’Did I just punch that "lid" in?’

A look of delight appeared on Su Ze’s face as he saw the pitch-black, palm-sized hole.

"Boss, what are you...?"

The huge commotion from Su Ze’s side startled the nearby Mr. Ya, drawing his attention. While effortlessly dodging the attacks of an Elephant Beast, he watched to see what Su Ze was up to.

"I want to get the extract from this thing down below," Su Ze said as he walked forward. He extended his Perception Tentacles into the hole in the hard shell, trying to get a full view of the beast beneath it.

After just a second or two, Su Ze froze. There was indeed a slumbering beast below, and it was far larger than he had imagined. The area his Perception Tentacles could probe was merely the tip of the iceberg!

It was like the saying, "peeking at a leopard through a tube." Except, ’leopard’ wasn’t quite fitting; it was more like "peeking at a whale through a tube"!

But from the small part he had managed to glimpse, the beast below wasn’t a turtle, as Su Ze had imagined.

"It feels like... a giant clam?" Su Ze wasn’t entirely sure.

If it really was a giant clam, then the Trial Space they were in was built on top of its shell.

But now there was a problem. Although the hole was open, there was a gap of at least ten-odd meters between the small opening and the beast below. Su Ze couldn’t insert the extractor from such a distance to draw out the extract.

His only option was to switch to his liquid form and slip through the small hole.

However, this meant taking an even greater risk.

Mr. Ya, who was off to the side, rubbed his hands together. He was stunned by Su Ze’s decision. ’As expected of the Boss,’ he thought, ’he’s even targeting that behemoth underground.’ He quickly reminded Su Ze:

"Boss, be careful. The rank of that thing down there is definitely not low. Even though it’s sealed and can’t move, you should still guard against a final, desperate counterattack."

Su Ze nodded and used his "Liquid Life" skill, separating off a small, half-meter-tall clone.

He planned to send this small clone down to take the risk. If it was destroyed down there, it would only be like suffering an injury to him; the impact wouldn’t be too great.

He then patted himself down and took out four or five assorted pieces of jewelry—earrings, rings, and so on.

These were all storage items he had looted from the bodies of the fourteen Trialists he had killed.

However, because anyone could die inside this Divine Dice trial, they hadn’t brought anything valuable in their storage items, aside from some regular evolutionary medicine.

Things like Wondrous Items couldn’t be used in here anyway, and they would be lost if one died inside.

Any truly precious treasures were definitely left outside.

Only someone like Su Ze would bring his entire net worth in with him.

Therefore, Su Ze’s biggest gain from killing so many people was these few storage items themselves.

Su Ze wanted his clone to go down and retrieve the extract, but the extractor was too large to fit through the palm-sized hole. It could only be placed inside a storage item for the clone to carry down.

Su Ze took out the extractor, casually stuffed it into a Storage Earring, and tossed the earring to his clone.

The Liquid Clone enveloped the Storage Earring, slipped through the small, palm-sized hole, and went into a free fall onto the beast below.

THWUMP!

The beast’s body was surprisingly springy. The Liquid Clone trembled like jelly upon landing, then formed a crude humanoid shape. It took the extractor out of the Storage Earring, raised it overhead, and forcefully stabbed the sharp, needle-like end toward the soft flesh of the beast beneath it.

It didn’t break the skin.

The beast’s flesh was extremely tough and resilient, absorbing much of the force.

The Liquid Clone activated "Ant Power" and stabbed with all its might again. This time, it barely broke the skin, but a wound that shallow wasn’t deep enough to extract any Evolutionary Material.

At this point, Su Ze realized the creature beneath him was absurdly powerful—possibly a Tier-5 beast.

After a moment of thought, Su Ze had the Liquid Clone use "Needle Strike" on the soft flesh at its feet. This time, it finally carved out a wound one finger deep, and he could faintly see a stringy, transparent mucus.

Su Ze had been fully prepared for the beast to counterattack after that blow, but in reality, everything remained calm. Perhaps such a small wound was nothing more than a tickle to the massive creature, or perhaps it was just sealed too tightly to move.

Regardless, this small wound was enough to draw out the extract.

The Liquid Clone forcefully plunged the extractor into the wound and pressed its switch.

The extractor vibrated slightly, then paused for dozens of seconds before a small amount of transparent Evolutionary Material was finally drawn out.

The color of Evolutionary Material wasn’t fixed; it came in all sorts of colors, though it was mostly transparent. What truly reflected the grade of the extract was the color of the "light of evolution" within it.

Therefore, just by looking at the Evolutionary Material, Su Ze couldn’t determine the rank of the beast beneath him.

Perhaps because the beast was so massive, the extraction was rather slow. Su Ze could only wait patiently.

With every second that passed, Su Ze was on pins and needles, terrified that the beast beneath his feet would launch a counterattack.

Just then, Mr. Ya’s delighted voice came from nearby. "The time is finally up!"

The Elephant Beast that had been relentlessly attacking Mr. Ya suddenly froze in place, as if it had been hit with a Body Fixing Skill.

This meant the time for this stage of the trial was over. By surviving the beast’s assault, Mr. Ya had passed... which was exactly how he had passed the first round.

Immediately after, evolutionary power and Evolutionary Material flew out from the Elephant Beast’s body and merged into Mr. Ya.

Su Ze was quite curious. Logically, Mr. Ya should have absorbed a life-saving skill, but what kind of life-saving skill could an elephant possibly have? Large size? Tough, durable hide?

Mr. Ya closed his eyes to focus on absorbing the extract. As someone who had supposedly absorbed a Bloodline Crystal, his physical constitution was top-notch; there was basically no risk of the absorption failing and his body exploding.

At that moment, the thirteen beast corpses within the Trial Space all suddenly dissolved into blue energy and seeped back into the ground.

These beasts had been formed from this blue energy to begin with, and now, after death, they returned to that energy, seemingly going back to their origin.

Su Ze watched as the corpse of the Kangaroo Beast on his side dissolved into blue energy, flowed into the palm-sized hole he had punched open, and merged into the giant clam beast below.

Su Ze had a sudden realization. ’So all of that blue energy comes from this behemoth under my feet?’

’So that means the hole that was "covered" before was for circulating the blue energy?’

He finally understood why the creator of the Trial Space had made a "window" in the shell.

But as the blue energy that had formed the beasts returned, Su Ze suddenly saw that the palm-sized hole was rapidly healing itself!

The shell could actually self-heal. This wasn’t particularly surprising—what high-level beast didn’t have some kind of Self-Healing Ability? The critical issue was that if it closed up, Su Ze wouldn’t be able to break it open again!

’Wouldn’t his clone be trapped to its death inside the shell?’

’Even if it managed to get the extract, it wouldn’t be able to bring it back up!’

In a panic, Su Ze drew his Moon Blade and wedged it into the opening to stop the shell from healing.

The long blade, which was fashioned from the forelimb of a mantis beast, was just wide enough at its thickest point to jam the palm-sized opening.

But with a CRACK, a tiny fissure actually appeared on the blade!

Su Ze’s heart ached. This was a Tier-3 Wondrous Item!

Moreover, from the looks of it, the Moon Blade wouldn’t hold out for long; it would soon be crushed by the shell.

’What should I do?’

’What should I do!’

Su Ze sent his Spiritual Power into his Storage Pendant, frantically searching for something hard enough to replace the Moon Blade and jam the opening.

His pendant’s space was cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous items: a headless clone, the Hundred-Change Mask, various bottles and jars... but none of these were suitable!

He saw the "Desperate Flower," which had somehow bloomed again, and was greatly puzzled. ’How did this thing bloom again? I haven’t even used the Self-Destructive Seed inside me yet.’

But he had no time to dwell on it now. He continued to rummage frantically through his Storage Space until a metal Token caught his eye.

This was something left behind by the pendant’s previous owner, which he had discovered when he first acquired the Storage Pendant. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The front of the Token was engraved with a birch leaf, and the back bore the number "27," signifying its owner’s high-ranking status in the Lin Hua Army.

Back then, on Liou Wenxin’s advice, Su Ze had kept the Token, and it had been collecting dust in his Storage Pendant ever since.

’Can this thing possibly hold?’

Su Ze wasn’t sure. If it was just ordinary metal, there was no way it could be harder than his Moon Blade.

But he had no better options. Aside from this Token, there was nothing else suitable in his Storage Pendant. If he delayed any longer, his Moon Blade would give out.

Treating it as a last-ditch effort, Su Ze took out the Token. As he pulled out the Moon Blade, he immediately jammed the Token into the opening.

The palm-sized Token jammed the opening tight. Su Ze held his breath and watched it for a moment. There were no signs of cracking or deformation.

It actually held!

’The material of this Token is extraordinary.’

Su Ze breathed a sigh of relief, finally having the presence of mind to pay attention to other things.

He first glanced at Mr. Ya, who had successfully absorbed the extract and was now enveloped in blue energy, beginning to accelerate its digestion.

Next, Su Ze examined the Moon Blade in his hand. A small, faint crack had appeared on the blade. He had no idea if it was still usable or if it could be repaired.

"If I don’t get the extract from that behemoth below, this will be a devastating loss. I’ll have sacrificed a Tier-3 Wondrous Item for nothing."

Su Ze muttered to himself and checked the extraction progress below... Only about a tenth was complete. It would probably take a while longer.

He took out the "Desperate Flower" again. Looking at the blooming balsam flower in the small pot, Su Ze couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why it had bloomed again.

Although the Desperate Flower could regenerate, according to its instructions, it was linked to the Self-Destructive Seed in Su Ze’s body. If he didn’t use up the Self-Destructive Seed, the flower’s regeneration would be extremely slow, taking several years.

Yet now, only a month or so after he had picked the last Self-Destructive Seed, it had bloomed again!

This meant Su Ze could harvest another Self-Destructive Seed.