One hundred and twenty-six: The Functions of Carrots (Part Two)

It looked blankly at the giant carrot in its paws, let out a somewhat helpless and gentle sigh, wobbled forward a couple of hops, and then leaped into the air, making a rather strained jump about the height of a fist—to be honest, I often seriously doubted whether it was truly a rabbit at all, or perhaps some kind of mutated guinea pig with slightly elongated ears—followed by a vigorous flick of its front paws, hurling the large carrot into the snow with a grunt.

With a dull thud, the carrot landed haphazardly in the snow, tilting at an acute angle of at most thirty degrees.

It wasn't until a string of archaic and crude totem patterns emerged on the surface of the carrot, radiating a faint blue glow and restoring my vitality at a rate of roughly fifteen points per second, that I realized... this was a life totem...

Thus, we can deduce that rabbits communicate with their ancestors through sacred carrots—which, all things considered, is not entirely surprising.

Any moderately experienced adventurer knows that regardless of the healing class, healers can only cast spells from a single specific discipline. For instance, priests only know holy magic, druids only know nature magic, and shamans can only master soul magic. Every time a magic spell is cast, it generates a certain degree of mana fluctuation, which in turn interferes with the casting of other spells sharing the same attribute.

For example, after a priest casts "Divine Hymn," they always need to rest for a brief moment before they can continue using spells like "Healing Light" or "Lay on Hands." If anyone nearby falls into danger during this window, the priest is completely powerless to help. For someone like me currently being beaten to a pulp, if this rabbit could only restore thirty to fifty health points every five or six seconds, it would be a mere drop in the bucket, entirely useless for alleviating the situation.

However, it now appeared that this miraculous rabbit, whose sacred duty was saving lives and healing the wounded, was not only versed in all three schools of healing magic but was also exceptionally proficient in every single one of them. For it, the restrictive rule of mutual interference between spells of the same discipline simply did not exist: it could casually toss out a "Lay on Hands" with its left hand, immediately follow up with a "Kiss of Nature" from its right, sway its head and release a "Soul Chain," by which time the cooldown restriction of the holy magic had already passed, allowing it to proudly dish out a "Healing Light," followed immediately by the nature magic "Fountain of Life," before brazenly planting a soul-discipline "Life Totem," and then...

True enough, the amount of vitality restored by each of its individual spells was minuscule, but when these colorful, uniquely shaped magical radiance surged toward you like raging waves, crashing over your head and knocking you flat on the ground, making your health points steadily grow with increments of fifteen here and twenty there, your health recovery speed became quite considerable—not to mention the lingering stacking effects of certain nature and soul spells. And what baffled people the most was figuring out just where in its tiny body such an inexhaustible reservoir of mana was concealed, enabling it to sustain such a high-density magical expenditure.

A vast cascade of green characters symbolizing health recovery immediately flooded the top of my head. Although each individual number was a paltry "+20" or "+15," their sheer quantity and massive scale were so densely packed above me that no matter where I walked, I looked like a pair of walking bushes—and exceptionally lush ones at that.

This was practically pushing me flat on my back and pumping blood straight into my veins bag by bag...

This gushing, high-intensity vitality recovery left me both astonished and overjoyed.

"And you call this recovering very little health..." I simply gave up parrying, straightened my back, completely ignored the wooden clubs raining down upon me, and pointed loudly at Rub-Rub, challenging Yan Zhen at the top of my lungs. "...She's a hundred times better than that unethical butcher-doctor, Shooting Sun with a Long Bow!"

"I... I have no idea how it turned out like this..." Yan Zhen's expression was equally astonished—even more astonished than mine—as she replied, sounding both delighted and aggrieved. "...In the past, I've never lost this much health..."

Come to think of it, whenever there were only one or two of us adventuring and completing low-level quests, we would inevitably choose areas where monsters were sparse or of lower levels, places where you couldn't possibly lose a great deal of health. With Rub-Rub's magic, it could easily settle things in two or three moves—I even suspected whether this proud and lazy little creature could summon the enthusiasm to make a move at all—and such completely unchallenged, simple travels had clearly buried the immense talent hidden within Rub-Rub.

With the support of such a formidable healer, the previously perilous snowy mountain instantly transformed into a smooth highway. I practically abandoned defense altogether, and under Rub-Rub's powerful assistance, launched a counterattack against the group of Greatfoot Savages that had been wantonly humiliating me for half the day. Once the ropes of restraint were untied, these barbarians, who were generally three or four levels lower than me, instantly lost all their advantages. The anger that had been suppressed for so long transformed into cruelty within my heart; my sharp blade sliced open their grease-filled bellies, spraying their foul-smelling gore across the snow to wash away the disgrace I had suffered. Watching one fierce enemy after another scream and fall before me, my blood surged, and I wished I could carve a giant character directly onto my heart, feeling that without doing so, I could never vent the immense, surging pleasure welling up inside me:

"Awesome"!!!

Generally speaking, when a monster abandons your teammates to attack you, it is because you have inflicted far greater damage upon it, arousing its deeper hatred to the extent that it ignores the opponent directly engaging it in front of them.

However, this does not mean that refraining from attacking these monsters guarantees safety. When the selfless contributions bestowed upon teammates by healing classes reach a certain threshold, drawing the monsters' attention, it can likewise intensely provoke their fury. This is actually quite easy to understand. To use a simple analogy: if you spend every single day enduring all hardships and working tirelessly to earn money, while your spouse devotes themselves every day to racking their brains inventing new ways to relentlessly spend money, rendering all your hard work completely pointless, you would be furious too...

When only the last four Greatfoot Savages remained before me, they finally discovered the existence of Rub-Rub. These short-tempered and utterly stupid boors must have wondered just now why, no matter how much effort they exerted, they couldn't take down this stubborn and resilient fellow. When they discovered that it was this silly little creature cowering in the snow pile that had been making fools of them, the last shred of their intelligence was instantly drowned out by the fury of humiliation. Ignoring me completely, they charged straight toward the rabbit.

"Watch out, they're charging over, I can't hold their aggro!" I shouted warnings to my comrades behind me while thrusting my sword fiercely into the Greatfoot Savage with the highest remaining health, making a series of comical, provocative grimaces at him until I finally managed to lure him back in front of me.

The remaining three savages had only run a few paces when an even bulkier and fatter figure materialized right behind their bloated, plump bodies.

"Leave this one to me!" The words had barely faded when Long Triangle, who had been lying in ambush halfway using the "Stealth" skill, swung his war hammer with a sinister expression, knocking one Greatfoot Savage cold on the spot. But the remaining two paid no heed to their fallen companion, stubbornly charging toward the rabbit in the snow. Although her favorite magic lacked sufficient threat against these indigenous mountain dwellers, Feline spared no effort in casting her most powerful spells. The freezing effect slowed down the advance of one Greatfoot Savage, followed by a fierce barrage of even more violent ice-attribute spells pouring down upon him—though these spells couldn't knock him down right away, the intensity of the attacks was barely enough to divert his attention toward the female ice mage standing off to the side.

"I've lured one over too..." Feline shrieked, "...but I can't scratch him, come help!"

The final Greatfoot Savage found himself facing Yan Zhen, who was fiercely defending her beloved "bunny." The elven beast tamer had exhausted all her ammunition in the previous fierce battle and was now standing horizontally between Rub-Rub and the highland aborigines, wielding a massive, single-handed battle axe.

"You shall not pass!" Yan Zhen brandished the giant axe and charged at this escaped fish, swinging the weapon in a full arc to bring it crashing down upon the savage's head.

Normally, this savage had very little health remaining; if Yan Zhen's firearm could still be used, a single shot's power would have been more than enough to easily drop him. But the problem was that an axe was not the weapon Yan Zhen was accustomed to wielding, and it failed to deliver the anticipated destructive power. After a torrential wave of crimson blood splashed across the air, the Greatfoot Savage's health bar was entirely empty, yet he stubbornly and resolutely remained standing on his feet, staggeringly charging straight toward Rub-Rub with unyielding persistence.

The plump, rosy little round bunny seemed completely oblivious to what was happening, foolishly squatting in its original spot, clutching its precious carrot, and coldly staring at the approaching behemoth, seemingly entirely unaware of impending death.

"Oh no..." I yelled.

"Stop him..." Long Triangle yelled.

"Come help me..." Feline yelled.

"My little bunny..." Yan Zhen yelled.

"So high..." Xuange Yayi screamed in a miserable shriek... Ah... well... we can temporarily ignore this useless fellow.

amidst the chaotic and terrified din, the Greatfoot Savage strode toward Rub-Rub with a ferocious expression, eyes wide open, raising the heavy wooden club in his hands high above his head—the little rabbit, possessing a mere twenty health points, could never possibly withstand such a heavy blow...

"Thud..." A muffled striking sound echoed through the air!

...Yet the murderous wooden club never fell...

Before our anxious gazes, Rub-Rub lazily raised that pinky-finger-thick carrot and gently tapped it against the top of the Greatfoot Savage's foot...

A tattered crimson flag rose into the sky: "-3".

The very last trace of life force within the Greatfoot Savage's body was drained away by this utterly humiliating blow. He fell backward flat on his face with fragile limpness, and a barely perceptible, slight tremor rippled through the blanket of snow, transmitting all the way down to the soles of my feet.

The earth itself was profoundly shaken...

I felt as though my jaw had completely dislocated...

In this clash between the carrot and the stick, the carrot had unbelievably emerged victorious with absolute zero damage—what a crazy carrot, what a powerful carrot!

Rub-Rub blinked its large, dewy eyes, cast a silent, fleeting glance in our direction, and then very solemnly scooped up its precious carrot once more, affectionately taking a tiny nibble from it while its chubby, three-cleft mouth twitched gently, as if mocking something.

...I never quite dared to confirm whether that was actually a staff shaped remarkably like a carrot, or quite simply a carrot imbued with formidable magical power...

With the obstacle defeated before us, high-spirited and full of vigor, we strode forward to resume our journey.

"Huh..." Feline suddenly recalled something, "...It feels like we were doing something very important just a moment ago..."

"Rumor has it... it's getting late, don't forget, we still have a world to save..." I tilted my head up at a pure forty-five-degree angle toward the sky. The sky above the snowy mountain was indeed pristine and vast...

"I remember now..." Feline snapped back to full awareness, "...You said you were going to buy potions just a moment ago!"

"Ah? Did I?" I flatly denied it, "No way, you must have misheard. I was just asking about the prices, purely asking about prices..." I shook my head so violently I nearly snapped my own neck, "...With Yan Zhen's Rub-Rub around, there's absolutely no need for me to buy any potions."

Yan Zhen cradled her little white rabbit with maternal tenderness, flashing a proud smile brimming with motherly love as she walked onward at a leisurely pace.

"Right, guild leader..." Long Triangle also snapped to his senses instantly, "...I don't need potions either, I strongly demand a refund..."

"A refund? In your dreams!" Feline clutched her backpack tightly as if startled, glaring vigilantly and angrily at Long Triangle, "All sales are final once goods leave the shop!"

"Guild leader, sir..." Long Triangle wept tears of sorrow, "...Have mercy on me, my backpack is almost stuffed to the brim with potion bottles, there's hardly any room left to carry two extra pieces of equipment..."

"No way, no way, no way..." Feline covered her ears, shaking her head frantically. Catching sight of Yan Zhen, who had already walked a dozen paces ahead, she immediately gave chase in a huff.

"It's all your fault, you deadbeat Yan Zhen! Bringing such an overpowered healing pet along and making it impossible for me to sell a single potion... Oh, she's so cute, let me hold her, let me hold her, please, just for a second... You're going to be the death of me, what am I supposed to do with this massive pile of inventory stuck in my hands... Oh, she even smiles, giggles... It's all your fault, all your fault, all your fault... Tickle tickle, little cutie..."

"Guild leader, my life is miserable..." Long Triangle wailed as he chased after them with his protruding belly...

What a bunch of utter goofballs... Watching their retreating figures, I smiled and shook my head, unable to help feeling secretly grateful inwardly—thank goodness I was late pulling out my money...

Wait! That's not right!

A sudden jolt gripped my heart as I recalled a certain matter, instantly throwing me into a panic and giving me a headache as severe as if my skull were being constricted by a tight band of black threads:

"Hey, are you kidding me? You guys all snuck off ahead and left him entirely to me alone? I have no desire to carry this walking corpse up a snow mountain. Damn it, don't pretend you didn't hear me... Huh? How are they running even faster than before? Aren't there speed penalties in the snow... Oh man, they even resorted to teleportation, you guys are ruthless..."

I indignantly pointed at the elven master archer Xuange Yayi, who was lying facedown on the ground with his backside up in the air, pale-faced, breathing out more than he was breathing in, and launched into a loud complaint...