Chapter 14: Calamity Mutant Infection
[Your Dantian successfully increased its Yuan Power by 7 points after a night of diligent cultivation, successfully catching up to your Spirit Attribute!]
[Your body successfully increased its constitution by 2 points after a night of diligent cultivation, successfully catching up to your Spirit Attribute!]
[Ding! Your Three-Dimensional Attributes have reached equilibrium!]
Upon waking up, the first thing that caught his eye were these three pleasant notifications.
Seeing this, Lin An's lips curled up. He quickly got up to wash up and, while he was at it, gave the dutiful Tiger a good pat.
After washing up, Lin An went to the dining table to browse the forum while eating breakfast.
Title —[I really want to level up! I truly don't want to go back to being a Refugee doing odd jobs. Are there any veterans willing to carry me?]
Below this post were replies from a group of players.
"Some people start as Refugees? Aren't we all supposed to be guards suffering from a strange invasion when we appear?"
"No, buddy. Why am I a beggar?!"
"Well, I'm slightly better than the guy above. I'm a lost traveling merchant."
Lin An chewed his bread slowly, feeling an inexplicable urge to laugh as he looked at everyone's strange and varied starting identities.
However, he found that these starting identities generally shared a common point: either they were born in the Novice Village but were currently suffering a strange invasion...
...or they were a certain distance away from the Novice Village but could generally arrive before the end of the day.
However, he hadn't seen anyone else who started off being led by a Pseudo-human, like himself.
Of course, it could be survivor bias.
Players who encountered monsters leading the way might not have survived at all, naturally preventing them from posting on the forum.
Furthermore, most players seemed to be only level one now, and the occasional level two player was enough to be called a veteran by others.
Lin An thought this was normal. If he hadn't had the cat face mask at the start, even if he had luckily escaped the pursuit of the Pseudo-human, it would have been impossible to level up to level two or even close to level three so quickly.
Having no desire to speak for the time being, Lin An became a spectator, browsing the forum online.
[Damn it, a group of cockroaches mutated! The biggest level three cockroach is a whole meter long! @Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau, please save us quickly!]
[Everyone, I recently discovered that the female ghosts in the Ruins World are quite charming and well-preserved.]
[Holy crap, bro! I woke up and there's a red embroidered shoe outside! Waiting online, very anxious!]
"The Blue Star is also becoming increasingly dangerous. It seems absolutely necessary to have the avatar stand guard at night."
Lin An pondered, his eyes flickering.
Currently, most posts on the forum were requests for help and questions, though a few people expressed interest in teaming up to level up.
However, there weren't many responses to these team-up invitation posts, as the Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau had made it very clear earlier that only players who delivered the final blow could obtain experience points and treasure chests.
Under these circumstances, issues of unequal distribution of spoils and mutual suspicion could easily arise.
Moreover, rather than teaming up with a stranger, it was far more reliable to join the Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau directly.
As he continued browsing the forum, a title quickly caught Lin An's attention.
[Attention friends in Linjiang City, the recently circulating virus is extremely abnormal, initially speculated to be a Disaster invasion.]
Seeing this title, Lin An clicked on it immediately.
After all, he was currently inside Linjiang City, and the reason he had chosen to go out shopping earlier was due to a warning from the CDC, prompting him to stock up on supplies.
He had felt that the virus was strange even back then, and it seemed he was right.
[According to current intelligence, the virus is preliminarily speculated to be caused by the Calamity —[Mutant Infection].
Mutant Infection: A Conscious Calamity. Early symptoms of infection include fever, dizziness, and body aches. In the middle stage, some organs begin to gradually mutate, and the mortality rate rises sharply during this period.
If the infected person manages to survive until the late stage of the virus, they will transform into grotesque Mutated Beings.
Most Mutated Beings cannot retain their sanity, and their combat power largely depends on whether their mutation direction is reasonable. However, every Mutated Being has the ability to infect others a second time!
Note that besides humans, animals and plants can also be infected by the Calamity!
Currently, the source of the Calamity infection is unknown, but killing the source can effectively curb the spread of the Mutant Infection.
If anyone has any information regarding the source of infection or the Mutated Beings, please inform us. The Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau will certainly reward you handsomely!
Signature: Xie Lin, Director of the Linjiang City Branch of the Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau]
Lin An had previously seen in the calamity encyclopedia that Calamities could be roughly divided into two types: Conscious and Unconscious.
Conscious Calamities usually have a core called the source of calamity.
By simply eliminating this core, the danger posed by this type of Calamity will be drastically reduced.
However, if it is an Unconscious Disaster, which leans more toward a natural disaster like extreme cold, high temperatures, or floods, one can only silently resist it.
The reason the primal hearth is so important and becomes the core of every stronghold faction...
...is not just because it can deter strange Demonic Evils, but more importantly because this strange structure has a powerful ability to mitigate natural disasters, thereby establishing a relatively safe zone.
"Mutant Infection... it feels like I woke up and entered a biological apocalypse."
"However, this should be quite different from a zombie crisis."
Lin An thought to himself. In a normal zombie apocalypse, even a dog bitten by a zombie would be infected and turn into a zombie dog.
But this Alienation Virus only gains infectious capability when it reaches the final Mutated Being stage, and most people cannot survive until that stage, which conversely slows down the rate of infection.
He looked out the window. The streets outside seemed completely normal at the moment.
But Lin An hadn't forgotten that quite a few people had actually contracted the epidemic before he transmigrated. They should only be in the early stage of infection now.
Thinking that countless people in this city might die because of this, Lin An's expression gradually grew serious, and he then glanced at his panel skill.
[Tiger-Bird Technique, Current Proficiency: minor accomplishment!]
Skill proficiency is divided into beginner, minor accomplishment, great accomplishment, and perfection.
After a night of passive cultivation, his Tiger-Bird Technique successfully upgraded from beginner to minor accomplishment. The speed was so fast that Tian Sheng and others would probably weep upon seeing it.
However, the familiar game countdown still hadn't popped up.
According to the explanation from the Supernatural Ability Administration Bureau on the forum, the entry time for the Ruins Game is always erratic. The only certainty is that one can definitely enter the game once within three days.
Even after becoming a formal player, the game only starts the countdown half an hour in advance, emphasizing the randomness of the timing.
Lin An glanced at his experience bar, which was already at 80%, and his eyes moved slightly.
"Three days... staying put isn't the way to go."
In this Era of Great Competition, failure to advance means falling behind. After all, the apocalypse won't wait for him to slowly increase his strength.
"So... I choose you, Tiger!"
Lin An looked at Tiger and immediately said, "Go patrol the vicinity. Kill any monsters you can find, especially level two ones."
"It's best if you can take care of them quietly. If you are seen... as long as it's not too exaggerated, it shouldn't matter much. The internet is about to undergo a massive change anyway."