Unexpected

After only one night, when Zhang Tie woke early the next day, completed his morning practice in the tent, and stepped outside, the sight before him gave him a great shock.

Standing beside his tent and looking into the distance, Zhang Tie immediately spotted many more people among the ruins with his Dark Vision. Without it, the fluorite lamps hanging from their waists gathered together like fireflies overrunning the fields on an early summer night—everywhere.

Over the past two days, Zhang Tie had formed a rough estimate of the Prospectors and assorted people gathered around these ruins: roughly ten thousand, including the more than three thousand members of the Tribal Alliance's advance party. But just the densely packed, swaying points of light before his eyes might already number over twenty thousand.

How had so many people arrived all at once?

The question flashed through Zhang Tie's mind.

But Zhang Tie's temperament was no longer comparable to that of an ordinary young man. Though puzzled, after glancing once at the distant lights and pondering briefly, he left the camp on his own and calmly washed up at a water source not far away.

Underground, water was naturally indispensable. A person could bring enough dry rations to last a month, but it was difficult to carry a month's worth of water, making it particularly important.

Water dripped down from the ceiling of the rock cavern hundreds of meters above, pattering down like rain over an area of several square meters and forming a small pool on the ground.

After inspection confirmed that the water had no toxic side effects, the Tribal Alliance's advance party sent people to seize this water source. It could barely supply the daily needs of roughly three thousand people in the advance party.

As he washed up, Zhang