Volume 19 Chapter 217 The Terrifying Swamp

In fact, the most dangerous thing in a swarm is not the queen and male worms, but the soldier worms. The strength of bugs lies in their numbers rather than individual strength. Although the level of these male insects is as high as 500, which is one and a half times higher than the level of soldier insects, because there is no numerical advantage, the threat of male insects to us is not as good as the previous soldier insects.

Compared to the male worms, the five queens are actually easier to deal with. These queens, which are slightly smaller than the male worms and drag a huge reproductive sac behind their backs, are level 600 monsters, slightly stronger than the male worms. However, there are only five of them. In comparison, they are very important to us. The repairs become smaller.

I took my demon pets to catch up and killed the remaining male insects in two or three hours. The queens seemed to be magic attack creatures. They had poor mobility, and many of their attack organs were degraded. They were killed when we got close. After only two supports, we killed one of them, and the remaining four queens were all captured alive. Considering that there were not that many tasks, we killed the two captured insect queens and left only two to go back and submit the tasks.

We packed up all the bugs we caught and threw them into the gate of the earth, and then we started on the road again. With previous experience, we are now becoming more and more comfortable in searching for various small bugs.

Most of the bugs that were required to be collected in the scrolls that the Gun God gave me before were not powerful bugs. The real difficulty in the mission was the other bugs that lived with those bugs, not the target bugs themselves. Because I didn't know it before, I brought a large group of magic pets through the market, but in the end, I always scared away those little bugs with no fighting ability in advance. Now, as I gradually master the rules, I have also begun to gradually reduce the amount of magic pets I carry. I only call them for help when needed, and try to act alone as much as possible. Although using this method will make it easier for me to be attacked by a single hidden insect, my reaction is very fast, so even if I am attacked by a sneak attack, I may not be hit every time, and even if I am successfully attacked by a sneak attack, my defense will not be successful. Nothing too dangerous. Compared with the trouble caused by not bringing a magic pet, the advantage in finding the mission target is greater. Because I was acting alone, I generally wouldn't disturb the target insects, which greatly increased my probability of discovering those insects. As a result, it didn't take long to collect almost all the insects mentioned in the mission. Of course, the price paid for this was being dragged into the insect's lair twice, being caught in a tree three times, and being directly knocked down by insects more than a dozen times.

Seven hours later, when luck and plague worked together to force a red super fat insect into the tube of the special container that came with the mission scroll, I finally put away the third to last scroll with satisfaction. .

"It looks like our speed is pretty good." After watching the container containing the bug automatically fold into a ball the size of an orange, I finally saw the dawn of victory. Most people would be exhausted from completing one task at a time. I brought out thirty-three task scrolls at one time, and I had already completed thirty-one of them in just over seven hours. This speed would be a source of pride for anyone. Of course, the reason why I completed the task so quickly is partly due to the fact that there are so many bugs here. I almost don’t need to look for them to see piles of bugs moving around. But having said that, if I don’t complete this task, I will probably suffer from anorexia in the future. Even with my thick nerves, I will be vomited by the insects.

Putting away the third to last scroll, I turned over the last two unfinished scrolls. The remaining two scrolls are special location exploration missions. One involves finding an abandoned laboratory and bringing back the lab owner's research notes. It doesn't seem to be very difficult, but based on my experience in doing tasks, the more seemingly simple the task, the higher the risk.

The other remaining scroll is also an exploration mission, but instead of finding a laboratory, it's to dig a tomb. But having said that, if the tomb is built in a bug nest, the owner of this tomb must have something wrong with his head. It would be more convenient for someone like him to just tell his relatives and friends to cut him up and stuff him into an ant nest when he dies. Wouldn't burying him in this Valley of Insects be like feeding the worms? The secret passages and the like are pretty good at blocking tomb robbers, but I've never seen a tomb that can block bugs. You must know that the bugs in the game are not afraid of lime powder and mothballs.

Although the remaining two scrolls are looking for things like relics, the vegetation in this Bug Valley is definitely more exaggerated than any other leveling area. Don't say that I don't know where those two locations are. Even if I know, if I don't cut down all the surrounding plants, I may not be able to find the building even if I pass by the gate.

After thinking for a long time, I decided to send Rose Vine and Pioneer to help me search directly underground. The plants on the ground are too dense and are not as easy to find from the ground. The cemeteries and laboratories in the game should be relatively large underground buildings, so I believe they won’t be too complicated to find.

Originally, in order to avoid encountering high-level insect swarms and being entangled and difficult to escape, I have been wandering around the outside of the Insect Valley. Facts have also proven that most mission scrolls can be completed on the periphery. Most bugs have no concept of territory and like to scurry around wherever they have nothing to do. Therefore, the types of bugs found in the core area can generally be seen in the periphery, but the population size is smaller. However, now that I can't find the two ruins after wandering around the periphery for so long, I have no choice but to start moving towards the core area.

To be honest, I really don’t want to enter the core area if I can avoid it. The outer area of ​​the Valley of Insects is still a tropical rainforest-like environment, although there are a lot more vines and thorny plants, making it a bit difficult to walk. But I'm wearing a full set of armor, so I'm not afraid of being scratched by these thorny things, nor do I have to worry about being stung by bugs, so the impact on the outer area is relatively small for me. However, once entering the core area, the environment in Lima is different.

Different from the periphery, there are no big trees that block out the sky and sun in the core area of ​​the Valley of the Worms. There are trees here, but they are not very high, and the root system is super developed. You can often see a large area of ​​tree roots 'exposed' above the ground. There is a small tree less than ten meters high growing in the center. Don't think that a ten-meter tree is very big. In reality, a ten-meter-high tree is indeed quite large, but in the game, the basic height of trees starts from ten meters and counts upward. Trees less than ten meters tall can generally only be seen in cities, because they are artificial landscape trees with designed heights.

Except for these strange trees growing here and there, the rest of the core area is basically covered by a variety of messy dwarf shrubs, but these shrubs also grow in a mess. The mess looks like bald spots. In some places it is as high as waist deep, while in other places it only reaches the top of the feet and is not as high as ordinary grass. Of course, the main reason I don't like this place is not these weird-looking shrubs, and certainly not the trees, but...

"I hate the swamp!" He struggled to pull one leg out of the mire, and then waved his hand to cut off a disgusting insect that looked like a large leech. After shaking off the mud from my legs, I started to move forward, but I was bound to be hit again before I could take ten steps.

Just like I speculated before. The core area of ​​the Valley of Worms has a large number of abundant water sources. The only thing that is different from what I imagined is that these water sources do not appear in the form of lakes, but in the form of large swamps. There are obviously cracks in the earth's crust beneath this large swamp. The geothermal energy seeping out of the cracks heats the entire swamp and turns it into a large or small hot mud pool. However, the temperatures of these mud pits are not exactly the same. Most of them are maintained between thirty-five and forty-five degrees. The cooler ones can be as high as thirty degrees, and some are simply boiling water pots, with the surface parts always being In the boiling state, white smoke billows like a chimney.

I used to think that no one came to Bug Valley mainly because the bugs here are disgusting, but now I know that bugs are only one reason why people here are not popular, and the hot and humid environment is the second main reason. The biggest difference between a virtual reality game like "Zero" and the kind of games you used to play while sitting in front of a computer is that it can use all the senses of the human body to create a game environment, including of course the sense of temperature and humidity. If you sit in front of the computer and use the mouse to direct the game character to shuttle between deserts and swamps, all you can feel is that the character's speed is slowed down by the terrain. But in virtual reality games, you can feel the heat and 'moisture' firsthand. The feeling of having your clothes all wet and sticking to your body is definitely more unbearable than monsters. Only now do I understand that the biggest advantage of my Shenlong suit is not its high defense, but its comfort. To be honest, there are not many armors in the entire game that are waterproof, heat-insulating, pressure-resistant, anti-corrosion, and come with a constant temperature system like the Shenlong suit.

Relying on the powerful protective ability of the Shenlong suit, I walked in the swamp for more than half an hour. However, I have yet to find either of my two goals. Moreover, because the environment here is different from what I expected before, I already have some plans to go back. I used to think that the core area was the same tropical rainforest environment as the outer area, with just a bit more insect density at best. Now that I discovered that this place is a swamp, I thought that maybe those two buildings were still on the periphery, but I had ignored them before. After all, whether it is a laboratory or a tomb, it is not a good idea to build it in a swamp.

The laboratory needs to be sealed against moisture, and the tomb is a completely underground building. Neither of these two things seems to be suitable for a humid environment like a swamp, so I think it is more likely that the two buildings are still on the periphery. However, just when I was about to give up the search and continue searching outside, a stone building higher than the ground suddenly appeared in my sight.

"Damn it, what kind of idiot built this laboratory? It was actually built in a swamp! Gods and Buddhas from all walks of life will protect that notebook from rotting!"