55: Chapter 41 Snake (Two in One) 55: Chapter 41 Snake (Two in One) One step forward.
Xia Nan felt the air temperature around his body suddenly drop sharply.
Suddenly, his vision went dark.
The next second, the dense forest underbrush once filled with moist fog before him was replaced by a bare stone wall.
It was like missing a step on the stairs, the sudden panic causing his exhausted body to no longer hold out.
He unconsciously let out a pained murmur, and suddenly collapsed to the ground.
With his last bit of strength, he barely managed to keep his eyes open and glance around.
Seeing no immediate danger, he closed his eyes again amidst the tide of fatigue and pain.
He didn’t know how much time passed.
A cold, slick sensation came from his cheek, faintly feeling the muscle wriggling beneath hardened scales.
Xia Nan slowly opened his eyes.
He jumped up abruptly, throwing the reddish-brown long snake that had somehow crawled onto him to the ground.
An iron-grey cold gleam flashed through the dim air.
The head of the snake was severed, its long body twisted and twitched.
Using the blade tip to pick up the snake’s head and toss it into the corner, he let out a slight sigh of relief.
Leaning against the stone wall behind him, Xia Nan gripped the Beheading Longsword tightly.
Only now, after a brief dizziness following his frantic escape, did he have a chance to carefully observe his current surroundings.
This was a sealed cave.
There was nothing remarkable about it, the bare grey stone walls filled his sight everywhere.
Occasionally, glowing strange fungal grass would creep across the rock surface, turning the cave, which should have been pitch-dark, into its current “dim” state due to the eerie blue light.
For some reason, even though there weren’t any obvious features present, just staring at the deathly grey stone walls before him.
Xia Nan felt a deep, intrinsic sense of illusion, of being out of place with the real world.
As if a chunk of a mountain from another world had been cut out and forcibly inserted into this world.
Just like the carriages, wooden houses, and courtyards he saw along the way…
Moreover, clearly a moment ago, he was in Mist Forest, fiercely pursued by the Petrified Lizard, but in an instant, it was as if he had fallen into some trap and was teleported here.
A pensive expression appeared on his face.
He didn’t act recklessly.
After his consciousness gradually returned to his body, Xia Nan, confirming his current location was temporarily safe,
The first thing he did was check his physical condition.
His legs were the least injured, only the sides of his calves were scratched by the thorns in the forest while escaping, an ordinary abrasion, which had now stopped bleeding;
A stabbing pain came from the middle of his chest, to the left, more noticeable when breathing, but still bearable—perhaps a rib fracture?
The most severe was his right forearm.
Enduring the pain, he lifted the padding under the leather armor, discovering a large bruise, swollen and blue-purple, near the wrist of his right arm’s ulna.
While escaping, his attention was focused, and he barely felt it.
Now, waves of soreness and numbing pain spread from it, even making flexing his fingers and gripping the sword handle extremely challenging.
It must be noted that before this, to regain mobility, he had downed half a bottle of Healing Potion.
Feeling a bit of regret, but not remorse.
If not for that life-saving potion, he might not have lasted until now, having already been petrified and devoured by the lizard.
For a life in return, even 2500 Gold would be worth it!
Sighing in his heart, Xia Nan’s hands didn’t idle, somewhat laboriously retrieving the “Medical Tool Set” he bought before departure from his backpack.
Ordinary quality Healing Potion, in critical moments, can preserve life, cure most minor injuries, and alleviate pain.
But for injuries like fractured bones, it doesn’t provide immediate effects.
The adventurer needs to deal with them himself.
Clumsily using the splint in the tool set to fix his forearm, he wrapped it tightly with bandages held in his left hand before biting the excess bandage off with his teeth.
According to the treatment method recorded in the [Adventurer’s Manual], if the forearm is injured, a sling should be used to hang the arm and prevent worsening the injury.
With limited conditions now, he could only manage this much.
His fingers flexed slightly despite the sore swelling; the tips still had some grey-white petrification marks, but under the Healing Potion’s effect, they’d eased greatly, regaining some sensation.
In contemplation, Xia Nan thought:
He seemed to have seen petrification-type Detoxification Potion at the Alchemy Shop before, though he couldn’t recall its price, but at least it gave him a hope for recovery.