Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 139 Exploring the Fog (Third update today)

"Wow, this is a huge grove of trees, there must be over a hundred of them!"

The group stopped in front of the woods. Xiao Siyuan made a rough estimate: "This area... I think your plan is a bit unreliable now. Is it too late to regret it?"

"What do you say?"

Li Zheng took out two iron shovels and handed them to Feng Shan and Lao Xiao: "You two take these."

He crouched down and rummaged through the dead branches and leaves on the ground, revealing the soil underneath: "You see, there isn't much flammable material. We just need to clear away the top layer."

Fengshan said with a bitter face, "That's quite a large project!"

I think it would be easier to just charge in.

Li Zheng looked at him and shook his head: "Naive."

He raised his hand, took out a piece of fresh meat, and handed it to Yan Guang: "Here, help me throw it in."

"no problem."

Yan Guang caught it, raised his left arm, and threw it forcefully.

brush brush...

Before the fresh meat even entered the forest, the black-skinned branches swung in unison, catching and wrapping the meat layer by layer, with a density no less than that of dozens of spiders simultaneously spraying out spider silk to form a web.

In the blink of an eye, these branches formed a large ball, intertwining and tightening together.

After a moment, they all let go.

Looking at it again, where is the fresh meat?

Not even a scrap of meat was left!
"Gulu!"

Fengshan swallowed hard, picked up his shovel, and started working with great effort.

Xiao Siyuan looked at Li Zheng in surprise: "Have you encountered this kind of tree before?"

Li Zheng shook his head: "No."

Yan Guang asked, "Then how did you know their attack methods?"

Li Zheng looked at them strangely: "Haven't you two ever seen fantasy movies or read novels before? Aren't all those tree spirits and tree demons like this?"

Two people: "..."

After a moment of silence, Xiao Siyuan also began to swing his shovel, and together with Feng Shan, they began to clear away the dead leaves from the ground around the woods.

Yan Guang thought for a moment, then bent down, stuck his left arm into the ground, and started running.

As she ran, a layer of ground was turned up, revealing the soil underneath.

Li Zheng shouted, "Remember to expand this circle!"

The three men did not respond to him, but continued digging the hole.

After observing for a while, Li Chun asked curiously, "Brother Li Zheng, why aren't you participating?"

Li Zheng stared at the woods ahead with a serious expression: "Because I don't have any extra shovels."

"Uh……"

The little girl glanced at the black knife that Li Zheng was holding and chuckled to herself, "He's obviously trying to slack off."

"be lazy?"

Li Zheng turned to look at her seriously: "Girl, our team distributes benefits according to contributions. I made the biggest contribution in the last battle. If we don't let others show their skills now, what will happen to them when it comes to the final distribution?"
Who would be happy to make someone come all this way for nothing?

"Oh……"

Li Chun nodded thoughtfully, then flipped over and climbed onto Little Spider's neck, pointing ahead: "Little Spider, let's go help!"

"Hi~"

The multicolored venomous spider raised its head and hissed, swaying its thick limbs as it followed Yan Guang.

Its two forelimbs, like a dump truck, easily turned over piles of dead leaves, widening the half that Yan Guang was responsible for.

“It shouldn’t be that simple.”

Li Zheng pondered and felt that this instance was a bit too easy.

"Based on the previous three dungeons, this forest is equivalent to the second wave of attacks. Judging from its size, once it's cleared out, the BOSS should be making its appearance."

Looking around, Li Zheng didn't find anything unusual in the vicinity except for this grove of trees.

"Could it be hidden in the fog?"

Li Zheng shifted his gaze, locking onto the thick fog not far away, and walked up to it alone.

Upon closer inspection, Li Zheng discovered that the mist was not blocked by anything transparent, but rather it had shrunk into a giant bowl shape and covered the top of the island!
After walking along the edge of the thick fog for a while, the ground at the edge of the fog was covered with dead leaves and weeds, and no trace of seawater was found.

Squatting down, Li Zheng used his black knife to dig a shallow pit in the ground, then hollowed it out from below.

Just as the space below was perpendicular to the ground fog, Li Zheng suddenly stopped digging.

"There's fog even underground?"

Looking up, Li Zheng's eyes were thoughtful as he raised his hand and thrust the black knife into the thick fog.

"There are no obstacles."

The black knife was sheathed, its appearance unchanged.

"Is dense fog non-toxic? I'm not sure if it's non-toxic, but at least it's not corrosive."

The thick fog that enveloped the island seemed intimidating, but Li Zheng always felt that it was more like a means of interception and obstruction.

It's as if it's preventing creatures in this area from crossing the boundary and entering the other side.

"Could it be on the other side of the dense fog... no, or rather, the dense fog divides the entire island into several areas, each representing a different level of difficulty?"

Li Zheng thought of a plausible possibility, and even after his thoughts wandered, he also thought of ancient ruins and lost castles.

"In the Ancient Ruins instance, we only found one large hall, and the monsters inside were just a swarm of mantis knives and a mechanical giant." Li Zheng stood in front of the thick fog, beginning to analyze the situation.

"Logically speaking, there shouldn't be only these two categories of technological races capable of creating these two types of mechanical life forms, right?"

And in the lost castle, above the ceiling where bats and monstrous wolves are released, is there still space?
Otherwise, why would it be called a castle, yet only have one large hall?

Thinking this, Li Zheng suddenly remembered something, pulled out the prompt that popped up when he was decomposing the code, and looked at it carefully.

"understood."

With a look of realization in his eyes, Li Zheng turned around and glanced at the busy crowd, his gaze lingering on Xiao Siyuan for a moment.

"Good heavens, a lucky guy like Fengshan has emerged from our group."

Has Lao Xiao's destiny begun to show signs now?

A prophet?

MWD3 experimental subject.

Remember when Xiao Siyuan first speculated about the type of monsters they would face in this dungeon, he said something like: "Unless there's some kind of research laboratory on this island..."

Li Zheng hadn't thought much about it at first, but now that he's thought about it again, it actually matches perfectly?
"Did Lao Xiao know the inside story, or did he just happen to guess correctly?"

We can ask him later; if he happens to guess correctly, then his status as a "prophet" will be confirmed.

"If it only serves as a barrier..."

Perhaps we could try entering another area beforehand to see how difficult it is?

Considering the uncertainty about whether the fog was highly poisonous, Li Zheng took out an air purifier, covered his mouth and nose, turned it on, and stepped into the fog.

"If the fog is poisonous, I hope it's not above the Silver level..."

Air purifiers can only purify toxins of bronze level or lower. Higher levels cannot completely purify them; they can only slightly reduce their effectiveness.

However, with Xiao Siyuan around, even if it's silver-level poison gas, as long as it doesn't kill you instantly, you can hold your breath and retreat from the mist to receive treatment at any time.

Taking a deep breath, Li Zheng stepped into the mist and was instantly swallowed up and disappeared.

I originally wanted to challenge myself to write 4000 words, but I found that ending a chapter here is also quite nice.

Well, the idea of ​​writing 4,000 words was something I promised a reader in the group, and now...

It's not like I broke my promise; there's still a chance today.

(To be honest: it's a 4,000-word chapter, but I'm sorry to shamelessly say the extra 2,000 words count as a bonus chapter.)
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(End of this chapter)