kilometers away in the new safe zone, the regiment commander Jia Weixin sent people to probe the ghostly nest of the alien tribe.
An outcome led by one who surpassed the first extreme, accompanied by ten combat superpower users nearing their first limits, all returned severely injured.
Fortunately, those alien entities did not chase after them; they seemingly could not leave that area.
As daylight broke, the entities disappeared. The densely packed buildings at what they thought was the 'alien tribe' location turned into a vast wasteland.
Yet, they still couldn't leave, utterly trapped here.
It was as if everyone collectively fell into a maze, unable to leave no matter the direction, automatically coming back.
To escape the increasingly rising temperature from behind, Jia Weixin gritted his teeth and decided, during the day when the entities wouldn't appear, to have everyone cross the ruins ahead.
Since they couldn't bypass it, they would go straight through, taking a chance to attempt a turnaround.
...
One hour later, daylight fully brightened, and the external temperature intensified.
The rising temperature caused the plants in the Stone Mountain District to wither visibly, consuming oxygen rapidly, as if the entire world distorted, resulting in very poor visibility.
However, Yang Yuan and his two companions ignored the outside conditions, focusing on their tasks.
"Another hundred experience points gained, the speed is fast!"
Yang Yuan smiled slightly and continued assembling the coolers.
This time, with no one assisting by passing parts, even though he was very familiar with the procedure, he could only assemble a hundred coolers in an hour, gaining a hundred experience points.
This was already a very fast speed; making crossbow parts on his own only earned him ten experience points in an hour.
Commensurately, in nearly every hour, he would earn about a hundred experience points.
Approaching noon, they drank the blood of the Ancient Lynx to satiate their hunger, replenishing a little water, then continued earning experience.
In the afternoon, a sudden wildfire broke out in the distance, engulfing a mountain in a blink.
The fire started dozens of kilometers away from them.
But this scene made Yang Yuan, focused on gaining experience, change his expression; could the temperature really ignite dry grass?
Or, was some creature the cause of the wildfire?
Regardless, this place was no longer safe!
"The fire over there, will it spread here?" Zhao Jiayan expressed some concern.
"Judging by the wind, it shouldn't, but we should keep some distance just in case, otherwise it would be troublesome if the wind changes," Yang Yuan said.
"Let's find a spacious area nearby without plants," Zhao Jiayan suggested.
"Alright. You guys pack up, put those coolers in the box, leave the ones I reassembled, discard them, don't mix them together. I'll use the Firepower Flying Disc's radar to look for such a spot nearby,"
Yang Yuan said, glancing at his personal experience, directly stepping out of the Safe House, upgrading while walking into the distance.
[LV.8: 900/128 (Upgradable)]
...
[LV.9: 772/256 (Upgradable)]
...
[LV.10: 516/512 (Upgradable)]
Nearly consuming 400 experience points altogether, he directly leveled up to ten.
Yang Yuan felt a significant boost in physique and strength, even a drastic improvement in his neural responses.
Upon reaching level ten, he suddenly felt like he encountered some threshold.
However, this threshold had no meaning for him.
Because in the instant he consumed experience to level up again, the threshold broke.
"Boom—"
Yang Yuan felt a buzzing in his head, his essence transformed at this moment.
A few seconds later, when he came back to himself, he found his five senses greatly enhanced, with genuine clarity in sight and hearing, his whole being seemed to have undergone some kind of metamorphosis.
[LV.11: 0/2]
"Is level ten to eleven a checkpoint?"
He understood internally, a slight glimmer of smile in his eyes: "I might now be considered a minor superman, right?"
Initially, he thought his ability did not enhance his physique and strength.
It turned out that initially, because the experience needed for each upgrade was very little, the upgrades brought very minute boosts, negligible indeed.
However, by now, each upgrade cost significantly more experience, making the enhancement from leveling up very apparent.
"Wait, why has the experience needed for upgrading changed?"
Suddenly he realized that after reaching level eleven, the next upgrade required only two experience points.
It was one more than when moving from level one to level two.
Originally, there should have been some experience left, but that residual experience disappeared directly.
"Did the way of gaining experience change? Or... was there a complete refresh?"
His brows furrowed slightly but he wasn't overly worried, figuring he would find out after trying.
[Power Armor LV.5: 2286/1600 (Upgradable)]
"Has the Power Armor's experience maxed out as well? Let's upgrade it then."
With a thought, Yang Yuan upgraded the Power Armor too.
As the thought concluded, the Power Armor was enveloped in white light, seeming to be optimized in certain details, with the armor shell originally heating quickly outside the cooler's radiation range now cooling rapidly.
Additionally, the original camouflaged shell seemed to possess some optical stealth properties, blending with the surrounding environmental colors, remaining unnoticed without careful observation.
About half a minute later, the upgrade finished.
[Power Armor LV.6: 686/3200 (Now a genuine Power Armor; radar maximum radius 800 meters; not upgradable)]
The level six Power Armor, with joint dynamics reaching at least eighty kilograms, should have felt very heavy due to the vastly improved shell quality, but Yang Yuan didn't feel any weight at all.
It was as if he was merely wearing clothing.
This feeling was very comfortable.
He tried scanning the surroundings with the radar that came with the Power Armor and found the terrain map identical to the radar map from the Firepower Flying Disc.
Understandable, after all, they're products from the same place.
Not wasting any more time, Yang Yuan remotely controlled the radar of the Firepower Flying Disc to scan the surrounding environment.
A huge radar terrain map appeared in the virtual view.
At first glance, he saw the battlefield a thousand meters away, where the main force and elite stone monsters had fought, flattening hundreds of meters of the stone forest, without any vegetation.
"That spot's a good landing point, plus the Safe House we'll upgrade later; even if the fire comes over, there's no need to fear."
Continuing to use the radar from the Firepower Flying Disc, Yang Yuan searched for a more suitable place.
Nonetheless, he didn't find a better location but identified the culprit that triggered the wildfire, dozens of kilometers away.
On the radar map, a three to four meters high beastlike entity moved slowly, with cracked ground in its wake and surrounding vegetation bursting into flames.
That beast's body was notably shriveled, like a desiccated corpse.
"Could it be the Drought Fiend?"
Yang Yuan's expression changed: "Has the Drought Fiend come this close?"
However, wasn't the mythical Drought Fiend supposed to be humanoid?
And in his previous life's memory of hearing about the Drought Fiend, it was also supposed to be humanoid, how did a beastlike Drought Fiend appear suddenly?
"Let's go see!"
Yang Yuan immediately controlled the Firepower Flying Disc to ascend high in the air, flying towards that direction.
Once hovering over the approximate location, he activated the Firepower Flying Disc's camera, zooming in to clearly see the Drought Fiend's true form.
It was a beast resembling a saber-toothed cat, extremely robust despite its desiccated flesh.
Though there were no flames on its body, the ground cracked quickly in its path, and surrounding vegetation caught fire, causing the wildfire.
When the place it stood cracked entirely, it would move to another vegetated place to reignite, periodically advancing bit by bit, rather than charging ahead in one go.
Yang Yuan couldn't help recalling the mythical descriptions of the Drought Fiend.
He had forgotten the specific description, but roughly it meant: the Drought Fiend craved water, yet its power would evaporate it, leading it to perpetually chase after it, causing land to turn barren in its wake.
Though the myth might not reflect reality, the scene before him indeed aligned with the myth's illustration, with the Drought Fiend chasing water.
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