Surviving the Maze of National Destiny: Hints from the Chinese Characters I Understand

While Lin Mo was browsing the trading platform with great interest, the Western Alliance Research Center received a shocking piece of news: explorers could interact with monsters through trading and even exchange for their treasures.

Currently, they do not know which monsters can be traded or interacted with, so they have first recorded the Big Mouth Beast as a tradeable monster and written it in the "Top Secret Explorer's Handbook" in preparation for cultivating the strongest Western elites.

The top-secret explorer's manual already contains 167 new discoveries of divine script, prompting the entire West to eagerly launch the so-called "Elite Project".

Many countries are preparing to send their new explorers to compete with the Dragon Kingdom for more resources.

…………

[Free Nation Harris (Floor 8): 500ml of water for 2 fire elementals. Message: The Dragon Nation needs 3 fire elementals.]

[India Magic Duck (7%): 5 potatoes for the Blazing Grenade blueprint. Comment: Dragon Kingdom people can only give 4 potatoes.]

[Matsushita Nobuta of the Rising Sun Kingdom (Floor 6): 3 Beast Cores for 3 Fire Elementals. Comment: People from the Dragon Kingdom must have 4 Fire Elementals.]

Good grief, they're all targeting China, how interesting.

[Fatima Javid of Batan (Floor 5): Seeking to purchase 2 Bitter Gall Grass plants. Can be traded for fire elemental, water elemental, wood, refined iron, and rice. Message: Preference given to those from my own country and Dragon Kingdom.]

[Li Weigang from Dragon Kingdom (8th Floor): Seeking to purchase Golden Wound Medicine or Bitter Gall Grass. An equal amount of Fire Element can be exchanged. Message: Fellow countrymen of Dragon Kingdom, please lend a hand. I am injured. I also have the Golden Wound Medicine blueprint; I can craft Golden Wound Medicine to repay you later.]

With a wealth of transaction information available, Lin Mo made his decision almost without hesitation to trade with Li Weigang from the Dragon Kingdom.

The other party could only offer fire element, but that was exactly what Lin Mo needed most right now. Fire element was a hard currency, and he wouldn't mind having as much as he wanted.

Two bitter gall herbs were exchanged for two fire elementals.

The trading platform only allows transactions; communication is not possible. Both parties select their own trade combinations from the listed items, and once they agree, they click "trade" to complete the transaction.

In the labyrinth, the only way explorers can communicate is when they meet face-to-face, but by then it's always a life-or-death struggle.

Especially the explorers from the Dragon Kingdom, apart from explorers from the Bear Kingdom, the Battan Kingdom, and some explorers from small African countries, are almost all enemies.

Because killing explorers can effectively weaken the opponent's national fortune; either they will be resurrected, or they will lose an explorer.

Defeating explorers grants one national fortune point, making encountering enemy explorers the most dangerous thing in the maze.

Lin Mo glanced at his supplies.

Equipment: Ordinary steel knife

Drinking water: 1600 ml.

Timber: 2

Fire element: 2

Silk: 5 rolls

Rice: 500 grams

That's all. I ate the potatoes, drank 150 ml of water, and have 1600 ml left, which is quite a lot.

However, rice cannot be cooked without an iron pot. An iron pot requires one unit of refined iron and an iron pot blueprint to obtain. Moreover, cooking rice consumes a lot of water and requires making a campfire to cook.

Although everyone likes to eat rice, in situations where water is scarce, rice is actually a food that consumes a lot of ingredients.

However, hot food also has its advantages. Rice restores health more effectively, and the life essence gained from eating rice from the maze is also more than that from maze potatoes.

If possible, it should still be arranged.

Lin Mo began searching the trading market for iron pots and campfires.

Campfires also require blueprints. Once you have the blueprints, you can make one campfire with one fire elemental and one unit of wood. Once you take it out, it will start burning automatically and last for two hours.

Lin Mo didn't plan to buy the iron pot and campfire blueprints; they were too expensive. If it were the beginning of the game and no one had campfires or iron pots, then those blueprints would be very valuable.

Now that most people already have these basic blueprints, it's more cost-effective to just buy a ready-made iron pot and campfire.

Soon, Lin Mo found a bunch of people selling iron pots and campfires. The prices were mostly low, and even his fellow countrymen were selling at cost, meaning they weren't making money off him; it was just helping each other.

[Qin Xiao of Dragon Kingdom (Floor 6): Selling an iron pot in exchange for 1 unit of refined iron + 50 ml of water. Note: Explorers of Dragon Kingdom do not need extra water.]

[Zhang Hao from Dragon Kingdom (Floor 7): Sells campfires, requires 1 unit of wood + 1 fire elemental + 50 ml of water. Note: Dragon Kingdom explorers do not need additional water.]

In essence, these players are just earning a 50ml water handling fee. Little by little, it adds up, since the materials they use are all provided by others.

Without hesitation, Lin Mo first exchanged 1 fire element for 1 unit of refined iron at a fair price, and then made an iron pot. Since they were compatriots, no water was consumed.

Then, using 1 unit of wood and 1 fire elemental, I created a campfire and stored it in my inventory.

Now we have a campfire and an iron pot, but we don't have many supplies left.

After glancing at my attribute list, I drank 100 ml of water, ate a potato, and rested for a while. My health level had recovered to 95%, and the system indicated that the remaining 5% was due to insufficient rest, meaning I needed more sleep.

And because of drinking the water and maze potatoes in the maze, my health actually increased by 3%, reaching 25%. Not bad, even mosquito meat is meat.

As your life level increases, the speed at which you recover health will become faster and faster, while the rate at which health decreases due to exercise will become slower and slower, unless you have experienced a high-intensity battle.

It's like when you're a child, your physical strength isn't high, and you might get exhausted just carrying 20 pounds. But when you become an adult, you can easily carry 100 pounds without feeling tired.

Lin Mo isn't very tired right now, so he'll definitely continue exploring; time is money!

The terrain around the spring is very simple; it's just a rocky beach, not very large, about 1000 square meters, and there are five directions to walk in.

[The path directly ahead leads to your final destination. Believe me, two level 2 giant vultures are waiting for their destined owner. There's also a corpse on the ground belonging to an explorer from the Kingdom of Batan. Your personal space is now open, containing 500 ml of water and a potato you didn't have time to eat.]

If an explorer dies and no one revives them, they are completely removed from the maze, leaving behind a projected corpse. Their personal space is also opened to the public, and looters can loot their belongings.

A level 2 giant vulture is impossible to defeat by yourself; even one would be a struggle, because you need ranged weapons to deal with this kind of flying creature.

Lin Mo ruled that out immediately and continued reading.

[The path leads to a small room, 100 square meters in size, filled with 30 fruits called Red Honey Fruits. These fruits taste similar to tangerines and are a rare find in the maze—delicious but poisonous. The toxicity of Red Honey Fruits takes effect within 1 hour to 5 days after ingestion, causing severe hallucinations and cognitive impairment, gradually leading to madness. The toxicity lasts for 48 hours, after which the victim experiences deep fatigue.]

[Once, an explorer from India accidentally ate this fruit and then spent two days and two nights pretending to be asleep – a truly horrific sight. Another contestant from Japan also accidentally ate it and ended up pretending to be a sleeping husband for two days – quite an eyesore.]

Damn, that's dangerous.

It tastes amazing, but it's highly toxic. How deadly can it be if you lose your judgment and make mistakes in the maze?

[The path to the left leads to a small, dense forest. Hehe, it's quite lively here! There are two bloodthirsty ant nests. Although the bloodthirsty ants' life level is only 0.5, their numbers are extremely large and they are difficult to deal with. What's more, there's a level 2 striped python sticking its tongue out on a tree trunk. Are you scared yet?]

"I'm not going, I'm not going!" Lin Mo continued reading.

[The path to the right leads to a small room of about 200 square meters. It's not dangerous inside, and you can find 1 unit of wood there. It's a good place to rest.]

Below is a tunnel leading to a maze-like underground river. At the bottom of the river is a pool of water, but unfortunately, the water is poisonous and undrinkable. However, it contains two special maze creatures called "Maze Catfish." They have adapted to the environment and grown non-toxic fish flesh rich in life essence, with a life level of 0.5. Defeating them will yield a certain amount of life essence, and consuming them is extremely nourishing.

Lin Mo's eyes lit up. Holy crap? Can we arrange grilled fish?

Without any hesitation, Lin Mo walked straight into the underground passage. Fish for dinner tonight!