But these earthworms were really annoying—they chased him for a good ten miles, only stopping together at the edge of a sparse forest after he entered it, refusing to go any further. Yet at that very moment, a wave of mental attacks surged toward him like a tide.

Andrew Brooks practiced the Qi path, so he wasn’t too afraid of attacks on the divine sense. Even so, he still felt a bit dizzy and lightheaded. Coupled with his excessive physical exertion, he had to sit under a tree and catch his breath for quite a while before he more or less recovered.

His stomach grew even hungrier, but he didn’t dare relax for a moment. The fact that the earthworms hadn’t followed him in proved there was something big in the forest.

Once he’d rested enough to feel fully re-energized, he slowly stood up and began trudging through the woods with difficulty. The machete in his hand occasionally let him kill a few small, blind bugs.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble slightly, followed by a thunderous rumble—a wild boar the size of a donkey appeared not far away.

This wild boar was extremely aggressive, charging straight ahead as it walked. Whenever it scratched an itch on a tree trunk, the tree—thick as a soup bowl—would shudder violently, creaking loudly.

Seeing this, Andrew Brooks didn’t hesitate to hide behind a large tree, using his breath-concealing technique and not daring to make a sound.

Creatures like this were most likely the reason the earthworms didn’t dare enter the forest. As for the hardness of these trees, Mr. Brooks had already experienced it firsthand—he definitely didn’t want to go up against this beast.

He could only hope his breath-concealing technique would fool it—this thing might be as formidable as that spider.

Sure enough, the wild boar didn’t notice him and soon crashed its way off into the distance.

Andrew Brooks encountered three such wild boars in the forest, but thanks to his caution, he managed to avoid them all.

In the valley that followed, he ran into swarms of centipedes. By the time he finally picked the blazing sun fruit, two days had already passed.

After dodging another earthworm pursuit, he arrived at the outskirts not far from Qingshi City, utterly exhausted in both body and mind. For the past two days, he’d survived by eating instant noodles dry.

Once he reached the city outskirts, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He took out a frying pan, fried more than a dozen eggs, and cooked nearly five pounds of lamb. Only then did his stomach feel a little better.

For some reason, his appetite in the Immortal Realm was at least five times greater than on Earth, and he got hungry much faster.

Since he got hungry so quickly, he could only make up for it with quantity. As Andrew Brooks ate, he pondered: this mission is really too much for a first-level wandering immortal. That wild boar was probably a second-level desolate beast.

After stuffing himself, he finally stood up. Just then, four or five teenagers approached from a distance.

The teenagers were startled when they saw him. Once they recognized his cultivation level, the one in the lead raised his chin. “Ask him what he got.”

All these teenagers were third- or fourth-level wandering immortals. Out here in the wilderness, running into a first-level wandering immortal meant they could bully him however they liked.

A teenager with a prominent forehead wrinkle swaggered forward, arms crossed, and spoke in a raspy, duck-like voice, “Hey, first-level kid, be smart and hand over your loot.”

Andrew Brooks was so frustrated he didn’t even want to talk about it. It seemed like anyone could bully him.

But there are always scoundrel teens everywhere. After thinking it over, he pulled out three blazing sun fruits from his pocket. “Just these.”

He’d collected ninety-three blazing sun fruits on this mission. Some weren’t ripe yet and would have to be picked later.

Ten blazing sun fruits were worth three spirit stones, so ninety would be twenty-seven spirit stones. The remaining three blazing sun fruits didn’t mean much to him.

“Damn, blazing sun fruit!” The duck-voiced teen took the fruits and reached into Andrew Brooks’s pocket. “Anything else?”

There were plenty of storage items in the Immortal Realm, but most people still used storage pouches. Second- and third-level wandering immortals wore them on their waists as a status symbol—look, I’ve got a storage pouch.

As for someone like Andrew Brooks, a first-level wandering immortal, owning a Xumi ring was something no one would expect.

That was exactly what Andrew Brooks was counting on. Sure enough, the duck-voiced teen searched his pockets, then slapped him across the face. “Get lost, pauper… Huh, you actually dodged?”

How could Andrew Brooks let him land a hit? He dodged nimbly, leaping far away.

At that moment, the humiliation he felt was beyond words, but he really didn’t know the rules of the Immortal Realm. He could only grit his teeth and say, “That’s enough, you’ve already taken my stuff.”

“Oh? Looking for a beating, kid?” The duck-voiced teen stepped forward.

But Andrew Brooks had already slipped out of their encirclement. He turned and sprinted away. The teens all cast their immortal arts, but his movements were so unpredictable that none of their spells could touch him. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared into the distance.

“Letting that guy off easy,” the short, stocky leader snorted, pulling a talisman from his storage pouch and saying arrogantly, “If he were a bit higher level, he might be worth using a talisman on.”

“He’s not worth a talisman,” someone else said with a grin…

After Andrew Brooks left, he hurried to the compound to turn in his mission. The staff didn’t ask any questions, just took his blazing sun fruits and gave him twenty-seven spirit stones. “This mission is ongoing. You can keep doing it.”