Furan looked at the pitch-black entrance of the cave and thought she had likely found the place.
She had walked along the river for a while just now and discovered a dark spot by the bank where nothing could be seen inside.
"This should be the place, the dim area."
Even though there were some glowing stones nearby, the light would simply vanish upon approaching this boundary, which somewhat defied the principles of light propagation.
Furan stared at the darkness, thinking that she had to go in and check; perhaps there really was something inside?
So, clutching the short sword she had just snatched in one hand and the tattered book in the other, she stepped inside.
Once inside, she found that her vision was limited to things within three meters; beyond that, everything was invisible.
By the time she had advanced more than three meters, the light behind her had already vanished.
Furan took a deep breath and continued inward. Fortunately, there were no obstacles on the path, allowing her to walk in a straight line. To be safe, she casually carved a few marks on the stone walls.
After walking for a while, she noticed her field of vision had shrunk again, now spanning just over two meters.
But she did not back down, continuing to press forward.
"Hmm?"
At that moment, she glanced at the book in her hand and found it emitting a faint glow. Furan opened it to take a look.
On the first page, the same text she had seen the first time reappeared, yet she still couldn't understand it.
These characters seemed to possess a life of their own, manifesting on the page before flowing away and disappearing.
Then, a sentence suddenly surfaced in her mind.
"My God shall illuminate His believers..."
Immediately after, she felt as though she had learned a technique called [Light-Praying Art].
Furan quickly checked her status panel and saw [Light-Praying Art] listed in the techniques column.
[Light-Praying Art (Mastered) (Proficiency: 76/1000): You can emit light that illuminates the darkness.]
Furan's pupils constricted slightly. Why was this technique already at the 'Mastered' level of proficiency?!
This was something she had never encountered before. She stopped in her tracks and pondered.
She had just heard that sentence appear in her head, and she had obtained this book from a place resembling a church.
So, was this technique given to me by 'God'? This suspicion arose in Furan's mind, and she felt it was quite likely.
"So, should I use it or not?"
Furan knew that her vision would undoubtedly grow narrower as she proceeded, and this book had suddenly provided a skill to illuminate the darkness.
It was clearly telling her that this technique was useful for the current situation, but she didn't know what the side effects would be.
After thinking it over, she decided to use it. She trusted what Teacher Yiqi had said—that her connection to the Spirit Realm was currently too weak for almost anything to harm her.
"Light-Praying Art."
A sphere of light appeared in her palm, greatly brightening her vision and making her feel as though she could finally see clearly.
"Hmm, it seems I can throw it."
She tossed the sphere of light forward; it rolled to a stone wall and stopped, illuminating the surrounding area.
"Not bad."
She felt no strain; it seemed she could throw hundreds more of these light spheres.
---
The Gloomy Lizard is a common Spirit Realm creature found in dark zones.
They possess strong darkvision, capable of seeing things ten meters away in this dark domain.
Part of the materials for making Night Vision Potions comes from hunting these lizards in the Spirit Realm and then bringing their eyes to the Material Realm through special methods to be processed.
A Gloomy Lizard was currently crouched in the dark area of the Jade Corridor, waiting for those Spirit Realm Rangers who sought jade stones in the darkness, only to be ambushed and killed by it.
Its method of crawling produced only faint sounds, so Spirit Realm Rangers often only realized a large monster had crept up on them when it was already close.
As a Spirit Realm creature, it naturally didn't need to obtain food from nature or find safe shelter like Material Realm organisms.
It was created by the Spirit Realm, and from birth, its entire life was dedicated to serving the operations of the Spirit Realm.
A hunger always resided within it, driving it to attack any Spirit Realm Ranger who intruded upon its territory.
It could sense that if it successfully hunted ten Spirit Realm Rangers, the Spirit Realm would bestow a reward to strengthen its body.
If it could hunt a hundred Spirit Realm Rangers, it would gain ownership of this dark region and become a Realm Lord.
Its whole life was born for this purpose, with no other driving force; only if it rose to the rank of Realm Lord would it be granted the intelligence to think of other things.
Its body lay low on the ground, intently sensing sounds from afar.
The dark domain was so vast that even with its darkvision, it often failed to find the Spirit Realm Rangers who wandered in.
After happening to hunt three Spirit Realm Rangers, it had somehow awakened the ability to hear sounds within this dark region, allowing it to detect targets from a great distance.
This target seemed different from the previous ones; while the earlier targets always moved slowly, this one was walking very quickly.
It also occasionally threw things against the walls, creating noise.
It knew this target might be different, but it lacked the intelligence to give up on an oddly behaving target; as long as a target appeared, it would immediately pursue.
When it tried to quietly crawl up to the target for an ambush, it realized it couldn't keep up!
As is well known, silence and rapid movement generally cannot be combined, and certainly not at the Apprentice Rank.
This was the first time its brain had encountered a situation where it couldn't catch its target, and it pondered for quite a while.
Ultimately, the desire for the target overrode everything else. It accelerated, making quite a bit of noise.
When it was about 20 meters away from the target, it was discovered anyway. It had no chance to slow down again after getting close.
It heard the target stop abruptly and stand still.
In such a situation, it could only rely on its instincts as a Spirit Realm creature to pounce directly once discovered; it lacked the intelligence to temporarily retreat or delay its attack.
As it continued its charge toward the target, a spot directly in front of its vision became a blank void. It didn't know how to handle this and only knew to keep moving forward.
As it pressed on, it felt a sharp pain in its eyes, and everything went dark. Its body seemed to have collided with a spherical object.
At the same time, the stinging pain made it impossible to focus on the target's sounds; it felt as though it had lost its sense of direction.
Then, an attack tore its body apart, rendering it unable to move ever again. The corpse vanished a minute later, leaving behind a blue jade stone.