Redwood Chest

The chest disappeared after he opened it. It contained three items: a Shelter Upgrade Blueprint, a rigid card, and a bottle of red liquid.

[Use the Shelter Upgrade Blueprint?]

"Yes."

[Please collect ten Mutation Organs from unranked Mutated Creatures as materials to upgrade your Shelter (0/10)]

Unranked? Mutated Creatures? Mutation Organs?

Lin Ye hurried out of the room and returned to where he had dissected the Blood Corpse. He drew his dagger and cut off the most abnormal part of its body.

[Submit the Mutation Organ?]

"Yes."

The abnormal part disappeared. When he checked the system again, the Shelter upgrade task already read (1/10).

"So I just need to kill ten Blood Corpses to upgrade my Shelter. That's not too bad."

Although Blood Corpses were hard to kill, they were ultimately just mutated corpses. Lin Ye had been unfamiliar with them before; next time, he would not waste so many bullets.

However, fighting Blood Corpses with a dagger was very dangerous. Lin Ye decided to get some bullets through his talent tomorrow before going after them again.

After obtaining the Mutation Organ, Lin Ye continued searching for locked rooms. He walked briskly for over ten minutes before finding the next one.

He opened the door with the Red Key. This room also contained a Redwood Chest. When he opened it, he found it filled with bread and bottled water.

The contents of the two chests were completely different. Perhaps there were different types of chests containing different things.

Lin Ye packed what he had found into Backpack No. 2. He still had food in his Shelter, but in this situation, the more food he stockpiled, the better.

After walking a little longer, Lin Ye came across a branching passage that was somewhat different from the previous ones.

It was a straight corridor without any rooms, its far end out of sight. It was still dark red.

Lin Ye drew his dagger and cautiously advanced along the corridor. After walking about a kilometer, he finally reached its end, where there was a set of double doors.

There won't be a boss behind those doors, will there?

Lin Ye pushed the doors open. Beyond them was a square hall. The doors he stood at were on one side of the square, with another set of red double doors opposite him. On the left was a red wooden door, while on the right was a dark red metal door with a lock hanging on it.

As he approached the wooden door, a prompt appeared before Lin Ye:

[Leave the Red Maze early?]

"No."

There was no danger at the moment, so Lin Ye was in no hurry to leave.

As he approached the metal door, Lin Ye received another prompt:

[First encounter with a special room. Door automatically unlocked]

The lock disappeared, and the metal door opened automatically. Inside was an ordinary Red Room. What set it apart from the other rooms was a dark red pedestal in the center, with a glass bottle sitting on top.

The bottle was filled with dark red liquid, with an eyeball soaking in it.

Lin Ye picked up the glass bottle and put it in his backpack. He carefully checked the room again and only left after making sure he had missed nothing.

He pushed open the double doors opposite him. Beyond them was another identical corridor. Lin Ye checked the time; there were twenty minutes left until exploration ended.

Until now, Lin Ye had been conserving his stamina in case he encountered monsters. Now, he could more or less pick up the pace.

Running briskly through one corridor after another, Lin Ye found another locked room with five minutes left on the countdown.

He opened the room and found another Redwood Chest inside.

The chest contained several bottles of red liquid, several rigid cards, and a red metal key.

This key was clearly different from the previous Red Key. It was probably a key for opening special rooms.

Lin Ye packed these things into his backpack, then went out to continue exploring the nearby rooms. The countdown was almost over, and he no longer had time to look for another locked room.

Before the countdown ended, Lin Ye found a few more Red Coins in a pile of trash.

Footsteps sounded outside the door, but the countdown had already reached zero, and Lin Ye returned to his Shelter.

(994759/1000000)

More than two thousand people had died in a single exploration mission.

The system's communication functions could not be used inside the Red Maze, so as soon as the exploration event ended, a flood of messages appeared in the group chat.

"Holy shit! I finally made it back! A zombie trapped me in a room for two hours!"

"Fuck! I almost didn't make it back. Good thing I ran fast!"

"Did you guys find any chests? I only found some red coins."

"I opened one chest. Apart from a Shelter Upgrade Blueprint, all I got were two bottles of unidentified liquid."

"Huh? How do you upgrade your Shelter? Can someone share the blueprint?"

"The blueprint is one of the upgrade materials. Everyone needs to get their own blueprint to raise their Shelter's rank."

"So many people died. Good thing I didn't go."

"Heh, chests are only guaranteed to drop blueprints for the first three days. After that, the chance of chests appearing will decrease too."

"Huh?"

"Anyone know where to get Mutation Organs?"

Once the messages slowed down a little, Lin Ye posted a picture in the group. He had taken it with the system while cutting out the Mutation Organ earlier.

"Goose Leg Bro? Why are you posting pictures of raw meat instead of goose legs now?"

"Wait, isn't that a zombie? You killed one, boss?"

"Badass! I don't even dare go outside, and the boss is already killing zombies."

"What's so hard about killing zombies? Give me a weapon and I'll hit them in the head. One hit, one kill."

"You can tell the guy above didn't go. You think those are the shitty zombies from movies? I work out, and I'm pretty strong compared to ordinary people, but those fucking zombies run faster than me and are stronger than me. Even smashing their heads doesn't kill them, and they can transform. Those thousands of people died because they ran into zombies and got killed. I only made it back because I got lucky and had a decent talent. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it either!"

"Exactly. I didn't run into any zombies, but everyone who dared to join the mission had some ability. Yet so many still died. These zombies must be really hard to deal with."

Lin Ye: Hold on, everyone. Let me post some relevant information.

Some time after Lin Ye spoke, the group chat of nearly a million people gradually quieted down.

It was not that Lin Ye's words carried so much weight, but that this information was directly tied to the lives of everyone there. No one wanted to die.

Then Lin Ye posted the information he had obtained in the maze in the simplest, most understandable terms, so that even people who were not particularly bright could understand what to do next.

Lin Ye: I think Mutation Organs are the weak points of Mutated Creatures. I did hit the Mutation Organ in the end, but I fired ten shots, after all. It's possible I simply wore the monster down and killed it, so I suggest you proceed cautiously.

"You're fucking awesome, boss!"

"Thanks for sharing the information, boss. May a good person like you live a safe and peaceful life."

"Sigh, ten Blood Corpses are way too much to deal with. Upgrading sounds hard."

"Wait, bro, where did you get a handgun?"

Lin Ye: If I can exchange my talent for goose leg rice, why can't I exchange it for a handgun?

"What kind of god-tier talent is that? I want a talent that can get me goose leg rice too."