Chapter 139: Chapter 139: The Person in the Tree

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The Sword Alliance and the Xu Family researched for a long time, but couldn’t figure out how to remove the parts from the giant tree.

Zuo Qinglong also approached Lin Shen, hoping to borrow Lin Shen’s strength to harvest some more fruits.

The Sword Alliance could provide Crystal Base weapons, Lin Shen was responsible for exerting the effort, and the fruits harvested would nominally belong to Lin Shen, but he would need to sell most of them to the Sword Alliance.

Unfortunately, the response from Lin Shen was disappointing for them; he could only unleash that kind of strength once, and his body had also been damaged. Now, not only could he not use it anymore, but he was also very weak.

People from the Sword Alliance had some guesses, but hearing Lin Shen confirm it was still somewhat disheartening.

Members of the Sword Alliance and those watching from afar felt a sigh of relief when they heard Lin Shen say this. If Steel Level Lin Shen could continuously use that kind of strength, many would have been uneasy.

Unable to think of a better solution, everyone could only rest on the spot and wait for the scouts’ reports.

After the scouts returned, the news they brought back was not good. They had scouted dozens of miles nearby and hadn’t discovered any traces of Base Variant Creatures. Besides the giant tree, there was not even a single plant in the vicinity.

What was even more unsettling was that there was not even a breath of wind in the desert; the whole area was eerily silent.

Fortunately, although the desert was extremely hot, the giant tree emitted a chilling cold. As long as one wasn’t too close to the giant tree, the temperature was relatively comfortable.

Lin Shen, however, deliberately set up his tent close to the giant tree. The cold from the tree could automatically operate his ‘Evolution Theory,’ giving his body some resistance to the cold.

“That works? Then should I get myself a bed of jade or something to sleep on every day?” Lin Shen thought this was a good idea.

It would be difficult to get materials from the giant tree to make a bed, but he considered having a cold storage room built once he returned, where he could sleep inside.

Unfortunately, electricity was still a luxury at this time. Dark Bird Base only had a small thermal power station, and there was barely enough electricity for the usual needs, let alone for a cold storage room.

The Sword Alliance and the Xu Family decided to wait here for three days, and Lin Shen didn’t want to take any risks either, so he stayed with them.

Zuo Qinglong sent several men to climb the giant tree, hoping to try their luck and maybe harvest a few more fruits.

On their home planet, fruits would often fall easily after ripening, and they hoped to witness such good fortune here.

Xu Tiange, however, behaved honestly, waiting below with the rest of the Xu Family.

He always followed Lin Shen, planning to stick close to him—wherever Lin Shen went, he went, and whatever Lin Shen did, he did.

In Xu Tiange’s own words, following Shen would mean no loss.

The giant tree was too tall, and its trunk was extremely smooth and emitted a chill, making it hard to climb. After several hours, people from the Sword Alliance finally reached the canopy.

Everyone thought they would move toward where the fruits were, but after one of them had secured the ropes, he suddenly came down.

“Brother Long… there’s something… something up there…” He slid down the rope, panting heavily.

“Something?” Lin Shen and Xu Tiange, who were not far away, perked up their ears upon hearing the man’s words.

“What’s up there?” Zuo Qinglong asked directly, not avoiding Lin Shen and the others.

“There’s someone who looks like a person but also not like a person,” the man said with an odd expression.

“What do you mean ‘looks like a person but also not like a person’? Is it the Ultra-Burn Tribe?” Zuo Qinglong’s heart chilled.

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“It’s not the Ultra-Burn Tribe, nor is it that Angel, how should I put it, it’s just a person, but half of his face isn’t human, it’s metallic.” The man tried hard to think of how to describe it, but due to his limited cultural level, he didn’t know how to fully explain it.

“Alive or dead?” Zuo Qinglong asked, frowning.

“Seems like dead, his body is like it grew into the tree.”

“Lin, Xu, shall we go take a look?” Zuo Qinglong pondered for a moment and then turned to Lin Shen and Xu Tiange.

“Sure,” Lin Shen was also curious, a person growing out of a tree was indeed a strange phenomenon.

Under the leadership of Zuo Qinglong, several people climbed up with the help of ropes, which made the climb much easier.

But because it was so high up, it still took them over forty minutes just to reach the lowest branch, where that man had climbed to and secured the ropes before descending.

The group stood on the thick branch, which was as wide as a road, providing them ample space to stand comfortably.

“It’s right there.” The man who climbed before pointed up towards the canopy.

Following the direction he pointed, Lin Shen and the others saw someone indeed sitting cross-legged near a tree branch above, as if this person had grown out of the tree trunk like a human-shaped relief sculpture.

The color of his clothing was no longer distinguishable, covered in white frost, and his hair was also frosted over.

His face was still relatively clean, with just a bit of frost on his eyebrows.

Lin Shen examined him closely and indeed, as the man from the Sword Alliance had said, the person’s face had flesh on the left half, while the other half was made of steel with a mirror-like effect, looking very strange.

“It really seems like a person, why does half his face look like he’s wearing a stainless-steel mask?” Xu Tiange observed while speaking.

“It’s not a mask, at least not an ordinary one, look at his neck inside the collar.” Zuo Qinglong said.

Peering toward the neck area showed by the strange person’s collar, Lin Shen could see even though only a part of the neck was visible, it was also half flesh and half steel.

“Half-human, half-mechanical, could this be some kind of ancient android?” Xu Tiange said, blinking.

“Even if it were an android, it would have to be an alien-made one,” Tu Xiaodao added.

“Let’s take a closer look,” said Zuo Qinglong, unable to see clearly from the distance, and he began climbing higher first.

The members of the Sword Alliance followed, and Lin Shen and the others also moved towards the figure.

Without ropes here, they had to grip the cracks in the tree bark to climb higher. Coldness emanated from the trunk, and it was slippery, making climbing difficult.

Fortunately, they were not too far from the person’s location, and without taking too much time, they reached the branch where the strange person was and stood close to him.

Upon a closer look, they found the person even stranger; his face was half flesh, half metal, but at the point where flesh met metal, the skin seemed to meld into the steel, and the steel into the skin, blurring the line between the two.

None of them had ever seen anything like this; they knew of metal implants in human bodies, but they had never seen metal and flesh fused together like this.

Even if it was Base Mutation Carapace, it was the mutated substance emerging from inside the body to form an independent carapace, not integrated together like this.

“Look, there seems to be something on his body,” Xu Tiange suddenly exclaimed, pointing at the person.