Chapter 27 Penetrating Deep into the Pandora Jungle

The scorching bullets flew out in a continuous stream, accurately striking the chitinous armor of a Heavy Armored Horse. Pale yellow fluid splattered out. Under normal circumstances, this timid beast would have immediately fled into the distance. But now, in a state of estrus, it endured the pain, turned its bloodshot eyes back, and charged straight toward them with its massive, hardened hooves raised!

The herd, caught in a bizarre mating frenzy, was in chaos. The air was thick with a pungent, fishy odor. The female Heavy Armored Horses pawed the ground excitedly, anticipating the victory of the dueling stallions. The behavior of this lone, enraged horse did not attract their attention.

The Heavy Armored Horse had just charged into the dense forest when Jiao Shi's furious roar of "Tearing Heart and Lungs" directly slowed it down. Then, a group of Contractors who had been lying in wait pounced on it like wolves, unreservedly unleashing all of their attacks on its single leg.

Despite its astonishing defense, the Heavy Armored Horse's movement speed decreased significantly after its two legs on the same side were broken. Then, everyone began to attack its chest. The chest muscles of this creature were arranged in a straight row, with multiple breathing holes. These multiple valves greatly increased the amount of air inhaled, giving the animal great speed and endurance.

But because of this, this area also lacked protection and was extremely fragile, essentially its vital point, often capable of dealing very high damage.

Fang Senyan paid attention to Riel and Yu Ze. Their performance was unremarkable. Riel's attacks appeared fast, spicy, and smooth. Where the blade passed, large splashes of blood were scattered, quite bloody and fierce. Yu Ze cautiously aimed and fired his pistol, seemingly with a very high critical hit rate, following a route of high damage per hit.

In just a few minutes, the beast collapsed helplessly to the ground, its eyes white and twitching sluggishly. Because the previous agreement stipulated that all spoils during the milestone completion process belonged to the Ace Team, Fang Senyan naturally took the white key it dropped and successfully opened an acute angle required for "Penetration" from it.

At this time, Jin Ximin had already set up his sniper rifle and continued to lure them out. This time, however, he hit the eye of an unlucky fellow who was dueling with its own kind. This guy immediately flew into a rage, dropped its opponent, and charged straight over. And the male horse's opponent refused to let it go, chasing relentlessly. "You donkey son kicked me seven or eight times and bit me five or six times and think you can run? No way!"

There was no doubt that Fang Senyan and his team could take on two ordinary Heavy Armored Horses at the same time without any problems. As time passed, in less than an hour, Fang Senyan and his team slaughtered the entire herd of Heavy Armored Horses, leaving only a few females who fled in a daze. Among the dropped spoils, in addition to a few rolls of leather and horse bones, there were also three bundles of Heavy Armored Horse nerve connections marked as valuables, which seemed to be quite valuable if taken to RD Company's Hell's Gate base.

At this time, everyone also obtained two Heavy Armored Horse horns. After directly gifting them to the space according to the Nightmare Imprint's prompt, Fang Senyan also received a notification:

"You have offered two Heavy Armored Horse horns."

"You have obtained the title: Penetration."

"Penetration: When you attack an enemy, there is a 0.3% to 0.8% chance to ignore their defense and deal full damage. (The faster the attack speed, the more likely it is to be in the 0.3% range. The slower the attack speed, the more likely it is to be in the 0.8% range.)"

"Only one title can be in effect at the same time. Do you want to equip the title 'Penetration' now?"

"Advanced Milestone: Piercing has been unlocked."

"Piercing achievement condition: You have obtained five Heavy Armored Horse Crystallized Horns."

"Hint: Heavy Armored Horse Crystallized Horns can only be obtained from elite-level creatures."

After the Penetration milestone was completed, two Contractors who were not interested in the remaining two milestones left after paying the money according to the previously signed agreement. However, they also felt that the Ace Team had good credit, so they introduced a Contractor who wanted to complete the Marauder milestone.

According to Fang Senyan's plan, they would complete the Marauder milestone next.

This milestone required collecting 1000 units of Pandora superconducting ore crystals (the purity rating of the crystals must not be lower than 16.8%), but Mogansha had already completed this task! He stayed in the Starship Troopers world for seven more days, and the crystal ore collected by the captured Zerg Drone could actually be used in this world!

More importantly, the purity rating of the Pandora superconducting ore crystals refined by the Zerg was actually above 95%, which meant that Mogansha only paid less than 200 units of crystals from the Starship Troopers world to complete this milestone.

According to the information previously provided by Yu Ze, there were more than six Pandora superconducting ore crystal mines within fifty kilometers. However, the scale of these mines was very small. For the RD humans, the cost of mining was too high and therefore not cost-effective, so RD Company directly ignored them. Among these six mines, three had a purity rating of over 30%.

Obviously, from an efficiency standpoint, going to these three mines was the most suitable. Because once a unit of high-purity Pandora superconducting ore crystal was picked up, it was equivalent to collecting several units of standard crystals.

But as the saying goes, risks and benefits coexist. The giant trees called elurl often grew on Pandora superconducting ore veins. The richer the Pandora superconducting ore vein, the larger the elurl that would grow.

Although this type of tree itself had no threat, for the battle-hardened Na'vi tribes, the elurl was the home and habitat of the entire tribe. Natural tree hollows were their houses. The Na'vi slept, ate, weaved, danced, and celebrated their Eywa within them.

To put it bluntly, the higher the content of Pandora superconducting ore crystals, the larger the elurl that grew, and therefore the larger the Na'vi tribe that lived there. More importantly, all Na'vi were very devout to high-purity Pandora superconducting ore. This kind of religious fanaticism was deeply rooted in their hearts, whether they were uncultured Na'vi or cultured Na'vi.

Therefore, going there to collect Pandora superconducting ore was almost equivalent to breaking into your house, digging three feet into the ground, and then snatching away the Buddha statue/ancestral tablet without saying a word. If you encountered this situation, would you immediately pick up a knife and fight them to the death?

Fang Senyan didn't know if the Earthlings would, but he knew that the Na'vi would definitely do it. So when they approached within a kilometer of their destination, everyone became cautious. In fact, traveling in this dense tropical rainforest was a very difficult thing. Purple vines hanging down like snakes, knee-high, fat, strange yellow-green plants, interwoven into multiple tropical rainforest ecosystems in the air, puffball mushrooms that exploded with a touch, insects and creatures with extremely strong attack power...

Even your ears could not get peace at any time: cicada sounds, the chirping of insects vibrating their wings, and even frog sounds from mid-air were mixed together... No, it was indeed the sound of frogs from mid-air. Many decaying trees formed tree holes. The rainy and humid weather made the tree holes become a disguised reservoir. A large number of tree frog species bred here, and by the way, most of them were very poisonous.

Jiao Shi strayed slightly from the path opened up in front and inadvertently stepped on a dead branch. With a soft crack, a yellow shadow suddenly pounced out from the side! Jiao Shi blocked with his shield, and unexpectedly, Riel had already struck from behind. The dagger shaved out horizontally, feeling not very fast, like a breeze passing by, cutting the yellow shadow into two pieces.

After the yellow shadow fell to the ground in two pieces, it jumped frantically and dying, and it was not until Death arrived that it could be distinguished that this was a creature similar to a snake. It had a triangular head, a protruding chin, and a mouth full of sharp teeth that stubbornly bit a dead branch, as if it wanted to retaliate against this world before it died.

Below the head of this creature, there was also a pair of mantis-like blade feet, which looked very sharp. If they were to cut into the flesh, they should be able to easily dig out a piece of meat.

Jiao Shi glanced at Riel, with no gratitude in his eyes, nor did he say thank you. He continued to move forward silently. Jiao Shi did not care about this kind of icing on the cake behavior. Riel's attempt to curry favor failed. The muscles on his face twitched, and he grunted for a while before putting the dagger back into his waist.

The trees in front were a little sparse, and a plant with a bright orange-red color appeared. Most of them lived together in groups of three or two, about six to eight meters high. This plant had no veins and was in a translucent film state, like many conch shells stacked together from large to small, presenting a spiral upward trend.

Mackey, driving the M-Exoskeleton System, undoubtedly touched one of them. This plant immediately reacted extremely sensitively, rotating and shrinking back, and instantly disappeared into the ground, completely hidden in the ground! Even more distant, there were some slight sounds of trampling fallen leaves and going away. Mackey took a look, and his pupils contracted:

"This... could it be Spiral Leaf? Everyone be careful! We are very close to our destination, so we may be attacked by the Na'vi at any time!"