Chapter 524: Coexisting in Peace

The crocodile dragon flew at incredible speed and quickly caught up. This time, Su Che and Lao He were right—instead of attacking immediately, the crocodile dragon circled above Su Che’s head, letting out low growls, clearly trying to convey something. Su Che kept moving forward, shouting at it, “If you still want that kind of food, just keep following me. I’ll ensure you’re fed—whatever amount you want!”

“Grrr…”

The crocodile dragon roared furiously, its already terrifying appearance becoming even more ferocious, yet it still didn’t attack. Su Che knew that a few fat pigs alone couldn’t tame such a wild and unruly beast. Its intentions were beyond human comprehension. It could only be assumed that, tempted by the delicious food, it didn’t know what to do for now and could only follow him.

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with me, there’s no need to deal with it.”

Deciding on this, Su Che continued rushing toward the distant mountains, not in a straight line. Whenever he encountered terrain that might hide a Life Token, he would go check it out. Fortunately, with Lao He’s detection range of eight thousand zhang, its ability to search for items was far superior to Su Che’s own spiritual senses. If relying solely on sight, finding a tiny token across vast lands would be nearly impossible—the chances of success would be minuscule…

After about half an hour, Su Che arrived at the foothills of the continuous mountains. The crocodile dragon remained closely behind, perhaps wondering why this human couldn’t even fly and had to walk on two legs—wasn’t he rather weak?

At that moment, Lao He transmitted a message: “Master, there’s feedback from the fourth layer of the Immortal Prison. Heng Yi and the others must have encountered fierce beasts each. It’s too difficult for them to meet up; they definitely can’t do it in the short term.”

Su Che nodded inwardly. It was logical—Heng Yi and his companions didn’t have any means to temporarily pacify those beasts. If they encountered two or more beasts along the way, the situation would become very dangerous. After all, these beasts weren’t fools; they weren’t omnivores and knew how to be picky. Even if Heng Yi and the others released some livestock from their magic spaces to feed the beasts, since those livestock lacked extremely precious life energy, they were not as nourishing to the beasts as consuming cultivators with advanced true energy within them.

So, Su Che replied to Lao Hei, “Then tell them that safety is of the utmost importance. Since we can’t meet for now, each of us must rely on our own luck and find the Survival Token on our own.”
“Okay.”
Lao Hei immediately used the soul communication function on the fourth floor of the Immortal Prison to send soul messages to Heng Yi and the other two, ordering them to search for the Survival Token and find their own ways to survive.
After discussing this, Su Che was about to enter the mountainous area when the crocodile dragon suddenly flew down and blocked his path, roaring loudly, clearly trying to stop him.
Su Che had anticipated this move. It was highly likely that the swamp was its territory, while this mountainous area belonged to another beast. Now that Su Che was leaving the swamp, the crocodile dragon must be very displeased.
For it, the ideal situation would be to keep Su Che on its territory, providing it with a steady supply of delicious food.
Swish!
Su Che threw two fat pigs in front of it. Ignoring whether it could understand, he explained in a deep voice, “I need to find something. If I can’t find it, I’ll die in a few days, and you won’t get such delicious food anymore.”
While speaking, Su Che used the Water Mirror Technique, showing the appearance of the Survival Token in the mirror, and added, “See? This is what I’m looking for. Have you seen it before?”
To his surprise, the crocodile dragon could indeed understand human speech. It shook its head repeatedly, clearly indicating that it had never seen it.
Su Che wasn’t disappointed or surprised by this answer. After all, such Survival Tokens were most likely makeshift tricks created by some mysterious old man. Before this, there had never been anything like the “27.5 Survival Tokens” in the world, so how could the beasts here have seen them before?
After dissolving the Water Mirror Technique, Su Che pointed at the two fat pigs and said, “You don’t have to worry about going to someone else’s territory. There won’t be enough food for everyone. Don’t worry—there’s as much as you want. I can feed hundreds of creatures like you!”
The crocodile dragon stopped roaring. It was unclear whether it understood Su Che’s words, but it was certain that it wanted Su Che to provide this food continuously, yet it didn’t know how to trap this human and turn him into a source of food for itself.
Its intelligence probably wasn’t advanced enough for that.
Seeing that the beast hadn’t made a decision after a long time, Su Che grew impatient and shouted, “The more time you waste, the less chance you have of getting such delicious food if I die. Understand?”

With the last three words, Su Che infused true energy into him, and his roar was like thunder, far louder than the crocodile dragon’s successive hisses earlier. Suddenly, this made the crocodile dragon shrink back in fright, clearing some space for him. Unfazed, Su Che continued moving swiftly, almost brushing past its mouth full of sharp teeth as he passed by calmly. The crocodile dragon shook its head noisily, emitting a strange rumbling sound from its throat, seemingly expressing slight dissatisfaction with Su Che, but it had no choice but to follow behind. The life-giving delicacy was extremely tempting to it; it really couldn’t bear to give it up, let alone devour this human. Left with no other option, it had to obey Su Che’s wishes. It had already understood that this human’s life was in grave danger—unless he found that red token within a certain time, he would die, and then it would never be able to taste the delicacy it desired. Follow him! In any case, it couldn’t let him escape, nor let him die, nor let him be snatched away by other creatures… Thus, Su Che successfully entered the mountainous area, closely followed by a powerful exotic beast. The reason he chose this mountain range for a thorough search was based on a guess: the twenty-seven and a half tokens were scattered over a vast area, and there must be some pattern to them. For example, within a thousand miles of where he had been transported, there should be one token; moreover, there should be another competitor in this area who would fight him fiercely to seize that token. Additionally, the location of the token was likely chosen carefully—such as in a natural stronghold or the lair of some exotic beast. Although these were just guesses, Su Che believed that from the mysterious old man’s perspective, such an arrangement would be more interesting, making it entertaining for him as an observer. The mountain range at this moment fit his guesses quite well, and it was also a kind of intuition… The pace of progress was neither fast nor slow. Climbing peaks and crossing deep ravines, Su Che didn’t miss a single mountain. In the Immortal Prison, Lao He also remained highly focused, daring not to be careless, as this involved the life and safety of his master and could not be taken lightly. After searching for several hours and having ventured deep into the mountainous region, suddenly, the usually patient crocodile dragon let out a deep roar behind Su Che, indicating that it had discovered something earlier than Lao He.

“Some kind of communication between these exotic beasts?” Su Che guessed subconsciously.
The crocodile dragon’s roars echoed throughout the valley, yet before they faded, another loud cry came from afar—strange in sound, resembling a baby’s wailing.
Huhuhuhu…
A few moments later, a dark shadow flew in from afar. Upon closer inspection, Su Che saw a monstrous bird entirely black with a pair of huge fleshy wings, looking like an enormously enlarged bat—extremely ugly and ferocious.
“Are all these exotic beasts this ugly?” Lao He expressed his opinion right away.
The crocodile dragon took to the air to confront it, acting like a guardian determined not to let any creature harm Su Che, his treasure.
Aow…
Waah…
The two monsters circled each other in the air, constantly roaring and calling out, clearly in a standoff, both being cautious of each other.
“Obviously, they’re old neighbors. Their territories border each other, so they’re quite familiar with each other,” Su Che thought with a smile. He then waved his hand, releasing over thirty fat pigs infused with life force.
“It’s just a greeting, nothing more.”
“Waah…”
The monstrous bird immediately sensed the intense life force within those pigs and became extremely excited. Ignoring the crocodile dragon, it dived straight down.
“Aow…”
The fiercely protective crocodile dragon, seeing this creature trying to steal its food, roared in anger and tried to stop it at all costs. But Su Che waved his hand again, releasing dozens more pigs, laughing heartily: “There’s plenty! No need to fight—everyone gets a share!”
However, the poor crocodile dragon was already full and couldn’t eat any more in a short time. It also dived down, using its long body to enclose the over thirty pigs Su Che had thrown afterward, clearly signaling: “These are mine. I’d rather die than give them away…”
Su Che laughed heartily, finding it quite amusing to tease these exotic beasts with food.
Crack, crack…
The monstrous bird seemed to have been hungry for ten thousand years; even tearing through food, it appeared anxious, worried that if it ate too slowly, other competitors would snatch its meal.
It could only be said that in its entire life, it had never tasted such delicious food. The sensation of absorbing life force couldn’t be described simply as “tasty.”

Su Che stood still, patiently waiting for the strange bird to get full. When it could no longer eat, he used the same method he had employed against the crocodile dragon. It didn’t take long before he established a temporary, friendly relationship with the bird.

The presence of the crocodile dragon played a significant role in making this possible. The strange bird, seeing its old neighbor follow this human into its territory, had no idea how important this person was. Moreover, if it tried to harm or steal from Su Che, the crocodile dragon would not allow it, so it had no choice but to coexist peacefully, following Su Che closely alongside the crocodile dragon.

Their goal was simple: to quickly digest what they had eaten, then ask this human for more food—ideally, to be able to keep eating like this forever…