Chapter 70

Just as she thought, this Carboniferous evolutionary world will also face extinction!

She knew the power of nature was irresistible, but her gaming experience also told her that, under normal circumstances, a game wouldn't set an impossible level. Moreover, this was a trial of natural disasters, a trial of natural disasters with three levels in total.

If the first level is designed to be impossible to complete, resulting in the death of all players, then what's the point of the subsequent levels? It doesn't make sense.

Therefore, there must be a key to passing the level that they haven't discovered yet.

Qiao Ning looked at her blind box coin balance on the virtual interface; it totaled over 60,000.

She tried a hundred consecutive draws first, and sure enough, she got a bunch of items, equipment, blueprints, and even black stones to upgrade the Black Flame Bone Blade, as well as rare dark stone fragments, but she didn't get the [Heavenly Inquiry Ticket] that she wanted.

The probability of winning the Heavenly Questioning Ticket is clearly decreasing. Every time she wins, it will be even harder to win the next time.

Each draw costs 10 blind box coins. Qiao Ning drew almost a thousand times but still didn't get a Wentian Ticket, so she had to give up for the time being.

The main problem is that no supply crates have been spawning on this disaster road, so the blind box coins can only be used up and not replenished. She can't use all her blind box coins at once, knowing that there are still two more disaster trial levels to go, and who knows what kind of hellish difficulty they will be.

We should always leave some for the trials and tribulations to come.

The natural disaster has only been going on for three days. If players still can't find a solution, they can try drawing Heavenly Quest Tickets again.

During lunch, hundreds of thousands of players in the chat channel were discussing the various difficulties that might arise in a high-oxygen environment.

Putting everything else aside, one of my storage items, a low-level backpack—the most basic kind—is simply for storage, with no preservation or shelf-life function. Just today, I discovered that all the items inside with durability points started losing durability without me even using them!

Especially metal items and equipment. They drop the fastest!

[My situation is even worse. I forgot to put the mixed metal I had left over from repairing my car yesterday into my storage, and today it told me that all of it was now useless and asked if I wanted to discard it. I really wanted to swear. That was mixed gold! What a waste of all that metal material!]

Copper, silver, and iron blocks are probably the fastest to rust. Their oxidation rate far exceeds normal levels. A copper block left in a car or on the road will rust beyond recognition within minutes and become unusable.

Fortunately, I traded with those wanderers during the last natural disaster and got a lot of titanium ore. Titanium alloys are much more resistant to oxidation and corrosion than ordinary metals. Currently, all the metal materials in my ordinary storage items have been crafted into titanium alloys in the crafting menu. The remaining materials are stored in short-shelf-life storage items.

Has anyone discovered a coal mine? I found one in an area of ​​the jungle. Should I collect some? I'm worried about it taking up space.

[Coal mines probably don't need it much.]

[If all else fails, take it back to Lu Di City and exchange it for currency. Lu Di City's natural mineral resources are quite valuable. If only they could discover oil! Back in Lu Di City, we'd be rich!]

[The person upstairs is dreaming too much; they might not even be able to get back.]

There has to be hope, right? To be honest, living in Lu Di City is no different from living in the modern world, and the housing prices and cost of living are lower. I think my life is even easier. If it weren't for my wife in the modern world, I wouldn't want to go back at all.

[Look around, there are plenty of beautiful women in Lu Di City. Isn't staying here better than going back to face your haggard wife?]

[Have some decency, upstairs. How do you know those people in Lu Di City are "people"? Lust is a dangerous thing; be careful you don't wake up at night to find an alien lying next to you.]

Qiao Ning frowned and quickly flipped through the two pages of chat messages. Hundreds of thousands of players were online, a mixed bag of all sorts of people. Some people really couldn't change their inherent flaws even when facing death, and were even worse than before, having become slaves to various desires.

Qiao Ning sees at least tens of thousands of similar messages every day, even late at night, people posting all sorts of random things. She can't be bothered to care; these players will die on their own eventually. It's only a matter of time.

After flipping through two pages, the chat messages returned to normal. Qiao Ning also saw a player mention finding a strange plant in the jungle, growing alongside a giant insect, as if they had somehow become entangled, assimilated, or devoured each other.

However, it is not apparent from the outside whether the plant is parasitized by insects or whether the insects are devouring the plant.

Qiao Ning forwarded the picture to the group chat, and the next second Li Musheng initiated a group video chat.

"Qiaoqiao, where did you see this picture? Is there any more detailed information?"

Qiao Ning sent the rest of the pictures: "I just saw them in the chat channel and I've sent you all the pictures. If you're interested in this kind of thing and think it's useful, I'll try to find them for you when I go into the jungle to fight monsters this afternoon."

“Useful, useful.” Li Musheng rarely lost his composure and said repeatedly, “The initial forms of these two organisms should be plants and animals in low-oxygen environments, but I don’t know why they were able to appear in the forests of the Carboniferous period.”

"Qiaoqiao, do you have any instruments to test the air? If we're lucky enough to find this thing, we can also test the air around it. From the pictures, it looks like it's cut off from the surrounding jungle vegetation; there are almost no plants or insects living there."

"This is very unusual. I suspect it's due to an abnormal composition of the air around it."

Qiao Ning knew she was researching instruments and props for diluting oxygen, and nodded in agreement without saying a word.

After taking a nap with Binglin, she got up and continued into the jungle.

Today I drove over a thousand kilometers and didn't see a single thing, but I did notice that the highway barriers seemed a bit more transparent than before.

It looks like the highway barriers will be completely gone by tomorrow or the day after at the latest.

At that time, it won't just be a problem of high oxygen levels; road safety will also become a major issue.

Qiao Ning searched from afternoon until evening without seeing the creature that was neither clearly a plant nor an insect. She decided not to go back and instead set up camp in the jungle. After resting for a while and finishing her meal with Bing Lin, she prepared to continue her search.

This time when she came, she also brought the carnivorous flower king with her.

The brightly colored flowers, nearly two meters tall, with layers upon layers of large blossoms, resemble countless mouths. They look beautiful from afar, but a bit eerie up close.

Although it was her pet, Qiao Ning didn't dare to get too close to it.

The man-eating flower queen is perhaps of a higher species, and is clearly more intelligent and wise than the green vines, roses, and sunflowers she cultivates.

It could even communicate with the ice scales across species, which truly amazed Qiao Ning.

The two communicated silently, which was encrypted to Qiao Ning. She could only use the pet contract to crack the language code and understand what they meant.

[You've been leading the way for ages, but why are we getting further and further away from our destination?]

[It's because you're too stupid to describe the exact location clearly. I can only guide my master by feeling.]

【You're the dumbest one, Xiaohong isn't dumb.】

Qiao Ning sensed that the two were arguing again and helplessly tried to mediate. She fed one a bag of fertilizer and the other a bag of roasted insects.

Icescale didn't really care about its owner's other pets. After all, it was the only one who stayed with its owner 24/7, while the other pets stayed in their enclosures. In its eyes, they weren't a threat at all.

However, this big red flower was particularly displeasing to Binglin.

It doesn't matter, anyway, none of these guys live as long as it, they won't outlive it. It doesn't need to do anything, it just needs to wait for them to die. The only one who can accompany its master to the end will be it.

Qiao Ning followed the two guys as they ran around the jungle, working themselves to the bone all night. Finally, just before dawn, they found the strange creature.

She immediately took out the air detector she had previously purchased and discovered that the oxygen content around this creature was only about 20%-25%.

This would have been almost unbelievable in the rainforests of the Carboniferous period.

Qiao Ning named this thing "Insect Tree". Like Cordyceps Flower, it is neither a plant nor an animal or an insect, but a product of the combination of two organisms.

The insect tree was not aggressive at all, so Qiao Ning easily dug it up by the roots and mailed it intact to Li Musheng for her to study.

I also copied the air quality monitoring data for her.

After doing all that, Qiao Ning turned her head and saw that the big red flower had somehow sprung up in a densely planted area. The flower was close to the ground, constantly opening and closing, just like Bing Lin burying her head in her rice.

Plant-based pets don't rely on soil; they can move freely. According to Xiao Hong herself, her root system is much stronger than Green Pearl's, capable of penetrating even the hardest rocks or metals. She also has a large appetite, consuming not only fertilizer but also a lot of blood.

Aside from Fatty Tiger and Green Pearl, who don't eat blood and prefer vegetarian food, all the others in Qiao Ning's arsenal are carnivores. Ice Scale also likes cooked food, while Big Locust and Little Red prefer raw food. Their diet seems to cover countless kinds of creatures, but their favorite is actually just one: mutated beast sashimi.

Qiao Ning went over to see what the big red flower was doing, but as soon as she bent down, Xiao Hong turned the big flower around.

The man-eating flower in the rice had countless serrated mouths growing from its flower. Inside were even large, purple tongues, writhing like long snakes, their saliva splashing onto the soil and grass, instantly corroding and melting them, creating large craters.

Qiao Ning: "..."

She almost lost control of her expression and it took her a long time to come back to her senses.

Anyone who suddenly encounters hundreds or thousands of jagged lips and highly venomous purple tongues would develop a psychological trauma.

This is the ultimate plant pet I raised myself. It's very obedient, highly intelligent, and knows how to suppress its instincts. It generally won't turn against its owner.

After brainwashing herself several times, Qiao Ning wiped her face and asked Da Honghua, "What are you eating?"

Little Red probably knew she had startled her owner, so she had already stopped eating and returned to her beautiful, bright red form.

[Eating stones, a very delicious kind of stone, master, would you like some? I can chew them for you, but these stones are quite hard, so be careful not to hurt your teeth.]

Qiao Ning received the message from the hibiscus flower, and the image of the carnivorous flower's saliva that had just corroded a large hole in the ground flashed through her mind. She immediately smiled and politely declined, "I don't like to eat this. I'll just look at it."

Okay, Little Red will help its owner dig them all out.

[Big Fatty, come help us too, and don't sneak any food.]

"Big Fatty" is what the carnivorous plant calls Ice Scale, because it always thinks Ice Scale is big and fat.

Qiao Ning looked in the direction the big red flower was pointing and saw Bing Lin holding a black stone in its mouth, about to swallow it. As soon as Qiao Ning looked over, it immediately spat it out.

"What exactly is this? You two both like to eat it?"

Qiao Ning picked up a black stone that had just been dug out of the soil, and the more she looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

She quickly took out the dark stone fragments from her backpack and discovered that the two items seemed to be made of the same material.

Are Dark Stone Fragments just fragments of these stones? But why would Dark Stones appear in the evolved Carboniferous rainforest?

Shouldn't it stay in the wild, where there is a lot of radiation?

[Master, Little Red will feel very comfortable after eating these stones. She will grow teeth, grow bigger, and become very, very powerful. The more stones she eats, the more Little Red will become.]

Qiao Ning understood; this thing could promote its growth and evolution.

That suggests that the rapid growth and evolution of the jungle is likely related to these dark stones.

The forests of the Carboniferous period covered almost the entire ancient continent. Just how many such stones were there in those boundless forests?

Most importantly, since the Dark Stone Fragments are derived from the splitting of Dark Stone, then... where did all these Dark Stones come from?

Could it be... that it split off from a larger, darker rock?