Chapter 86

Since its launch, the road survival game has failed to produce a single player who has even reached the God-Making Trial, a far cry from the performance of the other two games. Therefore, this year they've decided that only one player can successfully complete the third trial, the Calamity Trial, to create a "god-level" player.

It seems certain that Qiao Ning will enter the God-Making Trial; she might even be the next ruler of the land.

I think it's doubtful. Don't forget that quite a few of these players survived and entered Lu Di City. Many of them have strong convictions and may not be willing to stay in Lu Di City in the end. Until the very end, no one knows what kind of situation Qiao Ning will encounter.

Personally, the survival world on land needs a powerful supreme god, and I should support Qiao Ning to the end. But... rationally and objectively speaking, Qiao Ning has emotional ties, and to become the ruler of the land, one must first sever those ties and abandon human emotions and desires. I'm afraid she can't do that.

[If you can't do it, you can't do it. Is being the Lord of the Land a good job? It just sounds impressive, but in reality, you don't even have a physical body. What's the difference between that and martyrdom in novels? In my opinion, becoming a supreme god is just another form of annihilation.]

[But that's a supreme god! Who wouldn't want to become a god? Qiao Ning is just an ordinary person. Doesn't she want immortality and limitless power? If she returns to her original world, Qiao Ning will become an ordinary person again. Can she bear the drastic difference in power, like heaven and earth?]

It's too early to say anything now; let's see if she can get through this. Speaking of which, didn't Qiao Ning take a little too long in the bathroom? Why was she blocked for so long?

Qiao Ning: "..."

To prevent people from speculating further, Qiao Ning returned to the submarine, and her image reappeared in the other players' live streams.

Apart from this mechanical screen, there was nothing else on the seabed of the garbage-strewn sea—not even a fish, let alone garbage monsters. There was no way to clean up the trash, so Qiao Ning could only pilot her submarine away.

Qiao Ning spent the rest of the time cleaning up trash and gathering supplies. During this time, she discovered that her superpower was not only able to resist and purify pollution, but also to absorb it.

It's somewhat similar to the previous world of natural disasters, where the glacier had a strange ability to devour and assimilate power.

Initially, Qiao Ning could only resist and purify the pollution. However, as the fight against the pollution continued, her supernatural abilities seemed to gradually adapt and upgrade. Especially after she hunted down a trash-carrying Helicoprion and obtained a new crystalline substance from its body—

Qiao Ning called it an upgrade crystal. It wasn't as powerful as an evolution crystal, but it was much better than energy stones or other similar stones or crystals.

This stuff works not only on Qiao Ning, but also on Pang Hu and the others, and they really enjoy eating it. Bing Lin just treats it as a snack; he's much more tempted by evolution crystals than upgrade crystals.

Unfortunately, evolution crystals are extremely rare. I was lucky enough to find one during the last catastrophe, thanks to the effect of a lucky star descending.

When she rested at night, Qiao Ning didn't go back to shore. Although the air membrane was used up in the garbage-strewn seabed, it prevented her from being ambushed by the players. This allowed her to get a good night's sleep.

Otherwise, having to be on guard against enemies while sleeping at night would be too uncomfortable.

As for the garbage monsters, they wouldn't appear near the mechanical screen, so Qiao Ning simply stopped the submarine right next to the screen and went to sleep.

The third day of the natural disaster, at 8:00 AM.

While Qiao Ning was washing up, she saw a system notification saying that Host #1 had arrived in the Garbage Highway world, reminding all players to try to return to the highway or watch the system host's live stream.

Qiao Ning didn't return to the highway; instead, she opened the live stream of host number 1 on the system channel.

[Good morning, players! This is Host Number 1. It's great to see you all again. Today is the third day of the Cataclysm. Let's take a look at everyone's situation yesterday... Hmm, over 800 players died, leaving 1636. That's a much higher number than I expected. Looks like you guys weren't trying hard enough.]

[The third trial, the Calamity Trial, has an average duration of only three days in previous road survival games. Don't take too long! If you haven't found the Law Stone after seven days, everyone will be wiped out.]

Next, I'd like to announce yesterday's most popular contestant, which is still Ms. Qiao Ning. She's incredibly popular and well-liked by the audience. If she can maintain this level of popularity, she has a very bright future ahead of her.

The clues for the Law Stone have been sent out, Qiao Ning, remember to check them in time!

The unusual activity at the garbage mountain is becoming more and more frequent. Have you all been neglecting to clean up the garbage? This won't do. Insufficient garbage cleanup will trigger a hidden natural disaster.

[It seems some players have created trash and dumped it into the garbage sea? That's troublesome; it'll anger the adorable creatures in the garbage mountain and garbage sea. They might even try to catch and eat the player.]

[Huh? Yesterday, a player actually killed over a hundred people? Not bad, not bad. According to the rules, enough kills will earn you a reward of clues about the location of a Law Stone. The clues have been sent to you, Mr. Zhou Han.]

[Someone triggered a key quest in the garbage dump, found the unlock key, and unlocked all the locked functions except for friend contacts. Not bad, it seems that although not many people died yesterday, everyone did gain something.]

Alright, that's all for today. Have fun playing the game, and hopefully next time we meet, there will be fewer of you. See you tomorrow!

On the third day of the natural disaster, the pollution assimilation process is 50%, and the total amount of garbage cleaned by all players is 13,000 tons. If the total amount of garbage cleaned today is less than 20,000 tons, a hidden natural disaster will be triggered.

After reading the information, Qiao Ning glanced at the clues about the location of the Law Stone and then closed the screen.

She just noticed that the system interface also displays the amount of junk each player cleaned up that day.

Qiao Ning remained firmly at the top, having cleared over 8,000 tons in total. Ji Lingling ranked second, Zhou Han third, and Shang Qi fourth…

Qiao Ning didn't recognize any of these people, but the system said that if the amount of garbage cleaned up today was less than 20,000 tons, a hidden natural disaster would be triggered. She had only encountered a hidden natural disaster once before, and that time she had to sacrifice her ice scales to stop it. She never wanted to encounter it a second time in her life.

Other players have limited ability to clean up junk, so Qiao Ning can only try to clean up as much as possible herself to avoid failing to meet the cleaning standards.

To speed up the cleanup, Qiao Ning let all the pets out, including the fat tiger that had been pampering itself. They would take care of as much trash as they could.

Ice Scales don't eat the garbage, but they like to hunt small, trashy monsters hidden in the garbage mountains. These monsters have a chance to drop upgrade crystals, but the chance is very small. It's estimated that only someone as lucky as Qiao Ning could encounter one after killing ten or so.

Qiao Ning also encountered monsters that dropped Black Stones and Dark Stone Fragments. Black Stones are used to upgrade the Black Flame Bone Blade, which is just a little short of becoming an orange weapon, and then a gold weapon.

This time, I fused over a thousand black stones into it, but it still didn't upgrade into an orange weapon.

"Isn't Qiao Ning's drop rate a bit too high? It hasn't been long, and we've already seen her collect supplies at least a dozen times. Plus, she gets drops from killing small trash monsters. This doesn't make sense. I thought small trash monsters were just for increasing the amount of trash you can clean. Killing ten of them is equivalent to cleaning one ton of trash."

"Maybe he was incredibly lucky. There was a player in my previous server who was exceptionally lucky, but he died a terrible death later. I heard that person's talent was related to luck; he could temporarily gain good fortune at certain times, but afterwards he would return double the misfortune."

"Qiao Ning's situation is different, but I'm certain she has a talent related to luck. And the talent level is not low, with few side effects. Otherwise, she would have died long ago and wouldn't have made it to this stage."

"Who knows? Anyone who's survived this long must have some hidden skills. If I get the chance, no matter how powerful Qiao Ning is, I'll try to kill her."

"Keep your voice down! Are you crazy? Aren't you afraid Qiao Ning has some kind of skill or card that can detect things from a distance? There are plenty of those kinds of items."

Qiao Ning does indeed possess some investigative skills; even without them, she can still hear what those people are saying.

Although her coordinates are still under the protection period for the most popular player and are not displayed on the map, players are constantly following her, and she sometimes encounters other players face-to-face.

She generally ignores people unless they are deliberately courting death.

Cleaning up the trash is quite important.

Twenty thousand tons of garbage is really difficult to clean up. The giant tortoise can eat a lot of ordinary food, but it can only eat a few tons of this garbage before it gets full and needs some time to digest it.

The man-eating plant has a big appetite, but it needs to sleep for a long time after each meal. It just went to sleep now, and it's unknown when it will wake up.

Green Pearl doesn't consume garbage; it only cleans up polluted air, which counts as a form of garbage cleanup, but it's not included in the weight calculation for garbage cleanup. The probability of finding resources while cleaning the air is several times higher than when cleaning other types of garbage.

Fat Tiger is a picky eater; he only fights small monsters to get upgrade crystals.

The locust army is incredibly voracious, and they've bred a massive new swarm in the last couple of days. In the past, Qiao Ning would have cooked and stored all the locust eggs thoroughly, because she couldn't keep up with so many poisonous locusts. But things are different now. With so much garbage, how could she possibly fail to sustain the locust army?

Qiao Ning kept almost all the eggs laid by the Poisonous Locusts. After the locust army had reproduced through so many natural disasters, Qiao Ning had carefully selected and raised about 100,000 Poisonous Locusts.

Among these 100,000 poisonous locusts, there wasn't a single insect soldier; the lowest-ranking one was an insect general.

With so many poisonous locusts laying eggs, the queen locust is laying tens of thousands of eggs at a time. After killing the lower-level soldiers that cannot eat the garbage, her locust army has reached tens of millions.

Qiao Ning released all the poisonous locusts. Without her command, these starving locusts swarmed towards the nearby garbage mountain.

In the blink of an eye, a corner of the massive garbage mountain was removed.

Pets cannot stray too far from their owners, so Qiao Ning is not worried that the locust army will run far away and become unrecoverable.

She continued hunting down small garbage monsters in the garbage mountain. It seemed that the number of small garbage monsters spawning on each mountain was limited; usually, after killing a few dozen, they would temporarily disappear. Once Qiao Ning finished clearing one area, she immediately drove to the next.

The sky gradually darkened.

Just as they were about to reach the minimum garbage disposal standard of 20,000 tons, Qiao Ning suddenly received a signal from a giant locust.

It said it found something while cooking rice.

Because the giant locust is her pet, it can distinguish between garbage and supplies according to her commands. Garbage is edible, but other supplies are generally not to their liking and they will not eat them.

If the locust army encounters newly spawned resources, it will bypass them and not touch them.

High-grade resources emit a dazzling, precious light, so Qiao Ning instructed the locusts to call out to her whenever they encountered resources with a strong precious light.

As soon as the signal for the giant locust arrived, Qiao Ning immediately stopped fighting and swiftly dispatched the small trash monster. After collecting the upgrade crystal it dropped, she headed towards the locust army.

As soon as Qiao Ning approached, she saw some locusts circling around something, while the rest were still diligently eating, as if they would never be full.

Qiao Ning walked over quickly, and the locusts made way for their owner when they saw her coming.

Qiao Ning doubted she was seeing things; the supplies that were being revealed looked exactly like those mechanical screens found underwater.

It's just that it's very small, about the same size as the old-fashioned square desktop computer screen from twenty or thirty years ago.

Qiao Ning tried to pick it up, and somehow the screen immediately lit up.

There were no images on it, only rows of bullet comments.

This is news from the surviving players.

【Wait, why is it that, despite both being pet locusts, the locust I raised was slapped to death by a monster before it even grew up?】

[The sight of locusts sends chills down my spine. How much food must so many locusts eat? How did Qiao Ning manage to raise them all before? Is the big shot really that terrifying?]

Qiao Ning was having a picnic with her pets, and compared to Hanba, who was desperately searching for her and trying to get clues about the Law Stone, she truly felt the gap between a lucky person and an ordinary mortal. How many times had Hanba encountered a medium-sized trash monster? Probably seven or ten times, and he had only driven less than fifty kilometers.

Qiao Ning has been cleaning up trash with her pets for so long, and they haven't encountered a single medium-sized trash monster! That's ridiculous!

[I don't quite understand why Zhou Han, an unlucky player, would dare to cause trouble for a lucky player. Qiao Ning is a well-known lucky player in server 1408, the kind who's so lucky she never encounters any treasure-guarding monsters.]

[The idea that you won't encounter the treasure-guarding monster is just a crazy rumor, isn't it? Let's stop spreading rumors. Qiao Ning was lucky, but not that amazing.]

[Wait, why is Qiao Ning's screen black again? And for so long? Is she off on the toilet again?]