I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 52

In the center of the area, the sheep-headed person stood dumbly, staring at an object before it.

Everyone behind was also drawn to it.

It was an egg.

A huge transparent egg, its clear slime churning inside as if alive.

Beneath the egg was a nest made of countless spines.

“Spines?”

Mo Ling thought of the spine he’d tossed into his cube.

He’d gotten it from the Transforming Tree Tribe and hadn’t paid it much attention, but similar things kept appearing before him.

Mo Ling teleported the spine to Li Luo and explained its origin, then asked on the electronic screen, “Do you know what this is?”

“The Transforming Tree Tribe’s leader kept saying ‘must change.’ He seemed to want to use the spine’s power. Is this related to God’s Voice?”

Li Luo read Mo Ling’s questions on the screen, looking puzzled. “Never seen it.”

But Captain Su, examining the spine, suddenly realized something and said, “Isn’t this the Druid’s Spine?”

Druid’s Spine?

Li Luo quickly typed the name into the electronic screen, and a flood of news popped up:

“Shocking! The best relic for Abyss adventures is actually this!”

“The most straightforward price, the most varied abilities-the best choice for Abyss explorers.”

“Sweeping the first layer of the Abyss-why is this relic so popular?”

…

Li Luo found a relatively normal entry and opened it.

Soon, the spine’s information appeared on the screen:

[Relic: Druid’s Spine]

[Cost: The user’s spine]

[Ability: Grants the user the ability to transform into creatures and control creatures]

[Discovery location: First layer of the Abyss]

…

This was a relic discovered in the early days of Abyss exploration.

It looked like any ordinary animal bone, lying around everywhere, and many early explorers had seen it.

For a long time, these identical spines attracted no attention.

Who would care about a random bone in the forest?

So researchers had no idea who first discovered the Druid’s Spine.

No one knew how it was identified as a relic.

The most widespread rumor went like this:

A hunter team without relics foolishly took on a high-risk mission-to hunt a rampaging Spiral Wasp swarm.

These terrifying wasps, covered in spiral scales, would attack creatures and humans in swarms.

They weren’t large, but would stab into prey, spin, and burrow deep inside, then die.

Spiral Wasps were incredibly resilient and could penetrate anything, often drilling deep through bone into the body.

Their hard shells let them lodge in the body like bullets, and their spiral cutting left wounds that bled endlessly, killing the victim.

After death, the rest of the swarm would devour the corpse.

No one would provoke them without a powerful area-of-effect relic.

But this rookie team took the job, didn’t prepare any protection, just bought flamethrowers, and tried to wipe out the swarm.

When they met the swarm, they found fire was useless.

The burning-hot Spiral Wasps only burrowed faster.

As the swarm closed in, the team members died one by one.

One collapsed, the swarm covering his back, riddling it with holes, his spine exposed.

At the last moment, he grabbed a Druid’s Spine from the ground.

The ordinary-looking bone suddenly came alive.

Like a centipede, the Druid’s Spine crawled up his arm to his back and devoured his exposed spine.

He felt nothing in his back, assuming it was from blood loss, and just wanted the wasps to leave him alone.

To his shock, as the buzzing faded, the wasps really left him.

As if controlled by something.

When sensation returned, he felt his bones twitching, as if alive.

He reached back and found his spine exposed, still twitching!

He scrambled for a recording device and filmed his back.

In the video, his spine had been completely replaced by the Druid’s Spine, exposed to the air, but not bleeding.

The Druid’s Spine pulsed like a heart.

Before he could look closer, the wasp swarm returned.

He tried to run, but his legs were injured and he couldn’t move fast.

Enduring the pain, he tried to escape, but the swarm closed in.

Faster! Faster!

Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation, the Druid’s Spine’s pulse spreading through his body.

His form twisted-and he turned into a deer!

The nimble deer darted through the forest, and when he came to, the swarm was gone.

With a thought, he turned back into a human.

Dragging his wounded body, he hurried back to the monitoring station and told the researchers what happened.

Thus, the Druid’s Spine’s power became known.

Expose your spine and let the Druid’s Spine devour it, and you gain powerful transformation and creature control abilities.

It caused a sensation.

Who would have thought a random bone was a relic?

The discovery shook the entire first layer of the Abyss. Every hunter kept their eyes glued to the ground.

It was like a gold rush.

Many hunters stopped doing missions and just wandered, searching for Druid’s Spines.

But there weren’t many spines, and most hunters found nothing, while merchants selling bone-finding devices made a fortune.

At first, many Druid’s Spines were found.

But the relic became so famous, and so easy to use, that soon there were fewer and fewer, and none could be found on the road.

Some hunters began to dig.

This was soon stopped by the monitoring station, as they left holes everywhere and often found nothing but random bones.

Some hunters even cut open their backs, only to find their Druid’s Spine was a fake.

Such incidents were common.

As Druid’s Spines became scarce, the craze faded.

But this legendary relic remained in people’s memories.