Chapter 89: Chapter 89

Thick layers of dead leaves on the ground surged up, forming hunched, humanoid creatures made of pine needles, which quickly fled the path of the fireball.

Several burning shrubs pulled up their roots and ran, slapping at the flames with their dead branches.

Withered vines in the trees writhed and slithered away from the burning trunks.

For a moment, it was chaos—only the dead trees themselves were truly lifeless.

Mu Ying finally understood what she was dealing with.

“Withered Needle Fiend, Level 1. Medium evil plant created from fallen leaves during the Dark Plague. Spreads the plague, indistinguishable from a pile of dead leaves when still. Abilities: Needle Strike, Claw Attack.”

“Withered Branch Fiend, Level 0–1. Small evil plant created from fallen leaves during the Dark Plague. Spreads the plague, indistinguishable from dead shrubs when still. Ability: Claw Attack.”

“Withered Vine Fiend, Level 2. Medium evil plant created from vines during the Dark Plague. Spreads the plague, indistinguishable from dead vines when still. Abilities: Constrict, can rapidly kill plants it entangles.”

These monsters weren’t high-level and were extremely afraid of fire, so they weren’t hard to deal with. But they were devastating to plant life.

If left unchecked, the entire Qingshan Forest would soon become a wasteland.

Mu Ying was glad she’d discovered the problem early—only a small patch of forest was infected so far.

She ignored the monsters fleeing deeper into the dead zone and slowly rolled her fireball along the forest’s edge, planning to burn it from the outside in.

The withered area was much drier than the surrounding forest, making it easy to ignite. The fire spread inward much faster than outward.

To prevent a forest fire, Mu Ying had to be careful, only igniting the outermost dead wood.

Fortunately, for some reason, all the withered monsters she encountered fled deeper into the dead zone instead of charging out, which saved her a lot of trouble.

“Awooo~ Burn them all!”

Seeing Mu Ying avenging him, Da Hui howled excitedly from the side.

Ever since Mu Ying’s return, Da Hui had acted as if he’d found his protector, reverting to his true nature and no longer pretending to be a serious leader for the pack.

Even though their king had inexplicably turned into a tiny thing, the wolf queen had gotten even stronger!

Compared to a wizard’s Fireball, Scorching Flame Sphere was weaker in both power and speed, but its advantage was its size and the ability to summon and control it within the spell’s range until it expired.

This saved Mu Ying a lot of mana and sped up the burning process.

When two-thirds of the dead zone was surrounded by fire, the withered monsters finally sensed the danger. Instead of hiding deeper, they tried to put out the flames and stop her from setting more fires.

But by then, the fire was unstoppable. The monsters only set themselves ablaze by trying to smother the flames.

Withered Needle Fiends, aflame, surged toward Mu Ying, launching volleys of pine needles.

Mu Ying dodged easily with a Leap spell.

Withered Vine Fiends lashed at her with long tendrils. She swiped her hand over her storage pouch, and a long and a short sword appeared in her hands. She cast Heat Metal on the blades, and every strike against the vines severed another burning length.

Surprisingly, the greatest nuisance wasn’t the stronger monsters, but the weakest—Withered Branch Fiends.

They could only attack at close range, but they were the only ones to actually run out of the dead zone.

However, once outside the withered area, the black miasma on them was quickly eroded by the denser natural energy outside. Mu Ying only needed a few swings to finish them off.

The adult wolves joined the fight as well, targeting the Withered Branch Fiends, with Da Hui being the most ferocious of all."

"Mu Ying had to expend a great deal of effort to finally draw the last bit of the fire circle together, all while fending off the interference of various withered monsters. Only then did she have a moment to step back and check the rewards from slaying the monsters—and immediately noticed something odd.

[You have killed a Withered Branch Monster. Gained 2 Slaughter EXP, 4 Class EXP.]

[You have killed a Withered Needle Monster. Gained 3 Slaughter EXP, 6 Class EXP.]

[You have killed a Withered Vine Monster. Gained 5 Slaughter EXP, 10 Class EXP.]

...

These monsters weren’t very intelligent, nor did they have any money or loot to speak of; the only drops from killing them were experience points.

But what surprised Mu Ying was that, in addition to Slaughter EXP, she was also getting Class EXP.

This was the first time she’d ever gained Class EXP from anything other than tending plants, planting trees, or farming—and she was getting quite a lot, too.

Thinking back to the black miasma she’d seen while in her “Natural Perception” state, and the damage these withered monsters inflicted on the vegetation, Mu Ying suddenly realized she’d been thinking about things all wrong.

A druid’s power comes from nature. Even though nature isn’t a personified deity, it doesn’t change the fact that druids are a divine class.

The cultivation of a divine class is all about drawing closer to the divine, so as to wield greater power.

Mu Ying had always thought that a druid’s cultivation was simply about doing things that benefited nature—like planting trees and farming—and then receiving nature’s feedback in return. It didn’t seem much different from a regular job where you get paid for your work.

Druids rarely had powerful offensive abilities in their class system, as if their path didn’t encourage combat at all.

But now, she suddenly understood: it wasn’t just planting trees and farming that counted as cultivation—removing blights like withered forests, which are harmful tumors to nature, was also a form of cultivation.

The difference between the two was as great as the difference between helping a healthy tree channel natural energy and saving a tree whose core had been hollowed out by pests.

The former is like adding flowers to a brocade; the latter is like sending charcoal in the snow.

Both are effective, but sometimes the latter has a greater impact.

Destroying creatures that harm nature is also a way of protecting nature!

But then, what kind of creatures are truly harmful to nature?

And what exactly is nature? Is it just trees, forests, and vegetation?

Mu Ying found herself with more and more questions, realizing she didn’t understand the essence of nature as well as she’d thought.

She remembered the first time she’d cultivated her class—when she’d pulled out a dodder vine.

The dodder vine was parasitic, drawing nutrients from the tree it clung to, clearly harming the tree. But was it really harmful to nature itself?

Now, with her heightened Natural Perception, she could sense not only the denser natural energy in the trees, but also the faint natural energy swirling around the tiny dodder vine. It was clearly a part of nature, too.

So, was it really right to sacrifice the weaker natural force of the dodder vine to save the tree?

But she had, in fact, gained Class EXP from that action.

Mu Ying was deeply conflicted, but she didn’t get stuck in a mental dead end, insisting on finding a definitive answer.

It was enough to know that her understanding of nature and the druid class was still incomplete. She would just have to spend more time pondering it in the future—when her strength and perspective grew, she would eventually gain more insight.

She wasn’t afraid of doing things imperfectly—what she feared was thinking she was already perfect and becoming complacent.