29
Tao Sai stared at the font for a few seconds, then suddenly he became alert and all his sleepiness disappeared.
A player spoke in the world channel that had been showing blank all the time. "Only Love Song Without Memory" should be this player's nickname, and the string of characters next to the nickname, if she was not mistaken, showed the level of the player's shelter ship.
Level 4? !
She had just reached level 3, and it had taken immense effort, mobilizing the combined efforts of all thirteen people on board to barely get from level 2 to level 3. Although it was only a one-level difference, the difference in experience points between the two was enormous. Each level of the shelter ship required a full hundred times the experience points of the previous level, making it extremely difficult.
Tao Sai did a quick mental calculation and found that the experience points needed to reach level 4 were about 1.28 million, which was completely different from the 12,800 required to reach level 3.
Killing a mature bug gives 4 experience points, so this player must have killed 300,000 bugs! The actual number may be even higher!
While Tao Sai was still immersed in disbelief, new messages continued to appear in the world channel of the system panel in front of him, still sent by the player just now.
[Only Love Qu Wu Yi (Lv4)]: Is everyone safe?
[Only Love Song Wu Yi (Lv4)]: Let's share our coordinates. If we're close, I can help if I can't handle it. (ω)
[Only Love Song No Memory (Lv4)]: Kiss
Tao Sai stared at the message sent by this player for a long time. The player liked to use emoticons to show cuteness. The gender was probably a young female, and the tone of the message seemed harmless.
However, she then analyzed the player's ID. "惟" is an adverb used to modify the verb "爱", and "曲无忆" is the object, so it should be a person's name.
She pulled out her phone and searched the name. The results showed a female character from a martial arts game. This player was likely a nerd obsessed with the game character. Using the term "only love" sounded like a non-mainstream chuunibyou, so the player was probably a man.
This was all Tao Sai could analyze from the nickname, and his first impression of this player was not good. He always felt that his words were trying to trick others into giving out their coordinates.
Being cautious, Tao Sai chose not to speak, but to watch quietly. Compared to this player, she was a rookie, still having to figure out many things on her own. As a rookie, she should just lie low and hide. After all, as the old saying goes, the first bird to stick its head out gets shot.
After staring at the interface for a while, Tao Sai was about to doze off when she suddenly noticed subtitles flickering. She blinked hard to wake herself up and saw that another player had finally spoken on the world channel.
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: Holy shit, is there a world channel here? Is anyone here?
[Only Love Song No Memory (Lv4)]: Yes
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: You’re so awesome, you’re already level 4, boss!
[Only Love Song Without Memory (Lv4)]: Good luck, my liver is bursting wow wow wow
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: I know there are other players in this game. I'm so excited. Guys, I've finally found my group.
[Only Love Song Without Memory (Lv4)]: *^o^*
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: Girl?
[Only Love Song No Memory (Lv4)]: Oh! Oh!
Tao Sai frowned, feeling awkward, like this was a big, dirty guy pretending to be cute. She endured the discomfort and continued diving to observe.
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: No more chatting, my situation is very bad now, I have to break through first, 88
[Only Love Song Wu Yi (Lv4)]: Tell me your coordinates, I can come to support you qaq
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: Really? Boss!!!
[Du Xiaobei (Lv3)]: I'm trapped in Shenglong Lake. Damn, I saw the bugs and wanted to go swipe the monsters, but I got swarmed by the bugs. Now I can't even get back by boat.
The world channel was quiet for a few minutes, and then the level 4 player spoke again.
[Only Love Song Without Memory (Lv4)]: Don't worry, I'm right next to you
[Only Love Qu Wu Yi (Lv4)]: Brother, hold on, I'll come to your rescue right away! :)
Tao Sai repeatedly studied the chat records of the world channel and discovered a fact: players who had newly unlocked the [Interaction] function seemed unable to see previous message records. The reason was simple. If he could see the record previously sent by "Wei Ai Qu Wu Yi", he would not ask again if there was anyone.
But that's not the point. The point is that this Level 4 player seems quite friendly and enthusiastic, and took the initiative to rescue a player in crisis. Players are starting to unite and help each other, which is a good sign.
Tao Sai had previously speculated, based on the information he had, about the potential for this real-life "Insect Tide" game. He believed that players would most likely become enemies. If players learned that they could gain resources by killing other players, the game would be filled with bloodshed and violence, with everyone feeling threatened. Now, it seems he was overthinking it. Aren't there friendly players out there? It's possible they could help each other and band together to resist the natural disaster.
But at that moment, a terrible thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
Did this Lv4 player really reach level 4 by grinding and killing monsters? Is it possible that his way of leveling up was... by killing other players?
Thinking of this, something seemed to hit her, and a feeling of suffocation enveloped her.
Tao Sai forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to comfort herself that there was such a possibility, but it was not necessarily the case, so she shouldn't think too much about it.
It was already late at night, and she needed to rest. She temporarily uninstalled the skill [Gravity Adaptation] and installed [Deep Sleep], closing her eyes and preparing to fall asleep.
But at this moment, she heard Zhou Ning calling her in the cockpit: "Taotao, are you asleep?"
The cockpit and the captain's room were separated by only a wall. Zhou Ning deliberately lowered his voice so that those who were awake could just hear it, but it would not wake up those who were sleeping.
"Not yet. What happened?" Tao Sai opened his eyes and half sat up and asked.
"I see a huge ship ahead," Zhou Ning said. She had been following the planned route, driving the refugee boat at cruising speed. Her field of vision was almost blind except for the river illuminated by the searchlights, until she was startled by the sight of the large ship approaching in the distance.
There were other ships sailing on the river at night, but most of them were small fishing boats. However, this ship was ridiculously large. She could see the towering outline of the ship in the night even from such a long distance.
"It's probably a rescue ship sent by the government to Nanzhou City." Tao Sai speculated.
Zhou Ning steered the boat with one hand and observed through binoculars with the other. He then said, "But it was driving so slowly and very close to the shore, as if it was looking for something."
Zhou Ning's words alerted Tao Sai. She immediately jumped out of bed and walked quickly to the cockpit. She picked up the night vision binoculars and froze instantly.
The ship heading towards them was exactly the outline of a level 4 shelter ship in the game "Insect Tide"!
It had to be a Level 4 Vault! When she first started playing Insect Tide, she could only upgrade her Vault to Level 4. Level 4 was the form that stayed with her character the longest, so she wouldn't be mistaken.
Through the night vision binoculars, the fourth-class refuge ship had a slender hull and a majestic bridge. Besides the electro-optical cannons, the deck also had additional rocket launchers and reconnaissance radar, but it was not activated. Its overall size was comparable to that of a large warship.
Tao Sai was actually quite satisfied with her newly upgraded Level 3 shelter ship. After some further modifications, it could accommodate more than 30 people in the apocalypse. But if her Level 3 shelter ship was compared to a small mound, then the Level 4 shelter ship across from her was a towering mountain.
A key word suddenly popped up in Tao Sai's mind: Shenglong Lake!
The world channel mentioned Shenglong Lake. A player nicknamed "Du Xiaobei" was trapped there, and a player nicknamed "Wei Ai Qu Wu Yi" was going to Shenglong Lake to rescue him. She had no idea where the lake was, let alone its location, so she didn't pay much attention to the name at the time. She pulled out her phone and quickly searched for it, but it took a long time to load, and there was no signal nearby.
She hurried back to the room, opened her notebook and checked the offline map. Sure enough, Shenglong Lake was located not far from the mouth of the Yangtze River. Shenglong Lake was connected to the Yangtze River waterway through a narrow mouth.
——It is also on the route that the "Deep Sea Fish" must take to Donghai City.
Then the owner of this level 4 shelter ship is most likely the player "Wei Ai Qu Wu Yi"!
Tao Sai took a deep breath, and the random thoughts he had just had suddenly emerged in his mind uncontrollably.
She immediately said to Zhou Ning: "Quickly turn off the engine!"
"What's wrong, Taotao?" Zhou Ning asked in confusion.
"Just listen to me first, and I'll explain it to you later."
"Okay." Zhou Ning did as he was told and turned off the engine.
Tao Sai quickly turned off the night navigation searchlight, then quickly went down the stairs, directly cut off the power of the refuge ship, and turned off all the light sources on the ship. The "Deep Sea Fish" disappeared into the vast night.
Without power, the "Deep Sea Fish" will continue to drift forward at a slow speed with the river current, and the steering wheel can still adjust the direction so that the ship does not hit the shore.
Fortunately, the "Deep Sea Fish" was close to the left bank of the Yangtze River at this time, and the fourth-level refugee ship was even closer to the left bank, so that even if they passed by each other soon after, they could maintain a certain distance between them.
But this still wasn't a guarantee. She clearly remembered the shape of a Level 4 shelter ship, so wouldn't "Wei Ai Qu Wu Yi" also remember the shape of a Level 3 shelter ship? Moreover, he had just been promoted from Level 3. What if, at this moment, someone on a Level 4 shelter ship happened to be observing with night vision binoculars like her...
As time went by, the distance between the two refugee ships was getting closer and closer.
Tao Sai couldn't help but hold his breath, even though at this distance, even if you shouted loudly, the other side wouldn't be able to hear you at all.
She couldn't help but think of the seed ship in the science fiction novel that flew over the Orion Arm. The humans on Earth who observed the ship's trajectory at that time should have felt the same as her.
This feeling is creepy.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
