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At that time, Dark would take out his sketchbook and draw the plant ecology growing in the corner of the wall.
There were many students doing the same thing as he did, but most of them were from Magister House.
There was always something to be gained from observing and documenting the plant life in the dungeon by oneself.
In the blink of an eye, more than half an hour had passed.
Under the guidance of Professor Nini, the students shuttled through the maze of the dungeon. From the initial excitement and curiosity to the gradually increasing exhaustion and boredom, the change in their emotions was clear to the eye.
As for the reason—throughout their journey, they had never encountered even a single monster!
For the students who weren't interested in the plants, all they could see was walls, walls, walls, and even more walls!How dull and insipid.
As time went by, the vigilance brought by coming into contact with an unfamiliar environment for the first time was getting lower and lower.
So much so that when a monster finally appeared, most of the students screamed in panic.
But what they didn't know was that the monster who haplessly spawned on the wall was even more afraid than them!
……
Dark vivaciously watched the monster with only half of its body sticking out of the wall, thinking that if its brain was working, it would definitely wish to crawl right back inside.
With the blood of the king of the beast flowing in her veins, Professor Nini was like a huge terrifying mountain. Inside the brain of this poor monster, the emotion called "fear" was continuously rising.
"What good luck!"
Amidst the panic-stricken and screaming students, Professor Nini's eyes lit up. With large strides, she briskly lunged in front of the monster and shot out her gigantic hand covered in long gray fur to grab its nape, forcibly dragging it out of the wall.
This scene made it look as though she was handling the monster specimens that were used as teaching demonstrations in class.
In the midst of this déjà vu, the students quickly calmed down and hurriedly closed their mouths, pretending as if they hadn't let out a scream.
"Does anyone know what kind of monster this is?"
With an innocent look, Professor Nini turned around and shook the monster in her grip, not forgetting to teach even at this time.
Green skin covered the monster's entire body, dense bumps similar to that of frogs growing on its back with mucus constantly leaking out of them.
White gulped and raised his hand, "Professor, that can't be a Noxious Lizard(剧毒蜥蜴), right?"
Immediately, Professor Nini happily replied, "Yes, this is indeed a Noxious Lizard."
"Waaahhh——"
Loud screams erupted one after another.
Almost in a hurry, the students took several steps back, distancing themselves from Professor Nini and the Noxious Lizard in her hand.
"Dark, Dark, is there anything wrong with Noxious Lizards? Why are they so scared?" Dianna looked at him and curiously asked.
Dark softly answered, "Do you see the bumps on its back? That's the poison gland of Noxious Lizard. The venom leaking out of its poison gland will volatilize in the air and gradually form a poisonous mist. Although it won't be fatal, it can make people feel dizzy and nauseated."
Dianna thought for a long time before blurting out, "But it's sweet."
Dark: "Huh?"
Somewhat shyly, Dianna said, "I mean, I touched it a little when I was a child. The venom leaking out of those bumps is just like syrup, sweet and tasty."
Dark's pupils dilated by a fraction, unable to stop staring at her for quite some time.
……
Crack.
With a clench of her fingers, Professor Nini broke the Noxious Lizard's neck.
The Noxious Lizard that had been desperately shrieking just a moment ago fell silent in an instant.
Its corpse didn't disappear into thin air, but it was clearly apparent that the color on most of its body was turning lighter at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Eventually, one of its teeth grew slightly longer, emitting a dark green light.
Professor Nini explained, "I've talked about this before—Saint Marian's dungeon is very special. After a monster dies, its remaining energy will gather in a certain part of its body and turn into a high-quality material. Like this Noxious Lizard, for instance. Its entire value is condensed into this poison fang."
With some difficulty, Professor Nini plucked out the tiny fang. Then, looking left and right, she hurled out the venomous corpse in her hand.
The corpse flew across the air before finally crashing into a wall covered with vines with a smack.
In the blink of an eye, the wall of vines that looked no different from ordinary vines suddenly started wriggling, entangling the Noxious Lizard's corpse like a snake.
The tips and stems of the vines split into terrifying mouths full of fine teeth, devouring the entirety of the Noxious Lizard's corpse at an extremely fast speed!
This sight instantly had the young magisters falling silent out of fear.
Compared to the Noxious Lizard, the seemingly harmless "Vine Beast" that had been hanging on the wall silently was obviously more terrifying!
"Those vines are actually Vine Beast?"
Dark's pupils constricted, his vigilance spontaneously roused.
In his homework for magic beast class, he wrote a short essay on the subject of "Vine Beast".
And yet he still couldn't recognize it—let alone the other students.
Without Professor Nini's demonstration, who knew how many people would've fallen victim to it.
Every [Dungeon Escaper] that was activated would be a considerable expense.
Professor Nini seemed to still remember that he had written such an essay, so she picked him out from the crowd and asked him to help explain about the Vine Beast.
Without hiding anything, Dark incessantly shared the result of his research.
By this time, the students had at last stopped feeling bored and listless due to the long walk.
Walking in the maze of the dungeon while listening to the detailed explanation of their classmate, they finally grasped the feeling of... visiting a museum!
……
Vine Beasts were undoubtedly an extremely dangerous species.
They could be found in almost every floor of the dungeon and were very dangerous and difficult to identify.
Adventurers constantly confused them with ordinary vines, and a lapse of vigilance could lead to suffering under their ferocity.
But if one could skillfully distinguish the difference between Vine Beasts and ordinary vines, they would become a very useful type of monster.
They were highly aggressive, but their attack power wasn't very strong. Furthermore, they had an obvious weakness—they were incapable of moving after being rooted.
The brain of a Vine Beast was located at the root. Thus, just by cutting off the vine from the root, it would get disconnected from the brain and stop moving.
Afterwards, by cutting off its tip, peeling the epidermis, draining the blood flowing inside and then washing it, one would be able to obtain a chunk of edible meat.
The meat of a Vine Beast was soft and delicate, taking only a few minutes to cook to readiness in boiling water. It was a rare edible species in the dungeon, and was also easy and quick to prepare. On top of it all, it was meat.
……
On the other hand, the venom of Noxious Lizard needed to be detoxified before it could be consumed as syrup, which was very troublesome.
It wasn't as convenient to prepare as the Vine Beast.
……
Such was the dungeon.
If one were to look carefully, there was a lot of fun to be found in the seemingly dangerous adventure.
After about an hour in total, under the guidance of Professor Nini, the students found the stairs leading to the second floor without a single hitch.
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