Super Zoo

As I was saying, it happened in the blink of an eye. The force had barely entered my body when the blood-red stripes on the Luminous Pearl quickly faded away without a trace, as if they had never been there.

Zhao Yun carefully placed Chen Youliang's hole-pierced head back in the coffin. He then turned his head to see Suming holding a piece of the Luminous Pearl in a daze and gave him a nudge, "Possessed by something?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Oh. No, no." Suming glanced down at the Luminous Pearl in his hand, noting the dark red stripes were now gone. He held up the Luminous Pearl and asked Zhao Yun, "Mr. Zhao, what's this? Looks like a Luminous Pearl, but it's not lighting up, eh?"

"Luminous Pearl? Many ancient Luminous Pearls were made of fluorite, not very valuable. It's normal for them to exhaust their light after a few hundred years," Zhao Yun took the 'Luminous Pearl' and examined it, "Yes, this is fluorite."

Suming had seen fluorite before. Next to the Naval Lake Zoo, the Whisperwind Pavilion used to sell souvenirs, including two 'Luminous Pearls', or fluorite, the size of ping-pong balls priced at five thousand. They had been there for over three years without a single buyer.

But ordinary fluorite didn't contain the energy that this Luminous Pearl had! After thinking for a bit, Suming straightforwardly said, "Mr. Zhao, I'd like to keep this stone."

Zhao Yun looked at Suming and chuckled, "Just a reminder, things from the dead are not lucky. Besides, it's not worth much.

Suming replied, "Just keeping it for fun."

Zhao Yun was not the kind of person who was oblivious to feelings and social customs. Besides, if Suming had not informed him and he had come to excavate this underground relic alone, he would have taken whatever he wanted from it anyway.

With this in mind, Zhao Yun casually turned away, pretending to study the patterns on the coffin, talking to himself, "I didn't see any Luminous Pearl here."

Suming smiled too, pocketing the Luminous Pearl. The energy inside had already been absorbed, and for Suming, the greatest value of this unlit Luminous Pearl no longer existed.

He wanted to keep this jade not to sell it but because the energy within was unique!

After absorbing it, he realized that this energy did not enhance spiritual power but added a new function to his Friend of Animals ability, based on spiritual power.

It allowed him to attach his spiritual power to animals, personally experiencing what the animals saw and heard. When using it, it would consume a certain amount of spiritual power over time. The more animals he attached to and the farther away they were, the greater the spiritual power consumption.

It wasn't clear why, but as soon as the energy from the jade entered his body, he distinctly realized its function.

Suming speculated that perhaps the original Friend of Animals ability was not complete, merely a basic version. Therefore, even though the energy in the Luminous Pearl had been absorbed, he still wanted to keep it to further study it.

While Zhao Yun was occupied studying the coffin, Suming subtly attached a strand of his spiritual power to a long-eared fox.

"Holy moly!"

The entire world was completely different. He saw two giants before him; weren't they himself and Zhao Yun? From those big ears, faint and varied strange sounds could be heard. The ground beneath his feet seemed to be teeming with ants moving around.

Huh? Suddenly, there was a strong craving for ants, and despite the embarrassment of the thought of eating ants, he couldn't help but want to dig for them with his 'hand'. His 'hand' had become strange too, furry and fleshy, with several sharp little claws hidden in the paw.

Meanwhile, there was also the consciousness of a little fox itself that existed, creating a very strange sensation.

"It's me." Suming quickly sent a message to the consciousness of the long-eared fox itself, knowing the little creature wouldn't ponder about things like ego, self, or spiritual power. Once it confirmed it was Suming, the fox obediently started digging with its tiny paws.

After a few scrapes, it indeed found some ants. Suming swallowed and extended its tender little tongue to lick them up.

"These are really tasty." Both Suming and the fox's consciousness felt a sense of satisfaction but also an immense shame at the same time. These completely different feelings gave him a momentary conflict of emotions.

Just then, Zhao Yun nudged Suming's arm and a voice came to his ears, "What are you daydreaming about now? It's about time we head out."

This feeling was too eerie, as if he had acquired a doppelganger. His own body and the spiritual power attached to the little fox both had awareness and sensation.

Suming quickly retracted his spiritual power from the little fox and pretended as if nothing had happened.

So, the two of them left the tomb chamber, climbed back out the fox hole the way they came in, and then gathered the long-eared foxes that had 'moved house' before, instructing them to put all the copper coins, pearls, and such that they had removed from the grave back into place, as these items weren't valuable and of no use to the foxes.

When they got back to the first pool, Suming couldn't resist testing the ability on a Chinese alligator.

"Can't see a thing." Suming's vision immediately blurred significantly, and a few dogs that were close by in real life appeared as several shadows moving about. However, looking up towards the opening of the cave, it was already light outside, and he could see birds flying at hundreds of meters high with absolute clarity, even making out each feather in detail.

It then dawned on Suming that alligators' vision is different from humans. They are nearsighted underwater and far-sighted on land.

However, his hearing was quite clear, seemingly even stronger than that of the big-eared long-eared foxes.

Given the characteristics of this ability, Suming named it 'Soul Attachment.'

Zhao Yun was right beside him, so Suming didn't dare to experiment any further, fearing he might give the game away. He retrieved his spiritual power from the alligator, had Su Meng climb up first using the rope, followed by Zhao Yun. He stayed in the cave last, squatting in front of the Chinese alligator and sending a message with his spiritual power, asking, "Old Gator, do you want to stick around in the mountains on your own, or come back with me?"

The Chinese alligator was injured all over, probably with its pride hurt the most. It couldn't move recklessly as before but resisted in silence: it ignored Suming.

"Come back with me to get your injuries treated first. You are alone like a solitary fish. Besides, with the foxes gone, there's nothing for you to eat here, and you'll starve sooner or later. Stay in the zoo for a while, and if you want to leave later, I'll find an excuse to release you into the back mountains."

As he talked, Suming wrapped the climbing rope around the old gator a few times, then whistled to the cave opening. Su Meng stood above and pulled on the rope, slowly drawing the Chinese alligator out through the hole.

The opening was only about forty to fifty centimeters in diameter, and it was fortunate that the Chinese alligator was relatively small. Had it been a Nile crocodile, it might well have gotten stuck at the entrance.

*****

Two more updates, let's keep up the energy!!