The Exiled First-born of the Noble House. Rising to the Top With the Worthless Skill [Null Poison] - Chapter 228

Thick Fog

About two days had passed, since I had turned that cave into my base.

The first day was mostly, getting rid of the giant centipede corpse and its pieces, cleaning out the moss, and then driving out all the little bugs and insects that were festering here; basically cleaning up the cave.

The entirety of the second day involved gathering all sorts of usable materials from nearby and placing it near the entrance of the cave, and then turn it into a truly liveable base.

There were still doubts in me in regards to the quality of this new base but, at least it was possible to live normally here so technically, I’ll call the base creation complete.

After all, my main objective for coming to this direction was not creating bases but to explore.

——–was how I forcibly convinced myself, and had decided to finally begin my exploration of the west area of the Great forest of Roza.

I had set a 4 day time limit for my exploration and was hoping to get some sort of result from it.

Since the remaining time, I had to spend on gathering more poisonous plants, I couldn’t extend the exploration duration any longer than that.

Let’s put my all into it to make sure I gain something even from this short period of time.

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The further I went west from my base, the thicker the fog became here.

And soon enough, it got so dense that it became hard to tell left from right, and all I could see ahead of me was ‘white’.

If the east was the submerged forest, then I guess the west will be called the Forest of fog then.

Of course, there was always a chance that this was just a random occurrence and I just happened to come here on a bad day but……..it was not impossible to get completely lost inside this fog.

Well, that’s why I bought a compass with me, so I certainly won’t get lost but, when the visiility is so bad, there is always a fear of sudden monster attack as well.

Just in case, I tried using [Crimson Eyes] as well but it seemed to be only useful in the dark, and if anything it actually made my vision worse in this case.

Now then, I have just barely stepped into this area but, how do I move from here.

Now if this fog was just an occasional occurrence, I could always stop exploring for today and prepare for tomorrow but, if this was how it was always going to be, then it was better to simply continue exploring.

……….Shit, Henjak had almost no info in regards to the west area, so I had no idea what kind of fog this was.

I wondered if he had no info on this because this fog was occasional, or was it because of the permanent fog that he had no info on this area? Both could be true which had me completely stumped on what to do next.

After I continued to hesitate and ponder in the entrance of the west area for a while, I finally decided that it was better to continue.

The reasons were simple. One, I had only 4 days so I couldn’t waste time and two, this fog should also help me as well.

To someone like me with a over abundance of skills, even after losing one of my five senses in sight, I could still manage.

Furthermore, using [Stealth] and [Silent Steps] in this fog should completely hide my presence as well.

There was the issue of stamina consumption but, [Stealth] and [Silent Steps] weren’t that costly to use anyway, so I’ll use my detection abilities a bit less, and focus on keeping my stealth skills active as long as I can.

With all that decided, I carefully decided on which skills should I use, before heading out to explore.

The skills I settled on were, [Perception Range Enhancement][Life Presence Sense][Stealth][Silent Steps] and [Skin Strengthen].

[Skin Strengthen] was my basically my all around insurance, as I still hadn’t forgotten about those damn RexBills.

Henjak never really confirmed their habitat either so there was always a chance that RexBills could appear in the west area as well.

We’ve already seen that those things can’t be detected by [Life Presence Sense] either, and so in a place with zero visibility like this, there is a chance that I might not notice them until they had already bitten their way inside my body.

And so, the skill was absolutely worth it.

As I continued walking through this pure white forest, I reached a place, it seemed like a flower field, where white flowers were growing on the ground.

For a second, I thought it was Reizen grass but there were no purple spots on it. These were so pure white, that they would be almost invisible in this fog.

And even I only noticed them after I had stepped and crushed a couple under my feet, but at the same time, I felt a sense of unease from the movement of the flowers.

I realized they had released some kind of pollen that had mixed into the fog.

This act was such a stark contrast from its appearance, that I instantly sensed that these were probably poisonous plants.

Of course I had no proof yet, so I gathered a few and stored them inside my bag.

For me this was the best kind of start I could have had by gathering a new kind of plant, so I’m hoping this is a sign and I’ll be able to gather all sorts of new poisonous plants here.

It seemed like the number of monsters in the west area were low, meanwhile the plant life seemed to be much more abundant.

Following that, as I continued my exploration, I found another plant that caught my curiosity.

Unlike the previous one, this was one was visibly an odd, strange-looking plant.

The poor visibility made me think for a moment that it was a tree, but it was the actually just the stem of the plant that had grown from the ground.

At the top of the plant, there were lantern-like flowers hanging down, I could sense an ill aura from it, kind of like Ongneer.

I didn’t feel like touching those lantern-like flowers so I decided to gather the leaves instead.

I circled around to where the flowers weren’t hanging down directly at me, and then plucked a bunch of leaves and stored them inside my bag.

The plant itself was surprisingly big, and ever leaf was almost the size of my face.

I managed to somehow fold it and store it inside my bag and quickly moved away from the lantern-like flowers.

But still, since stepping into the west area, I really haven’t sensed any monster here at all.

This area was as quiet as the Peixa forest, and my vision being covered in white due to the fog made it feel even more eerie.

Maybe I could have managed even without stealth skills, but for now I’ll continue to stay on guard as I explore the place.

From the place I gathered the leaves of the lantern-like flower plant, I continued further west for another hour before I finally reached a new place.

I had continued to gather more new plants on the way as well and, since the fog had ruined the visibility I had no idea of where exactly I was going until——suddenly I had appeared in front of a big water lake.

Unlike the submerged forest of the East, this was a proper lake.

Due to the relentless fog, I still couldn’t see the entire thing but, I could tell it was pretty big.

Part of me wanted to build a raft and try and float to the other side, but if I got attacked by underwater creatures like the East area, I really would be in big trouble so I couldn’t act on my emotions.

Just to see, I did activate all of my detection skills at full force to try and scout out the lake but, I sensed absolutely nothing from it……….

But I wondered if the water tended to get in the way as even with [Perception Enhancement] and [Perception Range Enhancement], the reactions from the [Life Presence Sense] were pretty dull.

I tried to poke a long wooden stick into the water but it didn’t even touch the ground and got swallowed into the lake. If these creatures were deep under water, then there’s a good chance my skill won’t detect them from here.

Since I didn’t want to put myself under the same risks as those in the East area, I gave up on exploring this lake that spread from the centre of the West area and spread throughout the further west region of this area. And decided to stop my exploration for today.

Even though I was heavily restricted by the fog, I had been able to explore a decent amount, so I decided to return for today and prepare for another trip tomorrow.

If the fog remained the same tomorrow as well, honestly, the exploration will only get tougher from now but……..I can’t just give up either.

Regardless, with water obstructing me on both sides of the forest, I realize that I needed to come up with a counter measure against this.

Now might be the time for me to kill some underwater monster and turn it into a host for the Ongneer.

I already had to look for the next host anyway, might as well make sure I keep this water problem in mind so that I can solve two problems with one answer.