BXBX NOVEL Chapter 63 - 63: Mutated Tree Root
“I’ve learned another skill?” Song Jian paused, glanced at the newly comprehended skill, and then continued on his way with an expressionless face.
Though this game doesn’t give you extra attribute points every time you level up, some basic skills are easy to understand. They can slightly enhance the strength of novice players, at least allowing people to move into the game without being stuck.
After hundreds of hours of practice, Song Jian had mastered his dagger. The basic movement of “Straight Stabbing” had become an instinct ingrained in his bones. With his nimble footwork and agile movements, in front of the slow-moving mutated zombies, Song Jian had become a Death God-esque existence.
After wiping out a dozen scattered mutated zombies, Song Jian’s experience points had risen to 89%. The highway at this time was very empty, and every few meters, there would be one or a few faintly glowing items placed on the road, awaiting collection.
Straddling his motorcycle, Song Jian journeyed along the highway, collecting items dropped by the mutated zombies as he went. That night, Song Jian killed at least hundreds of mutated zombies. Even with a small chance of dropping, his inventory slowly started filling up with zombie materials and zombie cores, with no particularly valuable equipment.
“At least, I’ve collected enough of the hundred zombie cores needed to build the Blood Pool.” Song Jian glanced at his inventory, shrugged and consoled himself.
As they proceeded, the sky was gradually getting brighter. Checking the map, there were about three or four kilometers to the small forest where they had previously collected wood.
“This area has more wood and stone resources. Going to that small forest now with more people scrambling would be worse. It’s better to just gather here.” Song Jian glanced at the forest on both sides of the highway and thought to himself.
The small forest from before was the nearest gathering point from the starting residential zone. With players’ current strength, they didn’t dare venture too far away, everyone was squeezed into that small forest to gather wood.
The failure of the first person to build a safe house had taught many a lesson. Now, no one wished to build a safe house right away. Everyone hoped to gather as many materials as possible, the more defense built, the better. All these cannot be separated from a massive amount of materials.
Some even began shouting for the purchase of materials on the edge of the small forest. The price of a unit of wood had already opened to 1000 RMB, but there were few sellers.
On the one hand, they needed these materials themselves. On the other hand, there was no credit supervision. To trade, they must first give the other party materials in the game and trade RMB after leaving the game. If the other party broke their promise, the seller would lose both the money and the materials – the risk was too great.
As for using Doomsday Coins to trade within the game, the purchasers were unwilling too. Now, most people are saving money to buy tools for collecting, they’re barely making ends meet and unwilling to use Doomsday Coins.
“This is the place. This forest looks at least twice as big as before.” Song Jian glanced around as he followed the highway. His eyes lit up when he spotted a forest.
This forest was very dense, with every tree having a trunk as thick as two people combined, and the largest one requiring four to five people to wrap around it. It was very wide and spread as far as the eye could see, extending into the foggy outskirts of the city. Just looking around, the forest had a scope of several kilometers.
Song Jian got off the highway, came to the edge of the forest, randomly selected a tree, and punched it hard.
Thump thump thump-
The quiet forest echoed with the pounding sounds, and a few minutes later, a large tree disappeared into thin air. It transformed into wood which automatically flew into Song Jian’s inventory.
“Good, good. I got almost a hundred units of wood. Nice. So the thicker the tree, and the older it is, the more wood you can get.” Song Jian nodded contentedly and headed towards the next big tree.
The forest was strange. It was full of large trees but not a single rock. This disappointed Song Jian, who was eager to start gathering stone.
What Song Jian didn’t notice was the eerie silence of this forest. The other forests were quiet too, but there would always be insect chirps and bird calls, even appearances of small animals like squirrels and rabbits. But in this forest, besides the large trees, there were no other signs of life, so naturally there were no other sounds.
With no one in sight to compete with him, Song Jian could quickly harvest. In a short time, over a thousand units of wood were stored in his inventory.
“Refreshing. The entire forest is mine alone, hahaha!” A smile played on Song Jian’s face. Although he had almost five thousand units of wood now, he was still not satisfied and wanted to gather more.
Just as Song Jian was about to venture deeper into the forest, he suddenly felt a slight tremor under his feet. He instinctively jumped aside with a bad feeling.
Whoosh-
A root as thick as an arm suddenly thrust up from the ground. The root was mottled and as pointed as a spear, it looked like a piece of tree root. If Song Jian hadn’t reacted quickly enough, he would have been skewered like a lamb.
Soon enough, the ground started churning and tree roots started breaking through the ground, stabbing towards Song Jian like earth dragons.
“What the hell is this?” Song Jian exclaimed.
In Song Jian’s eyes, these tree roots appeared to have their own names and vitality points.
“LV1 Mutated Tree Root, Common, Vitality: 10”
“Level 1 small monsters? The only thing is, there are too many of them.” Song Jian started retreating while thinking.
Swish-
Swinging his dagger, he cut off a few roots that were pointed at him. Even though these roots had 10 vitality points, Song Jian could easily cut them down. But there were too many of them, making him feel overwhelmed.
The cut roots rolled on the ground like dead snakes, then lay motionless. In a short while, the ground was covered with a thick layer of foot-long roots.
Pff-
Eventually, one of the numerous roots managed to bypass Song Jian’s waving dagger and stabbed his shoulder. The moment the root hit, the Zombie Overlord Armor manifested a small piece, blocking the root’s attack.
The attack only caused 2 points of damage to Song Jian. He felt at ease and instead of retreating, he charged forward. Suddenly, dozens of roots swept towards him from all directions, looking like a beast opening its bloody mouth wide, ready to swallow Song Jian whole.