The greasy man nodded and then gave Randidly a few more details before leaving He barely heard the man just glad to be away After he was sure no one was watching him he looked up at the sky
Almost dusk Perfect Randidly walked out of town and into the growing darkness
The soft grass felt natural on Randidly’s feet One thing he profoundly disliked about Zone 1 was the constant presence of roads It made sense in an annoying way as the infrastructure here hadn’t been destroyed Therefore it was easy for truck and cars to continue to operate although the people here had been forced to get creative with their fuels But the more Randidly continued to not wear shoes the more he felt intimately connected to the world beneath him Through his toes he could feel the Earth breathing albeit very slowly
Now there were a few annoying instances where he dropped molten metal on his toes which made him curse viciously but that was worth a Skill Level in Fire Resistance so Randidly didn’t feel particularly compelled to change his ways But he had twisted and crushed that ingot into a useless bit of torn metal out of principle
Randidly came tonight out to the nearby forest in order to get in touch with his main goal for coming here locating the Creature
The factory complex was Southwest of the main Tier 2 city it was ostensibly a part of and the forest was a bit further west of the factory complex Far enough that a normal person without a vehicle would take about half a day to get there but to Randidly he could sprint that in an almost irrelevant amount of time Besides the main rail line that ran East and West was a few miles North This area was considered a dead zone population wise It was common to encounter monsters here so the average person avoided it Although they had the tools to deal with monsters at this level who would take the risk to deal with them They could get injured or worse killed
The people of Zone 1 preferred to leave these sort of things to the military police
Meanwhile Randidly allowed Acri and Sulfur to happily clobber the monsters here as they were between Level 5 and Level 20 Even Sulfur who had no offensive weapons to speak of could use his dense body to weigh down opponents and suffocate them with his carbon plates
Randidly almost felt bad releasing these two troublemakers among the monster populations here But it wasn’t really something he seriously worried about The only directive he gave to his Soul Seeds were to refrain from killing too many lest they attract the attention of either GHost or the Creature Or both if they were related
This area was also free of the cameras and sensors that Ghost maintained inside the city limits and the flyovers happened infrequently Based on his observations he had an 8 hour window from 11 PM to 7 AM with which to work By that time he would be back to the factory complex slaving away in the heat with the AI none the wiser Ghost would know he left the area of course But there were smaller hamlets dotting the countryside It wouldn’t be unreasonable for Randidly to be one of the refugees staying in the camps scattered for the population of Zone 1 without any citizenship
Not that there were rights given solely to those with citizenship but the way society was structured here your label was very clear
It was dark around Randidly and he stopped looking at the nearby trees Then he closed his eyes
Plant Dominance began to hum softly inside of himself as he spread his tendrils of will out to the plants in the area Very soon the whole forest was covered Every plant seemed to be invigorated by Randidly’s touch growing at an almost visible pace as his Mana flowed through them
To his surprise his ‘secret forest’ wasn’t as empty as he thought There were multiple farms in the deepest parts of it likely set up by people looking to escape the notice of the authorities Hopefully they realized that the ominous AI Ghost was able to spot the farms with its flyovers but it was likely too small of an issue for the machine to intervene directly They were safe although Randidly was more curious as to why they chose to set up here than anything else A quick questioning pulse revealed that the plants were of a grade higher than he had seen anywhere but Donnyton
“Interesting ” Randidly said aloud his eyes still closed Perhaps at some point he would need to go introduce himself to his new neighbors There seemed to be about two dozen of them but they stayed near their corner of the forest
The other surprise guest was a Tier II Raid Boss a Black Faced Monkey which seemed to detect the fluctuations of Randidly’s Skills The monster trembled gathering its young into the cave that was their main base This gave Randidly some pause Obviously they wouldn’t be a threat to him but they would be something that would catch the attention of the military should they become known That might lead to an investigation which would be unfortunate
It was too bad he hadn’t brought Nathan along with him here he would be interesting to see how the kid’s Class would interact with monsters He made a mental note to send a message to Dinesh to have them look into it
Chapter 508
Satisfied with his knowledge within the forest Randidly expanded his Plant Dominance to double its previous size Then he doubled it again and doubled it again Finally Randidly pushed with all he had and for a brief moment every plant in the Zone stood a little straighter channeling his energy
Letting out a long breath Randidly felt the throbbing in his head that indicated that he had run out of Mana Even with his enormous pool it wasn’t enough to fuel a connection with so many plants at once More than that it was a strain on his mental strength even with high Control and Focus There were simply too many variables But this was the best way that Randidly had discovered to ferret out information
It was only a general thing but Randidly could easily combine it with Aether Detection scanning a wide area if just briefly The results were confusing but they would give him a lead if there was one And after checking
Randidly’s expression turned grim It was just a general feeling a vague thing that he couldn’t put a finger on But the flood of information given to him by all those plants confirmed one thing the Creature had touched this Zone
Even with his prodigious Control it took Randidly several hours to sift through the information he had received there was simply too much of it to handle with any efficiency Even when he found traces of the foreign Aether that revealed the Creature they were only wisps only small echoes The Creature here was covering its tracks well
With a sigh Randidly opened his eyes Simply too much ground and his initial scan was too large and general There was simply too much ground to cover and he couldn’t uncover anything specific without a more focused search And as there wasn’t enough evidence to point to an area Randidly would have to manually spread his Skills over a smaller area in the future in order to find something
Just as he was about to leave he noticed that one of the people on the secret farm complex was wandering in the woods Curious he drank a Mana potion and activated Plant Dominance again using their queer senses to feel this body
As it turned out it was a small girl sitting and crying Ostensibly she was lost
Sighing again Randidly reached out and arranged roots to appear before her creating an arrow that pointed back towards her camp She gazed at it solemnly for several seconds before getting up and following the direction it pointed tottering through the dark night Although he couldn’t actually hear the vibrations produced by her sniffles were clearly transferred through Randidly’s plants He set up more arrows and then left the girl hoping she couldn’t get herself lost again
For the morning he could probably get another 50 or so ingots done and then for the evening Randidly supposed he would be going to a party