The mutated tiger’s carcass left the five-person team deeply shocked, and their movements while exploring the warehouse became exceptionally cautious.
Chen Song remained at the front of the group. Although the warehouse had already been swept by someone else, he still dared not let his guard down in the slightest. If possible, he desperately wanted to talk to the others—his team had a spatial ability user and a water-type ability user, which could stably guarantee a supply of resources. Since everyone was heading to the survival base, it would be safer to stick together.
“Monkey” and “Yellow-hair,” who were responsible for bringing up the rear, felt a bit of regret. They had been too loud with their mockery earlier, and they didn’t know if the other party had heard them and was now harboring resentment.
Furthermore, both of them were just ordinary physical enhancement types; while their body’s resistance was higher, their combat power was simply incomparable to true ability users. The other party had killed such a terrifying mutated tiger as if it were nothing; if they had offended such a powerhouse with a few trash-talking comments, they would truly be bringing disaster upon Brother Song.
Only Chang Xinxin, walking in the middle of the team, touched her hair with a calm expression, glints of sharp calculation flashing in her eyes.
A spatial ability user, huh? No matter where you go, you never have to worry about not being accepted. If the other party’s strength was greater than Chen Song’s team, then jumping ship wouldn’t be a bad choice.
Especially since she was harboring a secret.
The five-person team, each preoccupied with their own thoughts, finally reached the food section on the first floor.
Chen Song pushed open the slightly ajar door and discovered that the interior was completely empty.
“They were here, but they must have left,” Chen Mei said, pointing to the footprints on the ground.
“But it seems like they didn’t take much. The packaged food on the shelves here hasn’t been moved. They probably went to the basement cold storage.”
Hearing this, Monkey and Yellow-hair both let out a sigh of relief.
The basement cold storage was better. The basement and the rooftop terrace were separated by several floors of concrete, so even someone with “super hearing” wouldn’t be able to listen in from that far away.
“What are we waiting for? Hurry up and collect the supplies!” Yellow-hair said excitedly.
“Go back, collect as much as you can while no one is here, and take everything useful. If we have to face them when they come back… it won’t be easy to sweep the place clean!”
“Is that really okay?” Chang Xinxin touched her hair, her face filled with hesitation.
“My space is 100 cubic meters. If I fill it all up, I can clear out over a dozen shelves. What if someone else wants some too?”
“Then choose a wider variety of items,” Chen Mei suddenly spoke up.
“100 cubic meters isn’t that big, but it isn’t small either. There are so many things in the warehouse that we can’t possibly take them all. We just need to take some of everything.”
Chang Xinxin couldn’t argue with that proposal. She glanced at Chen Mei; the other girl met her gaze without showing any weakness, and then both of them simultaneously looked away.
Chen Song didn’t say anything. His thoughts were still on the crystal core and the tiger carcass. He had a premonition that the survivor team he hadn’t met yet might possess more information about evolution that could solve his current predicament.
At the same time, in the basement cold storage, Lin Xia was nervously processing the mutated tiger’s hind legs and tail.
Time waited for no one. Since the other team showed no intention of coming down yet, he had to take the opportunity to grab some progress on his task. After all, the orange-level task had a 24-hour time limit, and more than half of it had already passed. If he got bogged down in a standoff with the other team, the remaining time would be even tighter.
“It’s best if we don’t run into them; otherwise, we can’t explain the stall cart,” Lin Xia pointed upstairs and lowered his voice. “Should we sneakily head to the third floor while they’re busy collecting supplies?”
He still needed to find a way to get ingredients from the Zenith Star samples, but he didn’t know the current situation in the third-floor logistics area or whether there was something more dangerous than a mutated tiger inside.
To guarantee the dish ratings, Lin Xia only used the mutated tiger’s hind legs and tail to create recipes this time, and as expected, he received two more “Excellent” ratings.
However, he also received a warning because he had tried to combine more recipes with limited raw materials; the submitted food quantity was significantly reduced compared to before, resulting in the rating system rejecting his submission directly and giving him a penalty for “cutting corners.”
His task progress was deducted by a small portion; if he was found doing similar things again, the task would be judged a failure immediately.
In this way, the margin for error for the orange-level task became even lower. The remaining three dishes had to be 100% excellent; even if just one didn’t meet the standard, the progress bar would never reach the end.
“Let’s go to the third floor,” Chi Zheng decided.
He had been a man of few words since childhood, only speaking a bit more to Lin Xia. He hardly spoke to outsiders and was too lazy to engage in interpersonal relationships.
The only world Chi Zheng ever acknowledged consisted of him and Lin Xia. Everyone else was just background noise or drifting clouds in his eyes, completely unworthy of attention.
When other teams suddenly appeared in the warehouse, there was a fleeting moment where Chi Zheng wanted to bundle Lin Xia up and leave, to go to a no-man’s-land where no one would disturb them, or perhaps to the empty and quiet clouds above.
Fortunately, he controlled this dangerous impulse in time, because normal humans wouldn’t choose to leave the group at this time—it was counterintuitive, and perhaps Lin Xia would be afraid.
But now, it was Xia Xia himself who proposed avoiding other humans. With such a good opportunity, how could Chi Zheng not agree?
“Get on, I’ll carry you to the third floor,” Chi Zheng squatted down, signaling for Lin Xia to climb onto his back.
Lin Xia was a little shy. “Do you really need to? I can walk myself…”
“I move faster upstairs, and my footsteps are light; they won’t discover us.”
“Once we get to the third floor, I’ll go inside first to check the situation. You wait by the door, and I…”
Before he could finish, he was rejected by Lin Xia.
“You can’t go in alone.”
He pointed to himself. “We’ll go in with the stall cart. It’s been upgraded twice and can now withstand 6 attacks from mutated beasts. It’s safer to drive it.”
Chi Zheng wanted to say that the things on the third floor weren’t like the mutated crows outside, but he swallowed the words.
So what if they’re different? He had already killed the most powerful one, and the remaining ones weren’t that dangerous; this would just be a perfect test of the stall cart’s strength.
He nodded, and the two reached a consensus, tiptoeing their way upstairs.
As a result, just as they reached the landing on the first floor, they ran straight into Chen Song, who was guarding the door.
Lin Xia’s heart sank, and his eyes showed a look of defense.
He was just about to speak when he saw Chi Zheng, who was in front, walking past Chen Song without a word, his footsteps never pausing and not sparing the other man even a single glance.
As he passed Chen Song, Lin Xia sniffed the air, feeling as if he had caught a strange scent. It was very faint, similar to perfume, but it also held a rotting stench; either way, it didn’t smell good.
He subconsciously leaned closer to the back of Chi Zheng’s neck, wanting to use that familiar scent to wash away the olfactory impact.
“Hmm?” Chi Zheng tilted his head.
“I’ll walk myself.”
Since they were already exposed, why bother being sneaky? He might as well walk openly and honestly.
Chi Zheng was a little reluctant, but in the end, he set him down and held his hand instead.
Lin Xia stood tall with his head held high, feeling quite imposing, though in reality, contrasted against Chi Zheng beside him, he looked quite petite and cute.
Chen Song stood still on the side, not moving until the shadows of the two vanished into the stairwell. Only then did he slightly loosen his stiff joints.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to step forward and chat just now, but for one instant, a sensation of nearly overwhelming threat had washed over him, almost causing his knees to buckle and forcing him to his knees.
Simply standing upright was the last bit of his dignity!
Chen Song wiped away his sweat.
Yes, that’s right—it happened when that tall man appeared.
He couldn’t describe what kind of state that was, but all the hair on his body had stood up, the temperature of his arms had risen sharply, and his heart rate had reached an extreme limit.
But that guy just glanced at him once and pulled the youth behind him away. Not a single extra word; he treated him completely like a puff of air.
Chen Song let out a long breath of relief.
He wasn’t angry because of the other party’s disregard; instead, he felt a joy of surviving a disaster.
Regardless of who those two were, he had now completely abandoned the idea of trying to pry information from them. His instinct told him that they weren’t people he could afford to offend, so he should just honestly collect supplies and try to find a way to the survival base.
Lin Xia and Chi Zheng successfully made it to the third floor.
The door to the third floor had been deformed by the mutated tiger, but one could faintly hear things moving inside.
“Are you ready?” Chi Zheng asked Lin Xia.
Lin Xia nodded.
He stood by the door; as soon as Chi Zheng pulled the bolt, he would release the stall cart to block the entrance and endure the first wave of attacks from the mutated beasts.
“Three, two, one!”
With two metallic clack sounds, Chi Zheng pulled the door open, but he carefully avoided the safety chain so that the door would only open to a certain angle.
Lin Xia immediately released the stall cart, and then he and Chi Zheng hid inside, carefully observing the situation within.
The first thing to fly out were a kind of moth, each the size of a palm, moving at incredible speeds; as soon as the door opened, they crashed straight into the outer shell of the stall cart.
Ping—!
The stall cart swayed, but there was no damage. Lin Xia opened the attribute panel and found that the car’s durability and defense had not changed, indicating that the impact of these flying moths hadn’t reached the level of damage dealt by the mutated crows.
“There are too many of them. I’ll go down and clear a wave first,” Chi Zheng said.
At this time, the safety chain had been stretched to its limit, and a large lizard was desperately trying to squeeze its way out. It was a good half-human tall, with an unusually large head; caught in the doorway, it could neither get out nor go back, so it could only futilely extend its long, thin mouthparts, which looked like a mosquito’s, and spray corrosive saliva randomly outside.
Lin Xia pulled the stall cart backward because he discovered that the lizard’s saliva caused the cart’s durability to slowly decrease. Although the values were only in the zeros or hundredths, they added up to quite a bit of wear and tear, which made Lin Xia’s heart ache a little.
By this time, Chi Zheng had already dealt with all the mutated moths and fixed his gaze on the mutated lizard currently squeezing its way out.
To be precise, he fixed his gaze on the plump hind legs of the mutated lizard.
Hmm, although the taste is just average, it makes up for it in size and meatiness. It’s better than having to deal with those fluttering moths.
Decided—it’s you.