Survival at Sea: I Became Number One by Growing Mushrooms

She frowned as she looked at the bones that had turned to ashes upon hitting the ground; they must have been inside for a very long time and decomposed.

Or perhaps the contents inside were completely absorbed, thus turning to ash.

Seemingly in response to Xu Jiawei's guess, another tree cocoon split open, spilling out some ash. Then, the cocoon disappeared, shrank back, and turned into an ordinary vine, returning to the top.

The tree trunk seemed to have thickened again, and after what had just happened, Xu Jiawei felt that the tree was quite eerie.

Xu Jiawei felt a chill run down her spine. It turned out that she had been swallowed by the vine, which had caused a tumor-like growth to form inside her.

But something still doesn't seem right. I was locked up for 10 minutes, and nothing happened to me.

So she cut open several more tree cocoons. Some of the creatures inside were only half-corroded, some still had flesh and skin, and some had already turned into bones.

Xu Jiawei didn't know how long they had been locked up there, and couldn't make a judgment.

She stared at the tree, when suddenly another vine shrunk down from it. The tip of the vine slowly expanded until it revealed a huge mouth full of sharp teeth, which swallowed a comatose, demonic creature into its body, like a python devouring its prey, until it formed a tumor-like mass inside the body and hung on the tree.

She had witnessed firsthand how this thing swallowed its prey.

Xu Jiawei rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. "Was I swallowed like this too?"

She planned to wait 10 minutes before cutting open the cocoon to see what was happening inside.

While there was still time, Xu Jiawei opened the first glass bottle containing ticks. As soon as she opened the lid, a black dot flew out, even faster than the one from the previous night.

They disappeared in the blink of an eye. Hmm, it seems ticks really don't like this stuff. Perhaps, it could be that the plant's scent irritated the ticks, or maybe it was the sap or pheromones. In any case, it seems this plant can only repel ticks and won't kill them. However, we'll have to wait for the other two control group tests to be completed to be sure.

These leaves even make the ticks faster, so she could put a leaf of this plant in each bottle. In the future, when she encounters fast-moving mutated creatures, she could launch the ticks into the air, and what wouldn't she be able to catch?

He put the empty glass bottle back into his backpack and checked the system time; about ten minutes had passed.

Xu Jiawei cut open the newly appeared tree cocoon, creating a slit in its belly, through which she could observe the situation inside.

The fur and skin of the mutated creature inside had been mostly corroded, making it impossible to even identify what kind of creature it was. Its body was covered with dense black vines that greedily absorbed nutrients from the corpse, which made Xu Jiawei feel extremely disgusted.

"Did it turn out like this in just 10 minutes?" Xu Jiawei thought about her previous state. Before, she wasn't entangled in vines, and her body was completely intact. She hadn't even used the Golden Body technique. Was it the purification that worked?

Could it be that this state, which feels like being corroded by stomach acid, is a negative state, which is why her talent can be immune to it? Or is it that the tendrils that absorb nutrients are also a negative state, which is why she was able to survive?

Xu Jiawei stared at the tree cocoon. These vines were just branches of this giant tree. Given the size of this giant tree, the entire desert was within its attack range. She could only hope that Rainbow could escape the desert.

Xu Jiawei flew up, wanting to see how to get out, but after flying up for a few hundred meters, she reached the top. She touched the top of her head, which seemed to be a canopy formed by intertwined tree branches. Was the sand on top of this canopy?

Could it be that the entire desert is supported by this giant tree?

This is unbelievable.

How is she supposed to get out of here if things continue like this?

Perhaps she could wait until another creature was dragged down before going out, so she waited in mid-air for about two hours. Xu Jiawei's eyes were tired from waiting, when she noticed a vine loosen. It slowly pulled out its entwined limbs and dragged a large rat that was still squeaking.

Its branches pierced the rat's body, and the rat's writhing body slowly stopped, as if it had fallen into a deep sleep.

Taking advantage of the moment it pulled back the branch, Xu Jiawei immediately looked up at the spot where the branch had been pulled back. The instant the rat dragged it down, the other branches tightened the gap. In fact, before they tightened, the vines only opened gaps according to the size of the creature being dragged down.

As it drags downwards, the area shrinks, making it impossible to get back onto the sand through this gap.

Moreover, the lid was much thicker than she had imagined, about 20 meters thick. Trying to get through it was a pipe dream. Since she was still alive, she had no choice but to look for other ways out.

If you really can't find it, then go back to your death.

She fell back to the ground to find a way out. The underground river exuded an aura that she loathed, and from there she could see that the roots of the plants were deeply embedded in the river.

Upon seeing this, Xu Jiawei immediately realized that this giant tree was also a dark creature, even more dangerous than the animals above it. She wondered where this underground river led, and it would be best if she could get out of it.

Now that she didn't know which way to go, she could only follow the underground river for the time being.

However, she had been moving around all night, and her body was already heavily contaminated. Now that she was underground, the contamination was even worse than the darkness of night.

This sense of urgency forced her to quicken her pace.

Given her condition, she could only last for a maximum of 4 hours before her consciousness began to fail, and to walk out of the desert in 4 hours was simply a pipe dream.

If she can't find an exit within four hours, her ultimate fate will be to be corrupted and turned into a demonic creature.

She made up her mind to walk for another two hours. If she still couldn't find an exit, she would just go back and die. For her, even wanting to die was a difficult problem now.

Her survival skills are too strong, and they are all triggered passively. If all else fails, she can just burn the tree down. She doesn't believe the tree won't come and kill her.

As she walked forward, the scenery remained unchanged, and Xu Jiawei began to wonder if she was standing still. But the gradually receding main tree trunk told her that she had indeed left.

Above, vines twitch from time to time, accompanied by the screams of animals, forming cocoons.

Her body's rejection symptoms became increasingly obvious. The dark energy that had seeped into her body was clashing with the light energy, causing a huge chemical reaction that made Xu Jiawei feel extremely uncomfortable, as if her body was churning inside.

Moreover, the river was so polluted that even Xu Jiawei's purification with light was useless. At this moment, Xu Jiawei finally understood how someone as powerful as the God of Light could have been corrupted by darkness.

Blood seeped from Xu Jiawei's pores, turning her into a blood-soaked figure. Her vision gradually blurred, and she even had a feeling that if this pollution continued, even Rainbow and the others would be infected by her.