At the border between the black mountain wall and the white snow, a strange serpentine tree grew on the ninety-degree mountain wall.
The strange tree was rooted in the mountain rock, growing in a bizarre fashion. The trunk was about as thick as a water tank, and the branches were as thick as a bucket. The trunk and branches twisted around each other, and the leaves looked like silver sheets. As sunlight scattered over them, the silver leaves swayed as if ripples were moving through them.
Li Xiu examined it carefully for a while and suddenly felt a wave of joy in his heart.
Although he didn’t see the golden bird, he did find a huge nest on the strange silver tree.
The nest was probably as large as a room, wedged between the entwined trunk and nurous branches, supported by the strange tree, woven from strands of dry grass.
"I didn’t expect to find the right place. There’s an eighty to ninety percent chance this is the golden bird’s nest." Li Xiu felt delighted and quickened his pace, climbing further upwards.
With a goal in mind, ti seed to pass much faster. Li Xiu felt that not much ti had gone by before he was nearly at the vicinity of the strange tree.
To his disappointnt, he didn’t see any sign of the golden bird, likely because it hadn’t returned.
"Since it hasn’t returned, I’ll hide in its nest and surprise it when it cos back. Maybe there are bird eggs in the nest. A Demon Spirit Egg would be a great supplent..." Li Xiu thought as he climbed, soon reaching the strange tree.
He climbed along the branches to the nest, and when he reached out and looked inside, his pupils suddenly contracted.
Inside the room-sized nest, there weren’t any bird eggs, but instead, many human bones and torn clothing scattered all around.
Judging by the bones with no flesh, they must have been gnawed very cleanly.
Li Xiu felt sowhat disappointed initially, but after a closer look, he was pleasantly surprised.
Among the torn clothing, there were so strange items.
In the area he examined, he found swords, boots, hats, and jewelry.
"These were real Trial Takers. They died here and certainly left behind many Parasitic Contracts and Demon Spirit Rings; that’s money!" Li Xiu entered without hesitation and began rummaging through the torn armor.
These armors were all contracts, but they were severely damaged, having lost their spirituality and unable to be used further.
Li Xiu pulled out a sword from the chaotic bones and found it was half broken, lacking any shine, and sensing no light energy or spiritual oscillation; it was a damaged contract.
Li Xiu casually threw the broken sword aside and pulled out a sword from the torn armor.
Even worse, the sword was twisted into a question mark shape, rusted all over, with a missing tip; it was another ruined contract.
Li Xiu rummaged for quite a while; all the armors were broken, not a single one intact.
The hat was torn in half, but a golden bracelet and a golden necklace were still whole, with so light energy fluctuations, though weak. They were likely low-level contracts and seed to be of poor quality.
"Why haven’t I seen a Demon Spirit Ring?" Li Xiu wasn’t willing to give up and continued digging through.
After pulling aside a torn robe, Li Xiu was startled to find a mummified face staring back at him.
Skull heads were scattered all around, but this face wasn’t a skull; it still had flesh, though dried, resembling jerky stuck onto the skull, with dried eyes, looking eerie and terrifying.
"Ah!" Li Xiu exclaid softly.
The other people’s remains were torn and consud by the nest’s owner, as indicated by their severely torn clothing.
Yet the mummy, despite its terrifying appearance, seed complete. Its facial muscles might have turned into jerky but hadn’t been damaged. It still wore clothes.
Li Xiu cleared away the dried grass and torn clothes from the mummy, and as he expected, the mummy’s clothes were unhard, completely intact without a single tear.
Silver silk robes enveloped the mummy, with matching silver silk boots on its feet and silver silk gloves on its hands.
These items looked silver-colored but upon closer examination, the silk threads were actually transparent, containing a silver substance that appeared silver under sunlight.
"Is this an entire set of contracts? Strange. Typically, each Trial Ground only grants one contract per person. Such complete sets shouldn’t appear on one individual unless this person seized others’ contracts..." Li Xiu checked the mummy’s fingers but found no Demon Spirit Ring, growing increasingly puzzled: "Why did these Trial Takers die without leaving their Demon Spirit Rings behind? And why were the other Trial Takers devoured, yet this one remains untouched? Are the contracts too resilient for the bird to tear through? That doesn’t make sense. Even with contract protection, the face shouldn’t be this intact..."
Li Xiu thought and thought but couldn’t figure it out. He reached out to search the mummy, hoping to find sothing.
After feeling around a bit, he indeed found sothing, taking it out to see it was a harmonica with a manufacturing mark, evidently a human-made item.
He turned the mummy over entirely, also finding so wet wipes, car keys, but none of the useful items like wallets or gemstone pouches.
"You dared to go out without money or gemstones. Really unlucky, no wonder you ended up like this." Li Xiu, finding nothing else, reached to remove the mummy’s clothes, gloves, and boots.
These were contracts that could be sold for money.
Li Xiu felt uneasy about wearing a dead man’s clothes but planned to sell them for resources, expecting them to fetch a high price.
"Buddy, you’re dead already. These items are useless to you now. Consider them a burial fee; I’ll keep the stuff and bury the body..." Li Xiu tugged several tis but couldn’t loosen the gloves. The mummy moved with his force, its head turned, and its mouth opened, dropping sothing out.
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