The chest vanished after being opened, revealing three items inside: a Sanctuary upgrade blueprint, a hard card, and a bottle of Red Liquid.
[Use Sanctuary Upgrade Blueprint?]
"Use it."
[Please collect ten Aberrant Organs from unranked Aberrant Creatures as materials for the Sanctuary upgrade (0/10).]
*Unranked? Aberrant Creatures? Aberrant Organs?*
Lin Ye hurried out of the room and returned to where he had dissected the Blood Corpse. He drew his dagger and sliced off the creature's most abnormal part.
[Submit Aberrant Organ?]
"Yes."
The abnormal part disappeared. Checking the System again, he saw that the Sanctuary upgrade mission now read (1/10).
"So all I need to do is kill ten Blood Corpses to upgrade the Sanctuary. That's not so bad."
Although the Blood Corpses were tough to kill, they were ultimately just mutated corpses. Lin Ye hadn't been familiar with them before, but next time, he wouldn't waste so many bullets.
However, fighting a Blood Corpse with a dagger was extremely dangerous. Lin Ye decided to use his Innate Ability to get some more bullets tomorrow before going after them again.
Having obtained the Aberrant Organ, Lin Ye continued searching for locked rooms. After walking briskly for over ten minutes, he finally found the next one.
He used the Red Key to open the door. Inside this room was another Redwood Chest. Opening it, he found it filled with bread and mineral water.
The contents of the two chests were completely different. Perhaps the chests came in different types, each holding different items.
Lin Ye packed the items into Backpack No. 2. He still had food back at the Sanctuary, but in a situation like this, the more food reserves, the better.
After walking for a while longer, Lin Ye came across a fork in the path that was different from the others.
It was a straight corridor with no rooms, its length stretching out of sight. It was still the same dark red color.
Lin Ye drew his dagger and proceeded cautiously down the corridor. After about a thousand meters, he finally reached the end, where a set of double doors stood.
*Don't tell me there's a boss behind this door.*
Lin Ye pushed the doors open. Beyond them was a large, square hall. The doors he came through were on one side of the square. On the opposite side was another set of red double doors. To the left was a mahogany door, and to the right was a dark red metal door with a lock on it.
As he approached the wooden door, a prompt appeared before his eyes:
[Leave the Red Maze early?]
"No."
There was no danger at the moment, so Lin Ye was in no hurry to leave.
Approaching the metal door, Lin Ye received another prompt:
[First contact with a special room. Door automatically unlocked.]
The lock vanished, and the metal door swung open on its own. Inside was an ordinary Red Room, but unlike the others, a dark red pedestal stood in the center of the room with a glass jar on it.
The jar was filled with a dark red liquid, and floating inside was an eyeball.
Lin Ye picked up the glass jar, placed it in his backpack, and carefully inspected the room one more time to make sure he hadn't missed anything before leaving.
He pushed open the double doors on the opposite side. Behind them was another identical long corridor. Lin Ye glanced at the time; there were 20 minutes left until the exploration ended.
Lin Ye had been conserving his stamina in case he ran into any monsters, but now it was about time to pick up the pace.
He ran swiftly through corridor after corridor. With five minutes left on the countdown, Lin Ye found another locked room.
He opened the door. Inside was another mahogany chest.
The chest contained several bottles of Red Liquid, a few hard 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 items into his backpack and went out to continue exploring the nearby rooms. The countdown was about to end, leaving him no time to search for another locked room.
Before the countdown finished, Lin Ye found a few more Red Coins in a pile of trash.
Footsteps sounded from outside the door, but the countdown had already hit zero. Lin Ye was back in his Sanctuary.
…………………
(994,759/1,000,000)
One exploration mission, and over two thousand people died.
The System's communication function was disabled inside the Red Maze, so as soon as the exploration ended, the group chat exploded with messages.
"Damn! I'm finally back! I was trapped in a room by a zombie for two hours!"
"Fuck! I almost didn't make it back. Good thing I'm a fast runner!"
"Did you guys find any chests? I only found some Red Coins."
"I opened one chest. Besides the Sanctuary upgrade blueprint, I only got two bottles of some unknown liquid."
"Huh? How do you upgrade the Sanctuary? Can you share the blueprint?"
"The blueprint is one of the upgrade materials. Everyone needs to get their own to raise their Sanctuary's tier."
"So many people died. I'm glad I didn't go."
"Heh, you're only guaranteed to get a blueprint from a chest in the first three days. After that, the appearance rate of chests will also decrease."
"What?"
"Anyone know where to get Aberrant Organs?"
…
Once the flood of messages in the chat slowed down, Lin Ye posted a picture. It was an image he had taken with the System while cutting out the Aberrant Organ.
"Goose Leg Bro? Why are you posting pictures of fresh meat instead of goose legs?"
"Wait, isn't that a zombie? Bro, you killed one?"
"Awesome! I didn't even dare to leave my room, and this dude is already killing zombies."
"What's so hard about killing a zombie? Give me a weapon, I'll aim for the head, one shot one kill."
"The guy above definitely didn't go. Do you think those are the fucking trash zombies from the movies? I work out regularly and I'm pretty strong for a normal person, but that damn zombie was faster than me, stronger than me, and it wouldn't die even after I smashed its head in. It even transformed! The thousands who died were all killed by zombies. I just got lucky and have a decent Innate Ability, otherwise I wouldn't have made it back either!"
"Exactly. I didn't run into one, but everyone who dared to go on the mission is at least somewhat capable. For so many to still die, those zombies must be incredibly hard to deal with."
Lin Ye: Hold on, everyone. I'm going to post some relevant information.
After Lin Ye spoke, the chat group of nearly a million people gradually fell silent.
It wasn't that Lin Ye's words were particularly powerful, but that this information was directly related to the life and death of everyone here. No one wanted to die.
Lin Ye then posted the information he had gathered in the maze to the group, phrasing it in the simplest, most understandable way possible so that even those who weren't the sharpest could understand what to do next.
Lin Ye: I believe the Aberrant Organ is the Aberrant Creature's weak point. I did manage to hit it in the end, but I also fired 10 shots. It's possible the monster just died from attrition, so I advise you all to be cautious.
"You're a legend, bro!"
"Thanks for sharing the info, bro. May you live a long and peaceful life."
To read the uncut version, go to pawread dot com.
"Sigh, ten Blood Corpses is way too hard. This upgrade is going to be tough."
"Wait, bro, where did you get a pistol?"
Lin Ye: If I can use my Innate Ability to trade for goose leg rice, why can't I use it to trade for a pistol?
"What kind of god-tier Innate Ability is that? I want an Innate Ability that can get me goose leg rice too."
Proofreader: Peter Pan