Blue Star

"No, no, the old man I rescued borrowed it from me." The man hastily raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender, and the slipped animal skin sleeves exposed the barbs on his arms that also grew out due to infection. "There are two people in total, an old man and a child."

Gu Li did not put down his weapon, but he pulled the mechanism on the crossbow and asked calmly, "Are they still alive?"

"Alive! The old man said he was a wizard, and he was taken to the mine by Mr. Qin, yelling that he could break down the crystal ore and save people..."

Gu Li, who was holding a weapon, was extremely dangerous, but it was Iris behind Gu Li who made the man more frightened.His eyes were ferocious like a beast, and the nails holding the lighting crystal mine were sharp, as if if he dared to move more, he would be eaten alive in the next second.

Gu Li moved the arrow point of the small crossbow and ordered: "Take me to see."

Iris looked at the man standing still, pulling the corners of his mouth to reveal sharp canine teeth.The man couldn't help shaking with fright, turned around stiffly and said, "Follow, come with me."

Gu Li put away his crossbow and looked back at Iris.The face is full of innocence and ignorance of worldly affairs, and the defenseless look is docile, as if he will be eaten by other monsters at any time.

The range they are in is still a little away from the second Goddess Pillar.But fortunately, there is a road that can be walked normally, and the work of opening up bushes can save a lot of time.

After passing through the dense jungle, there is another chasm, and almost every distance there will be a curved cliff like before, just like layers of defensive walls for town planning.

And the closer you get to the Goddess Pillar, the more heavily rusted instruments you saw before.It's a pity that all of them have become piles of scrap iron, concentrated and piled up to make a landscape, perhaps to prove the human civilization in the past.

There are large patches of poisonous mushrooms and slime molds growing on the scrap iron, with bright colors, most of which are mutants that have never been seen before.Slime mold parasitizes scrap iron and also parasitizes animal corpses, and a large number of human skeletons appear in the deliberately dug pit on the right, just like the caterpillar fungus seen in the book, parasitized by sheets of fungi.

The stipe grows vertically into a translucent shape, fluctuating from high to low in layers.The cap at the top wraps the stipe like a water polo, emitting a layer of blue light in the dark night, and the scattered powdery spores are like the scales of a irritated mermaid, and the dots are like stars.

Above the stipe is a beautiful scene, but below the stipe is an unbearable hell.

Living things evolve through poisonous plants or fungi, and vice versa.In order to become stronger, plants and fungi will also parasitize on organisms, so as to obtain more powerful gene mutations to survive.

The trees on both sides of the road gradually became scarce, but it was obvious that most of them were man-made, and it seemed that they would be cut down as long as they grew beyond a certain limit.Looking around, after passing the bridge made of the last old tree trunk, such blue light parasitic fungi are all over the place, which should be caused by deliberate planting.

"Front, just ahead." The man pointed to the large piece of giant mushroom in front of the Goddess Pillar.

"Agaricaceae, Pleurotaceae."

Layers of Pleurotus mushrooms, like mountains and lakes, grow flat along the wall of the Goddess Column.The cap is like a shell, like a fan, and the edge is curled up like a wave.

The appearance of the standard pink side ears, but at present these bodies are extremely large, and most of them have been lignified, and the top part has been directly weathered into a hard fossil, which is integrated with the Goddess Pillar.

The color is from bottom to top, from deep to light, like long dried pine cones surrounding the bottom of the Goddess Column.

The wooden buildings of human beings are built on the mushroom caps of different heights, and each floor is connected by wooden ladders. The density is very similar to the appearance of weaving spider webs on pine cones.

And the tools that people use for lighting are not torches or crystal mines, but glowing long bacilli that spread all over the periphery.Either hanging or standing upright, although the colors are different, they also create a scene of thousands of lights.

"What order? What family?" The man held a torch and explained to Gu Li: "Those bats are afraid of blue light mushrooms. The spore toxicity they emit is not harmful to humans, but it is fatal to bats."

Gu Li did not respond. In his opinion, these poisonous slime molds that are currently used to fight against monsters will gradually lose their effectiveness one day like suppressing crystal powder.

Reaching the bottom of the large peach-red side ear, the man snuffed out the torch, and picked a [-]-centimeter-long blue lamp mushroom to use as a hand lamp.

The guards on the wooden ladder were two infected people who were infected by mosquitoes. They were all taken aback when they saw the magnetic field surrounding Gu Li.Then, as if seeing the savior, he said excitedly, "Wizard, there really are wizards in this world!"

The man who led the way responded with a smile, "Yes, the old man who lent me the umbrella is not lying. Goddess Darcy must have heard our prayers, so she let the wizard appear at this time!"

While talking, more and more infected people who heard the news appeared, whispering to each other as if they saw the dawn of redemption.There are even quite a few infected people with their right hands twisting and sticking to their left shoulders, bowing and praying to Gu Li like a ritual to treat a god.

Here, the number of women and children is more than that of men, but no matter what age group, heavy or light are different types of infected people.

Gu Li followed the man leading the way upstairs in a turbulent mood.What he can be sure of is that these people are all newly infected humans, and have lived here for generations, not exiled from the town.

Their ideological civilization and behavior are self-contained, without cloth and advanced equipment, all the utensils come from nature.

The more you go up, the more serious the damage to the weathered peach red side ear, and many buildings on the caps have been severely destroyed and are still under construction.On the roofs of several wooden houses, there are still a large number of corpses of mutated bats.

"Since bats are afraid of blue lantern mushrooms, why would they attack you?" Gu Li asked with his gaze back.

The man relaxed a lot after Gu Li put away his weapon. He smiled and said, "As expected of a wizard, it can be seen that we have been attacked by bats."

"..."

Gu Li didn't say a word, this kind of praise that didn't go through the brain was classified as nonsense by him.

"Because of lightning." The man sighed: "There was a sudden thunder and lightning a few days ago. I don't know why. Those bats were like crazy after the thunder and lightning. They were not afraid of the spores of the blue lamp mushroom attacking us. They died. A lot of people, almost the whole tribe was infected, including me."

Facing the infected, Gu Li felt that the most important thing he should do was to shoot them immediately, because they would lose their minds due to mutation at any time.But now in the wild, in a territory that is not under the jurisdiction of humans, he has no right to enforce the rules of the town in other people's tribes unless he is threatened, even if these infected people no longer belong to humans in his opinion.

Gu Li said calmly: "What they are afraid of is not the blue lamp mushroom, but the magnetic field of the crystal mine in the Goddess Pillar."

Perhaps the spores of the blue lamp mushroom can indeed kill mutant bats, but it is definitely not fungi that make mutant monsters avoid them, otherwise there will be no behavior of parasitizing offspring in poisonous mushrooms.

The man exclaimed, "The old man I rescued earlier said the same thing. He also said that the crystal mine should be dug out as a defensive facility, otherwise those bats will come again."

"If it was caused by lightning, the crystal mine defense would not be very useful, and..." Gu Li didn't continue talking.The human beings here have been infected, and the result of doing or not doing the crystal mine defense is actually the same.

However, he was curious as to why these people were not infected quickly. Those who were bitten at the same time in the town would become sick in just a few minutes, and then completely metamorphose within a few hours.

Could it be the spore powder of those blue lamp mushrooms?Or are their diets different?

The man took them to the place near the top of the peach red side ear, where a temple was built next to the goddess pillar. They piled up part of the ore in the temple and named it the goddess Darcy for worship.

Mimir, who was holding a tool to repair the crossbow gun, was sitting in the corner, his calf trousers had a big hole, and he had done a simple cleaning of the wound inside.With a fruit in his mouth, he was picking out all kinds of rusty iron pieces that had been cut with a headache all over his face.

Seeing Gu Li coming in, he immediately stood up with bright eyes and called for someone.But he didn't want to be pointed at the head by Gu Li holding up the crossbow before he could take the fruit away from his mouth.

The tool in his hand was held high, and the fruit in his mouth fell in panic, "I'm not infected, I just fell and injured! Daoporin can testify!"

"What's on the wound?" Gu Li asked coldly.

"Peel, edible fruit peel!"

In order to prove that he was not bitten by the monster, Mimir reached out tremblingly and rolled up his trouser legs, and took off the peel to expose the bruised part of the skin.

Just as Gu Li was about to remove the short arrow from the crossbow, he saw Dao Porling coming out of the door behind the altar with the famous mother-in-law with a full face.

Seeing Gu Li holding a weapon ready to attack at any time, he waved his hand in disgust and said, "Put it down quickly! It's rude, don't scare Ms. Qin."

Gu Li glanced at the lady Dao Porling said, raised his eyebrows and put away his crossbow.

Dao Porling smiled and explained to Mr. Qin: "This brat is like this, and I don't know who he looks like with a bad temper. Don't be surprised."

The mother-in-law smiled politely, "You can call me Mr. Qin, that's what everyone here calls me."

Different from other people, Elder Qin's dress is closer to the dress of elders in the town, but the fabric is too old, and many places have been worn out.The only difference is the accessories. The town elders like to use various styles of silver ornaments, while Elder Qin's are animal teeth and small pieces of animal bones.

Elder Qin said to the man leading Gu Li: "Go and do your work, tonight's patrol has been hard."

"It's okay." The man saluted Elder Qin, took a few offering fruits from the temple, and left. When he left, he didn't forget to look back at the wizard a few more times, muttering that he was saved.

Seeing Gu Li and Iris' hands full of wounds, Elder Qin said solemnly: "I still have some herbs in my place. If you don't mind, you can go to my granddaughter's house to apply the medicine. Don't worry, Xijia is not infected. She can take care of your wounds."

Hearing that there was a girl who could help with the wound, Mimil suddenly got excited and interjected, "I'm also injured, can you help me with some medicine?"

Dao Porling disliked it very much, "Just your little scratch, it will heal if you slow down, what kind of medicine do you take?"

After confirming that neither Mr. Qin nor Dao Porling was infected, Gu Li put down his guard, "Excuse me."