Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 455: 10,000 words a day, but not exactly 10,000 words a day... (5K)

With Iki's death, the challenge against the mutants has finally come to an end.

Although some questions remain, such as why Nishaxi can affect the 'real projection' and why Iki appears in the event dungeon in her true form.

What about the transaction mentioned in Lao Pu's tip?

Li Zheng knew that even if he asked these questions, Lao Pu wouldn't answer them for him.

perhaps……

Only when I can communicate directly with the matrix terminal will I be able to get the answer.

But by then, I probably wouldn't care about these issues anymore.

After telling everyone, Li Zheng left the event instance and returned to the devastated grassland room. The two Rongrong Rabbits who had taken the opportunity to wander around were startled by his sudden appearance and ran around in all directions. Finally, they bumped into each other about 30 meters away from Li Zheng and fainted on the spot.

"puff!"

Li Zheng clutched his abdomen and spat out blood once again, staining a patch of grass red.

"How are you...?" Miriel stepped forward to support him, her eyes filled with concern.

"It's a bit more serious than I thought. I need to find a professional to help me with treatment." Li Zheng took off his earth dragon armor and pulled up his shirt to check. There was a clear shoe print on his abdomen, which was faintly glowing with blue light and cold air. He had temporarily frozen it with his ice-type attachment ability.

The injury required to temporarily freeze one's organs with cold air to suppress it was obviously not as simple and easy as Li Zheng made it out to be.

"My liver, gallbladder, stomach, spleen, intestines, and other internal organs are all damaged to varying degrees. That bastard's kick was really vicious." Li Zheng checked his health status, which only showed 'internal organ damage'.

Compared to the injuries to multiple organs, the fact that his arm bones were cracked from blocking Iki's kick at the end seemed less serious.

He was even able to endure the excruciating pain in his arm and move around normally.

"Thank you just now."

Li Zheng put down his clothes, opened the access permissions, and prepared to go to Xiao Siyuan for treatment. He had already briefly explained his injuries to Xiao in a private chat and told him to prepare for treatment.

"No need to thank me. Although I can't get involved in that level of combat, it's easy for me to protect your two friends." Miriel pursed her lips.

Li Zheng was referring to how Miriel protected Yan Guang and Lin Fengjiao after they were mentally affected by Yi Qi.

If it weren't for Miriel being there, neither Yan Guang nor Lin Fengjiao would have survived.

Miriel said it was easy, but Li Zheng could clearly see a state of "mental exhaustion and extreme fatigue" on her panel.

This shows that Miriel had to take care of the two of them while resisting the 'Netherworld Purgatory', and she did it by risking her life.

Li Zheng's mental strength was slightly stronger than Miriel's. When facing Iki's explosive power technique, he had to exert all his mental strength to ensure that he was completely unaffected.

It's easy to imagine how difficult Miriel's situation was at the time.

As Li Zheng's 'servant,' she was not required to do this.

She was just going to the outer city with Li Zheng, hitching a ride; she had no obligation to do so.

"..."

Li Zheng looked at Miriel for a while, then smiled slightly, though bloodstains clung to the corner of his mouth, making it look more like a bitter smile.

"Let's go, come with me to see a doctor."

Using administrative privileges, I went directly to channel 995 to find Xiao Siyuan.

After receiving Li Zheng's private message, Lao Xiao prepared everything. When he arrived, Lin Fengjiao was telling Xiao Siyuan and Lin Longxuan about the details of the battle.

"Oh, the main character has arrived."

Upon seeing Li Zheng's condition, Xiao Siyuan frowned immediately, "Are you always this dramatic when you get injured, or if you do, it's because you never get hurt?"

I remember when the two first met, Li Zheng had almost no good skin on his body, several bones were broken, and his internal organs were seriously injured.

Coming back now, it's not much different from back then.

It's important to know that Li Zheng's physical strength now is not what it used to be.

Even if Li Zheng were to be hit head-on by a heavy truck at full speed, it would probably be the truck that would be totaled, not Li Zheng.

If a mutant could be beaten like this, how strong must it be?
"Let's go inside first and talk about it."

Opening the capsule, Xiao Siyuan led Li Zheng inside, laid him on the medical bed, and began a thorough examination.

A robotic arm flashing with blue laser light slowly swept over Li Zheng's body, displaying his physical information on the screen of the medical bed.

Wow! Goodness!

Staring at the screen of the medical bed, Xiao Siyuan exclaimed in surprise after just one glance: "You're really ruthless to yourself, daring to freeze even your own internal organs?"

A large area in the image is dark blue, which clearly indicates that the temperature is significantly different from other parts of the torso.

Xiao Siyuan had only ever seen such a blue color when he was doing experiments with ice.

Before Li Zheng could explain, he continued, "But it's fortunate that you handled it decisively, otherwise you would be waiting for an artificial organ replacement!"

"Dr. Xiao, is Brother Li Zheng... badly injured?"

Although Lin Fengjiao had been with Xiao Siyuan for many days, she still didn't understand anything about medicine. Looking at the images and various parameters displayed on the screen, she looked worried.

"Heavy?"

Xiao Siyuan shook his head: "This is no longer the concept of serious injury. If it had been any later, or if it hadn't been treated in time, half of your dear brother Li Zheng's internal organs would have had to be replaced!"

"what!?"

Lin Fengjiao looked at Li Zheng lying on the medical bed: "Then, why did Brother Li Zheng pretend that his injuries weren't serious just now?"

"What else could it be?" Xiao Siyuan casually beckoned over a small metal bottle, nudged Li Zheng's chin, and said, "Open your mouth."

Li Zheng obediently opened his mouth, and after all the non-Newtonian liquid in the small bottle was poured into his mouth, Xiao Siyuan took out various medical tools to treat Li Zheng while casually saying, "You see, every time Feng Shan comes to treat his injuries, the actual injuries are several times more serious than he says! What else could he do? He doesn't want others to worry about him."

"Men... they're all about saving face."

“No, I’m not as shallow as Fengshan.” Li Zheng lay back and said slowly, “It was mainly because I was in the middle of a battle at the time. I was kicked and it hurt a bit, which affected my performance. I subconsciously used cold air to cool down the painful area until the discomfort subsided.”

"I never expected that my internal organs would freeze unintentionally. After the battle ended, the frozen internal organs didn't hurt much, so I didn't think I was seriously injured at the time..."

The reason he vomited blood frequently was because the frozen organs were starting to thaw slowly, and the blood that should have been vomited long ago was being delayed.

His dangerous behavior, let alone that of an ordinary Earthling, would render even a person with a gold-level physique useless if they dared to freeze their internal organs for so long!
"..."

Xiao Siyuan paused, then his hand slipped, and a bottle fell onto Li Zheng's stomach, 'just right' hitting the injured area. After his internal organs had fully recovered, the pain had long since returned, and this blow made him break out in a cold sweat, pointing at Xiao Siyuan, unable to speak.

She's so petty, resorting to revenge over the slightest disagreement. She used to be a pawn...

Oh, this is a medic. That's alright then.

Li Zheng slapped the medical bed twice in protest, his eyes filled with resentment.

Old Xiao ignored him and instead talked about the harm of such behavior.

"Using cold air to freeze damaged internal organs is a temporary measure that should never be used again unless absolutely necessary."

Xiao Siyuan warned Li Zheng and Lin Fengjiao, "If the internal organs are damaged, as long as the person is still breathing, at most we can replace them with artificial organs. There is always a chance to get a living organ again in the future."

"But freezing might actually kill you sooner!"

"Especially Xiao Xuan, never follow this example!"

"do you know?"

"Huh? Oh, okay, I understand!"

Lin Longxuan and Su Xiaoya were standing at the door watching, and they admired Li Zheng for not uttering a sound of pain despite being so badly injured. When he was suddenly called out, he nodded quickly.

Actually, he's always with Lin Fengjiao now, so he doesn't even have a chance to fight, and he doesn't have to worry about getting hurt at all.

Su Xiaoya said softly beside him, "Don't worry, my next tail will grow out soon."

The Celestial Fox Clan can grow a maximum of nine tails in their lifetime. Except for the first tail, which is connected to their life essence and cannot be abandoned, the other eight tails can be used to take their place in death once.

Lin Longxuan escaped two life-or-death crises thanks to Su Xiaoya's ability.

They weren't far apart, and they weren't deliberately lowering their voices, so Xiao Siyuan naturally heard what they said.

He warned, "Even the most lives will eventually run out!"

"That's it!"

Li Zheng chimed in, "Back in the day, when I played Contra at my neighbor's house, I loved borrowing lives from others. If I was the partner, the game was guaranteed to fail." "That thing had thirty lives!"

"You're so talkative!" Xiao Siyuan poked Li Zheng's abdominal wound hard: "It doesn't hurt anymore, does it?"

Li Zheng immediately bared his teeth and stopped speaking.

The treatment lasted about two hours. By the time Li Zheng got off the medical bed and moved around freely, it was already getting dark and night was about to fall.

Xiao Siyuan habitually took out a basin to wash his hands, rubbing the disinfectant carefully on his hands, and said to Li Zheng, "Be careful everywhere you go when you enter the outer city, and try not to get hurt."

"The better the physical condition and the more severe the injury, the more precious the medical equipment used."

"This treatment used a total of fifteen diamond-grade items to repair internal organ damage, which is worth no less than two ordinary extraordinary weapons!"

"On the contrary, your fractured arm was healed by a platinum-level nanorobot that only used ten platinum-level power cores, which was much cheaper."

"Well, thank you!"

Li Zheng sincerely thanked him, saying that he had indeed troubled Xiao Siyuan many times since they met, and he felt a little embarrassed.

Xiao Siyuan washed off the disinfectant, took a clean towel to wipe his hands, and said as he wiped, "No need to thank me, I can just order the dishes you've cooked for me these past few days."

"Oh, by the way, you should rest for three days. You can't eat anything spicy or irritating. It would be best if you could drink porridge."

"no problem!"

Li Zheng readily agreed, as it wasn't something that was difficult to do.

"By the way, your injury has healed. When are you planning to go to receive the award?" Xiao Siyuan asked as if he had suddenly remembered something.

To receive an award?

Li Zheng was slightly taken aback and looked at Lin Fengjiao: "You haven't received them yet?"

"No."

Lin Fengjiao said, "Fengshan and the others tried it. The terminal prompted that the team leader had to lead the way to a certain place to collect the event prizes."

"I told them you were recovering and asked them not to disturb you for the time being."

Why does receiving an award require the team leader to take everyone somewhere?

Li Zheng checked his own information. He hadn't paid attention to the prizes yet, and he had even subconsciously filtered out the chat messages on the world channel.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that just as they defeated Iki, the terminal had announced the rankings for this event's challenge on the world channel.

Li Zheng and his team unsurprisingly ranked first, with a score difference of one digit over the second-place 'Ma Long' team.

However, Kunlun benefited greatly from the prize upgrade. The second-place prize was equivalent to the final prize before the upgrade, and their team also took third place.

In essence, all the prizes for this event were snapped up by the Qidian and Kunlun legions, leaving none for anyone else.

After the list was announced, Tang Qianzang, the person in charge of external affairs at Jiutian, publicly sent a congratulatory telegram, congratulating Li Zheng on leading his team to victory.

Joanna and Rebecca also each sent a message to the world channel.

Following them were Liu Jiale and some other small regimental commanders who were unaware of Li Zheng's situation but had good relationships with the other deputy regimental commanders, who also offered their congratulations.

In contrast, Li Zheng's team, apart from Feng Shan and Yan Guang who responded, remained 'aloof' and silent.

Some people made sarcastic remarks about this, saying that Li Zheng and others were arrogant and didn't even pay attention to the legion commanders at the top of the list.

Then this small group of people were bombarded with insults and abuse by a larger group using loudspeakers.

Some of these people are current members of the Qidian Legion, some are reserve members (formerly players of Channel 879), and many more are players who are waiting in line and hope to join Qidian after the legion level is upgraded.

Immediately afterwards, some people discovered that some of those sarcastic players were new players who were probably unaware of what Li Zheng had done in the past and thought they could take the opportunity to step on Li Zheng to gain attention, but they didn't expect to backfire.

Others are using names that are either muddy or stolen from other countries.

The combination of the two is quite intriguing.

Li Zheng turned around and smiled meaningfully: "Over the years, Ni Hong and Stealing the Country, one exporting anime and the other exporting TV dramas, have won over a small group of the new generation of Chinese citizens."

"It must be said that the cultural exports of these two countries have been quite effective."

"cough!"

His words made Xiao Siyuan feel awkward.

As a hardcore anime and manga enthusiast with twelve waifus, Lao Xiao felt offended.

Why are you so nervous?

Li Zheng looked at Xiao Siyuan strangely: "When we go back someday, let's turn all the surrounding areas into provinces of our Dragon Kingdom. Then they'll all be our own industries. You'll be supporting domestic products in advance, won't you?"

"Cough cough..."

Xiao Siyuan coughed even harder and hinted, "We can do this, but we can't say it outright."

Correct.

Li Zheng laughed. Our Dragon Country has never caused trouble. How could you say something that would provoke the international situation?
Some things, we can just do them for him secretly and that's it; there's no need to talk about it.

"There's one more thing I want to tell you."

Seeing that Li Zheng didn't seem inclined to accept the award, Xiao Siyuan brought up another matter: "I've worked with Ye Kai to study the chip you sent back. It has a very tight firewall built inside."

If a forceful breakthrough is attempted, it could damage the chip and lead to unpredictable consequences.

So Ye Kai took that chip to Jiutian. They have many capable people there, including several well-known hackers. I believe we'll have results soon.

Old Xiao was referring to the chip that Li Zheng had pried off Jess's body, which he had previously given to Xiao Siyuan so that he could find someone to study it and try to crack its usage.

"You can make the decision yourself; you don't need to tell me specifically."

Li Zheng didn't care about the chip. He waved his hand and said, "After Jiutian finishes his research, I estimate I'll be in the outer city by then. If they return it to you, you can use it if you want. Maybe you can get a huge cannon fodder army."

Li Zheng had already figured out from their several encounters that the chip Jess possessed wasn't actually that sophisticated. It was probably because the terminal found the chip interesting that they opened a backdoor for him, allowing him to control the soldiers within the Matrix.

Even if it's cracked, it won't be of much use.

Those controlled soldiers acted very rigidly, and their combat abilities, placed in an environment like the Matrix, were destined to develop only in the direction of conventional special forces.

Because the abilities within the matrix are incredibly diverse, if these soldiers were to use tools that develop genetic abilities, they might break free from the chip's control.

Jess recruited a separate "superpowered squad" instead of letting his soldiers develop their own abilities for the same reason.

In this way, the drawbacks will become apparent now, even before the later stages.

The veteran players who are still alive at this stage can easily take on several Bald Eagle soldiers equipped with the same level of items. Even if you control them, you can only use them as cannon fodder, which is of no practical use.

"I've discussed it with Ye Kai, and we both agree that we should set those who are being controlled free."

After considering it for a moment, Xiao Siyuan slowly expressed his opinion.

"Using chips to control others is inhumane no matter how you look at it. If we do this after we get the chips, how are we any different from people like Bald Eagle and Jess?"

"Then, what right will you have to criticize others?"

"We Chinese people should be upright and honest in our conduct and actions!"

"Even if the bald eagles still harbor ambitions to destroy our Dragon Kingdom, we must defeat them head-on, instead of resorting to the same despicable acts under the guise of 'an eye for an eye'!"

When Xiao Siyuan said these words, his expression was solemn and he was very serious.

It's clear that he genuinely thinks that way.

Li Zheng didn't care about the lives of the soldiers in the White Eagle Army, but since Xiao Siyuan had made a decision, he would respect it.

After thinking carefully for a while, Li Zheng nodded silently and repeated what he had just said.

"You can make the decision yourself; you don't need to tell me specifically."

"However, you are absolutely right about one thing."

"We should be upright and honest in our conduct and actions!"

Li Zheng stretched his limbs and said to Lin Fengjiao, "Let's inform them that we're going to collect the winner's reward!"

"it is good."

(End of this chapter)