Chapter 66
Qiao Ning had no intention of confronting the spider-crayfish head-on. She patted the back of Binglin's neck, and the creature had already assumed an attack stance, as if it would rush out and fight the spider-crayfish at her command.
We don't even know if this thing is poisonous, and Qiao Ning wouldn't want to let the dog take that risk unless absolutely necessary.
The Carboniferous period in evolution is certainly not as simple as the Carboniferous period in ancient history. Qiao Ning drove along and saw many familiar species, but more or less they were different from what she knew.
They are evolving.
As Qiao Ning was observing, her friend list on the virtual screen suddenly flashed; it was a message sent by her friends in a group chat.
[Pei Jing: @Everyone, could I invite a few friends to the group? I've known them for a few months and think they're pretty good people. Their majors are closely related to this natural disaster, so I'd like to invite them to make it easier for everyone to exchange information.]
Qiao Ning: I have no objection.
[Li Yangxing: I don't care. It's just a few of us in the group and it's getting quiet. You guys are all so busy and don't like to talk, it's really making me feel stifled.]
Tao Tao: I have no objection. People Pei Jing trusts are definitely good, so feel free to bring them all over for a chat. There's nothing we can do during a natural disaster, so talking to our sisters is all we can do in our spare time.
[Yuan Heng: I have no objection either.]
[Miao Qinghe: It's alright, it's good to chat about this natural disaster together.]
After getting everyone's consent, Qiao Ning saw two women and one man join the group chat within seconds. After a brief introduction, Qiao Ning realized why Pei Jing had suddenly added these three people to the group.
All three were master's or doctoral students in their twenties, classmates at the same university. Their majors were: Fang Changling was geology, Jiang Yanxin was historical geology, and Li Musheng was a researcher of ancient biology.
Jiang Yanxin has a more outgoing personality; she immediately started chatting with everyone upon arrival.
Fang Changling would occasionally add a few reminders, mainly about some geological disasters and meteorological events that might occur during the Carboniferous period.
Li Musheng was the quietest girl. After they had all finished speaking, she finally said, "Don't provoke the ancient creatures for now. They are mutating and evolving. They are very different from the ancient creatures I know. I need time to study them."
Qiao Ning agreed: "If you can drive around, find as many supply crates as possible. We got a lot of treasure chests in the last natural disaster, but don't open them all. Leave some to open slowly."
"Supplies won't spoil inside the supply box, but once opened, they spoil extremely quickly in the Carboniferous environment. This includes items made of metal."
As for the high oxygen content in the air and the advice not to light campfires in the jungle, everyone else had already said that, so Li Musheng didn't repeat it.
"As far as I know, a mass extinction will occur at the end of the Carboniferous period. I don't know how survival games will set up the evolution of the Carboniferous period, but everyone should be prepared that our level will definitely not be easy."
After being reminded by Li Musheng, Qiao Ning suddenly thought of a possibility.
Could this seven-day cycle of natural disasters be the process of the Carboniferous period's demise? Of course, it will definitely be different from the historical extinction of the Carboniferous period. The main reason is that the game might set up a pseudo-Carboniferous period that gradually disappears until the seventh day...
Qiao Ning's heart sank even further. If the later trials really led to the destruction of an entire era, then no matter how many lives they had, it wouldn't be enough to survive.
Let alone millions, even hundreds of millions wouldn't make a difference.
That would be a mass extinction!
The group chatted for a long time, and finally Pei Jing organized the information and published it in the chat channel in the name of their entire group chat team.
If you receive any information, you need to inform everyone immediately, because every minute earlier could potentially save a life.
With just over a million players, the chat channel scrolls so fast that it's impossible to read any information; key messages can only be found through searching. However, this time the system has added a megaphone function, which may turn your messages into gold text that flashes above the public screen, making them instantly visible to everyone.
However, this function requires a lot of resources or experience points, meaning that every word sent costs a lot of money.
Having survived for four days, players are well aware of the importance of resources, so very few people use this megaphone function.
Qiao Ning took on the task of announcing the information. The others originally wanted to take turns speaking through the loudspeaker, but Qiao Ning took it upon herself to do so, considering that they had limited supplies.
On the last day of the last natural disaster, she got tens of thousands of ordinary treasure chests and hundreds of rare treasure chests, which she has been hoarding and hasn't opened yet.
Previously, I spent all my blind box coins to try and get the Wentian Coupon, and I also got a lot of rare items.
Overall, she has the most resources in the entire server, bar none.
When it comes to survival, losing a little blood is nothing to Qiao Ning. For the others, more supplies mean a greater chance of survival.
Qiao Ning drove all day until eight o'clock in the evening, when night fell over the forest.
During this time, she did not encounter a single supply crate or a treasure-guarding monster.
The chat channel was in an uproar, with all the players discussing the supply crates not respawning. However, no matter how much the players complained, the game system offered no explanation.
After making the comparison, everyone realized that during previous natural disaster cycles, if there were any changes, the system would carefully prompt and repeatedly warn, demonstrating how responsible, considerate, and professional it was.
Don't panic. We collected so many supply crates during the last natural disaster; we won't starve anytime soon. Let's not lose our composure. This is only the first day of the disaster; don't scare yourselves unnecessarily.
That makes sense, but I can't help feeling anxious. Without supply crates to collect, I don't feel at ease. Now, I feel incredibly reluctant to open each supply crate.
As the saying goes, "Those who live near mountains live off the mountains, and those who live near the sea live off the sea." With forests everywhere, why should we worry about lacking resources? We certainly won't lack food or drink.
[Are you serious, upstairs? The air outside is awful. I feel really uncomfortable after just a short time outside. Who knows if there are any ancient bacteria or viruses in the air? Don't forget, the game is set in the Carboniferous period, the ancient era.]
Forget about the air composition; the jungle isn't the jungle we imagine at all. It's teeming with plants that strangle animals and insects. I only explored the edge of the road and got poisoned several times, attacked at least a dozen times, and almost lost my life! The jungle is absolutely not a place we should be venturing into!
[I've learned something new! I just came out of the jungle and encountered a really big land reptile, like a lizard, but not quite, I have no idea what it was. I used at least twenty skill cards before I could escape.]
[It must be a forest lizard from the Carboniferous period; I can't even imagine what it would look like after evolving.]
[A certain server leader once tamed an ancient millipede as a pet. That creature was a variant of the ancient giant centipede. However, during the day, I saw more than one ancient millipede in the jungle! Some were even mating. The scene was indescribable; it gave me goosebumps. Just those centipede legs gave me trypophobia.]
[Qiao Ning and the others said the Carboniferous period was a feast for giant insects, and they're absolutely right. I didn't see any insects of normal size; they were all plus-size.]
[If the experts hadn't told me never to start fires in the forest, I would have burned them all to death.]
[Calm down, upstairs. The air right now has over 35% oxygen content; if a fire starts, it'll be a real problem.]
I'm even afraid to light a campfire now, for fear of it suddenly exploding.
That's unlikely; the oxygen content isn't high enough to cause that kind of situation. At most, it will help accelerate combustion.
Qiao Ning scrolled down the chat messages and saw that everyone was still discussing supply boxes, giant insects, and plants. It was clear that everyone was a little panicked, but because they had supplies on hand, they were still able to remain rational and calm.
When it was time to sleep, Qiao Ning had something on her mind and couldn't fall asleep. So she put on her gear, slung her spatial backpack over her shoulder, and left the road with Ice Scales into the jungle.
The jungle is more dangerous at night than during the day.
Many giant insects are nocturnal, as are wild animals.
Some plants are even active at night.
In just one kilometer, Qiao Ning killed three poisonous insects and a giant dragonfly.
During the day, Li Musheng sent her pictures of ferocious creatures from the Carboniferous period, all of which she drew herself and had already shared with all players in the chat channel.
The giant dragonfly is one of them.
It still looks a lot like a dragonfly, except it's much bigger. According to the data, its wingspan should be about one meter, but the one Qiao Ning encountered had a wingspan of almost two meters!
Judging by the speed, it's faster than her level 5 car!
Someone who didn't know better might mistake it for some kind of mutated eagle.
Fortunately, she wasn't too afraid of insects. If someone who was afraid of insects had come here, they probably would have just wanted to end their own life.
These giant insects were all fed to the pet locust. Then Qiao Ning discovered that the locust mutated after eating the giant insects' corpses. Not only did it grow larger, but the quality of its eggs also improved; it could even produce additional queen insects. However, no matter how many queen insects there were, the locust was still the most revered, the queen of the swarm.
Qiao Ning used her weapon to cut down some plants, threw them into the all-purpose flush toilet, and used them as fertilizer for the roses, sunflowers, carnivorous plants, and other evolved plants in the planting pots.
Sure enough, this fertilizer was more effective at accelerating ripening.
These evolved plant species, lacking nutrients, had already been dormant for two cycles of natural disasters and were on the verge of death. Had it not been for the Carboniferous evolutionary catastrophe, it was unknown whether they could have survived the next one.
Qiao Ning immediately sent a message to her friends' group chat to tell them about her discovery. Since everyone was mostly resting at this hour, she didn't wait for a reply and closed the chat window.
She then carried the ice scales deeper into the jungle.
Qiao Ning's special ability is ice-based, which is very effective against jungle plants and insects. Most of these plants prefer warm and humid environments and have almost no resistance to freezing.
Ice Scales cannot breathe fire in the forest, but the water they create can be temperature-controlled. Water at low temperatures will freeze, while water at high temperatures can burn plants and insects.
When Qiao Ning saw the large number of plants and insects on the ground that had been burned to death by the high-temperature water, an idea suddenly popped into her head.
She set up camp on the spot, since the area had been mostly cleared and there were no dangerous creatures.
She picked the leaves of a fern, chopped them up, took out some seasonings from her backpack, and made a cold salad. She then picked out a few insects that looked decent and appeared to be high in protein, brushed them with sauce, sprinkled them with salt, cumin, and chili powder, and simply grilled them over the fire on the ice scales.
Qiao Ning took a bite of the cold bracken salad. The taste and texture of this ancient bracken... were somewhat like seaweed. The seasoning she added was spicy, making the seaweed salad very spicy at first bite. It was very refreshing.
As for roasting insects, to be honest, she was reluctant, but considering the survival rate of all players in the region, she gritted her teeth and tried it anyway.
The giant worm she roasted, to be precise, shouldn't be classified as an insect; it was more like a giant arthropod. After removing the hard outer shell with a black flame bone knife, she roasted the remaining flesh and skin together, sizzling and dripping oil on its own without needing to grease it.
With just a little grilling, the aroma of the meat fills the air.
To be honest, the giant worm doesn't look particularly appealing, but the taste is surprisingly amazing. The meat is like fresh shrimp, chewy and firm, with a slightly sweet flavor and no fishy taste at all. It's even better with barbecue seasoning.
Qiao Ning simply bought a few bottles of soda, ate some cold dishes and barbecue, and had a late-night snack.
There were so many cooked insects that she couldn't possibly eat them all by herself, so she gave the rest to Icescale to roast.
She didn't bring many seasonings in her backpack, but Binglin, that dog, got so addicted to eating that he used up all her seasonings, forcing her to turn back.
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