Tear A Path 269 Pair Of Eyes

The forest of vines were thinning, the thick canopy that could completely block out the light of the sun were shifting, ever so slowly. But their destination was clear.

A single pod had emerged in the middle sector. One which none of them could ignore. Mostly because of it's size. And secondly because the pod was turning a color they had seen only once before.

The coc.o.o.n of vines were frosting over, looking like it had become encased in a layer of crystal while the vines inside turned transparent. Their leader had gone through the same process before coming out a whole different being altogether.

But it didn't turn up as big as this. Even as the coc.o.o.n was changing, the vines continued to come together and wrap it, constantly adding more layers to it. For once, all of them had to stop fighting.

With the thing that had been keeping them alive thinning so heavily, if they got injured there might not be enough to wrap around them. At this point, it had grown big enough to cover a whole house, and the vines had steadily continued to wrap themselves around it with no signs of slowing down.

The thing began to radiate an ephemeral aurora, basking the surrounding spectators in a warm bluish glow. Every body the light washed over seemed to be rejuvenated. In everyone's eyes the form of the creature in the silhouette shifted, the slight pulsing of a heartbeat echoed through every inch of the area.

Many of them had wanted this phenomenon to happen to them. It wasn't like humans where they craved power. But beasts strive towards their survival, and besides everything else, power was the easiest way to maintain that. Their constant battle and reentry into those coc.o.o.ns was because their current leader had gone through the process in such a way when he was gravely injured.

And if size was any indication for things to come, then they would have something else on their hands. Their current leader's crystal coc.o.o.n didn't even reach half the size of this, and when he came out, no one was his match even on his worst day.

Inside Zhao Wei was completely unconscious, he could not feel the changes that were affecting him. For all he knew, after his last injury he was sent up and was in another normal coc.o.o.n. The effects he had on the outside were the least of his concerns right now as something else had come into play.

[....Energy levels self fulfilled...

Forcefully rebooting functions... Advancement path map...

Path map opened, status parameters not within any advancement level...

Skills scanning, 2 skills of job cla.s.s... Skill progress... Not within parameters...

Scanning energy type... Contaminated Trapper cla.s.s mana... Removing contaminant... Unable to remove... Diagnosis... a.s.similation of energy type too high

Unable to pick advancement.... Custom cla.s.s opened... Require basic form for configuration

Require source material for reconfiguration... Scanning... Contact made with potential source types... 3074... Viable source type... 5... Locating source materials... Materials not within reach of user...

Energy stored... System closing...]

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For once the apes had become idle from fighting for more than a few days. By this time a chain of disasters had occurred around the whole place. The reason was mainly that they had suddenly begun to feel hunger, usually they spent their time in and out of the coc.o.o.n which replenished their energy while healing them.

The only one's who needed to eat were those monsters that had reached the center as they spent so much time outside before reentering the coc.o.o.ns. For the rest of them hunger was something they haven't felt in months, and the sudden reemergence of such a sensation sent them into a psychotic gluttony fueled rage.

The beasts of the forest suddenly found themselves besieged by a group of mad apes. Usually they were relatively safe as these apes generally didn't leave their environment. Suddenly a flood of them had taken over the surroundings, tearing into both flora and fauna as long as they were edible.

Somewhere around the hill Zhao Wei used to live, several beasts felt a chill run up their spine as they remember the day disaster struck this place when an army of hunger driven apes ran amok and tore through anything they found. In their hearts they new, that somewhere, right now, some poor creatures were experiencing the same thing, and they gave a silent prayer for their survival. It seems that whenever Zhao Wei met apes, chaos was bound to occur in this form.

Back at their place, the coc.o.o.n had begun to stir, but the place was too empty for anyone to notice as everyone had gone to hunt. All but one set of eyes watched the coc.o.o.n. Hiding in the shadows, only those deep jade-green pupils reflected some of the light that had begun to enter this place.