Deep-Sea Exploration

The Synthesis House had a wealth of blueprint templates. By spending the required materials, he could craft the items shown on them.

[Common Coral Staff: Coral (0/1), Aquatic plants (0/1)]

[Fine Coral Club: Coral (0/4), Copper ingot (0/1)]

[Coral Spear: Coral (0/1), Iron ingot (0/5)]

Xiao Hao looked through the densely packed blueprint templates. Most were for weapons and protective clothing, with relatively few for everyday necessities. Those mostly covered various clothes, water purifiers, farming tools, and the like, each requiring entirely different materials.

The scrolling comment on his phone had long since disappeared. Apparently, the comments expired after a while.

Xiao Hao did not blindly open the door. They called this a game, but it was nothing like the farming games he used to play, where he could start over after losing. Here, losing would very likely cost him his life.

He had to be cautious, cautious, and then more cautious still.

The entire morning passed just like that. Xiao Hao saw no more comment hints and could only keep waiting patiently.

He left the supplies in his Space Slot untouched. Food was scarce, so he had to save whatever he could.

By the time noon had passed, the posts on the forum had grown increasingly chaotic. Most were complaints, wails, and furious curses...

Xiao Hao skipped the useless information, searching the forum for any possible survival tips.

Before long, he found a few relatively useful posts.

"Oh my god! The Coral Shell Room keeps the seawater out because it has magic power! And that magic power is limited!!!"

Xiao Hao jolted up from the bed. Magic power?

If someone else had discovered this information, they must have found a hint inside their room.

Xiao Hao approached the wall and examined it carefully. Its chaotic colors could easily have caused him to overlook something.

Inspecting it inch by inch, Xiao Hao finally found a little object resembling a dim gray screen, set a little higher up in a corner. It was barely noticeable amid the wall's jumble of colors.

Magic power: 955 L

Magic power used: 45 L

Xiao Hao sucked in a cold breath. This already difficult survival game had just become even worse.

One thing did surprise him, though. This "magic power" was actually measured in liters. Was that because they were deep underwater?

Roughly four and a half hours had passed since he woke up, so he could estimate that the room consumed about ten liters of magic power per hour.

In other words, the Coral Shell Room could only last a hundred hours-a little over four days.

Perhaps the game had more hidden information. Xiao Hao continued browsing the forum.

"Hooray! I just went exploring and found a Common Coral Treasure Chest! It had all kinds of everyday supplies inside. The only downside is that the Exploration Bubble uses a lot of magic power. I suggest everyone move fast when exploring outside. Once you find something, get straight back to your room. Don't dawdle out there!"

Exploration Bubble?

Xiao Hao had just checked the Exploration Bubble's function. The system only said it was essential for going outside, not that it consumed magic power too!

Perhaps the Coral Shell Room would not even last four days.

Xiao Hao carefully examined the various pictures people had posted on the forum and finally found one related to the Exploration Bubble.

It looked a lot like Aquaman from the DC movie he had watched.

Underwater, Aquaman could use his powers to create a bubble around his entire body, filling it with air instead of seawater.

Apparently, that was what the Exploration Bubble did. Judging by what that player had said, it probably consumed magic power at a considerable rate.

Xiao Hao browsed back and forth through the forum several more times without finding anything else useful. Just as he was about to mentally close the game panel, scrolling comments suddenly appeared on it.

[This guy's really lucky. The Deep-Sea Ghost left. It's relatively safe to go outside now.]

[He probably doesn't know the Exploration Bubble consumes 1 L of magic power per minute. In previous rounds, plenty of players ran out of magic power in their Coral Shell Rooms halfway through exploring, and the seawater suddenly crushed their entire bodies!]

[Lucky? I wouldn't say that! There's a Prehistoric Spiny Shrimp watching him twenty meters outside his door. Get within two meters of it, and it'll attack.]

[Down on that dark seabed, he might not even know what killed him!]

[Huh! There's actually a clutch of Shadow Seahorse Eggs ahead on his right! If he gets them before they hatch, he'll have an amazing start!]

[But if they hatch before he gets his hands on them, this player is done for.]

[Even if he gets them, he won't know how to use them... If it were me, I'd choose the coral treasure chest on the left.]

As the comments appeared one after another on the floating game panel, Xiao Hao decided to try trusting what they said.

Once he had made his decision, he did not hesitate. Xiao Hao turned the doorknob, and a wall of water stood before him.

Even with the light from the Coral Shell Room, visibility on the seabed was only a meter or two.

The Exploration Bubble function on the game panel lit up. Xiao Hao took a deep breath and reached outside, testing whether his hand would touch the seawater.

Just before he touched it, the wall of water abruptly dented inward!

Reassured, Xiao Hao slowly walked out through the doorway. The seawater around him flowed backward, leaving him inside what seemed to be an air bubble about two meters in diameter.

As his second foot left the room and landed outside, a chill traveled from his soles straight to his heart. His hair instantly stood on end.

He looked down. The dark red ground outside was slightly muddy, as though it had been made from a mixture of shattered bones and minced flesh.

Xiao Hao's heart sank. This game might be harder than he had imagined.

Recalling the hints from the comments, Xiao Hao turned left and walked forward. After only a few steps, everything went dark. When he looked back, he could no longer see the Coral Shell Room. Pitch-black darkness filled his vision, leaving only the faint glow of his phone screen.

Xiao Hao clearly remembered that he had not turned off the lights in his room.

Yet after just a few steps, the light coming from the Coral Shell Room seemed to have been completely swallowed.

Could this seawater swallow even light...?

Xiao Hao turned on his phone's flashlight. It illuminated the inside of the Exploration Bubble normally, but the moment its light passed through the bubble, its range dropped sharply. It could only light up about a meter ahead.

Xiao Hao aimed the flashlight behind him and faintly made out part of the Coral Shell Room's outline.

Good. The Coral Shell Room was still there.

Having confirmed his way back, Xiao Hao immediately continued forward. The Exploration Bubble consumed magic power, so he had to find the treasure chest mentioned in the comments as quickly as possible.

After following a winding route and searching for several minutes, Xiao Hao finally found the coral treasure chest.

The whole chest looked as though someone had splashed paint over it, its chaotic colors tinged with dull gray.

The chest was neither particularly large nor particularly small. Carrying it would take at least two hands, and Xiao Hao did not have a third hand to hold his phone and light the way...

Surely the game would not have such a glaring flaw. Xiao Hao opened the game panel and tested its functions one by one, finally finding a collect function in the Space Slot.

When he had familiarized himself with the game panel earlier, there had been no collect function at all.

This game had quite a few traps. It did not even explain its basic functions.

Xiao Hao did not spend much time thinking about it. He simply used the Space Slot to collect the chest.

As for opening it, that could wait until he got back. He could not waste magic power.

After walking back for a while, Xiao Hao returned to his room. He hesitated, but ultimately decided to retrieve the Shadow Seahorse Eggs mentioned in the comments too.

Since the comments had been telling the truth, the Shadow Seahorse Eggs were probably real as well.

He had no way of knowing when the eggs would hatch, so the sooner he brought them back, the safer he would be.

Perhaps the comments would tell him how to use the eggs. Even if they did not, he could still nip the danger in the bud before they hatched.

Having made his decision, Xiao Hao stepped outside again and felt his way in the direction the comments had indicated.

After a full ten minutes of searching, his unease grew stronger and stronger.

Visibility was too low. Xiao Hao's arm ached from holding up his phone, but he did not dare lower it.

If the flashlight went out, he could die at any moment on this seabed, where the darkness was so complete he could not see his own hand.

The comments had given him a direction but no distance, making the search rather difficult.

The sound of flowing water reached his ears from time to time, occasionally joined by the cries of various creatures. To Xiao Hao, they sounded like the calls of enormous sea creatures in fantasy movies he had watched.

Several more minutes passed, and Xiao Hao's brow furrowed deeper and deeper. If he did not find the eggs soon, he would have to return. The Coral Shell Room did not have enough magic power for him to waste like this.

Just as Xiao Hao was about to give up and turn back, he spotted a small mound of dark red earth.

Several pitch-black little spheres, each about the size of his thumb, lay nestled in its center.

Xiao Hao hurried over, opened the game panel, and collected all the little black spheres.

The Space Slot displayed the names of the supplies it held. In the Space Slot after the treasure chest, the label clearly read "Shadow Seahorse Egg ×8."

Found them!

Xiao Hao breathed a sigh of relief and turned to head back to his room, just in time to see the comments floating in the air.

[Holy crap! Did he lift the Goddess of Luck's skirt?! Why does he keep stumbling across good stuff?!]

[With so many livestreams, there are bound to be one or two especially lucky players.]

[It's not that great. Good fortune comes with bad. He's found plenty of good stuff, but the Deep-Sea Ghost is back.]

[At the Deep-Sea Ghost's speed, it'll probably reach him within thirty seconds.]

Thirty seconds?!

Cold sweat broke out on Xiao Hao's forehead. He had spent more than ten minutes looking for these eggs!

Now he had to get back to his room in thirty seconds!

The moment he saw that last comment, Xiao Hao spun around and sprinted, rapidly retracing the search and his route in his mind.

Although he had spent more than ten minutes searching, the eggs were tiny, forcing him to move very slowly as he looked for them. In fact, he was not that far from the Coral Shell Room.

The comments had only given him a general direction, so he had followed a winding route while searching, afraid of missing the eggs.

Sprinting straight back to his room would cover far less ground than the route he had walked to get here.

By his rough estimate, the straight-line distance to the Coral Shell Room should be no more than a hundred meters.

There was still hope!

The fire of survival blazed in Xiao Hao's eyes.

With his vision obstructed, Xiao Hao could not sprint at full speed. He shone his flashlight at the ground while rapidly recalling the subtle features along his route, making sure he did not go the wrong way.

Fortunately, those ten-plus minutes of careful searching had helped him memorize the terrain along the way. Without remembering these landmarks, it would be all too easy to lose his bearings on the dark seabed.

"Thump... thump..."

Xiao Hao's heart pounded wildly. He struggled to calm his panic. If he could not stay calm now, he would certainly die!

I could do this!

I could survive. I had to!

Xiao Hao had never felt a hundred meters could be so long.

Faster!

Even faster!

An icy sensation kept traveling from Xiao Hao's soles to his heart. Sweat covered his forehead, yet his entire body felt freezing cold, every hair standing on end.

At last, Xiao Hao saw the faint glimmer of light coming from the Coral Shell Room! At that same moment, a piercing, shrill female ghost's laugh rang out behind him.

That shrieking laugh seemed to unleash Xiao Hao's hidden potential, making his all-out sprint a little faster.

With his life hanging in the balance, Xiao Hao had no time to think. He charged into the Coral Shell Room with everything he had!

The moment Xiao Hao rushed through the doorway, the exhilaration and joy of surviving flooded his entire body. Yet in that very instant, the smile spreading across his face froze.

The female ghost's claws had actually broken through the wall of water and pierced Xiao Hao's pajamas. She clutched the fabric at his back in a death grip, her claws gouging bloody streaks into his back!