Chapter 52: Thunderfire Balls

Two hours later.

Team Bright was gathered next to a river located in somewhere in the Falling Eagle Mountain’s forests.

“Look, I caught a fish!”

Yan Fuxing stood on the riverbank with a large-bellied fish in his hands while jumping around excitedly.

Su Chen and Zheng Xia were setting up a campfire for dinner.

Zheng Xia’s palms cleaved through the air like an axe, chopping through many branches that were then stacked on top of each other.

Flames emerged from Su Chen’s palms, lighting the kindling underneath the pile of wood.

After glancing at the large-bellied fish in Yan Fuxing’s hand, Su Chen said, “That’s a mother river fish. It’s just before their mating season, so be careful when you cut it open. The fish eggs are extremely delicious luxuries, so we shouldn’t waste them.”

“How did you know that?” Sun Jizu asked from the side. He was helping Du Qing take care of the ape’s meat.

After the matters with the Giant Adamantine Ape and Team Soaring, Zheng Xia and the others evidently viewed Su Chen in a much different light, their interactions much warmer and friendlier than before.

“I read a lot of books,” Su Chen replied as he pulled out seasonings from his Origin Ring.

“But reading books can’t really make you stronger.” Du Qing struggled to cut the ape meat in her hand. While she was extremely skilled with sword arts, her use of a knife was much clumsier. The meat she was trying to cut into pieces looked like it had been chewed up by a dog.

Iron Cliff couldn’t watch any longer. He took the blade out of her hands and said, “Let me take care of this. You go and look for some more kindling.”

“That depends on how you define ‘strength’,” Su Chen replied while leaning against a tree.

“What do you mean?” everyone asked.

“The strength everyone is trying to achieve is different. To me, strength is something that is relative. Is the Giant Adamantine Ape strong? Very! In terms of pure strength, even two more Su Chen’s are not comparable, but I was still able to kill it. Why? Because I also had Origin Tools, medicine, and Origin Stones to help me recover. Without these items, I wouldn’t be its opponent. So tell me, would you consider that to be considered strength? Knowledge is the same. It can become a component of one’s strength and help one become even stronger.”

Sun Jizu laughed, “You could be right, but that is strength that doesn’t belong to you. I want to possess my own strength. Only with absolute strength can one dominate everything.”

Su Chen snorted. “Don’t speak nonsense. What is ‘absolute strength to dominate everything’? Where would you go to find absolute strength? Zhang Sheng’an is strong, but Ji Hanyan can send him flying with one hand. Even if she is strong, she is fourth on the Dragon Transformation List, meaning that there are three people stronger than her. Is the first-ranked on the Dragon Transformation List strong? Above them are the sixth, seventh, and eighth year students. Above those people are probably geniuses with special Demon Emperor-level bloodlines. Would those people dare to utter the word ‘absolute’? Don’t forget that no matter how strong they are, they are only in the Qi Drawing Realm. There are thousands or even tens of thousands of individuals even stronger than them. Except for the strongest person in the universe, who can dare to say that they possess absolute strength?”

Sun Jizu was speechless.

Su Chen continued, “Most importantly, when your ‘absolute strength’ is unable to dominate, you can say that your strength was not strong enough, not absolute enough! Based on that logic, I can say that I can control everything with absolute knowledge. If I can’t accomplish it, then I can just say that my knowledge was not absolute enough. Do you think this kind of logic has meaning?”

“……”

Su Chen continued, “How I see it, strength is just strength no matter where it comes from as long as you can use it. Knowledge is a very important kind of strength, and it can bring me a lot of benefits. For instance......”

As Su Chen spoke, he pulled out an item.

He was holding a very unassuming black metal ball in his hand.

“What is that?” Wang Doushan asked.

“Do you remember the wine jugs?” Su Chen replied.

Wang Doushan’s eyes lit up. “This is the improved wine jug? Why is it that small?”

“How could I call it improved otherwise?” Su Chen replied. “I compressed the medicinal attributes inside this ball. Don’t look down on it just because it’s small; it’s actually more powerful than the jugs of wine from before. I call it the Thunderfire Ball.”

Everyone’s interest was aroused.

“Give it a try!” Wang Doushan excitedly said.

“What do you all think?” Su Chen glanced at the others.

Everyone nodded their heads. They all wanted to see the kind of strength that could come from knowledge.

“Fine!” Su Chen glanced at Cloud Leopard and said, “Leopard, I remember that there was a horde of Stinging Wasps that we passed by on our way here.”

“Yes, there was.” Cloud Leopard nodded.

“Let’s get some honey and use it to glaze our meat. How does that sound?” Su Chen laughed.

Cloud Leopard laughed, “Sounds good to me.”

As soon as he spoke, his figure had already disappeared in a blur.

He quickly returned, holding an extremely large wasp nest in his hands. A swarm of humming Stinging Wasps were chasing closely behind him.

These Stinging Wasps were roughly the size of a fist; the largest ones could even be the size of a person’s face. Everyone’s expressions changed when they saw the huge swarm flying towards them.

The Stinging Wasps were like the Shadow Serpents in the Spirit Burying Terrace. Although their strength was only so-so, they traveled in large groups and their stings were poisonous, making them incredibly difficult to deal with.

Zheng Xia and the others were more willing to deal with two Giant Adamantine Apes simultaneously than this swarm of wasps.

They all jumped into the air when they saw Cloud Leopard bring over such a large swarm of Stinging Wasps.

“Are you crazy? You attracted this many Stinging Wasps over?” Yan Fuxing began to yell loudly.

Zheng Xia and the others had already begun to attack, palm winds began assailing the swarm of wasps.

Although these Stinging Wasps were small, their bodies were tough. When a portion of them were killed off by the Origin Skills, the other Stinging Wasps were whipped into a frenzy, their attacks only intensifying.

Everyone simultaneously applied a protective barrier.

When the stingers landed on the barrier, brilliant sparks cascaded outwards..

However, even more stingers were headed in their direction. Stinging Wasps were named as such because they could constantly shoot out their poisonous stingers to attack. Although the wasps didn’t possess physical strength, they were quite powerful when attacking as a group.

In an instant, poisonous stingers began to fall like rain.

“Why haven’t you made a move yet?” Cloud Leopard began to yell.

As the bait, he was in the sorriest state. He had already been stung a few times, causing Cloud Leopard’s entire body to hurt and itch at the same time.

“There has to be a comparison,” Su Chen laughed.

After a cycle of Origin Skills, they had only killed a few tens of these Stinging Wasps. On the other hand, the stingers that these wasps shot out were already causing everyone to complain.

At that moment, Su Chen raised the Thunderfire Ball in his hand and pressed a protrusion on it. He tossed it out at the wasp swarm and yelled, “Everybody get down!”

Everyone instantly fell to the ground. The metal ball flew into the swarm of wasps and then exploded.

A powerful shockwave surged forwards, enveloping the large swarm of Stinging Wasps and sending them flying.

When the metal ball exploded, metal fragments of the shell flew in all directions, spreading a hundred feet in every direction. Countless nearby trees toppled to the ground.

Everyone on the ground lifted their heads only to see that after the flames had disappeared, the Stinging Wasps were still falling to the ground like little fireballs. They were completely shocked.

A large swarm of Stinging Wasps that even seven or eight Origin Qi Scholars had trouble dealing with was exterminated by a single metal ball?

Everyone stared at Su Chen in disbelief.

Who knew that this guy actually had such a powerful item up his sleeve!

“Doushan, I need some water, or else this entire mountain is going to burn up,” Su Chen said.

Wang Doushan gestured with his hand and snow began to fall, extinguishing the flames.

Everyone walked closer. When they saw the ground littered with corpses of Stinging Wasps, they could only stare at each other, speechless.

Su Chen had improved the Exploding Medicine so that it no longer required a crude method of control like the wine jugs, but instead relied on the metal ball to be activated. The medicine had become more powerful, and the metal ball’s control mechanism was also more precise.

Not to mention anything else, there were seven control buttons that corresponded to different delayed explosion timers. Su Chen could press a different combination of buttons to determine the timing of the explosions rather than relying on an inaccurate estimate..

The shards of the iron ball were sent flying with the explosion, increasing the killing power of the explosion and making it so that the Explosive Medicine’s strength and affected area had increased.

Wang Doushan muttered, “These things are quite expensive. I say, why didn’t you use it to deal with the Giant Adamantine Ape?”

“The Thunderfire Ball isn’t suited for individual combat, but rather weaker targets that are high in number, such as this swarm of Stinging Wasps. It’s not very good against opponents like the Giant Adamantine Ape. In addition, these things are quite expensive! Each one is 120 Origin Stones. A Giant Adamantine Ape is only worth five hundred Origin Stones. If I used ten of these and didn’t kill it, I would’ve wasted seven hundred Origin Stones. Hey, this Thunderfire Ball was used as a demonstration for you all, so you have to pay for it.”

“……”

Everyone was speechless.

Zheng Xia felt that he had at least been right about one thing in his initial assessment of Su Chen: Su Chen really was greedy.

At that moment, Du Qing suddenly asked, “Brother Su Chen, do you have a lot of these things?”

Su Chen smiled merrily as he replied, “I have a few. Why? Do you want some? Since we’re friends, I’ll charge you a bit less for them. One hundred Origin Stones each, how does that sound?”

Upon hearing this, Zheng Xia suddenly had a thought appear in his brain.

Did Du Qing ask that because Su Chen had led her to do so......?

Could he have said all of those things just to promote his Thunderfire Ball?