Chapter 22: Exploration Mission

“Just try your best.”

“If I use it continuously, I can only last for three hours and twenty minutes at most,” Gaia added.

“How long do you need to rest?”

“If I rest for one and a half hours, I can use it for forty minutes. The ability is active for 40 minutes at a time.”

“Then, let’s adjust the plan. Two hours in the morning, departure at 0830 hours, return at 1030 hours. Two hours in the afternoon, departure at 1400 hours, return at 1600 hours. Is there a problem?”

“No.”

“Then, we’ll follow this route.” Douglas picked up a piece of paper and drew a general map.

The original plan was to use the altar as the center and explore a radius of 500 meters. Now, the route had been changed from a circle to a semi-circle.

The search area had been reduced by half.

However, the mission was still very taxing.

According to the route, if they wanted to explore the entire area within the 500-meter radius, they would need to go back and forth a few times. The total distance was over eight kilometers. In other words, that meant hiking two kilometers an hour.

This sounded very simple on paper.

However, in reality, Gaia and the others were not taking a stroll in the woods. They needed to clear a path in this forest that no one had ever set foot in before.

Planet Mushu was a completely foreign planet. Not only did they have to be careful of venomous snakes and insects hiding in the grass, but they also had to be careful of ferocious beasts that could appear at any time.

For them, danger was always around the corner.

Right now, the teleportation ability of the Stargate was limited, and most of the people needed to stay in the forward operating base to help in construction.

Without Gaia, the people stationed on Planet Mushu would be stretched thin.

In fact, the lack of manpower could even cause the exploration of Planet Mushu to be stalled.

…

After getting ready, the group began to follow the route proceeded to the left of the altar.

They would complete today’s exploration mission according to the M-shaped route.

After passing through a tall and dense forest, the group entered a spore forest.

Since there was sufficient rainwater on Planet Mushu, the spore forest grew very vigorously.

The bigger spore clusters were as big as a pine tree, big enough to fit three people within it. The smaller ones were as long as fingers, gently waving in the breeze.

It was obvious that the types of spores were very different. Just within this area, Gaia could tell that there were at least a hundred types of spores just from looking at them with the naked eye.

“Tsk tsk, there are so many species of spores here. It’s completely different from Planet Azure now, where there isn’t much diversity when it came to species.” The scout Sears was holding a machete in one hand as he carefully circled around a cluster of red spores.

Actually, they were not just exploring randomly without a purpose. They had the goal of collecting some samples of new species here.

Just as Sears said, the species on Planet Azure lacked diversity. Due to the endless development of humans, many species had lost their habitats or were infected with bacteria. This caused the rate of extinction of the species in the few centuries to skyrocket.

Gaia did not let down its guard at all.

“Douglas, be careful! Put on your protective goggles,” Gaia suddenly said to Douglas.

“Oh! Okay.” Douglas hurriedly put on his protective goggles.

After entering the spore forest, Douglas felt like he was back in his element. He was very excited to find a new species.

When Gaia was talking, he had made a discovery.

A snail the size of a walnut was lying on a spore. It had a brown shell and looked harmless.

However, the spore’s reaction to the snail told Gaia that this snail was extremely dangerous! It could spray pus and blind its enemies.

That was why he asked Douglas to put on his protective glasses at once.

The next second, the little snail suddenly curled up its tail like a taut slingshot.

Suddenly, its tail flung out.

A ball of pus shot straight at Douglas’s eyes. It was so fast that there was no time for him to react.

“Plop!”

The pus splashed onto Douglas’s eyes. Fortunately, it was blocked by the protective goggles. Douglas did not come into direct contact with the pus.

Seeing this scene, everyone had goosebumps.

Who would have thought that such a small creature could have such a terrifying method to deal with its enemy.

If it was not for Gaia’s warning just now, Douglas would have been screwed.

Douglas looked at Gaia gratefully. Then, he took off his protective glasses and carefully scraped the pus into the sampling tube.

“You’re really not afraid of death, huh?” Gaia shook his head. Although he was mocking Douglas, he admired his passion for research quite a bit.

This level of passion was quite a rare thing these days.

Then, Douglas put on a new pair of protective goggles. He used his right hand, which was wearing a transparent protective glove, to pick up the snail, placing it into the sampling bottle.

Everyone continued to explore.

Suddenly, Gaia felt a chill down his spine.

He heard an extremely malicious voice with Attuned to Nature.

This voice was very chaotic and did not have any sense of rationality, but it just reeked of something evil.

“Six meters. My 1 o’clock. Three meters above ground.”

Gaia quickly spoke, his expression was very nervous.

Seeing Gaia’s expression, the other members knew that something was up.

They all readied their weapons and looked around vigilantly.

William seemed to have noticed something. He raised his gun, aimed at a tree next to him, and pulled the trigger.

“Tatatata.” A series of gunshots rang out.

William shot a bug on the tree until green liquid burst out of its body, its remains falling down from the tree trunk.

“Was that it?” William asked.

Gaia shook his head. The chill in his spine was still present. He still felt that there was something just stalking them.

Suddenly, Gaia took two steps forward and fiercely raised the round explosion-proof shield in his hand.

This was something he had specially brought with him before he left.

What looked like an arrow shot out from the bushes, hitting the shield before bouncing off.

Then, another flash of light zipped past Gaia from behind him.

“Clank!”

A military knife nailed the assailant to a tree trunk.

It was a strange green snake with a red spiral horn on its head. It looked very sharp. With one stab of that horn, even disregarding the possibility of poison, the victim would end up with a giant hole in his body.

At this time, the strange snake was twisting its body in pain and tightly coiling around the military knife.

Brad took out another military knife and crushed the head of the snake. After confirming that it was completely dead, he took back the knives.

“This little guy is one cunning bastard,” Brad sighed.

Gaia was also frightened. From listening, he knew exactly how dangerous this snake was.

“Yes, after this thing pounced on its prey. The spiral horn on its head would use the momentum from the impact to drill a big hole in its prey’s body. Then, they’d squirm into the prey’s body. During this time, it injects toxins into the body to paralyze it and then lays eggs within the prey’s body. At the same time, those toxins slowly melt away the insides of the prey’s body.”