Chapter 63: (Part 3) The Fourth World [9]

Exploring a Spherical City

Shu Heng still held her metal bow. “Empty words are not enough. If you’re willing to give us valuable materials as a pledge, we’ll consider cooperating.”

“It seems we’re not the ones without a cooperative spirit,” the tall girl said, her guard up even higher. She began to slowly back away.

“Don’t leave my sight, or I’ll consider you an enemy,” Shu Heng’s voice turned cold. “The next time we meet, it won’t be a polite greeting.”

The tall girl hesitated. She didn’t want to become enemies with these two survivors who looked like they were not to be messed with, but she also thought their suggestion was too much.

“I can give you a little time to think about what to use as a pledge,” Shu Heng said, softening her tone. “We haven’t cooperated before. I have no basis of trust for you. You should be able to understand that, right?”

Shu Heng’s goal wasn’t to demand materials. It was to hold the two girls’ attention so Li Jianwei could climb the ladder to see what was at the top.

If there were a key clue, like a note, then whether they cooperated or not wouldn’t matter.

If there was nothing, it might mean the key clue was on the dangerous-looking floor -5. In that case, four people working together would indeed be better than two, as the margin for error would be much higher.

While Li Jianwei was climbing the ladder, the tall and short girls introduced themselves. The tall one was Xiao Gao, and the short one was Xiao Di. They were classmates outside the game, so they had allied without hesitation.

Based on the information Xiao Gao and Xiao Di provided, Shu Heng also told them her and Li Jianwei’s names.

“I’ve seen those names before! Your messages on the world channel are always so useful!” Xiao Di said, raising her voice. Her hostility toward Shu Heng immediately vanished.

In Xiao Di’s eyes, anyone willing to share crucial information couldn’t be a bad person, even if the information was posted a little late.

Shu Heng was a little surprised. “You’ve seen our messages on the world channel?”

“To be honest, when we saw your reminder that pufferfish hide in the seaweed, we were about to explore underwater through a pipe. Your information helped us avoid the danger and find a key clue,” Xiao Gao said truthfully, her hostility also fading.

“We’re willing to cooperate, but we have limited materials. We can only give you one titanium ore and one set of metal ore as a pledge.”

Xiao Gao noticed that the other person was continuing to move forward, but she felt she had no right to question it.

It was undeniable that Li Jianwei and Shu Heng had cleared the monsters here. If they hadn’t come, all the materials here would probably belong to them.

Xiao Gao’s suggestion made Shu Heng’s heart flutter a bit. Titanium ore was very rare. Even one piece was a good sign. And a whole set of metal ore was something they might not even get after clearing an entire large island.

“We can cooperate, but you have to follow my arrangements. We’ll take sixty percent of the basic materials you get, and you’ll take forty. Special items will all be ours. If there’s a clue, I’ll share it with you,” Shu Heng said.

She paused for a moment. “If this cooperation goes well, we might also be able to cooperate when we explore the next destination.”

After all, they were destined to get notes with the same number. If it was meant to be, maybe they could cooperate from the moment they landed the next time.

Xiao Gao’s heart was set on it. Two strong and reliable teammates were hard to come by. If it worked out, everyone’s life would be much easier.

Before Shu Heng and Xiao Gao could reach a full agreement, a message from Li Jianwei arrived first.

[Li Jianwei: Found a blueprint for a radio and two sets of clothes up here. I’ve put them in my backpack. There’s also an exchange station here where we can use the gold coins we got to shop. They have seeds for special crops, silver seaweed, titanium ingots, and some clothes. There’s no danger, and I haven’t found any item limits for now.]

[Shu Heng: Okay. I’ve pretty much reached a preliminary agreement with them. We can start to cooperate.]

Five minutes later, Li Jianwei successfully climbed down the ladder, looking down at Xiao Gao and Xiao Di.

Shu Heng had already reached an agreement with them. They would hand over two titanium ores and a set of metal ore as a deposit, and they would listen to Shu Heng’s arrangements during the search.

“So what you’re saying is what I’m saying. We’re going down to meet them?” Li Jianwei asked, pointing to the rope that led to the ground. It was their only way down.

“You go to the first floor. We’ll meet at the wishing fountain in the middle,” Shu Heng said.

“Okay, we’re on our way,” Xiao Gao said, relieved. She held Xiao Di’s hand and walked back.

…

Twenty minutes later, the four of them met successfully at the wishing fountain and put names to faces.

The tall one was Xiao Gao, and the short one was Xiao Di. They used their surnames, which made them easy to remember.

Fortunately, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng were also names that Xiao Gao and Xiao Di often repeated, so they also only needed a second to remember who was who.

Upon learning that exploring floors required elevator key cards, Xiao Di immediately took out her weapon and prepared to act. Then they found out that the guard robots weren’t hard to deal with; the hard part was finding them.

“I can give you key cards, but you have to hand over the materials as agreed,” Shu Heng said, pulling out an elevator key card.

“Okay. Should we meet here after we’re done exploring?” Xiao Gao asked.

Shu Heng nodded. After they reached an agreement, they split into two teams.

Trust is built step by step, and searching for materials separately was the first step in building trust.

Shu Heng wouldn’t tell them that there might be an important clue on floor -5 as soon as they agreed to cooperate. Similarly, Xiao Gao and Xiao Di wouldn’t immediately reveal their intentions and be willing to charge into battle for the sake of an “online friend” who had once helped them.

A building usually had two to three floors that could be explored, and they could find at most one gold coin.

Shu Heng’s way of determining whether they were lying was simple: she would see if they were willing to hand over the gold coin.

If they had other unexpected gains, it would mean that Xiao Gao and Xiao Di were trustworthy people.

Exploring one building took about an hour and a half. After a successful meeting, Xiao Gao not only gave them a gold coin but also provided a food recipe and the agreed-upon three-fifths of the basic materials.

Shu Heng accepted everything, then nodded to Li Jianwei. “You can use the gold coins to exchange for some valuable materials at the highest floor. You only need to give us half, and you can keep the rest.”

“The elevator in that building can go to floor -5. My suggestion is for us to explore the other floors first to see if we can further improve our self-defense capabilities.”

Shu Heng continued, “We’ll go to floor -5 tomorrow morning at eight. Since you were able to find this place, I don’t think I need to remind you what to prepare, do I?”

Xiao Gao nodded. “We’ll wait for you here at seven-thirty.”

“Be careful. We still don’t know the monster respawn time. If you can’t defeat them, you can retreat to the elevator and wait for us to come back,” Shu Heng said, giving them a friendly reminder.

She then gave them three key cards, agreed to meet at the fountain before dark, and went back to the raft with Li Jianwei.

Xiao Gao and Xiao Di were also honest people. They gave Shu Heng the special items they found, keeping only two gold coins. As a sign of sincerity, Shu Heng promised to help them craft titanium swords. Considering how rare titanium ore was, she would only charge ten metal ores as a processing fee.

With this, the trust between the two teams increased a lot.

…

Li Jianwei sat cross-legged on the bed and checked the world channel. Information about the spherical city began to appear, and more people had successfully found the city than she had expected.

[Kong: Looking for a friend to explore together. My path is blocked by containers and I need someone to cooperate with.]

[Scorpio: Don’t get bitten by the mutated rats. It comes with a debuff that reduces your attack power for an hour.]

[QingHe: Can anyone tell me how much health you lose if you get electrocuted in the planting area?]

[lu: Meow haha, I caught three giant salmons in an hour. Call me Fishing King!]

Li Jianwei laughed at the most recent message, then typed and sent a message on the world channel.

[Li Jianwei: With a full set of armor, you lose 55 health. It’s best to add some buffs beforehand.]

[Shu Heng: Be cautious when cooperating. Don’t easily entrust your life to an unfamiliar stranger.]

After they sent their messages, Xiao Gao and Xiao Di also provided some information, answering two small questions.

“Looks like they have good character. Many survivors know them and are thanking them on the world channel for sharing information,” Li Jianwei said.

“That’s good. At least we don’t have to worry about being betrayed during our adventure tomorrow,” Shu Heng said, beginning to tinker with the radio Li Jianwei had found at the highest point.

“Isn’t there a repair option? Do we need to put a battery in it?” Li Jianwei asked.

“I don’t think so. Look at the lucky cat; it’s been waving its paw for so long,” Shu Heng said without looking up, continuing to fiddle with the radio.

“This is a game, after all. Some things can’t be explained by common sense. Take us, for example; we can eat endlessly but never get full, and we don’t have other biological needs.”

Li Jianwei stroked her chin, then said after some thought, “It’s not that we don’t have them at all. At least when I’m lying with you, I have biological needs.”

Shu Heng: …

Fine. If that counts as a biological need, then she had them too.

After a lot of tinkering, Shu Heng pressed the power button, and the radio made a crackling sound.

After a little adjustment, the radio began to play soothing music that sounded very sleep-inducing. But it was only one song that would loop after about ten minutes.

“It’s nice to listen to, but it’s a shame there are no obvious buffs,” Li Jianwei sighed.

“Maybe we just haven’t found a way to use it yet. Let’s just keep it on. Maybe it’ll surprise us one day,” Shu Heng said, putting the radio on another shelf.

“Go to sleep. We have a tough fight tomorrow,” Shu Heng said, habitually rubbing Li Jianwei’s head.

Li Jianwei’s head was resting on Shu Heng’s soft spot. “We came back early today, and we’re in great shape. How about we wait another two hours to sleep?”

Shu Heng immediately understood what Li Jianwei meant. She thought about it for a second and then moved her hand off Li Jianwei’s head.

Li Jianwei smiled happily and put on her new clothes, ready to get to work.

Unlike the beginner outfit, Li Jianwei was now wearing a pilot-like uniform that looked very sharp.

To give Shu Heng a better experience, she even put on the captain’s hat she had before, attempting to have a uniform-play.

Shu Heng instinctively clutched the captain’s hat, thinking to herself that she shouldn’t have indulged Li Jianwei so much, which had led to her having more and more physical needs. She would start whining and complaining if they went three days without it.

Although doing it several times wouldn’t make her tired, Shu Heng still felt it was better to keep a close eye on the frequency. Otherwise, when they left the game world, she might not be able to handle the same level of passion.

Shu Heng’s mind was soon cleared of those thoughts. As the times increased, Li Jianwei had a precise grasp of her weaknesses.

Whether by hand or by tongue, Li Jianwei could make her surrender, leaving her to just hold her and make sounds that would make anyone blush.

…

After they were full and well-rested, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng took their supplies and once again entered the underground entrance.

The good news was that the mutated rats hadn’t respawned, so they could go straight to the elevator.

The bad news was that all the guard robots had respawned and had to be cleared again.

But this wasn’t really bad news. At least the guard robots would still drop elevator key cards, which they could use to clear more buildings and get more supplies.

Not to mention, Li Jianwei and Shu Heng now had helpers. All they had to do was give them some elevator key cards and they would get a ton of supplies in return.

Li Jianwei and Shu Heng had arrived early, and so had Xiao Gao and Xiao Di. When they reached the ground level, there were still a lot of guard robots that hadn’t been cleared yet.

Xiao Di immediately took out her weapon and began to clear the guard robots. Xiao Gao, on the other hand, helped while secretly observing Li Jianwei and Shu Heng’s movements.

When she saw that the two of them could almost permanently stun the guard robots, Xiao Gao was shocked. She was also grateful that she had been honest yesterday and hadn’t kept any special items for herself out of selfishness.

The big players were big players for a reason. One person’s combat power was almost the same as both of them combined. If they had a conflict, they might not even be able to take down one of them, even if they fought to the death.

Shu Heng didn’t miss Xiao Gao’s gaze. Seeing the admiration in her eyes, Shu Heng was quite pleased and looked away from her.

The four of them, wearing full sets of armor, stood in the elevator. After confirming that they were all in good shape, Shu Heng pressed the -5 floor button.

As the elevator descended floor by floor, all four of them felt a change in temperature.

The surrounding temperature was dropping very quickly. In just five seconds, Xiao Di couldn’t help but rub her hands together to warm up.

“Are you very cold?” Shu Heng asked, and the elevator door opened.

What greeted them was a huge fish tank that looked like the entrance to an aquarium, surrounded by many working cooling units.

“Achoo—” Xiao Di couldn’t help but sneeze. “It’s cold. It feels so cold. The temperature here must be close to zero.”

“Check to see if you have any debuffs. If you do, go back first,” Shu Heng said. She was wearing a casual suit set, which was another one of Li Jianwei’s finds yesterday.

“Could that thing be in here too?” Li Jianwei didn’t feel cold either and took the initiative to go forward and observe the huge fish tank.

Xiao Di didn’t retreat. She took out a food item with a buff and ate it, then followed the two of them.

“Do we need to turn off the cooling units around us?” Xiao Gao asked, her weapon in hand, vigilantly watching her surroundings.

“Not yet. Let’s not split up. Check if there are any other exits or hidden monsters and eliminate any threats,” Shu Heng said, unable to stop herself from looking at the fish tank again.

It looked no different from a big fish tank in an aquarium, but Shu Heng felt uneasy.

The four of them nervously circled the area. They didn’t find any monsters, only four thirty-second timers and explosives.

“You don’t think they want us to do demolition work, do you?” Xiao Di couldn’t help but say. “Do we have to blow up this huge fish tank? But it seems to be connected to the floors above, not just floor -5.”

Xiao Gao followed her partner’s gaze and looked up. There was a ceiling, and the center was hollowed out.

“Let’s look again. Maybe we have to blow up the walls to find a path to the floors above,” Shu Heng said.

So they split into four teams. Each person began to explore, some tapping on the walls, some on the floor, and others attacking the walls with their weapons.

Twenty minutes later, the four of them, who had found nothing, met back at the elevator entrance.

“Thirty seconds is theoretically enough time for us to install the explosives, activate them, and take the elevator up,” Shu Heng said, seriously analyzing the feasibility. “Should we try it?”

“But if we successfully blow it up, can we still take the elevator down?” Xiao Di asked sincerely.

“Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know the power of these explosives. We’ll have to try to find out,” Li Jianwei joined the discussion. “I’m the fastest. I can get into the elevator ten seconds after I activate it. Including the elevator’s running time, we should have no problem getting back to the first floor.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t we try to blow it up from the top?” Xiao Gao offered her suggestion. “Going down floor by floor should give us a higher margin for error than blowing it up directly from floor -5, right?”

After Xiao Gao’s words, the other three began to brainstorm.

Considering they had four explosives, they unanimously agreed with Xiao Gao’s proposal. They used the elevator as a reference point to roughly estimate the center of the fish tank and then attached the explosives to the floor.

“You all go a bit further away. I’ll come back after I activate it,” Li Jianwei was still responsible for the demolition.

Li Jianwei was the fastest among them. With the boosts from her drinks and food, she could run about four hundred meters in thirty seconds, which was enough to get behind another building.

“I’ll send you a message when we’re there,” Shu Heng said, not being coy. This speed test had to be done by the fastest person.

“Okay. Awaiting orders, leader!” Li Jianwei saluted. With her uniform, it looked quite convincing.

She couldn’t say she wasn’t nervous, but she wasn’t scared.

Li Jianwei patiently waited for the command on her friend channel. When she saw Shu Heng’s message saying “in position,” she pressed the activation button and dashed out like a cheetah.

Bang! Bang!

Li Jianwei could clearly hear her own heartbeat. The safe spot was chosen to be behind a nearby building, about three hundred meters away in a straight line.

Before the explosives went off, Li Jianwei had already reached her destination, but the momentum was so great that Shu Heng, who had her arms open to catch her, had to take three or four steps back to keep her steady.

“Reporting, leader. Mission accomplished!” Li Jianwei whispered into Shu Heng’s ear.

Boom!

A huge explosion sounded, kicking up a lot of dust and rubble.

Xiao Gao was worried that rubble might fly toward them, so she shielded Xiao Di with her body, just like Li Jianwei had held Shu Heng.

Fortunately, the building blocked all the rubble. Only the dust reached behind the building, making them cough a few times.

“Was it a success?” Xiao Di peeked her head out from Xiao Gao’s arms, looking at the area still covered in smoke.

The demolition spot was well-chosen, avoiding the building’s main load-bearing walls, so they didn’t have to worry about the high-rise being destroyed.

The building wasn’t destroyed. Only a hole was blown in one floor, revealing the floor of the -1 level.

“Looks like it’s still not enough. Do we have to blow up the floor below too?” Xiao Di asked.

Xiao Gao held Xiao Di’s hand. “But how do we hide? We didn’t find a way to get from the -1 floor to the 1st.”

Li Jianwei and Shu Heng stood shoulder to shoulder, both leaning down to observe.

“The power of the explosion is about what we expected. We can hide behind a wall on the -1 floor,” Shu Heng concluded.

“But just to be safe, you should all hide outside. I’ll do the demolition and then hide. I’ll send you a message when I’m successful,” Li Jianwei said, turning to look at Shu Heng. “The explosives are all the same, so the power shouldn’t be too different.”

Xiao Di seemed like she wanted to say something, but Xiao Gao squeezed her arm, signaling her not to speak.

Their job was to follow Shu Heng’s plan and not offer their own opinions on such a crucial matter.

“The buff from my food hasn’t worn off yet. I can hide very far away, much farther than you can,” Li Jianwei said beforehand, cutting off Shu Heng.

“Okay. Give me the remaining two explosives. You can only use one,” Shu Heng said, then jumped through the hole to the -1 floor.

Li Jianwei followed closely. Xiao Di and Xiao Gao also jumped down one by one, helping to figure out a better place to hide behind.

They finally decided on a spot about one hundred and fifty meters away from the blast zone. The structure of floors -1 and 1 were slightly different, so they couldn’t just create a straight path for Li Jianwei to run.

“You all go up and wait for me. I’m already very familiar with the escape route,” Li Jianwei said with a smile, promising Shu Heng. “You’ll see I’ve successfully completed the mission again in a moment.”

Shu Heng silently nodded, leaving her a healing ointment.

The recipe for the ointment was found yesterday. The ingredients were relatively rare, so they had only made one. They didn’t know how effective it was yet.

Boom!

The explosion sounded three minutes later, followed by a message from Li Jianwei.

[Li Jianwei: Only a little bit of dust. I’m safe. Mission complete~]

Shu Heng couldn’t help but relax, motioning for Xiao Di and Xiao Gao to jump down.

Li Jianwei was already waiting at the hole. This time, the explosion didn’t expose the floor of -2. Instead, it was a giant fish tank with a broken section.

This meant that the fish tank the four of them had seen on floor -5 took up about four floors.

If they had chosen to do the demolition on floor -5, the water that spilled out would have flooded the entire floor, and the elevator would likely have been scrapped as well.