Chapter 77
Qiao Ning didn't submerge the car; half of the roof was exposed. There was a hatch on it, allowing Binglin to come and go while playing outside.
If you're diving deep underwater, you have to open a special passage every time you enter or exit.
The acid level of the acid rain is not high enough for her to dive to the deep sea. Once the acid level gets higher, she will have to hide in the deep ocean.
In its land-based car form, the vehicle is enormous and sturdy, resembling a black behemoth. When transformed into a submarine, it looks like a massive whale.
The submarine has several windows that allow one to peek outside. The seemingly transparent glass is actually exceptionally strong, as a significant amount of titanium alloy was mixed in during its manufacturing process.
If underwater danger is encountered, the smart assistant will automatically close all windows and hatches.
The ancient ocean was far more dangerous than the modern deep sea, and she would not dive into very deep waters unless absolutely necessary.
While Binglin played outside, Qiao Ning cultivated by absorbing energy stones inside the car. The smart home system's monitoring map displayed Binglin's location, and if it wandered too far or dived into too deep waters, Qiao Ning would summon it through a contract.
Generally, as long as there is no danger, Qiao Ning doesn't restrict Binglin's freedom much. It's already quite stifling for its animal nature to be cooped up in the car with her, so it's a rare opportunity to roam freely in the vast ocean, and she should let it have some fun.
Qiao Ning really wanted to go swimming outside, but the problem was that she didn't have any oxygen tanks, diving equipment, or anything like that; they were all locked in her storage container and unusable.
She can use her evolved powers to merge with the ocean, but that would take away the joy of normal diving and would consume a lot of energy. Once the energy is depleted, she has to replenish it with energy stones.
There were a lot of energy stones in Ice Scale's space. Luckily, Qiao Ning had worried that it would expend a lot of energy fighting with other beasts outside, so she left most of the energy stones there. Otherwise, she might have had to put aside her cultivation and could only do the simplest body tempering and sword practice.
However, besides her and Icescale's daily consumption, these energy stones may also be used as fuel to replenish the submarine's energy.
Such a large submarine consumes a tremendous amount of energy every day, so she has to use it sparingly.
It has to be said that this natural disaster is simply hell mode. Even she was forced to hide in the ocean. It's hard to imagine how many players could survive in such a disaster environment.
When it's mealtime, Icescale seems to be able to smell the food and always manages to return to the submarine within three minutes of the food being prepared.
Breakfast was rushed, so Qiao Ning prepared a more substantial lunch. When Icescale is smaller, it doesn't eat as much as when it's larger, but it still has a considerable appetite. It can shrink to the size of a palm to conserve energy. However, this isn't very comfortable for it; a size similar to a Border Collie is generally more comfortable.
Binglin, the dog, ate a whole bucket of rice and several pounds of meat. Qiao Ning ate less; she preferred rice soaked in soup. Her favorite was rice soaked in a hot and sour tripe soup, and she could easily finish several bowls of rice in one go.
Now that she has energy stones to supply her, she no longer eats as much as she used to; at most, she eats slightly more than the average person.
After lunch, the task of cleaning up the dishes and tidying up was naturally left to Binglin, who was also faster at it.
While Binglin was busy with his work, Qiao Ning submerged the submarine about 100 meters below the surface, where she admired the magnificent scenery of the ancient ocean from the cockpit.
Seeing it in person is far more breathtaking than viewing the underwater scenery through a phone screen.
The creatures here are highly aggressive, including many predatory marine animals. Qiao Ning couldn't even identify the species of many of these strange creatures. For example, there was a creature that looked like a long nail, with an outer shell, but its head had tentacles like those of an octopus or squid.
Others are likely snails, but they have legs like spiders or horseshoe crabs.
The ocean is truly full of life and danger. You can observe creatures hunting and feeding in every corner at any time. It would be amazing to make a documentary about this.
If she could, Qiao Ning really wanted to swim with the ice scales in the ocean; just thinking about it was wonderful.
Just as Qiao Ning was leaning back in her recliner, turning on the full-screen mode in the cockpit to enjoy the 360-degree ocean view, she suddenly saw something emitting a faint glow drifting towards her.
Before she could instruct the smart assistant to move the submarine forward, a large fish swam over from a distance and slapped the glowing object against the glass in front of the submarine's cockpit with its tail.
Qiao Ning was stunned. She was sure she wasn't seeing things; this was actually a golden treasure chest!
It wasn't that there were no supply crates during this natural disaster... Wait, she pulled out the system announcement again and looked at it carefully. She found that the system didn't say "no supply crates will spawn," but rather "supply crates will no longer spawn on the highway."
So supply crates don't spawn on highways, but they might spawn in the sea?
Why can't you just say such important information outright? Instead of playing word games, you try to convey it and I have to guess.
Qiao Ning was full of complaints, then used the mechanical claw to grab the treasure chest. The mechanical claw could be used underwater, but it wasn't as convenient and flexible as it was on land. Its attack capabilities were gone; now it only had the basic grabbing function of a claw machine.
Qiao Ning obtained the treasure chest, quickly opened it, and received the following supplies:
First, there's the food: beef, mutton, and chicken, totaling about 10 jin (5 catties).
In addition, there was rice, wheat flour, and a small amount of whole grains. The total was about 20 jin (approximately 10 kg).
That's all the food we have. We don't have any vegetables, but we do have 2 jin of kiwis, 3 jin of mangoes, 3 jin of cherry tomatoes, and 4 jin of sweet oranges.
There are 50 packets of various seasonings in total.
5 liters of drinking water, 100 units of gasoline.
That's all for now.
Qiao Ning seriously doubted whether she had opened a gold treasure chest. The amount of resources she had received during the previous natural disasters was at most the same as what she would get from opening a bronze or silver treasure chest.
But having treasure chests is already a blessing; what more could we ask for? As long as we have treasure chests for supplies, we can weather this disaster cycle.
The Disaster Highway world is different from the normal world. If you don't eat vegetables or fruits for a day or two, you'll definitely experience negative effects. From yesterday until now, Qiao Ning has been surviving on the little bit of food she has in Ice Scale's private treasury. This guy is a pure carnivore; he only eats vegetables or fruits when he's eating meat.
Therefore, there are very few vegetarian foods in its space. Now that there is a lot of fresh fruit, Qiao Ning immediately asked Bing Lin to wash several pounds, and they ate to their hearts' content.
After eating the fruit, Qiao Ning felt much better.
She is currently lacking vegetables and fruits, drinking water, food, gasoline, materials, and equipment or tools that can withstand the corrosion of highly acidic water. Diving equipment would be even better.
There are plenty of medicines, antibacterial and antidotes in the Ice Scale Space, so we don't need them for the time being.
As for weapons, she has the submarine's built-in attack mode, and the Black Flame Bone Blade is never out of her sight, so it wasn't locked in her storage.
In general, apart from medicine and weapons, they lacked almost everything.
With a target in mind, Qiao Ning acted swiftly, piloting the submarine and searching for treasure chests. The intelligent assistant should theoretically be able to detect nearby treasure chests, but it seemed to have lost this function in this natural disaster, leaving Qiao Ning to search for them herself.
A sense of direction is a big problem underwater. Even with a map, Qiao Ning didn't have much success in controlling the submarine to find the treasure chest.
An hour passed, and a lot of energy was used up, but only one treasure chest was found, which was still a golden treasure chest.
She decided to stop searching for now and open the box to see what was inside.
This time, there was no food inside; it was all made of:
200 units of gasoline, 10 liters of drinking water
Basic Diving Shield *1 (Under the protection of the diving shield, players can ignore deep-sea pressure and dive to a maximum depth of 200 meters. It also provides some protection against attacks from marine life. The shield lasts for 1 hour.)
Basic Diving Accelerator *1 (When activated, the accelerator allows the player to reach a diving speed of 100 meters per minute in the deep sea. The effect lasts for 1 hour.)
Acid-resistant light shield *1 (Applied to the player, or combined with a diving shield, it makes the player immune to the acidity of the water. The effect lasts for 3 hours.)
10 pieces of deep-sea diamond ore (a rare and exotic metallic ore found only in the deep sea, resembling diamond in appearance but harder and more corrosion-resistant than diamond.)
This golden treasure chest yielded these items. Most of them were essential items that Qiao Ning desperately needed, so overall, the haul was very profitable. The energy spent on the submarine was well worth it.
Qiao Ning got the diving gear and immediately took Bing Lin out to have some fun... no, to find supply boxes.
Ice Scale was overjoyed and kept swimming around her in the water. Since Ice Scale was her pet, the protective shield would assume that it could pass through and touch Qiao Ning.
Qiao Ning held onto its two front paws, and they spun slowly in the sea as if they were dancing a waltz. At first glance, it looked quite beautiful and romantic.
In the colorful and beautiful underwater world, a beautiful azure scaled sea monster runs and frolics everywhere. It is extremely dependent on the human beside it, and every now and then it will run back to her, approach her, and touch her body with its head.
Qiao Ning could watch it play for a long time without getting tired of it at all.
She almost forgot that she came out to dive and find the supply crate.
It was only when Ice Scale somehow brought over a treasure chest that she felt a surge of urgency and began working quickly. The underwater world of this ancient ocean was so wondrous and beautiful that it was easy to lose one's focus.
If it were Li Musheng, who specializes in studying ancient organisms, he would probably forget everything else when he saw those strange marine creatures.
In this world, Ice Scale couldn't store unopened treasure chests into its space, so it could only pick one up and give it to Qiao Ning. Unfortunately, its previous space backpack was completely sealed off by this natural disaster and couldn't be used, no matter how many things it put in, it was still sealed off.
After diving for a while, Qiao Ning suddenly realized that in less than half an hour, she and Bing Lin had found 5 golden treasure chests. Was the probability of not finding one even after searching for a long time in the submarine before a bit too low?
She seemed to have considered some possibilities. When she encountered the sixth treasure chest, she didn't immediately pick it up. Instead, she had Ice Scale guard the location to prevent other sea creatures from moving it. She herself returned to the submarine, leaving a trail of markers on her way back. After all, she was the only human in the vast ocean, and no one would dare to destroy the marks she had made.
Once back on the submarine, she maneuvered it in the direction the markings extended to find the sixth treasure chest she had just discovered.
As expected, the treasure chest, which should have been hidden under an underwater rock, was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't even visible on the submarine's detection map.
However, after she left the submarine and swam a short distance forward, she saw the treasure chest reappear. It was in the same spot, and Ice Scale was still guarding it, unmoved.
The game Tiankeng turned out that it wasn't that she hadn't encountered any treasure chests before, but rather that the system map would block most of the treasure chests when the player was in a vehicle.
This is absolutely outrageous.
It's heartbreaking to think about how much energy she wasted.
If she hadn't thought about it a little more earlier, she might not have discovered this.
Ice Scale sensed its master's anger and, not knowing what had happened, subconsciously wanted to cheer its master up, so it brought the treasure chest to her, knowing that its master really liked it.
Seeing this, Qiao Ning's anger dissipated, and she smiled as she hugged its head and nuzzled against it, saying, "Binglin is such a good boy."
Because the protective shield was about to expire, Qiao Ning took the six golden treasure chests back to the submarine to open them.
Currently at a depth of about 180 meters, the whale-like submarine floats silently, while in the distant deep sea, a huge dark shadow seems to flash by.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com