magic, understand?"
The temporary team members all responded.
"Then let's begin! Ranger friend, it's your turn to perform now, can you find any unowned prey, let's see what you've got!"
Charlie nodded silently, starting to listen intently.
"There's a lot of commotion and noise in that direction." Charlie pointed.
This team leader also has his strengths, he didn't have the slightest doubt about Charlie's judgment, fully accepting it, trusting people, he must have his own extraordinary aspects.
Less than a hundred meters ahead, they saw a small team surrounding a blue-green savage beast, the area around littered with debris, traces of blood spattered everywhere, and right under the blue-green savage beast's bloody maw, the head of an apprentice was bitten in half, scattered on the ground like a rotten watermelon.
Perhaps sensing the gaze from this side, the small team glared over, the warning intention quite obvious.
The team leader advised, "The most important thing when hunting here is not to keep staring at other teams' people, especially when they are collecting spoils, otherwise it may provoke an unnecessary fight!"
Perhaps tired of his constant reminders.
From the temporary team, someone voiced discontent, "Alright, stop with so many rules! We're all peers, no need to be that afraid!"
With this statement, an inharmonious feeling immediately arose, as the team leader, he really didn't like this kind of self-important team member.
The team leader couldn't help but retort, "Oh? Do you have any good suggestions?"
"My suggestion is to just get to work! Don't end up not getting anything! I've experienced it before, no danger at all, just that the prey was unrelated to us."
"Isn't that what I'm arranging here?" The team leader went along with his suggestion, asking Charlie, "Where do we go next? Do you have any good advice?"
Charlie listened intently for a moment, pointing in a direction, "There's fighting over there, and I can also hear a lot of beast sounds."
"Good! Let's go that way! You lead the way!!" The team leader affirmed Charlie's judgment, also conveniently passing the worst task to him.