Chapter 911: Space Lines Within the Ore
The people in the car, including several players, were shouting to run immediately. Teacher Ai, hesitant, glanced at Xu Huo, who was staring straight ahead. She gritted her teeth and accelerated straight toward the sand wave!
The manual off-road vehicle truly was a tool for crossing the desert. Even under such strong resistance, the car still moved forward steadily. Of course, this was also related to being farther away from the explosion site.
The explosion radius of the "Mini Mushroom Cloud" was one kilometer. For safety, Xu Huo had gone a bit farther. Judging by the impact force after the explosion, the car's position was absolutely safe, and even full-speed travel wouldn't be a problem.
The stirred-up sandstorm wouldn't settle anytime soon. After speeding for a while, Teacher Ai detoured around the explosion point. Forget traps or items—even the desert had been blasted into a deep pit. A massive mushroom cloud was faintly visible floating in the air, and for a moment, it wasn't even swallowed by the returning sandstorm!
They were driving along the edge of a sand dune. Looking out the window, they were directly facing the mushroom cloud. Looking further down into the desert, it was like a small dried-up lake had appeared.
"Wow, this item would be great for creating lakes or changing seas." Shangguan Xi stared at the deep pit in awe. "And no radiation pollution either."
After saying this, he got excited on his own. "With an item like this, we could just blast our way through!"
"Use your brain and think—an item like that definitely has a cooldown time." Ding Wei stared at Xu Huo. "How could we just blast our way through?"
Xu Huo was unbothered by her probing and nodded. "It does have a cooldown time, but we'll reach W19 Base City in a day and a half. That's not long."
Shangguan Xi turned to look at her. "We're all in the same boat. You're not expecting my Brother Xu to handle everything alone, are you?"
Ding Wei twitched her lips but said nothing.
Unexpectedly, the next stretch of time passed without any incidents. No people, no mutants.
"Maybe the earlier explosion scared them off," Teacher Ai said.
However, just as they were about to find a place to spend the night, they unexpectedly discovered an area with signs of battle. Two damaged off-road vehicles were overturned in the sand. Nearby, there were many large mutant corpses and human corpses, along with some small animals attracted to scavenge the rotting flesh.
Xu Huo and the others got out to inspect. The vehicles were damaged beyond use, and the people were all dead. However, some energy blocks and food were left behind.
"This should be an exploration team from another base city." Teacher Ai looked at the items they retrieved. "They came out looking for resources."
Xu Huo noticed that besides ore, there were also some crop seeds in the bag. He couldn't help asking, "Can't crops from other districts be planted in W37 Base Station?"
With players as a resource, why go to such trouble?
"It's not impossible, but for large-scale planting, you still need plants that can grow in this soil." Teacher Ai pinched a few seeds, rubbed them, and put them back. She turned to Gao Chunfeng. "Take these to W37 Base City tomorrow."
Xu Huo and the others were heading to W19 Base City, while Gao Chunfeng and his group didn't need to make the detour, so they would get off midway.
Gao Chunfeng naturally didn't refuse. "Anyway, they don't have any identification."
The next morning, they were about to part ways. Before leaving, Gao Chunfeng thanked Xu Huo. Gao Xiayang, a bit more lively, took the initiative to come up to him and say, "Brother Xu, you're a good person. I'll remember you."
Xu Huo patted his head.
After the car started moving again, the two people in the back seat kept glancing at Xu Huo, seemingly not quite believing he would save people without expecting anything in return. They also suspected he might have made a private deal with Gao Chunfeng.
Xu Huo took out the map. The full desert area would soon be over. Ahead was the Gobi, which once had energy mines. The map marked many deep pit locations, likely traces of mining.
After the Gobi, there was a transition zone, and after that, W19 Base City.
The base city had three gates. The one facing W37 Base was the South Gate. This was definitely where the most players would come out, so they couldn't go this way. Xu Huo planned to first circle around to the back of the North Gate, hide the car, and then enter the base city.
Teacher Ai unconditionally followed his arrangements and also mentioned that there was an underground structure outside the South Gate of Base City 19.
"Originally, they planned to build an underground city there, but after digging down, they discovered a nest of mutant ant colonies. Even after burning out the ants, the area couldn't be used anymore. Filling it all in would take time and effort, so they just built bridge panels on top."
"How large an area does it cover?" Xu Huo asked.
"Including the South Gate, it's about half the city's width, slightly to the right. It's over two hundred meters long and fifty to sixty meters deep." Teacher Ai had these figures memorized.
Sensing that Xu Huo was eyeing this area, she warned, "W19 Base City is severely damaged. Forget manual off-road vehicles—you might not even find energy blocks. The car will definitely be the first target for other players."
Living samples couldn't be stuffed into the luggage compartment. They needed tools to transport them.
Xu Huo stared at the map for two seconds before saying, "We'll see when the time comes. The three samples might not still be in W19 City."
The car smoothly entered the Gobi area. Everywhere they looked, there were traces of mining. Some mining equipment was even still left behind, but without power, it couldn't operate.
"What kind of energy was originally here?" Shangguan Xi became interested. "Some energy ores can be used to make items. Even if not, some high-quality ores can fetch a good price!"
"They should all be hollowed out by now. Otherwise, why would the base city people abandon them?" Zhao Jiahui said.
After a while, Xu Huo asked Teacher Ai to stop the car. He got out and picked up some stones discarded near the mining shafts.
Shangguan Xi had to protect Teacher Ai and couldn't go far, so he stood by the car and said, "Brother Xu, what are you doing picking up those useless stones?"
Xu Huo was holding a stone and observing it.
From the Nuwa Stone to He Pu's Subclass Stone, plus the Primordial Stone he might or might not have seen, along with countless other types of ore, he had studied no fewer than two hundred kinds of stones. Before, stones were just stones, but after his secondary evolution, these stones also showed subtle changes.
Take the Nuwa Stone, for example. Before, he couldn't determine if it was a special Primordial Stone like the "Time Origin" that could give ordinary ore special properties. But now, comparing it to He Pu's Subclass Stone, the difference appeared. The Subclass Stone He Pu left him should be an ore containing special properties, because the space lines passing through this stone were extremely dense, almost twisted into a rope. The Nuwa Stone, on the other hand, wasn't much different from ordinary ore. Even the ore stored with it for a long time showed no significant change. This meant the Nuwa Stone wasn't a Primordial Stone like the "Time Origin."
But now, the ordinary ore he held in his hand had space lines slightly different from other ores. He loosened his grip and looked into the distance: Could it be that the energy mines here originated from a Primordial Stone?
(Chapter End)