The black-furred giant ape seized its chance. It bounded forward, raised one titanic fist, and brought it crashing down on the fallen rival’s skull.
Crack! The sound of bone giving way split the air. The dark-gold giant ape quivered, eyes dulling from crimson fury to empty glaze, then sagged into final stillness. Silence followed, broken only by the harsh breathing of those still alive.
Standing over the corpse, the black-furred giant ape threw back its head and released a long, triumphant howl that rolled across the basin—a proclamation that this treasure ground, and the Blood Ganoderma rooted here, now belonged to it.
Jared lowered his sword and steadied the storm still churning in his veins. He strode to the trio of Blood Ganoderma, each crimson stalk gleaming like polished jasper. Joy flared in his chest as he reached out to harvest the prize.
A massive black-furred hand, bigger than a cartwheel, dropped between his fingers and the fungi, blocking his path. Jared froze, eyes narrowing as he turned to the black-furred giant ape.
Is the beast truly so ungrateful? Ready to betray me the moment victory is ours?
Yet there was no hostility in its gaze. Instead, the ape rumbled softly, tapped a thick finger against the Blood Ganoderma, then thumped its own chest and gestured again—an awkward, almost childlike negotiation for its share of the spoils.
Jared drew back his hand, confusion tightening across his brow. He decided to wait, to let the massive ape reveal its purpose before he risked another move.
The black-furred giant ape padded forward with unexpected delicacy until it reached a single Blood Ganoderma bursting scarlet against the cave floor.
Instead of yanking the mushroom free, as Jared had assumed, it extended one calloused finger and, with a tenderness that belied its size, brushed the edge of the crimson cap.
A heartbeat later, the impossible unfolded.
The crystal-clear, life-laden fungus dimmed, its inner radiance guttering like a lamp in sudden wind. Within a breath, it shriveled, turned to gray dust, and drifted apart, everything vital stripped away in an eye-blink.
Jared stared, mouth half open, every herbal lesson he had learned collapsing in silence.
*Was my technique flawed?*
*Had I doomed the prize by plucking it the ordinary way?*
Before the doubt settled, the ape performed an act even stranger. It loosed a low growl, its barrel chest rising and falling as though pumping unseen bellows, gathering power from some hidden furnace.
A moment later, it forced from its mouth a single drop of essence—dark gold, the size of a dove’s egg, shot through with miniature rivers of moving blood that throbbed with terrifying energy.
The droplet hovered in midair, radiating raw vitality and the unmistakable scent of the ape’s own aura.
Guiding it with a flick of will, the beast allowed that glowing blood-pearl to descend toward another untouched Blood Ganoderma.
The instant blood met fungus, the cavern flared crimson. Instead of withering, the mushroom ignited like oil catching flame, its body burning with liquid ruby light.
Stalk and cap softened, melted, then re-coalesced into a single ribbon of pure scarlet essence, dense with Life Law and pounding life-force energy.
This living vapor pirouetted through the air before darting home, straight into the ape’s chest where the droplet had emerged, and vanished as though swallowed by unseen skin.
A deep hum reverberated through the grotto.
A tidal wave of blood energy erupted from the ape, and the fatigue of battle washed off it like rain sliding from armor. Gashes knit over furred flesh at impossible speed, its breathing steadied, its presence growing subtly but unmistakably heavier.
The beast released a satisfied rumble, swung its gaze toward Jared, and in those dark eyes lay a question as clear as speech: *had the human understood?*
Shock slammed through Jared, his heart pounding like hooves on stone. In that instant, everything fell into place.
These Blood Ganoderma were no ordinary spiritual medicines to be plucked and swallowed. They were bound by some uncanny covenant of life, perhaps a bloodline lock that demanded exchange, not theft.
One reckless touch, one unthinking pluck, and the Blood Ganoderma’s crimson halo collapsed upon itself, its living essence scattering like mist chased from a sunlit lake.
Only by drawing a thread of one’s own blood essence, letting that golden bead pulse against the fungus in a silent conversation of life for life, could its vast reservoir of energy be coaxed inside the body unbroken.
The black-furred giant ape was no fickle brute tearing down the bridge it had built; with the blunt honesty of beasts, it delivered a wordless lesson in this realm’s unique art of absorbing living medicine.
Every corner of Level Ten breathed rules utterly alien to the world below, each whisper of wind carrying an unseen riddle.
*So this is what the ancients meant by the mysteries of a higher world…*
Jared’s gaze drifted from the remaining stalks of Blood Ganoderma to the small Fire Unicorn beside him, the little beast gulping audibly while its ember-bright eyes pleaded for a taste of the treasure.
Drawing a breath as steady as mountain roots, he summoned the tide of his blood. A single drop, faintly golden and veined with the Power of Dragons, welled upon his fingertip, ready to become the key to communion.
