"It's probably because these monsters are precisely targeted at each player," Gu Mian said, gesturing for her to open the chat channel.

"Oh my god! A dozen earthworms, each more than half a person tall, suddenly landed in front of me, scaring me so much that I scrambled away!"

"Energy potion! Energy potion! Does anyone have an energy potion?! Please help me!"

"Bro, if you can't fight it head-on, can't you at least kite it?"

"Hehehe, I was just worried that there wasn't enough food, but now so many monsters have come. I don't have to worry about my hunger level anymore."

"Holy crap! There are over a dozen monsters, how am I supposed to fight them? Coordinates 1300.555, is there any guy nearby who can come and help me?!"

"I'll be there in about 10 minutes, bro, hang in there."

...

Gu Mian clicked into the large group chat to see how her friends were doing.

Xu Kun: "Who knows how to make chicken stew with mushrooms? I just had a grouse and a bunch of mushrooms."

Jiang Bai: "I have an iron pot here."

Gu Xiaobei: "Wait, bro? I'm still stalking the monster, and you're already thinking about what to eat?"

Xu Kun: "Hahaha, Lao Bai and I are together, and these monsters are no match for us."

Gu Xiaobei: "? How did we end up together?"

Xu Kun: "Hehe, that's right."

Gu Xiaobei: "What's going on? Aren't all the players teleported to different places?"

Gu Mian: ...

Young man, you know nothing of the power of bonds.

...

"How about we team up again from now on?"

Look, so many monsters have been spawned this time. If it weren't for the two of us working together, even if you could handle them all by yourself, it wouldn't have been easy."

Gu Mian looked up and saw Xie Yu looking at her earnestly, as if trying hard to persuade her to join the team.

The system of losing stamina when fighting monsters was indeed a bit of a headache. Gu Mian hesitated for a while, but still agreed to Xie Yu's request to join a team.

However, the requirement to maintain a certain safe distance from each other was reasonable, since everyone was a stranger, so Xie Yu accepted it without any objection.

After reaching an agreement, Gu Mian leaned against the tree trunk and patiently waited for her stamina to recover to 60 before preparing to continue searching for monsters.

...

Five hundred meters away from Gu Mian and the others' habitat, a giant tree suddenly collapsed with a crash, and countless fist-sized black beetles crawled out of the trunk, extending their tentacles to search for signs in the air.

A moment later, all the beetles' antennae pointed towards where Gu Mian and the others were.

After a moment of silence, countless beetles began to crawl rapidly toward that direction, their dense numbers resembling a black torrent.

...

Gu Mian frowned and straightened up, looking at Xie Yu hesitantly: "Did you hear anything?"

Xie Yu was taken aback. After listening intently for a while, he shook his head: "I didn't hear anything."

"Strange." Gu Mian used the tree trunk to push herself up and looked into the depths of the forest.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled shadows. All around was quiet, with only the soft rustling of leaves in the breeze.

Everything seems normal; nothing seems amiss.

But her intuition told her that something was definitely wrong.

"Something's wrong, let's go!" Gu Mian's expression changed; she realized something was amiss!

The incessant chirping of birds has stopped just now!

"What's wrong?" Xie Yu was a little confused, but seeing how nervous Gu Mian looked, she subconsciously followed her.

"I don't know, but—" Gu Mian turned her head to the side: "Didn't you notice that the birdsong suddenly disappeared?"

"I..." Xie Yu's pupils shrank, and he belatedly felt scared: "So, is there something new in that forest?"

Gu Mian affirmed, "And there are even more earthworms than before."

Otherwise, even the birds wouldn't have stopped chirping.

...

Less than three minutes after Gu Mian and the others left, a swarm of black beetles crawled across their landing spot, leaving behind a desolate wasteland.

And the beetle was still crawling in the direction they had left.

"Brother, I really owe you a lot this time, otherwise I might have been defeated by this group of Tier 1 goblins."

"It's alright, we're all players, we should help each other out."

"Hehe, I think so too. You seem like a nice guy, how about we team up next time?"

"Can."

Gu Mian stood behind the bushes, patiently waiting for the two players in front of her to finish dividing the loot and leave before parting the bushes and walking out.

The reason she didn't go out directly was because she was afraid the two players would think she was interested in the supplies they got from killing monsters.

After all, players can't use their inventory in this instance; the food, water, and cleaning supplies they need can only be obtained by defeating monsters.

So, suddenly appearing in front of two players who have just finished fighting monsters might give them the impression that you're going to steal their supplies.

She currently has enough resources, so she has no intention of robbing other players and therefore has no need to do anything that might cause misunderstandings.

"What a wide river!" Xie Yu exclaimed, looking with delight at the river in front of him, which was at least ten meters wide.

The presence of a river means she can wash herself!

After fighting several waves of monsters and running for a long time, her clothes were soaked with sweat. The system even warned her that her cleanliness level was about to drop to 40 and she needed to clean herself as soon as possible!

Players should ideally keep their cleanliness level above 60; if it's too low, it can weaken the body and make them more susceptible to illness.

Moreover, no player would want to get sick in this dungeon.

She had been thinking about finding a water source before dark, and now she finally found one!

Xie Yu was quite excited and couldn't wait to jump into the river and wash himself thoroughly.

"You'd better calm down and take a good look at what's in the river," Gu Mian reminded him helplessly.

"What?" Xie Yu steadied himself and then realized that what was churning up in the river was not water splashes, but a dense swarm of small white fish with sharp teeth.

She was stunned: "What kind of fish is this?"

A chill ran through Xie Yu's heart. Luckily, she hadn't let her excitement cloud her judgment and jumped down, otherwise she might have been devoured to the bone by now!

"Thank you for reminding me!" she said to Gu Mian in a trembling voice, then collapsed to the ground, her legs feeling weak.

"Hmm." Gu Mian responded faintly, then threw a pair of willow-leaf knives into the river.

[Defeat a Tier 1 mutated white fish and gain 1 experience point.]

[Defeat a Tier 1 mutated white fish and gain 1 experience point.]

[Defeat a Tier 1 mutated white fish and gain 1 experience point.]

...

The system notification started ringing, and my stamina, which had just recovered to 70, was instantly reduced to only 30.

Gu Mian looked at the supplies that had sunk into the river with some worry.

The good news is that the supplies sank directly into the water, so Xie Yu didn't know that she got double the supplies from killing monsters.

The bad news is: when will she be able to kill all the fish in the river and go down to collect supplies?