Evolution - Chapter 6
Chapter 6
After they had walked for about an hour in the direction the hunting party leader had pointed, the “beep-beep” of a new function loading sounded for both of them simultaneously. They opened it to find the mission log for crossing the forest.
They both remained quite calm. You get used to the game’s tricks after a while. They already understood the pattern and had learned to accept whatever happened with composure.
Crossing the forest would get them to the city. That was just a path indicator. After entering the forest, they still had to complete related tasks, but this task was a little different. Back in the beginner village, the quests were to collect specific items—which prey to hunt and how many. Now, it was a general task, but the map had been updated. It not only showed directions and paths but also marked the resources in areas previously explored by others. There was also a new function—or what could be called the game world’s currency system.
The mission log detailed all the valuable items players could acquire in the forest, including animals, plants, and minerals. It was practically an encyclopedia of the forest’s resources, complete with pictures, item properties, and instructions on how to gather or mine them. Each item was marked with a price.
The mission was to acquire items of a certain total value to be considered complete. No specific items were required, as long as the total value was met.
A small portion of the encyclopedia was lit up, representing the items they had learned to identify in the beginner village. The grayed-out entries were things they had never seen in person and knew nothing about.
But there was one particularly frustrating tip: 【Players entering the continental exploration phase are advised to learn the continental common tongue. A surprise drop awaits!】
After reading the information, the two walked on in silence for a good while. About twenty minutes later, Ji Changqing finally spoke in a low voice, “So, why doesn’t the government just officially announce that an alien civilization and Earth are engaged in friendly cooperation?”
Instead, they remained silent in their words but dropped hints in their actions everywhere. What was with all the guessing games?! They were just asking for trouble!
Pencil’s eye twitched. He was suffering internally. He didn’t know, either. The military had its own hierarchy, you know. The people who entered the game during the closed beta were the vanguard, the nation’s finest soldiers. They were just the first public batch, the second tier. How would he know?
Fortunately, Ji Changqing didn’t require an answer from him; that would have been putting him in a tough spot. She could make wild but reasonable guesses, and he had the right to remain silent.
“Let me take a guess,” she said, her eyes darting around.
No, don’t guess, please don’t guess! Pencil was screaming “no, stop!” in his head, but he continued his miserable silence.
“The alien civilization is unimaginably powerful, and also unimaginably friendly. So, the higher-ups think they can stall for a while to feel them out?” She scoffed, casually pushing aside a hanging vine that was blocking the path with her rifle.
“How could we possibly know about such things?” Pencil was about to lose it with her. He changed the subject stiffly. “But you’re amazing. You’ve never trained before, have you?” Pencil was actually very curious about Ji Changqing. Her progress was simply too fast. At the beginning, she was the worst of the three, but she had managed to catch up within three months of game time. Now she was just a tiny bit behind him, but he couldn’t be sure when she might close that gap and surpass him. He was an elite soldier, after all. Something must have happened that he didn’t know about.
Ji Changqing didn’t press the issue and readily went along with the change of topic. “I have. I trained for seven or eight years as a kid.” She thought for a moment. “But not intensely. I’ve forgotten most of it.”
There were many factors in political calculations that were beyond a common citizen’s understanding. But in the end, everything boiled down to the same thing: interests. The various nations were stalling because they felt it was in their best interest to do so. As for the alien civilization, they let the governments stall but left clues everywhere for the general populace to speculate on. This indicated that they didn’t really care about the governments’ attitudes, but they weren’t happy about doing the work and letting others take the credit.
When you are unimaginably powerful, you don’t really care about the petty schemes and calculations of the weak. But even tolerance has its limits. The world leaders were probably testing those limits like crazy right now. But it was understandable. Political negotiations were just like business deals; you had to discuss various terms. You couldn’t just offer up everything with both hands. Maintaining a dignified negotiation will always earn you more respect than groveling. What comes easily is never cherished—that principle holds true everywhere.
Not making a public announcement like this was due to various considerations. For the general public, it was at most a slight annoyance at being kept in the dark, but it wouldn’t provoke an overly intense reaction. As long as the future was heading in a better direction, people would complain a bit, grumble a few times, and then slowly get used to it. The survival philosophy of the common person was just that pragmatic and simple.
The weather in the forest was unpredictable, and the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, far more so than the special effects in Avatar. The hidden dangers were also not to be underestimated. The two of them had fought several waves of creatures in just half a day, and some plants were extremely aggressive; they had nearly fallen into a trap once. This half-day was much more tiring than when they were following the hunting party—they had to determine their own direction, scout the path, and remain on high alert, which was exhausting. Therefore, when they passed a slightly elevated spot with a water source nearby that looked suitable for a rest, they decided to take a one-hour break and have lunch, even though the sun had not yet reached its zenith.
They had hunted some game and gathered some mushrooms earlier. The two of them efficiently cleaned the food and threw it into a pressure cooker to stew. Pencil took on temporary guard duty while Ji Changqing massaged her own limbs to soothe her muscles. After completing a full, sequential massage, she stood up, jumped in place a few times, and took over for Pencil to watch the fire.
Neither of them knew what the next second might hold. They both had to race against time to get themselves into optimal condition.
They managed their time well. After finishing lunch and resting for about ten more minutes, they set off again.
Whether it was good luck or because they were not yet deep in the forest, the first day passed with surprising smoothness. As the sun’s afterglow still lingered, they chose a good spot, set up their tent, laid traps in a circle around the perimeter, sprinkled some repellent, and enjoyed a pleasant dinner, preparing to spend the night there. They would take turns on watch; Ji Changqing would take the first half of the night, and Pencil the second. By that calculation, they could each get about five hours of sleep.
It was still early in the month, and the moonlight was not very bright. Ji Changqing kept an eye on the time, and once she was certain Pencil was sound asleep, she began to practice her Physique. She had recently mastered all nine movements of the first section, but her progress had been stuck at 90%. Today’s physical exertion had been significant; she wondered if she could break through to level one.
She was quite interested to see what changes a level-one breakthrough would bring.
She practiced the nine movements in a continuous sequence, over and over again. What was once clumsy gradually became fluid. She felt the exhilarating release of a good workout and didn’t stop even when her clothes were soaked with sweat. She felt she was just a hair’s breadth away; a little more persistence might be all it took.
Slowly, she seemed to enter a mysterious state where she could execute the most standard movements without thinking, fluidly and powerfully. She seemed to have a sudden epiphany, understanding which muscles these exercises trained, how much damage a complete move could inflict, and how to counter if an opponent dodged…
When she finally stopped from exhaustion, her body was weary, but her mind was buzzing with excitement. She checked her status. Sure enough, her Physique Level 1 progress was at 100%, and a new progress bar for Level 2 had appeared below it. Then, a surprise drop—a reward screen popped up. The reward for breaking through to Physique Level 1 was two potions: one to be taken orally, and one for a medicinal bath. It was also noted that using them within an hour of the breakthrough would yield better results.
She checked the time. There was still about half an hour left before the shift change. She wasn’t in a hurry. She sat on the ground, slowly savoring the feeling of the breakthrough. Level one was probably too basic; it wasn’t as mystical as the novels described. There were no heightened senses or anything like that. The biggest change, it seemed, was a significant increase in her fighting ability. But that was satisfying enough. After all, in the forest, better fighting skills meant a higher guarantee of safety.
When Pencil got up to take over the watch, Ji Changqing, filled with a suppressed sense of anticipation, ducked into her tent. She first poured the medicinal bath potion into the tub of hot water she had prepared earlier, then downed the oral potion in one gulp and climbed into the tub.
Soaking in the water for a good while, she only felt a pleasant warmth spreading through her body. The fatigue and soreness from before gradually faded away, an effect similar to the medicinal baths in the beginner village, just with a nicer scent. The ever-imaginative Screenwriter Ji was a bit disappointed. She had thought it would be painful—a medicinal bath so agonizing that she would emerge a master. She couldn’t even realize that dream in a game.
The contrast between reality and her ideals was just too tragic.
Two people strolling through a forest, surrounded by beautiful scenery—a single frame of it would look romantic and wonderful. In reality, unless the two were a couple, it would be hard to find any sweetness in the bitterness. For two people who were, at best, partners, there was only bitterness, bitterness, and more bitterness.
For the first time, Ji Changqing deeply felt that the saying “strength in numbers” was the fucking truth!
With just two people, they couldn’t even get a game of Fight the Landlord going. What else could they do?
Along the way, the two of them kept their eyes peeled for the unique trail markers that led from their village to the city. There was a path, but it was seldom used. The forest vegetation was lush, covering the path in some places. With careful searching, they could still find faint, distorted markers.
Neither of them was a bleeding heart, but they weren’t overly selfish either. They were willing to lend a hand when they could. Whenever they found a faded marker, they would re-carve a clear one. If the path was overgrown, they would clear it a bit, at least to make it slightly easier for the next group of people.
Perhaps because stronger creatures have a stronger sense of territory, the deeper they went into the forest, the less frequently they encountered large animals. But when they did, the fights became increasingly difficult. At the beginning, they would get into five or six fights a day. After a few more days of walking, it was down to four or five a day. A few days after that, it was only three or four…
Now, after nearly a month of game time, the value of the items they had each collected was about two-thirds of the mission requirement. But looking at the map, they hadn’t even covered a third of the total distance.
When they found the stone house marked on the map, built by previous travelers, both of them instinctively slowed their pace.
The original builders certainly had no ill intentions. For their own safety, they must have carefully chosen the location. It was indeed very suitable, backed by a natural rock wall and enclosed by a rough circle of stones of various sizes. It was unclear if it ever had a roof, but years of wind and sun had long since taken care of that.
But that wasn’t a big deal. Everyone had personal storage space and carried tents. This place was just relatively safe. The crudely built stone wall provided a windbreak and slightly enhanced defenses, and also made it easier to stand watch.
Of course, this enhanced safety and defense only applied to the forest’s native inhabitants.
But as more people entering the forest began to use it as a default rest stop, it became a different story. After nearly a month of travel, even a person of iron would feel tired. The danger increased significantly in the inner circle of the forest, so most people chose to rest here for two or three days to recuperate before continuing their journey.
Thus, this place became a potential high-danger zone. There was no shortage of people who would murder and rob. Some teams would exploit the subconscious feeling of safety that people had here, setting up ambushes, launching sneak attacks, and using deceitful tricks that were impossible to guard against.
No one could say for sure whether, upon arriving at this place, they would find it empty or already transformed into a bloody hunting ground.
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