Chapter 62
Qiao Ning could already feel the heat through the window.
On the fifth day of the natural disaster, at 8:00 AM, the temperature was 49 degrees Celsius, gradually rising every hour. Radiation level was 175.
Due to excessively high temperatures and radiation levels, it is not recommended for players to leave their cars or drive them. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the temperature of the car body and interior is suitable. Excessive temperatures can cause damage to vehicle parts or even cause the vehicle to explode.
Prolonged exposure to high radiation levels can cause all parts of a player's body to rapidly develop cancer or tumors. Depending on the individual player's attributes, the time from the onset of the disease to death will not exceed 48 hours.
There are many holes in the road walls; players need to be wary of attacks from mutated beasts in the wild.
After reading the disaster information released by the system, Qiao Ning casually found some pizza and sandwiches to eat with milk to fill her stomach. She made sure to give Bing Lin a slightly better meal, which consisted of beef, mutton, pork bones, and roast chicken that she had stewed in her spare time.
This creature is getting bigger and bigger, over four meters tall and five or six meters long. With its strong tail, it can reach seven to eight meters in length.
It can no longer rest inside the car; it guards the vehicle from outside.
Ice Scales are extremely vigilant and have highly sensitive senses, several times stronger than the monitoring capabilities of a smart home assistant.
It now needs to eat at least 20 jin of grains, 20 jin of various meats, 10 jin of vegetables, 20 jin of bones, and drink more than ten jin of milk and goat milk, plus about ten jin of eggs in one meal.
They can eat several meals a day, and that's still considered eating small, frequent meals.
Thankfully, Qiao Ning had plenty of supplies in her storage box, otherwise she really wouldn't have been able to support such a glutton.
Ice Scale ate a lot and did a lot of work. It took care of almost all the treasure-guarding monsters and mutated beasts encountered on the way, saving Qiao Ning a lot of trouble.
Some of the monsters were fed to it, while others, which it found unpalatable, were burned to ashes. The energy stones left behind by the monsters after they died were given to Qiao Ning.
Icescale likes to eat high-level radiated beast meat, but it is not very interested in energy stones and doesn't like to eat them much. It usually eats them as a snack to replenish its energy after it has used up some energy.
Qiao Ning wasn't sure how thick its energy bar was, but it had never seemed to struggle against any monsters along the way.
Icescale used to enjoy sitting on the roof of the RV to sunbathe, but now that it has grown larger, the sturdiness of a Level 5 vehicle can withstand its weight, but the size of the roof is a bit unsuitable.
Now it prefers to run wildly alongside cars, leaving claw marks all over the road. Its sharp claws easily pierce the concrete, tearing off large chunks with a slight movement. It turns the road into a one-time-use surface, leaving the areas it ran through riddled with potholes, unusable for a second time.
However, if it intentionally restrains its strength, it can move silently and almost without leaving a trace, just like a feline.
This morning, after this batch of sun grass matured, we harvested about 30,000 jin (15,000 kg). After fully extracting the juice, we obtained 70,000 to 80,000 doses of medicinal liquid.
This sun grass is rich in juice, and the amount of medicinal liquid extracted from each pound of grass is considerable.
Qiao Ning and a few friends kept some of the potion for themselves, and put the rest on the market. The price was very low; you could exchange just two or three materials for one serving. It was practically free.
Despite the low price per serving, Qiao Ning amassed a considerable amount of materials from tens of thousands of servings. She had intended to share some of the materials she earned with Pei Jing and the others, as they were exhausted from working through the night to extract the medicinal liquid.
However, they refused to take it. They already had the materials in stock and had taken their share of the medicine, so they were unwilling to take any more materials.
Players have access to Sun Herb Elixir to protect them from the high temperatures and radiation, so the online player count hasn't dropped much. The occasional disconnections are usually due to bad luck encountering powerful mutated beasts.
At noon, Qiao Ning stopped her research to prepare lunch for herself and Bing Lin.
She had previously asked Ice Scale to help her capture several mutated beasts alive and keep them in titanium alloy cages for her research.
The mutated beasts come in all shapes and sizes; the ones she captured were medium-sized birds of prey, capable of either breathing fireballs or spitting venom. Capturing them alive was no easy feat.
After Qiao Ning finished eating, she took all the pots and pans to the kitchen, opened the kitchen window, and Bing Lin outside the car conjured up hot water through the window to wash the pots and pans.
When it generates water, it can control the temperature and pressure. It can disinfect at high temperatures and clean powerfully like a high-pressure water gun, making it much easier and more convenient than washing by hand. In short, this skill of the dog is extremely useful.
After lunch, Qiao Ning continued with her basic body training and basic sword techniques, which were her daily routine. She was almost at the beginner level and would soon be able to advance to the next level.
After exercising, she began to study the mutated beasts and glanced at the chat channel when she had a spare moment. As for encountering treasure-guarding monsters or mutated beasts outside the car, she didn't need to worry about it at all; Ice Scale could handle it all for her.
This was Qiao Ning's ninth experiment, increasing the amount of the herb residue powder she had used previously. The weakest mutated beast, attracted by the smell of the powder, ate it and died in less than three seconds. Its corpse spontaneously combusted, leaving behind only an energy stone gleaming with a faint golden light.
Qiao Ning's record: [Sun Grass residue powder has a strong attraction to mutated beasts. Consuming small amounts can cause dizziness, hallucinations, and may even lead to self-harm. Consuming large amounts will cause them to gradually die, turning to ashes within an hour of death.]
When consumed in large quantities, the mutated beast will die instantly, its corpse spontaneously combusting into ash.
Sungrass residue powder is the residue left after Qiao Ning extracts the liquid from the sungrass. After drying it, it is slightly ground to make sungrass residue powder.
After extracting the juice from tens of thousands of kilograms of sun grass, a residue of about ten thousand kilograms remained, which, after grinding, yielded about ten thousand kilograms of powder.
Half a pound of powder can kill level 3 or lower mutated beasts, one pound of powder can instantly kill a level 4 mutated beast, two pounds of powder can instantly kill a level 5 mutated beast, and slowly wear down a level 6 mutated beast.
Currently, there are only 43,000 surviving players in the server. If the survival rate is not to fall below 20%, each person needs at least half a pound of this powder.
If players have even a little bit of Sun Grass Powder, they can throw the mutated beasts into chaos when attacked, even if they can't kill them, giving them time to escape by car.
At the speed at which darkness fades, 8 PM tonight may be the last time the Sun Grass matures. It can be said that how many people in District 1408 will ultimately survive depends entirely on how many kilograms of this batch of Sun Grass can mature and be harvested.
As eight o'clock approached, Qiao Ning's eyes were fixed on the planting pot. The ice scales outside the car seemed to sense the unusual atmosphere, and instead of playing around as usual, they were unusually quiet and well-behaved.
At exactly eight o'clock, the Sun Grass matured the moment night fell. However, only a few seconds after the night descended, before Qiao Ning had even had time to replant the Sun Grass, dawn broke again.
Meanwhile, the sun blazed down in the sky for six days, and the high temperature caused the air to distort and evaporate, cracking the cement roads. The road walls disappeared in the instant the sun was in the sky for six days.
On the sixth day of the natural disaster, the temperature was 63 degrees Celsius and the radiation level was 242.
Players must promptly and significantly cool down the surrounding ground, car bodies, and car interiors, while also taking precautions to protect themselves and their vehicles from radiation.
High temperatures can cause frequent heatstroke. Mixing mutated beast blood with sun grass juice and drinking a small amount can quickly reduce heat and eliminate heatstroke symptoms.
Hot weather affects both mutated beasts and treasure-guarding monsters. For some players, high temperature and high radiation are both a test and an opportunity.
Players without sufficient cooling items are advised against engaging in any driving or hunting activities.
After reading the disaster information released by the system today, Qiao Ning was even a little afraid to look at the number of people online.
She did nothing else but work with her friends to extract the medicinal liquid and grind the residue into powder.
This time, a total of 120,000 catties of mature sun grass were extracted, 350,000 portions of medicinal liquid were extracted, and 38,000 catties of sun grass residue powder were ground out.
Aside from the limited supply of potions, the potions were distributed across the entire server, enough for 40,000 users, provided there was no waste or fighting over them within the server.
Don't forget, this natural disaster allows for team play, and when it comes to survival, there are quite a few people who betray their teammates for their own selfish reasons.
Qiao Ning had done everything she could, but the number of online users still dropped every now and then. However, it wasn't a significant decrease; it was only occasionally a dozen or so. The largest drop was only around a hundred.
With tens of thousands of players, each forming countless teams, it's quite common for accidents and conflicts to occur within teams at the same time.
This day was extremely difficult. Qiao Ning applied three layers of medicine to the car to barely protect it from the high temperature and radiation.
She didn't apply any medicine to herself, just to save some for other players. She left the task of collecting supply boxes from monsters entirely to Ice Scale.
Perhaps due to the high temperatures, the Ice Scale's fur has mutated. Its originally glossy yellow fur, mixed with red, has now transformed into a body of scales. Its scales are dazzling in the sunlight, and feel incredibly cool to the touch.
If it weren't for the fear of outside radiation, Qiao Ning would have loved to sleep with her head on Bing Lin's body at night. It would be so comfortable and cool, not unlike the "Jade Bed" in the novel.
It's a pity that radiation sickness is too painful, otherwise Qiao Ning would definitely have experienced the feeling of a natural air-conditioning mat.
Without night, the daytime heat and high radiation levels kept players inside their vehicles, so almost all players stayed inside chatting channels.
Most players have potions and ash powder, so although things are tough, they won't be in mortal danger. Only a few players might encounter accidents or be betrayed by teammates, which would make their lives much worse.
There's no way around it; wherever there are people, there will be a distinction between the strong and the weak. In survival games, eliminating the weak is almost an ironclad rule. Qiao Ning has done her best to save people for the sake of survival rate, but even if she distributes so many supplies, she can't save everyone's lives, let alone save some people's hearts.
There were six suns today. Will there be more tomorrow? Could there be nine suns?
It's hard to say. Let's just try our best to survive until the catastrophe ends. That would be a victory.
The big shots have been working tirelessly to save us. If we don't try to survive, we'll not only be letting ourselves down, but also letting down all their sacrifices. One of the big shots I know almost wore his hands out trying to get enough Sun Grass powder for us; he had to use wound medicine several times to heal.
[This natural disaster is really tough! If it weren't for the strong support from the top players in our server and the unity of the entire server, it would be very difficult to guarantee a survival rate. This damn game is getting more and more terrifying. At this rate of difficulty increase, how many more natural disasters can I survive?]
Live one day at a time; as long as you're alive, there's hope.
Do you think the cycle of natural disasters will stop? The game can't go on forever, can it? We need to have something to look forward to.
Nine is the ultimate number. I guess after the ninth natural disaster, our calamities will finally end, and we'll be able to escape the road survival game.
[Upstairs, thank you for your kind words. I'll try my best to survive a few more natural disasters.]
[There have been more than nine, I think it will end in seven. After all, our natural disaster cycle is seven days, and according to the pattern, we should be free after the seventh natural disaster cycle. Let's all hang in there, think about the good life in the peaceful society of the modern world, think about the people we love, they are still waiting for us to come back.]
I miss my daughter...
My parents are both over eighty years old, and I really don't want them to outlive their child.
Me too. My mother divorced years ago and I'm her only daughter. We've depended on each other for so many years. If I die and can't go back, my mother won't be able to live either.
My fiancée proposed to me when I was pulled into the game, but I didn't have time to answer before I was in. If I can leave this game alive, I will definitely say yes.
Players comforted and encouraged each other in the chat channel. Just as everyone was pouring out their pent-up emotions, someone suddenly sent out a distress message:
[Help! A group of deformed people suddenly appeared on my highway! They have weapons and special abilities, they stole my car and supplies, and now they want to eat me! Someone please save me! Attached: Coordinates]
Not long after the message was sent out, before anyone even checked the coordinates provided by the player, the number of online players dropped by one.
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