Chapter 71
Qiao Ning was certain that the Dark Stone was useless to her, or rather, useless to the players.
She clicked on the description of the Dark Stone Fragment and read it again: [A fragment possessing mysterious energy, rumored to be a fragment produced after the source of dark radiation shattered. No one knows how to use it. However, it has a tremendous attraction for creatures mutated by dark radiation. Many radiation-mutated creatures become exceptionally powerful after fusing with it.]
Qiao Ning observed the difference between the dark stone fragments and the blocky dark stone. At first glance, they looked exactly the same, but upon closer inspection, some differences could be found.
Smaller pieces of dark stone are smoother; the feel of dark stone fragments in your hand is not as good as that of smaller pieces.
When Qiao Ning tried to place the dark stone fragment on the small dark stone, the latter suddenly emitted a layer of dim fluorescence, completely enveloping the fragment and the stone.
A few seconds later, the fluorescence disappeared, and the dark stone visibly grew much larger.
At the same time, she also received a system notification:
Congratulations to player Qiao Ning for obtaining "Catastrophe Dark Stone *1". Collecting enough Catastrophe Dark Stones will give you a chance to synthesize a real Dark Stone.
The Dark Stone is something every player dreams of. Those who possess it will control their own destiny, and indeed, the destiny of the entire land world.
This message wasn't a region-wide announcement; it was specifically sent to Qiao Ning. It seems that only by crafting a Natural Disaster Dark Stone can this notification be triggered.
Qiao Ning has several thousand Dark Stone Fragments, all of which she acquired through various exchanges during these natural disasters.
Perhaps in the earliest server 1408, not many players had Dark Stone Fragments, but after several server merges and refills, the number of players with Dark Stone Fragments has increased significantly.
Qiao Ning fused all these dark stone fragments with the individual dark stone blocks, and then fused the resulting Cataclysm Dark Stone with them...
A larger piece of the Cataclysmic Dark Stone was fused together.
It seems that the chance of fusing a True Dark Stone is no higher than her current chance of drawing a Heavenly Questioning Token, and may even be much lower.
Qiao Ning had already melted all the Dark Stone Fragments she had, so she posted a buy request in the system trading area, only wanting to exchange for Dark Stone Fragments, and was willing to exchange them for any resources.
Furthermore, she would buy any Dark Stone Fragments she was willing to sell, regardless of the price. One player asked for a set of purple equipment or a skill book plus 500 skill cards in exchange, which was considered an outrageous demand by others.
Qiao Ning changed without saying a word; she had countless pieces of purple equipment in her storage box. The more blind boxes she opened, the rarer and more numerous the items she obtained became.
Now, every time she opens a blind box, she gets at least a hundred pieces of purple gear in a single draw, and even more in a row. She's already collected over a hundred pieces of red gear.
She also has no shortage of skill books; besides those dropped by monsters and those obtained from opening chests, most of them are obtained from blind boxes.
Skill cards are even more obvious; she can create a whole bunch of them herself at any time. It only takes a tiny bit of experience to create 500 skill cards.
These things are insignificant compared to the value of Dark Stone Fragments.
There were hundreds of small dark stones in the vicinity, all of which Qiao Ning collected. Next, she followed the man-eating flower and the ice scales, searching everywhere for small dark stones. Hunting mutated plants and animals became a side activity.
Eight o'clock in the morning.
On the fourth day after the natural disaster, the oxygen concentration in the air was 52%, the carbon dioxide content was low, the temperature was -12 degrees Celsius, some plants withered and died, some cold-sensitive animals died, and the food chain was slightly damaged.
The rate of species evolution is 50 units, and the mass extinction process is 60%.
Without devices to isolate or dilute external oxygen at this concentration, an average human would not survive for more than a few minutes.
Most players have awakened their special abilities, and some have even fused with pets, all of which help them adapt to high-oxygen environments.
A 52% oxygen concentration won't kill these physically evolved players in the short term, but it might in the long run.
Qiao Ning glanced at the number of surviving players, which was over 700,000. A significant portion of these players, out of caution, had not ventured into the jungle.
Today, the highway barriers are so thin and transparent that they seem ready to disappear at any moment. Once the highway barriers are gone, the mutated creatures that can't find food will surely emerge from the jungle.
It's almost impossible to stay huddled on the highway forever.
Today, when Qiao Ning went back to her car to rest, she had her smart assistant drive her for about four or five hundred kilometers. Surprisingly, she encountered a treasure chest.
There was still no monster guarding the treasure. After opening the platinum treasure chest, there was only one item inside: a titanium alloy breathing filter.
There were a total of ten breathing filters. Qiao Ning kept two for herself and gave the rest to her friends.
Li Musheng and a friend were already close to developing an oxygen dilution device. With the device provided by the system, they finally completed the oxygen dilution machine before nightfall.
The production materials require more than ten kinds of mutated plants and animals, plus titanium alloys and ordinary materials.
The cost isn't low, but many people can afford it. One very convenient aspect of the system's crafting menu is that it automatically generates blueprints for anything a player researches and creates, making mass production very easy. It's neither time-consuming nor labor-intensive.
Qiao Ning encountered supply boxes several more times, but this time they were not props but dark stones.
By evening, when Qiao Ning parked her car, she had collected a total of more than two hundred dark stone blocks.
At nine o'clock in the evening, when Qiao Ning was fighting monsters with Bing Lin in the jungle, it suddenly started snowing.
It was a very short and sudden snowfall, lasting less than ten minutes from the start of the snowfall to its stop.
As soon as the snow stopped, the temperature dropped by more than ten degrees.
Many plants have already frozen to death today, and after this snowfall, even more plants will likely die.
Plants are an important part of the food chain; if plants have problems, animals and insects will also suffer.
Qiao Ning set up camp and cooked, placing several water balloons for heating inside the tent.
What am I going to do? There's less and less food left in the jungle. All the creatures I used to eat a few days ago, I haven't seen a single one today. They've either withered and died, or disappeared without a trace.
I have a lot of food in my refrigerated storage space, and I've put some of it up for sale. Brothers and sisters who need it can go and exchange it.
[Holy crap, there are tons of bugs swarming the highway barrier like crazy! The barrier's still holding up, but I have a feeling it won't last much longer.]
"Upstairs, if I were you, I'd drive away tonight. Find a relatively safe section of road to stop. Otherwise, you might be sound asleep when those giant insects break through the barrier and swarm in, overwhelming you."
[I was already driving. Luckily, the gasoline hadn't gone bad, or it would have been fatal!]
[This mass extinction process sends my heart racing every time I see it. Have the experts come up with any countermeasures? Are we just going to stand by and watch the mass extinction get closer and closer?]
The following news items are all discussing the mass extinction.
Qiao Ning is currently having a video group chat with Pei Jing and the others.
Li Musheng pushed up his glasses. She had a very delicate and pretty face with no flaws. The more you looked at her, the more attractive she became.
She doesn't chat much in the group chat, and her comments are always concise and to the point. But this time, she seemed a little hesitant, which was unusual.
"I've come up with a solution, but I don't know how to implement it or whether it will actually work."
"In the mass extinction hypothesis that Yan Xin mentioned earlier, a large number of animals died due to fires that lasted for many years, but there are many different accounts of how the fires were finally stopped."
"One type is where the fire gradually stops only after being stopped by water systems such as rivers, oceans, and glaciers."
"Perhaps we can start with this hypothesis."
"Finding river and ocean glaciers might be the key to surviving mass extinctions."
"But the problem now is that we don't know whether the Carboniferous extinction event in the game was actually caused by wildfires."
Li Yangxing scratched his head, looking like he was about to die from lack of brain cells, and said, "It shouldn't be, it just snowed a bit."
Tao Tao replied, "It will stop soon."
It's common for snow to fall in Qiao Ning's hometown; it often snows for a whole day and night, but this is the first time she's ever seen it snow for just a few minutes.
“Let’s keep looking and see if there are any signs of a forest fire. I find it hard to imagine how a fire could start in such cold weather,” Pei Jing said, frowning.
After the group chat ended, Qiao Ning didn't return to the highway, but stayed in the jungle.
Around two or three in the morning, she got up and put a few humidifier balloons into the tent.
The air is starting to become excessively dry.
She lifted the tent flap and glanced at the sky outside. Thick, dark clouds hung in the air, and every now and then a streak of lightning flashed across the sky.
Is it going to thunder and rain?
No, it doesn't seem like it, because the air is too dry, and there's none of that damp, chilly feeling you get before it rains or snows.
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