Regardless of the plans and thoughts his enemies might be having, Bai Zemin's movements and actions did not waver even for an instant.
For four full days, he led his army of 15 thousand soul evolvers and advanced directly northward. Although he had lost contact with the other 5 thousand soul evolvers who had separated under his orders to head south, Bai Zemin was at ease in his heart.
In these four days that passed, Bai Zemin and his army struck down two more Russian bases. The troops there could not retreat in time as a large-scale mass retreat was not as simple as crossing the teleport gate and that was it; there were many things to do.
Moving food, treasures, vehicles, disassembling technology, erasing and destroying data, etc. All of these things were time consuming and the virtually unstoppable advance of the Transcendent faction certainly wasn't of much help to the New Russia faction.
While it was true that the last two bases were not considered points of importance that needed to be taken down at any cost, Bai Zemin and his team still managed to kill over 30 thousand enemy soul evolvers, over 340 thousand armed soldiers, and over 600 thousand survivors in total.
All this happened while they moved almost in a straight line aiming at Moscow and only taking deviations in cases like the Irkutsk base as it was a point that needed to be taken down due to its strategic importance to the enemy faction. If Bai Zemin was willing to invest much more time then he would have taken his troops on a full scale tour throughout Russia, crushing many more bases in the process.
... For the first time since the invasion of Russia began, the group led by Bai Zemin finally stopped neither to rest nor to attack the enemy.
Standing in the middle of a large snow-covered clearing with no mountain nearby, Bai Zemin took a small transparent crystal the size of a coin and brought it close to his left eye while closing his right.
As he injected his Mana into the crystal, it glowed slightly and when the faint blue layer covered the surface of the crystal the image that was over 20 kilometers away became significantly clearer to him.
All he saw was green, green, and more green. There was no trace of snow in the distance but the grass grew healthily and vigorously, spreading everywhere with ease. There were trees, there were flowers, and there were even living plants that seemed to be self-consciously twisting and curling around the trunks.
Wu Yijun who was standing not far from him lowered the viewing crystal as she said with persistent amazement: "That forest is without a doubt the strangest and most impressive forest I have ever seen or imagined. There are even trees, flowers, and other kinds of plants that are not supposed to start growing until after the Earth goes through its fourth evolution."
Among the tens of thousands of books that were taken from the library found under the ruins of the Five Silver Pagodas that day was one in particular that was so astonishingly large that it easily put even the most descriptive and complete dictionary in China to shame. This book was an encyclopedia that contained all kinds of information about plants, from something as simple as their name or distinguishing characteristics to more advanced things like their possible uses or their different life expectancies and places where they might possibly grow.
While it was natural to expect that it was impossible for the person or persons who wrote that detailed and illustrated encyclopedia to know all the plants that existed and could exist, it was still complete and valuable enough that even Wu Yijun was willing to invest large amounts of her precious time reading and studying it on more than one occasion.
If even she was amazed while looking at the distant forest, one could only imagine how strange and peculiar this situation was!
"I don't know much about plant varieties but the truth is that forest is really gigantic...." Shangguan Xinyue looked off into the distance as she slowly floated down to the ground and said with some apprehension, "For some reason I get a bad feeling when I look at that forest."
Shangguan Bing Xue looked at Bai Zemin calmly and observed, "Should we set fire to it?"
Feng Tian Wu did not expect such a proposal from Shangguan Bing Xue hence she looked at her with a glint of surprise shining in her eyes. Even Wu Yijun was surprised and quickly intervened.
"W- Wait a moment please!"
Shangguan Bing Xue and Bai Zemin looked at her puzzled while asking her what was the problem.
Wu Yijun opened her big gem-like eyes and said hastily, "In that forest may be many precious plants that can be made into healing or regenerative potions. There might even be herbs needed for the development and improvement of serums we already have such as the zombie vaccine or the berserker serum!"
"That's..." Bai Zemin immediately frowned upon hearing this.
Truth be told, he was planning to set that forest on fire just like Shangguan Bing Xue suggested earlier. This was because just like Shangguan Xinyue, he also had a bad feeling when he looked at that seemingly paradisiacal forest in the distance. However, Wu Yijun's words made him reconsider his previous idea twice.
Shangguan Bing Xue realized that he was having a dilemma so she immediately stepped forward to help him: "In that case, why don't we do something simple? We can go a little deeper into the forest, just a couple of us, and the rest of us wait outside. After we gather what we need if we can find it we can go out and then set it on fire."
After considering for a moment, Wu Yijun felt that Shangguan Bing Xue's idea was a good one so she nodded slowly, "I think it's fair that way."
"Settled then." Bai Zemin was also satisfied with Shangguan Bing Xue's idea. He smiled slightly at her and nodded, "With Bing Xue's idea, we won't need to risk too much if only the most powerful of us go inside, and advancing only a kilometer or two should be a piece of cake for us."
Just going around the periphery of the forest should be enough for them to collect plenty of plants and herbs; plants and herbs which could be planted in the Collector's Pocket World later, wait for them to reproduce, and thus begin a new era of serums and vaccines. <novelnext> </novelnext>
It would not be too late to incinerate the entire forest to ashes after taking what they needed.
Shangguan Bing Xue smiled back at Bai Zemin and it was inevitable for her to feel happy. When he smiled at her or showed her that he held her in high esteem, Shangguan Bing Xue who had never known love before felt as if she was melting and her heart felt as sweet as if she had eaten honey.
With everything decided, the group immediately set out and continued to move northward but this time they were considerably slower and more cautious than before. Faced with this forest that grew overnight and seemingly never stopped expanding, they could only be careful if they did not want to be caught with their hands tied behind their backs.
Approximately 20 minutes later, Bai Zemin gasped in awe in his heart as he mounted Little Snow's back.
The forest in front of him could only be described with the word massive.
Its trees were so tall that they probably reached 1500 or even 2000 meters in height. There were plants so colorful and peculiarly shaped that even with a child's imagination it would be hard to think of them, and its extension was so terrifying that even with the eyesight of extremely powerful soul evolvers with skills that enhanced their senses they still couldn't see the boundary no matter whether they looked east or west.
Looking at the forest in front of him, Bai Zemin suddenly had a flash of inspiration as a thought he had overlooked flashed in his head.
Why on earth were the Russian troops retreating so quickly, willing to give up precious resources, bases they had managed to build with great effort, and even information to develop high-level magical technology? It was as if they wanted to lure them deeper into their territory, as if they were opening the door for them to pass through without obstruction.
It was then that Bai Zemin felt that the odds were that the Mana Eater Tree, one of the enemies whose records he needed to devastate using his skill, was within this forest. In fact, Bai Zemin did not even rule out the possibility that the Mana Eater Tree was the core of the large forest!
However, Bai Zemin was not really afraid of the Mana Eater Tree. This was because he was not planning to go deep into the forest, he was going to set it on fire, and he was not going to do it in a simple way.
'Even if it's the 9-Headed Immortal Dragon it would still be on the verge of death after receiving an attack from me using Blazing Punishment of Divine Blood not to mention a tree whose greatest fear is fire.' Bai Zemin's eyes flashed as a plan began to take shape in his mind.
If things worked out as he expected, it would not only end up weakening the Mana Eater Tree to the point where it would be a piece of cake to get its records but it would also give the Russian army the false illusion that his army had been decimated inside the forest. As for whether or not everything would go well, Bai Zemin had no way of knowing and he could only play his best cards as cleverly as possible.
'The fact that Lilith and Fire Sorrow are not saying anything means that at this moment I am facing a great crossroads for my fate and future.' Bai Zemin closed his eyes at the thought of this and tried to think of the worst possible future. He believed it was better to be pessimistic and think of the worst to be prepared beforehand rather than be taken by surprise and lose later.
"What are you thinking?" Wu Yijun asked curiously when she saw the gesture Bai Zemin always made subconsciously when he was deep in thought.
"Mhm, just a little..." Bai Zemin didn't say exactly what he was thinking but he didn't deny that he had something on his mind either. He looked back and shouted out loud, "All of you, follow me closely and make sure you don't get apart no matter what! Melee soul evolvers and mages with barrier-type skills form a square and circle around the rest!"
"Ah?" Shangguan Xinyue looked at him in astonishment as this was not what he had said before: "Little King, you're planning to take everyone into the forest?"
Sun Ling frowned slightly as she watched the troops begin to form a large square, "Little boy, are you sure about this? Although everyone here is an elite I'm afraid that even a first level Second Order soul evolver could still fall in there. Remember that all of this is completely unknown to any of us."
Even Wu Yijun who was the person with the most extensive knowledge regarding plant life in the entire faction could not recognize some of the plants further into the forest not to mention those beyond the deep darkness. Sun Ling and the others felt that it was not a good idea to take so many soul evolvers that could become plant fertilizer to an unknown and mysterious place like the clearly dangerous forest in front of them.
"Have confidence in me." Bai Zemin shook his head and did not explain too much but asked for them to believe in him.
How could the others say anything after he said something like that?
Shangguan Xinyue smiled like a fox and said with a chuckle, "Little King, if there is one man I am sure can be depended on that is you. Very well, I will accompany you to play in this mysterious game that you don't want to tell us about."
Wu Yijun, Sun Ling, Meng Qi, Cai Jingyi, and several others including Feng Tian Wu also nodded and said they believed in him. How could they not trust the person who had led them this far and who always took the first step when it came to risking his life in combat?
Shangguan Bing Xue was the only one among the leaders who did not say anything, but the fact that she gently kicked the Roaring Flame Tiger she was riding to get closer to him was more than enough for everyone to understand that she was probably the one who supported him the most.
Bai Zemin took a deep breath and nodded as he looked towards the forest, "Alright, let's move on."
* * * * * * * Really thank you very much to all those who send gifts to the novel and support with valuable Golden Tickets. I hope we can all keep it up <3

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