Survival at Sea: I Became Number One by Growing Mushrooms

Xu Jiawei stopped when she reached a cliff. Was the source of pollution just below the underwater cliff?

Xu Jiawei swam downstream with the current. The further downstream she went, the more rapid the current became. She was no longer swimming downstream on her own, but was being pushed down by the current.

Finally, the current swept her downwards, and she lost her balance, tumbling and being swept into the water. In a daze, Xu Jiawei seemed to hear a malicious voice: "You have a way to heaven but you don't take it, you have no way to hell but you choose to walk into it. You're not leaving today."

She couldn't tell if the voice was male or female; it only lingered in her mind for a moment before disappearing completely, and she had no memory of it at all when she tried to recall it.

Just as he expected, the Dark God had laid a trap for him at this source of pollution. Moreover, the ocean had almost become the Dark God's territory, so this trap would be more dangerous than before, even more dangerous than the first top-level pollution source.

[Ding! Warning! Warning! The pollution source here has mutated, increasing the danger level several times over. The system will activate a protection mechanism, granting players a 1-hour protective shield. Please seize the opportunity to escape. (Why do you always get yourself into this mess?)]

"Then I'll have to ask you how you teleported me to this island," Xu Jiawei couldn't help but say, feeling quite frustrated.

[Ding! System teleportation has been randomly assigned to an island of the current difficulty level. All unexpected events are due to the player's own luck.]

The system answered Xu Jiawei's question in a calm voice.

Xu Jiawei retorted directly, "You're talking nonsense. With my high luck stat, how could I possibly be teleported to such a dangerous island? Either you're behind this, or there's some kind of bug. You'd better check your program."

The system was silent for a few seconds, then messages continued to arrive.

Thank you for your feedback. The system will definitely check it.

At this moment, although Xu Jiawei was arguing with the system, her body was being swept around by the water, spinning 360 degrees, making her dizzy and lightheaded, as if her brains were about to be thrown out.

She fell off the cliff and was eventually sucked into a black vortex.

Then it fell to the ground with a thud. Xu Jiawei hadn't reacted yet until she felt wet all over and realized that there was air here. Where was she? Why was there air here?

She quickly looked around. Behind her was a stone wall, and when she looked up, there was only a stone wall above her, with no gaps. Where did she fall from? Was she teleported here by a teleportation array?

There was only a deep passage in front of her, and Xu Jiawei had no choice but to walk forward. Because there was no pressure from the water, she felt much lighter. Her speed was now on par with her physical strength and defense. She had made great progress in her training over this period of time.

Xu Jiawei breathed a sigh of relief. Since she wasn't underwater, she was more confident in dealing with the source of pollution. As she walked along the dark corridor, shadowy figures kept appearing under her feet, trying to entangle her ankles and greedily devour her. Fortunately, the system's protective shield worked, and these shadowy figures couldn't do anything to her for the time being.

She rushed forward as fast as she could, trying not to waste the one hour of protection time given by the system.

The corridor grew wider and wider, with antique-style decorations appearing from time to time. The further you went, the more the corridor's style resembled a tomb. However, compared to the solemnity of a tomb, the corridor exuded an eerie atmosphere, winding and turning like a maze from which you could never escape.

The further she went, the more luxurious the decor became, even including doors and windows. Xu Jiawei tried to open the doors and windows, but the doors were locked and could not be pushed. However, the windows were sliding, so she tried to slide them. To her disappointment, there was still a stone wall behind the window, and the window seemed to be just for decoration.

I have no idea why the Dark God is making all these fake doors and windows; it's so bizarre.

Xu Jiawei felt as if she had stumbled into the headquarters of some cult. The surroundings were eerie and strange. After leaving the corridor, a large hall appeared in front of her. The hall was circular and surrounded by a dense circle of doors.

Xu Jiawei roughly counted, there were probably dozens of them. Above the door, there were densely packed windows, at least five stories high. Every now and then, figures would flicker around the windows, finally stopping by them, seemingly watching her.

Finally, two or three figures lingered at each window. Their features were obscured by darkness, and Xu Jiawei couldn't make out their faces, not even whether they were men or women. "They" pointed at Xu Jiawei, seemingly discussing something.

A cacophony of sounds filled Xu Jiawei's ears, making it impossible to understand what was being said. Suddenly, the hall lit up, the noisy sounds disappeared, and a figure slowly crawled out from behind Xu Jiawei. It was a caterpillar monster with an infant's face and countless infant's hands and feet. The monster's body was covered in black pustules, the shapes of which kept changing.

Upon closer inspection, Xu Jiawei discovered that the pustules on the monster's body were actually distorted, painful human faces, howling and struggling to escape the caterpillar's body.

Xu Jiawei felt her scalp tingling. This monster looked absolutely disgusting, and its distorted face was extremely strange. Sometimes it looked like a human face, and sometimes it didn't. No, those faces looked more like humanoid monsters.

She had never seen a human look like this before. It was like an alien, with big eyes that were upturned at the inner corners, and the shape of the two eyes looked like the number eight. The nose was wide and square, and the lips were thick and protruded from the face. If you looked at the face upside down, the eyes would be much more harmonious than if you looked at it right-side up.

How could a human look like this? And it's not just one face; all the faces on this monster's body look like this, some male, some female, some old, some young. In contrast, the baby face on the monster's head is obviously much more normal, just a normal baby face, showing an innocent smile, and its laughter echoes all around.

If you ignore the fact that the face is as big as a millstone, it really does look like a normal baby, but now that innocent smile looks very strange on this monster.

Before Xu Jiawei could recover from the monster's appearance, the figures in the windows burst into enthusiastic applause. The atmosphere was quite eerie. The baby caterpillar seemed to enjoy the applause, waving at the figures in the windows of the main hall from time to time.

It didn't attack Xu Jiawei; it was like starting a match—that was the pre-match opening statement.

Xu Jiawei suddenly realized that the layout of this hall resembled a gladiatorial arena, and that she and the monster in front of her were the two opponents who would be dueling in the arena.