Chapter 21
The moment Qiao Ning stepped into the forest, she became even more certain that the road and the area outside the road were two different spaces. She just didn't know why players could easily cross the barriers and traverse between these two spaces.
From the outside, it looked like she was entering an ordinary mountain forest, but once she stepped inside, she was greeted by an unfamiliar primeval jungle.
In the distance lies an endless grassland.
Her location was precisely at the boundary between the jungle and the grassland.
At first glance, it's impossible to find the way back.
Fortunately, Qiao Ning could still access the system interface, which now displayed an additional "Survival Mission":
1. Return Journey Mission:
Beasts killed: 3/0
Rewards: 1 Return Token, 300 Experience Points
2. Upgrade Task
Killing the One-Horned Giant Lizard: 2/0
Killing Black-tailed Hyena: 6/0
Rewards: 1 Health Activation Card, 800 Experience Points
Below is a mini-map showing the areas and coordinates where various monsters are located; clicking on a coordinate will take you directly to the vicinity.
The mission rewards are incredibly generous; putting everything else aside, the experience points are amazing! Keep in mind that a 5-star supply crate only gives 100 experience points!
Qiao Ning found less than 100 experience points from all the supply boxes she found this morning!
It seems that the best way to gain experience points is not by picking up supply crates, but by exploring areas outside the highway?
But this game is about road survival. If we mainly rely on exploration outside the road, wouldn't that deviate from the game's theme?
Qiao Ning intuitively felt that the game system might be hiding something else in the later stages, and the adventures outside the highway were more like dungeons to help players quickly accumulate strength.
Just like experience dungeons in a game, they offer generous rewards and are indispensable. However, there will be more dungeons that are just as important, or even more useful, in the later stages of the game.
To return to the highway world, you must first kill any 3 wild beasts and complete the return quest to obtain a return card to teleport back.
Qiao Ning often encounters similar situations when playing games. She is rather conservative and cautious in this regard, and is used to completing mandatory tasks such as the return mission first, and then doing other optional tasks.
Looking into the distance, Qiao Ning keenly noticed that the wild animals roaming the grassland seemed to have a certain range of activity.
For example, there are black lions with three tails. They move around in groups nearby, and whenever they get within a few hundred meters of Qiao Ning, they turn back.
Like them, there are also flame antelopes, whose activity areas overlap with those of black lions. Qiao Ning saw a black lion chasing a young antelope, but when it reached a certain point, both the antelope and the lion suddenly turned and ran in other directions.
It was as if something was blocking their way, or perhaps it was their subconscious behavior.
This setting is more similar to the monster-farming areas in several keyboard-based online games that Qiao Ning often plays. The monsters spawn in certain fixed areas and move around within those areas, but they cannot leave the area.
Qiao Ning is currently unsure whether the wild animals on the grassland spawn at fixed times or in fixed locations. However, since they have a range of activity, perhaps it's possible to exploit a bug.
Qiao Ning slowly approached the nearest wild animal. Looking at the information on the map, she learned it was a fanged rat. It looked somewhat like a groundhog, but much larger. Two long tusks, like ivory, hung out of its mouth, appearing hard and sharp just by looking at them.
Qiao Ning thought that getting close to the fang rat would trigger its automatic attack, but she didn't expect that even after walking right behind it, the guy was still eating grass and dry rice.
With a fierce slash, the black flame bone knife in his hand came down diagonally towards the head of the fang rat. The fang rat didn't even have time to scream before it fell to the ground dead.
At the same time, Qiao Ning received a system message:
Player Qiao Ning killed a level 2 beast, "Fang Rat," and gained 20 experience points and 10 pieces of Fang Rat meat.
Qiao Ning's system main interface also unlocked the monster catalog, where a small image of a fanged rat lit up under the "Sunset Grassland" icon, and clicking on it revealed its detailed information:
【Fang Rat】: Level 2, HP 9000, Attack 200, Defense 100, Speed 150. Habits: Herbivorous, lives alone, will scream when attacked while eating, the scream will cause fang rats within 100 meters to dig holes and escape.
Qiao Ning was a little surprised when she saw the amount of health. She hadn't expected the fanged rat to have such a thick health bar. But how could she have killed it with a single strike when it had so much health?
She learned the Flaming Blade Technique, but her normal attack damage is only 3000. After removing the Fang Rat's defense value, it's only a little over 2000 left.
The Black Flame Bone Blade definitely has additional damage, and it should also have a bonus for hitting vital points.
However, it was still a bit unexpected that a single strike could kill a fanged rat with 9000 HP.
There were about a few dozen fanged rats in this area. After Qiao Ning killed one, the other fanged rats just looked in this direction and did not attack.
It seems to be related to its activity habits.
The squealing of the fanged rats will alert other rats and make them flee. Only by killing them with a single blow or by using other methods to silence them can you take them out one by one.
Qiao Ning dealt with all 50 fang rats in less than half an hour. The last fang rat was twice the size of the ordinary ones. It had red eyes, and its attack, defense, and speed attributes were twice that of the other fang rats.
He has 18,000 HP!
Qiao Ning thought she couldn't kill the giant fanged rat instantly, but when she slashed it, it dodged the vital attack because of its speed and only hit its back. However, it was still killed instantly!
After seeing the information about the Rat King that lit up on the catalog, Qiao Ning looked at the Black Flame Bone Knife in her hand in great shock.
How much attack power did that sword give her? She can one-shot someone with 18,000 HP?
Qiao Ning didn't understand why she wasn't number one on the equipment ranking if the knife was already this powerful.
After carefully reading the equipment ranking description, she suddenly realized that the combat power on the equipment ranking was the sum of the attributes of all the equipment. As long as it was in her inventory, it would be counted, even if she wasn't wearing it.
Qiao Ning barely encountered any treasure-guarding monsters, and only managed to get a few pieces of equipment by opening high-star chests, which definitely put her at a disadvantage in terms of quantity.
With just these few pieces of equipment, she managed to climb into the top three of the equipment rankings, which is already quite impressive.
It's like one piece of her equipment is equivalent to several pieces for others.
50 ordinary fang rats, each giving 20 experience points and 10 pieces of fang rat meat, for a total of 1000 experience points and 500 pieces of fang rat meat.
1 Rat King, 2000 experience points, 20 pieces of Rat Meat, 1 Earth Escape Card
The experience points were very generous, to say the least. As for the last one…
Is it a skill card?
The first thing Qiao Ning thought of was her golden talent as a card-making expert.
Return cards are special cards that cannot be copied, so what about skill cards?
Qiao Ning immediately opened the crafting menu and looked at the card crafting option. Sure enough, there was a new burrowing card image with the words "[Scantable]" on it.
After she scanned the card template, the image of the underground card changed from blurry to real, indicating that it could be manufactured!
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