Short-term goals

The already cluttered living room was now a complete wreck. Two barely clothed corpses lay on the floor, with foul-smelling filth spread all around them.

Combined with the sweltering weather, it filled the entire living room with a nauseating stench that went straight to his head.

The overturned sofa, open refrigerator door, and food scraps scattered across the floor made it clear that the two madmen had spent the past few days eating the ready-made meals in the fridge without even heating them.

"My Zunle sausages! You animals!"

Seeing the box of sausages he had ordered online-ones he usually could hardly bear to treat himself to-torn open, Lin Hao felt a pang of regret.

He quickly glanced at the living room's front door, then relaxed a little when he saw that it was closed.

Probably because there were still two "familiar faces" in the bedrooms, the madmen, incapable of much thought, had stayed here like hunters waiting beside a stump for a rabbit to run into it.

"Maybe they would have gone out looking for food once they got hungry enough, or even killed each other. But after eating everything in the fridge, they probably could have lasted another few days."

Lin Hao made that guess without much certainty.

Carefully avoiding the Oli Gei scattered everywhere on the floor, Lin Hao headed toward the other room nearby, whose door stood open.

This was the couple's bedroom. Lin Hao wanted to see whether there were any special items he could equip.

Their room was just as messy as the living room, but there was no excrement. Although the two had gone mad, instinct had still kept them from fouling their own nest.

After lifting the bedsheet with his bloodstained wooden ruler and finding nothing, Lin Hao began rummaging through the cupboards and drawers.

"Huh?"

Lin Hao opened a jewelry box. His eyes lit up at the gold jewelry inside, which gave off a faint blue glow. He had actually found something!

[Gold ring]

[Value: 117 wish power]

[Weight: 5 grams]

[A valuable item. Wearing it might make others sense your wealth, but it might also attract covetous eyes.]

Besides the ring, there were a gold necklace and a gold bracelet. Their properties were much the same, though their wish power values differed according to their weight.

Their total value came to over five hundred wish power!

Although they were worth far more than his iron wok, none of these pieces had any special properties. They seemed to exist solely to hold wish power.

According to the information the Earth Will had transmitted, items were roughly divided into gray, white, green, blue, purple, gold, and red grades. Blue quality was already fairly high.

Gold was not particularly abundant, and people had certainly invested it with special significance. That value seemed reasonable enough.

"No wonder the gym wants gold as well as food. But wish power conversions are only settled when you return after entering a Teleportation Point, so I'll just have to keep it on me for now."

Lin Hao put away the jewelry box and sighed inwardly. Perhaps these were the three gold pieces the young couple had prepared for their wedding. They had gone mad, but before that, they had just been ordinary people.

That inevitably made Lin Hao think of his own family. His parents and younger sister were all thousands of kilometers away. He had no idea what things were like wherever they had landed in this world, or whether he would ever see them again in this lifetime...

He glanced at the iron wok in his equipment slot. From thousands of kilometers away, his mother had saved him once again...

"Sigh..."

He patted his cheeks to pull himself together. Lin Hao knew this was no time to indulge in melancholy.

If he wanted to see his family again, he first had to stay alive!

"Gold items are valuable, but they don't produce immediate results. Equipment is still more practical."

Lin Hao glanced at his equipment slots again. At present, he had slots for both hands, his head, upper body, lower body, and footwear. The total weight of his equipment could not exceed thirty-eight kilograms, and the weight in either hand could not exceed twelve kilograms.

However, from the information he understood after concentrating, his equipment weight limit would rise as his overall capabilities improved. He could also unlock additional slots for things like accessories, as well as equipment-switching slots.

Clearly, though, those extra features were not within immediate reach. First, he needed to find a way to fill his current equipment slots.

"Judging by the wok, equipment with special effects should have some particular significance. There might not be much of it, but there are so many households in this apartment building. If I search carefully, I should eventually fill every slot."

That was the short-term goal Lin Hao set for himself. Sooner or later, he would have to investigate the Teleportation Point, but he was not yet out of ammunition and provisions, so there was no need to rush.

Sharpening an axe did not delay the woodcutting. His practice over the past few days was proof of that-the effort he had put in deserved much of the credit for how cleanly he had handled the fight.

He had also spent a long time preparing himself mentally, which was why he had achieved such a result.

Otherwise, even with the enchantments provided by his equipment slots, victory in a two-against-one fight would not have been guaranteed.

This was no game. One slip could end his life. Even the slight weakness he had felt afterward from the tension of his first fight had been something he had not anticipated!

If his other roommate had become a madman too, he would have been in real trouble.

"I don't know what things are like at the Teleportation Point, either. It would be best to wait until the first group comes back and ask them."

According to the information transmitted by the Earth Will, the Teleportation Points in different residential areas might lead to different worlds. Initially, however, each had only one destination world. Arrival locations were random weak points in space, and groups of up to four could arrive together at the same randomly chosen location.

On subsequent visits, they would arrive at a weak point near the place where they had last returned. As residents worked together and contributed more wish power, new worlds would open once their contributions reached certain thresholds.

The Earth Will would also help translate the speech of intelligent, spiritually aware beings, but people would have to find their own ways to learn to read and write different scripts.

Yet even with the rules laid out clearly, no one could say what the destination worlds were actually like!

"The apartments all have security doors. Forcing them open would take too much effort. But I should be able to find keys or key cards for the guesthouse on the two floors above. There's also that young locksmith from the lock shop living on the seventeenth floor..."

With the threat blocking his door dealt with, Lin Hao sorted through his current situation.

Food was not an immediate concern. His own supplies would last several more days, and if he really searched the apartment building, he ought to find at least some more.

He would not rob people in occupied rooms, but anything in the madmen's rooms or unoccupied rooms was fair game.

As for the locksmith on the seventeenth floor, the apartment management had caught him plastering locksmith ads everywhere, and he had loudly insisted that he lived here. Later, when Lin Hao's office key snapped inside the lock, he had called that young man. After exchanging a few words, he had learned the broad details.

If the guy had not gone mad, Lin Hao could try to rescue him.

"First I'll search the guesthouse, then go to the seventeenth floor. If he's still alive, I can slowly search the apartments and work on my fitness at the same time. At the very least, I need to learn to pace myself. If he's gone mad or isn't there, I'll need to prepare to head for the Teleportation Point."

For now, the guesthouse upstairs looked like the safest option. Having killed two madmen already, Lin Hao had not immediately become overconfident, but he had at least found a little faith in himself.

As long as he could keep each individual encounter one-on-one, even a single equipped iron wok gave him considerable killing power.

Lin Hao pulled out several magazines in the couple's bedroom and secured them beneath his belt. He also tore off a relatively clean section of bedsheet and wrapped it around his left hand.

With the long jeans he had deliberately changed into, the wok lid in his left hand, a fruit knife tucked into his pocket, and his empty backpack on his back, he was more or less outfitted to head out.

"I probably won't find any armor, but padded coats or down jackets would make decent equipment too. And although I can't immediately cash in the gold, items worth that much are probably rare. I should collect as much as possible..."

Once he was ready, Lin Hao left the bedroom and approached the front door. He first peered through the peephole, then pressed his ear against the door and listened for a while. He detected no movement.

But even with his hand already on the doorknob, he paused briefly and glanced back at the other closed bedroom door, hesitating a little.

In the end, he went back and knocked on it.

"Xiao Wen, are you all right?"

Dressed in the Yoga Outfit, the gracefully curved Zhao Xiaowen was crouched in a corner of her room, hugging her knees and hardly daring to breathe. When another knock sounded outside and she heard Lin Hao's voice, she involuntarily sucked in a cold breath.

Hiss...

It's over. Another one's gone mad!

--

Note: All units and numbers, including those used in the worlds explored later in the story, are automatically converted through translation. This will not be repeatedly emphasized.

Gold is relatively rare. Also, colors only indicate quality. In theory, it is perfectly normal for a sufficiently large gray item to be worth more than a tiny amount of a high-grade item.

Higher-quality equipment does not necessarily have better properties.