The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

"No one is to tell anyone about what happened today." Han Lei glanced at everyone, his tone serious. "If anyone asks, just say we didn't see anything."

"Understood." Sun Lei nodded.

"I know," Zhou Xiaojie replied.

The others nodded in agreement.

Shen Qingwan raised her head, glanced at Han Lei, and then lowered her head again.

She understood Han Lei's meaning. The fewer people who knew about Su Mu's strength, the better. If everyone knew, their team's advantage would disappear. After all, they currently had Su Mu's contact information and records of their transactions with him—resources that others didn't possess.

Shen Qingwan took out the Level 2 Breakthrough Talisman from her pocket, and looked at the pale silver patterns on it, a slight smile appearing on her lips.

She was right.

From the moment she decided to trade the Ghost Fire blueprint with Su Mu, she was gambling. Gambling that he would need the blueprint, gambling that he would remember her name, gambling that he would become the strongest being on this cable in the future.

In hindsight, she won her gamble.

"Let's go." Han Lei stood up, brushed the dirt off his clothes, and said, "We should head back too."

The team members packed their belongings and walked along the edge of the dense forest, heading away from the military base.

Shen Qingwan walked at the back of the group. After a few steps, she looked back at the direction where Su Mu had disappeared.

Sunlight filters through the gaps in the tree canopy, casting dappled shadows on the ground.

I can't see anything in that direction.

But she knew he was there.

A man, with a long spear, walked calmly through the ruins filled with monsters.

Shen Qingwan withdrew her gaze and quickened her pace to catch up with the group.

.....

Within the base.

Behind the building was a long, narrow open space, piled high with construction waste and debris. At the far end of the open space, right next to the wall, was a semi-underground entrance, the door of which had been broken open and was hanging askew to one side.

Su Mu tiptoed into the entrance.

Inside was a small space, resembling some kind of equipment room or storage room. The air was thick with the stench of blood and decay, a mixture that made one want to vomit.

Su Mu turned on his flashlight, and the beam of light illuminated the interior.

Then his pupils contracted slightly.

The ground was littered with bones.

Monsters. All kinds of monsters. Some were whole, some were torn to shreds, some were gnawed down to their skeletons. Dark red bloodstains dried on the ground, layer upon layer, as if someone had repeatedly splashed blood here dozens of times.

Deep inside, against the wall, lay a pile of even fresher corpses... Several of the six people killed by the Lickers last night had been gnawed beyond recognition.

Su Mu squatted down and carefully examined the monsters' skeletons.

Most of them were level three or four ordinary monsters, with a few being green quality. Their causes of death were almost all the same... torn apart by claws, their skulls crushed by teeth, or their vital organs pierced by tongues.

The way the licker eats is as brutal as the way it kills.

Su Mu stood up and scanned the space around him.

This is the lair of the lickers.

The corpses of those vanished monsters... those killed by the explosion, those scattered throughout the base... were all dragged here by it.

In one night, it ate at least thirty or forty monsters.

Su Mu recalled the Licker's wounds... the deep, bone-revealing gash on its left rib, the missing muscle in its hind leg, and the shrapnel wound to its head. Those wounds were still bleeding when it charged out, but they no longer hindered its movement.

It recovered most of its health by eating these corpses in just one night.

If given another day or two to devour all the corpses here, the wounds will likely heal completely.

By then, a fully upgraded level 5 blue Licker...

Su Mu did not continue thinking about it.

He took one last look at the pile of bones, then turned and walked out of the lair.

There were no treasure chests, no supplies, only a pile of gnawed bones and blood everywhere.

But at least, he was certain of one thing.

The woman and the foreigner survived last night purely by luck. The Licker was severely injured and was holed up in its lair eating corpses to recover, so it didn't bother going up to the building in front. As for those strange creatures that roam at night... they probably wouldn't dare approach this level five blue monster.

Every drink and every bite is a matter of fate.

Su Mu shook his head, quickened his pace, and walked towards the exit of the military base.

The military base has been searched; it's time to find a place to upgrade.

Su Mu quickened his pace and soon disappeared at the end of the ruins.

........

After leaving the military base, Su Mu followed the direction the cable car was traveling and began killing monsters around the evacuation point.

The monsters in this area are significantly higher level than before.

Level 1 is almost extinct, Level 2 has become the lowest level of cannon fodder, Level 3 is everywhere, and you can occasionally encounter Level 4.

Level 5 is extremely rare. Apart from the Licker, he only encountered one other one all day... a giant lizard covered in rock-like skin, with strength and constitution both exceeding 80, but agility was extremely low, and he easily took it down with a series of attacks.

Even so, the speed of the upgrade still left him somewhat dissatisfied.

A level 4 monster only gives 1 experience point for killing it. A level 3 monster only gives 0.1. His current experience bar is 220/800, which is 580 points away from level 5. At this rate, he would need to kill 580 level 4 monsters to level up.

Five hundred and eighty.

Even if he kills one per second, it would still take him nearly ten minutes. But the monsters won't line up for him to kill, and most of them here are below level four. That number would be ten times greater, and

Finding monsters, running around the map, picking up loot boxes... all of these take far less time than one monster per second.

This was indeed the case; he spent an entire day in this area, from morning till evening, killing at least a thousand monsters, but only gained less than three hundred experience points.

However, although experience points increased slowly, I accumulated quite a lot of materials.

Steel ingots: These were dropped by level 3 and 4 monsters, plus the ones I picked up at the military base earlier, for a total of 43 ingots.

Bulletproof glass blocks: The drop rate for these is much lower than that for steel ingots. He spent a whole day farming them and only managed to get seven.

Other materials were piled up like small mountains... teeth, scales, claws, and bones of various monsters, with more than a dozen pieces of blue quality and countless green and white ones.

In the afternoon, he also received a skill book on disassembly from the channel.

It was sold by a random person; the price wasn't high, and you could get it for ten servings of food.

Su Mu casually traded it to Chen Jun, along with a message: "Learn this, and I'll leave the material decomposition to you from now on. The price remains the same, calculated based on output."

Chen Jun replied quickly: "Don't worry, Brother Su! I can handle both shaving and dismantling the arrows simultaneously, I guarantee it won't delay anything!"

Su Mu closed the chat window and glanced at the weight of his backpack.

It weighs over 500 kilograms.

He still had 200 kilograms of space left before his maximum load limit, but he was approaching the critical point where it wouldn't affect his speed. He was walking much slower than before, which was still within an acceptable range, but if he continued to carry the load any longer, it would probably affect his combat ability.

He glanced at the time... 5:10 PM.

The sun was beginning to set, and the light was turning a dim, yellowish hue. It would be dark in two hours, and he had to get back to the cable car before then.

Su Mu put away his spear and walked towards the evacuation point.