Tomb Raiding: My Family's Last Clan Chief is Little Brother

The enormous white tree soars into the clouds, its massive vines, as thick as buckets, coil and twine like pythons, deeply rooted in the water. Its umbrella-shaped canopy resembles a giant stretching out its arms, embracing countless white fruits with intricate red veins below.

Like the nerves and blood vessels inside a living creature, the pale tendrils spontaneously wove into a net, firmly adhering to the eggshell.

The heavy white egg had a smooth, glass-like surface that reflected the red glow emitted by the fiery energy stones in the cave, giving the egg the illusion of being shimmering.

Zhang Wuxun could sense very faint energy fluctuations within the nearby white eggs, but it was most likely generated by the eggshell itself. The snake species inside were probably not in good condition, having been forced into a dormant state due to a lack of maternal energy activation over the long years.

In contrast, the egg wrapped around Zhang Haike was much more active.

Zhang Wuxun could even smell the unique scent of blood belonging to the Zhang family. He swam in that direction, trying to send out signals to find his kind as he swam.

Swimming all the way to the tree canopy where the white eggs were hanging, Zhang Wuxun finally caught a very subtle response from his sensory tentacles. He tried to make it out and found that it was actually an anxious distress signal.

Zhang Wuxun felt strange. He craned his neck and looked up, and saw that the surface of the white egg shone even brighter. The eggshell gradually thinned, revealing a black human-shaped shadow struggling inside.

"..." Could this guy have drowned after staying in there for too long?

Logically speaking, this shouldn't be the case. Zhang Wuxun frowned. Then why didn't he feel any discomfort when he soaked in egg whites twice? Could it be that Zhang Haike had malabsorption?

The long, oval white egg shook even more violently, and the mother tree, seeing this, sent out several tendrils from the surrounding vines to help stabilize the mischievous egg.

Then Zhang Wuxun saw that the patterns on the half-blurred inner wall of the eggshell suddenly came to life, stretching out long, thin tentacles like an octopus to tightly bind Zhang Haike.

Zhang Haike was trapped inside the shell, already suffering from oxygen deprivation and on the verge of suffocation, and now he had no chance to resist.

Suddenly, a whooshing sound came from the air. In Zhang Haike's blurry vision, he vaguely saw a white blade pierce through the air like lightning. The cage that he couldn't open no matter how hard he tried was easily sliced ​​straight to the bottom with a single blade.

The space in front of him resembled a broken mirror. Zhang Haike slammed into it with all his might, and with a crash, the cage collapsed completely.

Zhang Haike, like a white fish escaping from a net, splashed back into the water.

Afraid of being hit, Zhang Wuxun quickly swam a short distance away to avoid it. Watching the large splash of water caused by the heavy object falling into the pool, he belatedly realized his embarrassment.

After observing for a while, seeing that Zhang Haike quickly adapted to the water and floated to the surface after falling in, Zhang Wuxun put away his Illusionary Blade, silently swam to a thick vine protruding from the water, climbed out of the water, took out a training uniform from his spatial storage and put it on, then took out a new waterproof bag to organize his equipment.

Zhang Haike surfaced, panting heavily. He wiped the water from his face, his ears suddenly twitched, and he quickly turned his head to stare in one direction, shouting sharply, "Who's there?!"

Zhang Wuxun peeked out from behind the vines, smiled when he saw him, and beckoned to him, "Come over here."

Zhang Haike stared at his face, somewhat surprised. His lips moved slightly, but then he swallowed back the words he was about to say, as if he had just thought of something.

He swam over, grabbed a vine, and carefully examined Zhang Wuxun before finally speaking, "How did your face become like this?"

He knew that Zhang Wuxun hadn't worn a human skin mask like in a typical disguise; instead, he had directly altered the shape of his face and the attached flesh. He had always thought this was irreversible, just like his own face. Zhang Wuxun was taken aback upon hearing this, subconsciously touching his cheek and looking at his reflection in the water. He found that his face looked somewhat unfamiliar, yet the sharpness in his eyes and brows was vaguely familiar.

This is... his own face!

Zhang Wuxun quickly realized that it was due to the previous evolution that not only shed his old skin but also restored his original appearance.

He briefly recounted what had happened to Zhang Haike and then asked him how his evolution was going.

Zhang Haike sighed and shook his head, "Although I had some hope before coming here, it is clear that I am not suitable to be a snake species."

As he spoke, he reached out and patted Zhang Wuxun's shoulder hard. "I once promised an old friend that I would help her find a snake species that could inherit the lineage, and now, the hopes of her entire clan are pinned on you."

"Trying to trick me?" Zhang Wuxun had a gut feeling that something was amiss, and without wanting to ask why, he tossed him a training uniform and said coldly, "You wish."

Zhang Haike didn't intend to explain in detail. He stood up from the water casually, putting on his clothes as he said, "They will find you, and you will need their help in the future."

Zhang Wuxun chuckled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He already had enough trouble on his hands; who would bother taking on another one? It's not like he was just bored out of his mind.

"Where did those two guys get dragged to by the vines?" Zhang Haike promptly changed the subject and asked.

“They weren’t chosen,” Zhang Wuxun said definitively. “There’s no trace of Wu Xie and Fatty here.”

Upon hearing this, Zhang Haike climbed higher, looked around, and then looked back up at the massive tree behind him, saying thoughtfully, "It seems that what we see here is not the main body of this ancestral tree. This should only be a part that has been separated from it to facilitate exploration and identification of the outside world and to find suitable young species for incubation."

This cave is so high that you can't see the top. There are countless dark caves in the gaps between the fiery red rocks all around, some as small as a fist and some as big as a millstone.

Zhang Wuxun slung his backpack over his shoulder, focused intently on sensing the fluctuating scent, and pointed to a small opening in the stone wall, saying, "Let's go this way. The scent there feels somewhat familiar."

Zhang Haike had no objection and nodded, saying, "Okay."

The two swam over to the shortcut, climbed the rock wall, and crawled into the cave.

There were many irregular, old scratches on the stone walls inside the cave. Zhang Haike gripped his dagger and stabbed hard, leaving very faint marks that were almost invisible unless you looked closely.

He speculated, "These scratches look like they were left by snakes that hatched here a long time ago, and yes, more than one."

Zhang Wuxun suspected he was talking nonsense and retorted, "This was clearly left by some kind of reptile with very sharp claws. Even if the scales of a snake are hard, at most it can only scrape off some stone dust."

As she spoke, she scratched the cave wall with her fingernail a few times and held out her hand to him, saying, "Look, there's no sign of Mozi."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Haike's expression became somewhat meaningful. "How can you be so sure that the hatched snake species will necessarily be in the form of the primitive snake?" (End of Chapter)