District 666, Worse Than the Valley of Villains

[Regional Channel 666 (Abandoned Forest) 9983/10000]

In just one morning, seventeen people had died.

No one knew how they had died, but one thing was certain: this forest was far more dangerous than Lan Qingyou had imagined.

It also served as a new warning for Lan Qingyou. She would have to be much more cautious whenever she went out from now on.

"I'm so hungry. Has anyone found a Material Treasure Chest? Can you spare me something to eat?"

"You can find one or two treasure chests just by wandering around outside. You obviously haven't even left your Shelter, you stupid freeloading bastard. Go die."

"Online beggars have started begging their way to Karim too?"

"Help! My Shelter is in a tree, at least thirty meters off the ground. Can someone save me?"

No one could save him. He should just look for a Vine nearby and climb down himself.

"There are wolf packs in the forest. Be careful when you go out gathering."

So the things that had targeted her last night were wolves. She had thought they were some kind of Devilish Creatures she had never seen before.

"Whatever you do, don't drink the creek water. I only took one sip, and my whole body started feeling terrible. I'm still having diarrhea."

The Creek Water couldn't be drunk?

That made no sense. Didn't it look perfectly clear?

When she saw that message, Lan Qingyou unconsciously sat up straighter.

She had not planned on drinking it, but she had considered using the Creek Water to bathe and wash her clothes.

If there was something unclean in it, wouldn't her hope of bathing and changing clothes go down the drain?

Lan Qingyou immediately swiped down to keep reading.

"Diarrhea? Does your Shelter have a toilet?"

"I found a treasure chest."

"What?! You actually found a treasure chest? Boss, hurry up and tell us what was inside!"

"Just a 500-gram loaf of bread, a bottle of water, and a box of Facial Tissue."

"You found water, so why did you drink the creek water?"

"I drank it before I found the treasure chest."

"Are you selling the bread? Two basic units."

"Fuck off. Do you want the treasure chest I used to hold my shit too?"

"Boss, why are you so sure it was the creek water? It looks crystal clear and doesn't seem polluted at all."

"Hmph, alarmist nonsense. I drank some too, and I feel fine."

"I only realized something was wrong after I came back carrying the treasure chest. I checked my Personal Information, and it said the Magic Power concentration in my body had exceeded the limit."

"Magic Power concentration exceeded? So the water has too much Magic Power, and the human body can't handle it?"

"How the hell would I know? Get lost, all of you! Stop bothering me while I'm squatting on the toilet."

"Are you squatting on the toilet, or squatting on a treasure chest?"

"Hahahaha..."

For a moment, the Chat Channel was filled with cheerful laughter.

Magic Power concentration exceeding the limit?

That was certainly a fresh concept.

But when she recalled the World Will saying, upon their arrival yesterday, that "even the air is filled with abundant Magic Power," it seemed only natural that the creek water in this world would have a high Magic Power concentration as well.

Rather, it was already fortunate that they could breathe air containing Magic Power without being poisoned.

No wonder the Material Treasure Chests were all filled with Blue Star products. Was this a buffer period the World Will had left for them?

Lan Qingyou frowned as she pondered it.

Just then, someone suddenly popped up in the channel and began swearing viciously. It was impossible to tell who he was directing it at.

Judging from his avatar, he was a bearded man with cloth wrapped around his head, dressed in a typically Indian style.

After he had cursed for a while, the others pressed him repeatedly before the man finally explained what had happened to him.

"Fuck! Everyone, be careful! That guy called James Bellberman is a scammer! That bastard said he'd trade me an axe for my Pickaxe yesterday, but after he cheated me out of my Pickaxe, he refused to give me the axe!"

Well, that cleared things up.

Lan Qingyou still remembered the talk about trading last night. So he had been scammed.

They had arrived in a completely unfamiliar environment, yet he had trusted someone he had never met.

Lan Qingyou had only one thing to say about that: he deserved it.

"Scammer? Aren't you talking about yourself, Asan Singh? Don't think I don't know you were sent to prison for fraud two years ago. And you still have the nerve to call someone else a scammer."

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Before James could say anything, someone jumped out and began arguing with Asan Singh.

After that, the tone of the conversation seemed to go completely off the rails.

"Yo, yo, yo. Isn't this Nalin? What, quit smuggling and become the morality police instead?"

"Heh, I was wondering who was barking like a dog. Isn't this Wu Gang, who was nearly beaten to death for illegal logging?"

"Hahaha, I didn't notice last night, but there sure are a lot of familiar faces today!"

"Shut up, Shelter. You still haven't paid me that money from last time. Just wait. Don't let me find out where your Shelter is, or I'll kill you."

"Ha! Kapeng, do you still think you're some kind of Godfather? We're in another world now. Can't you be realistic?"

"What the fuck? What kind of Valley of Villains is this? There are so many criminals."

"666. Did the Will of Karim World put all these criminals together because it wants them to fight like poison insects in a jar?"

"What damn heavenly law did I violate to end up in the same district as a bunch of animals like this?"

"Not bad, not bad. I'm really looking forward to seeing what new tricks you people born in the Abandoned Forest come up with."

"Hehehe, dogs biting dogs. I love watching it."

"Very good. I've memorized all your faces. Be careful when you go out. Don't let me run into you, or you'll regret it."

"Oh my, I'm so scared. My poor little heart is pounding. If you're so capable, come through the network cable of the Magic Desk and kill me!"

"Fuck!"

"Damn terrorist scum! Blue Star has been unified for so many years already. How have you not died out yet?!"

Even Lan Qingyou could not help pinching the bridge of her nose as she looked through the chat logs.

Good lord.

After looking through everything, more than half of the ten thousand people in the Abandoned Forest seemed to be criminals.

Robbery, theft, murder, fraud, corruption, poisoning, espionage, arson, drunk driving, smuggling, poaching, human trafficking, extortion, threats, counterfeit goods, fake documents...

Whatever crime one could think of, Channel 666 could find the corresponding "talent."

It had everything.

And if they were not criminals, they were members of the Troublemaker Faction.

Lan Qingyou even spotted the avatars of the tall, sleazy man and the short, scar-faced man who had sneaked into her room last night.

To borrow someone's words from earlier—

What Abandoned Forest? This place was even more of a Valley of Villains than the Valley of Villains.

Still, as long as she was careful and avoided all of them, they would not have much impact on her.

After finishing a coconut bread and an apple, Lan Qingyou cleaned up the trash. She went outside, used Gathering Art once to strip more Vines from a tree trunk, then returned to her Shelter carrying the Vines.

[Vine +20]

Hmm! Still twenty?

Remembering the number of Vines from this morning, Lan Qingyou frowned slightly. Then she flew back out and used Gathering Art on a tree.

Perhaps because the tree was too large, one use of Gathering Art merely felt like scratching its surface. Soon afterward, chunks of Wood fell to the ground.

Lan Qingyou deliberately counted them as she picked them up. There were still twenty pieces.

She then tried it on a rock. It was still twenty pieces.

Could the basic unit Gathering Art could collect be twenty?

If so, that happened to correspond to the Magic Power it consumed.

With her eighty points of Magic Power and a recovery rate of one point per minute, she could collect eighty basic units in one hour and twenty minutes.

More than three thousand basic units of materials could be gathered in just forty or fifty hours—two or three days.

If she used a weapon to chop them down, the time might be shortened even further.

But unfortunately, unlike the others, she could not keep swinging a weapon after her Magic Power ran out.

She had to rest for more than an hour before her Magic Power fully recovered.

That was also why she had brought that alchemy notebook back.

Lying there without doing anything, unable to do anything, was truly painful.

Even though she now had the Magic Desk and could read the chat, she could not keep staring at that meaningless nonsense all day.

She did not know what alchemy was like in this world, but at least it could serve as a diversion.

As for the E-Rank Devilish Creature Crystal Core, if nothing unexpected happened, it should be something dropped by the creatures that had watched her last night.

Which meant she had to fight monsters...

That gave her a headache.

Because she had no means of attack.

Forget it. She would restore her Magic Power first. She could think about the future later.