Survival of the Nation: My luck was a tiny bit worse.

"Of course it's true. Shall I read it to you?"

"Never mind then."

Both of them used a sturdy long tree branch as a pole to slowly push themselves away from the riverbank.

The river was wider than they had imagined, and the current was faster than it appeared.

The raft swayed gently on the water, occasionally splashing water onto the two people's legs, sending a chill down their spines.

"Look, brother! A fish!"

Chen Hao pointed below the water's surface, his tone excited.

When Ou Yun looked down, he indeed saw several large fish swimming under the raft.

The fish weren't very big, but their colors were extremely vibrant—red, yellow, blue, and white.

"This fish looks so flashy."

As I watched the game, I subconsciously wanted to grab some.

Chen Hao was immediately alarmed by the man's extraordinary efficiency: "Brother, be careful! What if it's a piranha—"

Before he could finish speaking, a yellow fish, seemingly startled, suddenly leaped out of the water and lunged straight at Ou Yun's face!

"!"

Without even looking, Ou Yun instinctively slapped him.

Snapped!

The slap made the fish see stars, and the force of the blow instantly vanished.

[Congratulations to Ou Yun from China for successfully defeating the Rainbow Fish!]

[Triggered a 10,000x increase in deployment: Rainbow Fish!]

Then I saw the yellow croaker turn belly up and gradually float to the surface.

"..."

look at each other.

silence.

Then Ou Yun bent down and scooped the fish out.

The fish was indeed small, only about the length of a palm, but its color was quite vibrant.

I don't know if it's poisonous or not.

"This fish..."

Chen Hao leaned closer and observed carefully for a while. "The scale structure is so strange, why are they all growing upside down?"

"Is it edible?"

"...Theoretically, it should be edible?"

After saying this, Chen Hao instinctively tried to stop his older brother's next move—

As Cheng thought about it, her older brother's first reaction wasn't to eat it raw, but to stuff the fish into his spatial ring.

"Take it back and let Captain Leng bake it and have a taste."

Ou Yun laughed heartily, "If it's delicious, we can catch a few more when Captain Leng comes over!"

"..."

He really made me cry my eyes out.

Chen Hao pulled out his notebook: Rainbow Fish, brightly colored. Safety for consumption is yet to be determined.

……

The raft continued to drift towards the other side.

Along the way, we encountered several groups of fish of all shapes and sizes.

Some were completely transparent, some emitted a faint fluorescent glow, and there were also several long fish that looked like ribbonfish but were at least five times wider.

Every time Ou Yun saw a new kind of fish, he wanted to reach out and scoop it up. Chen Hao would always have to hold him back with bated breath. But when he saw that his older brother was just scooping it up and not eating it raw, he didn't stop him.

It wasn't until Chen Hao came to his senses that he realized, "Has my way of caring for my older brother really become like this...!"

Fortunately, the journey was uneventful, except for the abundance of fish.

When the raft reached the shore, the sun was already high in the sky.

The two dragged the raft ashore and secured it to a large tree on the bank with vines—they would need it again on their way back, and they couldn't build a new one every time!

Anyway, the fish are all readily available.

"These fish are pretty easy to catch; we didn't even need to use a fishing net."

Ou Yun killed the fish, removed its internal organs, skewered it with iron skewers, grilled it over a fire, and sprinkled it with seasonings.

Chen Hao carried over a bundle of firewood, saying, "I've marked it all; we can come anytime."

Ou Yun said no need, "Then why would we be needed? Just call Captain Leng over; she can do it all by herself—"

Then, as if remembering something else, he said, "Let's call the Giant Electric Bird over; that would save us the trouble of transportation."

To be honest, they don't yet have an ally who can dominate the skies... haha.

Ou Yun took out two honey pancakes and two bamboo tubes of chilled juice from his spatial ring. The two sat on a large rock on the shore and enjoyed the grilled fish.

While eating, Ou Yun asked, "Brother Chen, what do you think are the differences between this forest on the other side and ours?"

Chen Hao chewed on his pancake and looked around carefully.

The forest on the other side is indeed somewhat different.

The trees were taller and thicker, their trunks covered with moss and vines of various colors.

There was a faint scent of earth and pine resin in the air.

The ferns on the ground were incredibly lush—some of the fern leaves were taller than a person.

"The vegetation is more diverse, and the trees generally have larger diameters at breast height. It's very likely that the soil in this area is more fertile, or that there is some factor that promotes plant growth..."

Ou Yun skillfully interrupted Chen Hao's chanting, "That's not what I'm asking you."

"Oh……"

Chen Hao thought to himself, "What else could this place possibly have? — "There's a high chance there are even more advanced mutated plants."

"Could there be carnivorous plants?"

"Hmm... hard to say." Just how much does he like man-eating flowers?

"If we have one, we'll transplant it to our own camp; that will be our security mechanism."

"..."

This thing can't be transplanted!

*

The two walked along the riverbank deeper into the forest.

The forest, both familiar and unfamiliar, excited the two of them, who looked around here and there.

After walking for a short while, Chen Hao suddenly stopped.

He crouched down and looked at the ground—where a clump of dark green moss covered with tiny silver spots was growing.

It looks like a piece of vegetable instant noodles covered in sesame seeds.

"Big brother! Look what I found!"

Ou Yun, who had one foot perched on a tree ahead, preparing to raid a bird's nest, turned around and asked, "What?"

Chen Hao took out a magnifying glass and some kind of test paper from the wicker basket and carefully scraped off a small sample of moss.

The test strip changed from white to light blue, and then to light purple.

"This reaction..."

Chen Hao repeated the test.

The result was the same.

He changed to a different reagent, and this time the test strip turned a deep purple.

Ou Yun sensed something was wrong, so she came over to check with him. "What's wrong?"

"This reaction is very similar to the test results of the Abyss Crystal."

Chen Hao frowned and said, "Although they are not exactly the same, they feel like the same type of residual energy."

He made this test strip from a tiny bit of abyssal crystal and scraps of paper—though he himself didn't know how he made it. Anyway, it was just one of the various products he made while idly researching the furnace.

"Is there residual energy in this place?"

Although Europe had anticipated this situation before coming.

Is the concentration high?

"Not high."

That means the danger isn't too great, right?

Ou Yun thought to himself that they had just dealt with an Abyss Scorpion, albeit a juvenile one—it seemed that Captain Leng's guess was correct; the beasts in the forbidden area had either mutated or upgraded.

"That's true, but..."

Chen Hao pushed up his glasses. "We're clearly not in the abyss crystal mining area, yet we're still encountering similar energy... This might not be a coincidence."

He had a bold hypothesis: it was very likely that a vast abyssal energy network existed throughout the entire forest region—

Mineral veins, fissures, and residual energy are all part of this network.