"The nineteenth one!"
Lin Yue held a wooden shield in his left hand and an iron spear in his right. With one swift strike, the blue lizard that had just spat venom at him was sliced in half!
[You have obtained a Wooden Treasure Chest]
The familiar sound echoed as Lin Yue placed the treasure chest into his inventory.
He wiped off the venom from his shield on the ground, not pausing as he continued to search for mutated creatures.
After slashing three more lizards nearby, Lin Yue set down the small round shield with a half-meter diameter and sat on it, wiping the sweat from his face.
Combat allows one to accumulate experience.
Both psychological confidence and physical techniques, along with spontaneous reactions, continue to improve with each fight.
Thus, he grows stronger and stronger.
Although only two days have passed, Lin Yue has developed a small understanding of using the iron spear in his hands.
The sun was setting in the west, and the day passed quickly.
A gentle breeze blew across the desert, causing sparse wild grasses to sway continuously.
No one knew what might be hidden within.
With a one hundred percent chance to loot a treasure chest, Lin Yue wasn't lacking in water or food, but that didn't mean he would survive the disaster arriving in four days.
For this reason, he had to force himself to take down stronger mutant creatures, like that giant red locust-like creature before.
Previously, he had spent a considerable amount of time and exerted a great deal of physical strength, nearly pushed to the brink of exhaustion.
Originally just an ordinary person, he was at a significant disadvantage compared to those in the group who immediately went to hunt more powerful mutant creatures.
His golden finger ability prevented him from dying of thirst or hunger, but surviving in this survival game on that basis was his own skill.
After a short rest, Lin Yue stood up and tapped the ground with his shield.
As soon as he put the wooden treasure chest into his inventory, a rustling sound approached. He looked up to see a shadow hopping in from the opposite direction.
Lin Yue grabbed the iron spear, fully focused.
He moved slowly in the direction while remaining vigilant of his surroundings, not daring to let his guard down.
As the shadow's outline became clearer, Lin Yue recognized it as a mutant creature he had encountered on the first day.
Giant locust!
He took a deep breath. Here it comes again, huh?
However, he had made significant progress since yesterday.
With increased confidence, Lin Yue moved much faster, quickly closing the distance to less than twenty meters.
The giant locust also noticed Lin Yue. It swiftly turned its body towards him and continued to close the gap!
Lin Yue stopped, waiting for the creature's move.
With the sound of wings roaring, the red giant insect suddenly leaped into the air!
Lin Yue quickly stepped back, shielding himself with the wooden shield in his left hand, rolling sideways and swiftly standing up again. Before the giant locust could make further moves, his iron spear sliced down!
[You have obtained an Iron Treasure Chest]
The red body of the giant locust was sharply cut into halves, and beside it, the iron treasure chest waited silently for Lin Yue.
"Seems like I've gotten a bit stronger than before," Lin Yue exhaled lightly, picking up the treasure chest and placing it into his inventory.
At this moment, the sky turned fiery red, and Lin Yue decided not to continue searching for mutant creatures. Instead, he returned to the shelter.
He remade a torch, and the firelight illuminated the dim room once more.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lin Yue took out bread and water, while spreading out the wooden and iron treasure chests he stored in his inventory on the ground.
The wooden chests held nothing surprising, just water and food.
Among the 19 wooden boxes were 11 bottles of water, 7 loaves of bread weighing a pound each, and a bag of instant noodles.
These items held no surprises, and Lin Yue's attention wasn't on them.
He opened the iron chest.
[You have obtained an Area Map Fragment X1, Iron Saw Design Map X1]
Got something good this time.
Taking out the area map fragment, Lin Yue was about to examine it closely when a notification sound suddenly rang out.
[The map has been transferred to the system and can be viewed at any time]
Well, that's convenient.
No need to carry it around and worry about wear and tear, integrating it directly into the system works great.
Lin Yue opened the system and quickly found an option.
"Click, and then... lock onto the upper right corner?"
Following the system prompt, a map appeared in the top-right corner of his vision.
To his surprise, it was an electronic map!
The map illustrated a square area, with his shelter at the center.
He was represented by a red dot, and above it was a navigation-like arrow, while the shelter was marked in gray.
As Lin Yue moved, the arrow continuously changed direction.
He got a general sense of direction.
Besides the desert, the map marked a forest, a large pit, and several other indistinguishable features.
Lin Yue opened the map and discovered it could be displayed in fullscreen, but another function was absent.
Scale proportion.
Without a scale proportion, it was impossible to determine the map's actual size.
Although the map had an approximate size marker of one centimeter, there were no labels.
He glanced at the nearest forest from his shelter and decided to head in that direction.
Direction, northwest.
Lin Yue took out a dagger, drawing a mark at the door, then squatted down and stretched out his arms to measure.
With arms outstretched, approximately equal to his height, Lin Yue's height was 182 cm, and his shoe size was 40, translating to 25 cm. Adding them up, it was a little less than two meters.
He took out a dagger and made a mark on the ground below his fingertips, indicating a distance slightly over two meters.
He then measured with the iron spear in his hand, suddenly realizing it was roughly two meters long as well!
Wow, this thing really serves as a decent ruler.
Using the iron spear to measure the distance from the shelter to the forest, he quickly came to a conclusion.
"The forest is 102 meters from the shelter, so..."
Checking the map, he found the forest was about one centimeter away from the shelter.
One centimeter on the map roughly equaled an actual distance of a hundred meters, making the scale 1:10000.
Lin Yue looked at the location marked as the large pit, calculating it was about 8 scale units away, approximately 800 meters.
Standing on the roof, looking in that direction, it appeared dim and dark.
Lin Yue decided to explore tomorrow; today had to come to an end.
Flipping back into the shelter, Lin Yue lay on the bed in a relaxed position and opened the trading panel to confirm transactions.
Over 2000 offers testified to the buyers' urgency.
He noticed that some people had even offered quite impressive items, much to his surprise.
So...
[You lost 5L of water]
[You received Stone X40, Copper Ingot X43, Coal X22, Chips X1, Snickers X3, Rock Salt X2, Bacon X2, Sewing Kit X1, Bowl Design Map, Barbecue Rack Design Map, Iron Sword Design Map, Cleaver Design Map, and a Mutant Creature's Egg]
What a haul!