Chapter 122

"And what about us?" asked Yuan Muye.

"You will stay here. This place should be safe. If my calculations are correct, they won't have the time to hunt you down right now. You are safe here for the moment. As for whether you want to flee or not, that's entirely up to you," said Li Daoran.

"So, in the end, we are still left to fend for ourselves? Is this your decision? I truly won't tell anyone, and I genuinely want to help you. Besides, the battlefield is so dangerous, why are you willingly plunging yourself into it? If this place is safe, why can't you stay here? If you're worried about me, you can kill me, or I can even commit suicide," Yuan Muye said, somewhat agitated. In his view, Li Daoran was abandoning them simply because he had discovered his secret, and he wanted him dead.

Li Daoran shook his head, patted Yuan Muye on the shoulder, and said, "Old Yuan, don't get so worked up. I really didn't think of it that way. Taking you with me would only put you in greater danger. As for why I'm not staying here—it's because I want a few more things. Besides, I might not even go; maybe I'll just stay behind and become a happy savage with you all."

Li Daoran smiled as he uttered words that Yuan Muye could not quite comprehend.

If experiments proved that Li Daoran staying in the Daoran World would sever this synchronization effect, he believed many people would not hesitate to kill Li Daoran's physical body in Aqua Blue Star. As for where to go from there, Li Daoran had not yet figured it out.

Thinking of this, Li Daoran felt a twinge of melancholy. After all, he was a native of Aqua Blue Star; if he could never return, it would truly be a regret.

"Alright, Old Yuan, no need to overthink it. I'm going for a run and will hunt down some game on the way back." Li Daoran waved his hand, signaling Yuan Muye to return, then donned his armor and walked toward the rising sun.

"The early bird catches the worm, and the early hunter catches the bird. La la la la..." Humming an incomprehensible tune, Li Daoran broke into a jog. After running for more than ten minutes, a wild bee the size of a palm came into his view. His eyes lit up, and he chased after the bee as he ran, completely losing track of his location. As for getting lost, he wasn't worried in the slightest.

A cluster of buzzing wild bees darted incessantly around a massive, two-meter-high honeycomb. Li Daoran licked his lips; he had never seen such a huge honeycomb before. Just how much honey must be inside?

Clad in his exoskeleton armor, he was not afraid of the wild bees in the least. He climbed up the tree, but the wild bees blocked his vision, swirling frantically around him. Soon, individual bees began to drop lifelessly to the ground as a series of pinprick dents appeared on his exoskeleton armor. The fact that they could leave marks on the armor demonstrated the formidable attack power of these wild bees, but those dents automatically smoothed themselves out moments later.

Li Daoran, standing roughly two meters tall in his armor, reached the top of the comb and realized that the structure was even larger than his entire armored frame. Figuring out how to bring it back filled him with distress. After a moment of thought, he leaped down, pulled out his dagger, and chopped off a suitably sized tree branch. Using the dagger, he carved the branch into a cylindrical wooden bucket capable of holding well over a liter of honey, followed by a neatly whittled lid.

"Your handicraft is quite impressive, Daoran. I didn't expect you to have this skill," Natasha teased. Though Li Daoran's woodworking could not rival that of a professional master craftsman, the fact that he could pull it off was already quite remarkable.

"Thanks to this sharp dagger, cutting this branch was easier than slicing tender tofu, or it would have wasted a lot of time. It was an old hobby of mine—I always loved doing a bit of minor woodworking, though I never expected it to come in handy. Do you know how to harvest honey? It would be a waste to destroy such a huge honeycomb." Li Daoran's hands did not stop moving as he continuously refined his makeshift bucket.

"Well, I don't know how. Hold on, let us research it; after all, nobody has experience with a honeycomb this large," Natasha said with a smile.

After a short while, Natasha's reply came through.

"You might be disappointed. Don't let the size of this honeycomb fool you; it might not even fill the bucket you prepared. Wild honey yields are extremely small, mostly kept for their own consumption, and very little is left over. Judging by the size of these wild bees, their energy consumption must be quite high. Besides, harvesting honey is very difficult; it must be cut down and processed properly, and this hive is pretty much doomed," Natasha said.

Upon hearing this, Li Daoran tossed the bucket aside and said, "Then forget it. It's too much trouble."

"Don't! What if eating this honey is good for your health? Don't waste it; in such a massive mountain range, losing one honeycomb won't hurt. Come back after you finish it, and let's see if we can treat our palates." Natasha's mouth was practically watering at the thought. Honey from another world—eating it might just grant a plus-one attribute bonus!

"Didn't you guys say that energy disappears during the consciousness transfer process and isn't necessarily split evenly? Even if I drink it, you won't be able to taste it," Li Daoran said, still finding it too troublesome.

"Hypothesis, speculation—understand? Every explanation is self-consistent, and of course any outcome is possible. Hurry up, don't hesitate. I'll teach you how to handle it," Natasha urged.

Li Daoran sighed, climbed back up the tree, and braved the swarm of wild bees to reach the honeycomb. Drawing his dagger, he severed the comb directly, causing it to plunge straight to the ground. Countless wild bees poured out of the structure, blotting out the sky in a scene that was both spectacular and terrifying.

Li Daoran shuddered. Fortunately, he was wearing exoskeleton armor; otherwise, no number of lives would be enough to survive this ordeal.

"What now?" Li Daoran stood in the middle of the swarm, letting the wild bees envelop him without offering any resistance. Soon, the ground was littered with the corpses of wild bees—those that had furiously tried to sting Li Daoran, only to snap their stingers and impale themselves with their own force.

Normally, a stinging wild bee leaves its viscera behind in the enemy along with its stinger, but the sheer momentum of these wild bees, combined with the extreme hardness of Li Daoran's armor, meant their deaths played out quite differently.

"Hmm, let me see. Don't rush. What you need to do now is wait for these energetic, big bees to exhaust their patience and disperse. Wait, that's too slow, and you don't have the conditions for it. Just use your dagger to cut open the honeycomb directly and salvage whatever you can," Natasha said. Having reviewed the experts' suggestions, she decisively chose her own method. According to them, it would take eighteen different tools and thirty-two distinct procedures just to obtain the desired honey.

No matter how one looked at it, Li Daoran lacked both the conditions and the time, so he might as well stick to the most primitive approach.

"Oh, got it." Li Daoran took out his dagger and the wooden bucket, walked over to the fallen honeycomb, and carved out a small square from the top, removing the outer shell. Gazing at the golden crystals and the slightly viscous, flowing liquid inside, Li Daoran could not help but swallow hard.

Good grief, if this were on Aqua Blue Star, he would be a millionaire. This stuff would easily be more expensive than gold.

"Is this what you called 'not much,' Natasha?" Li Daoran could not help asking.

Natasha was already too stunned to speak. The sight inside that honeycomb was beyond anything anyone could have imagined.

The massive, gold-like crystalline structures inside gleamed with a dazzling radiance, and even the flowing golden liquid lacked the slightest hint of a paler shade.

"What do I do now?" Li Daoran asked.