When system cheat becomes rampant!

Ye Changfeng walked into the small woods and saw Xiang Beifei who had fallen into the lake again. He lifted his glasses and asked, "Haven't gotten ashore yet?"

"Almost there."

Xiang Beifei struggled to get up from the lake and crawled towards the shore, then used his Spiritual Power to dry the water on his body before sitting down on a chair at the edge of the grass, heaving a long sigh of relief.

Elder Luo, lounging on a deck chair, lazily asked, "How's the progress over there?"

"Still searching. They asked me to seek your advice, Elder. After all, you know more about desolate beasts than anyone else," Ye Changfeng said as he sat down.

"Ah, now they remember me?"

Elder Luo snorted lightly, he wasn't fond of those alliance folks. But since the matter this time was quite serious, concerning those students, he couldn't be bothered to argue with the alliance people and asked, "What do you want to ask?"

"What do you think of this matter, Elder Luo?" Ye Changfeng inquired.

Elder Luo thought for a moment and said, "I can only speculate about the Withered Forest based on the clues they've investigated."

"How exactly did the Withered Forest disappear?"

Xiang Beifei had always been puzzled about this matter.

The former Withered Forest was like a plain, but now where it should have been was a rugged stone forest, two different terrains that seemed impossible to reconcile.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's a projection, a very strange ability that we've never seen before. But I've found some records. The Ghost Mustache of Remnant Visage—they must have forcibly projected the Withered Forest from somewhere else to here."

Elder Luo handed a handful of sunflower seeds to Xiang Beifei.

"A projection?"

Xiang Beifei took the seeds and started cracking them, replenishing his Spiritual Power.

"Similar to a mirage, except the scene it projects can be indistinguishable from the real thing. You can understand it as, once you enter it, the projection becomes reality. Those who get trapped inside must break the projection's ability from within to get out," Elder Luo explained.

"So that's how it is," Ye Changfeng nodded thoughtfully.

A mirage was an illusion created by the refraction of light casting distant scenes elsewhere, usually producing only a shadow, something untrue.

But the question was, desolate beasts had more control over the external wilderness than any human, yet they had somehow managed to project an entire Withered Forest from somewhere else.

This was the first time Xiang Beifei had heard of such a projecting ability.

Xiang Beifei pondered over this ability, because it wasn't system generated, he hadn't noticed it at first.

"So what kind of desolate beast is the Tree Man, exactly?" Xiang Beifei asked.

Elder Luo shook his head: "There's not much recorded. The records of this kind of desolate beast are even scarcer than those of Ghostly Visage. The existing material only contains one line - in the Essential Domain, there's a kind of tree that turns into a person, unknown what desolate beast it is."

"Just that simple a line, not even a definitive name," Elder Luo said.

The Essential Domain, a fourth-grade danger level area in the external wilderness!

The more dangerous the area, the less dare pioneers venture deeply into it, as it is very easy for things to go wrong, hence the scant records.

Xiang Beifei thought of the term "Northern District of the Essential Domain" again—Xiang Tianxing disappeared in that area.

"Not only did the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage silently transfer you from the second danger zone, the Marquis Domain, to the third danger zone, the Tranquil Domain, but they also projected the Withered Forest from the fourth danger zone, the Essential Domain, to the Tranquil Domain before choosing to act against you there. What they are trying to achieve by doing this, you probably can figure out," Elder Luo said seriously.

"To hide themselves?" Beifei ventured.

Elder Luo nodded slightly and said, "Yes, these desolate beasts are concealing themselves. Last time, I mentioned they might belong to the Tranquil Domain, but now it seems that the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage are more mysterious than we thought, they might actually belong to the fourth region, the Essential Domain!"

Most of the records about the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage were of sightings in the third region, the Tranquil Domain, so everyone mistook them for a desolate beast from the Tranquil Domain.

However, if they could utilize the Tree Men of the forth region, they couldn't possibly be just from the third region. After all, they managed to come even to the second region! Enjoy new stories from My Virtual Library Empire

Whether it was the student teams, the Withered Forest, or the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage, none belonged to the Tranquil Domain, yet the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage chose it as the place to strike.

They probably also understood that the Jiuzhou Alliance would follow the traces here, heading towards their lair. So they didn't choose to directly take people to their own nests, but instead, struck from a distance.

Once they captured someone, they would immediately withdraw the projection, making tracking impossible.

"We've asked the two teams that didn't enter the Withered Forest. At that time, they encountered each other, and due to fighting over a desolate beast, both sides had injuries and directly called a referee. I think it's probably because of the referee they managed to escape," Elder Luo said.

Combining everyone's statements and experiences, roughly analyzing the timeline, Elder Luo guessed the ins and outs of the matter, the specific process should be—

The Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage wanted to capture martial artists for some purpose that's not entirely certain yet, but it's definitely targeting the students this time.

Through consuming the brains of other desolate beasts, they confirmed one thing from the memories: all student teams needed to hunt down specific desolate beasts.

And in this mission, the Landmine Dragon in the Sea of Lightning is the target for all teams, which means to kill the Landmine Dragon, one has to go to the Sea of Lightning!