A grayish light gradually appeared on the horizon, it was the sun rising behind the heavy radiant clouds - Qi Lin glanced at the mechanical watch on his wrist, it was already six o'clock in the morning.

He drove peacefully on the wasteland for a night, except for a radiant hyena that was not even elite and whose fur was rotten and ran for a few kilometers after the all-terrain off-road vehicle, Qi Lin basically did not encounter any situation this night.

It's a long way from the location of the Vault, and it belongs to the unexplored "Fog Zone" on the map - due to the recent tensions within the human race, and the genetic drug incident has caused the organization and consortium alliance to lose a large number of evolutionaries, more than ninety percent of the zone missions have been cut, and many observation posts originally set up on the surface have been forced to cancel due to lack of manpower.

The situation in the wasteland is changing rapidly, and it only takes a few days for an area to become unrecognizable, and there are only two ways to get information about these unexplored areas.

Information left over from the old era and exploration reports of the mastermind.

The former is on the verge of obsolescence, the bustling metropolises have long since been in ruins, rivers and lakes have dried up, and wide highways are covered and buried in yellow sand—the only reference value of the old era is probably the dead data that will not change dramatically, such as latitude and longitude, topography, elevation, etc., and those that have become historical place names.

As for the latter, none of the returning teams would dare to use this information, and they wouldn't even consider it as a reference - even if ninety-nine percent of the information was accurate, the remaining one percent would be fatal.

With the IQ, cunning and computing power of the mastermind, if you want to bury a few traps in this information, it will never be possible to find it without a professional team to analyze it for more than a week, but the data of this information is so vast that the organization cannot have enough manpower and time to analyze it one by one.

Because of this, progress has been slow in the exploration of non-critical areas of the surface – work that was intended to be carried out slowly after the return of all humanity to the surface.

But for Qi Lin, he now desperately needs to get information on this.

If you want to go to the ruins of Leshan City, the route originally chosen by the Thunder Falcon team and the recovery force can no longer be walked, and the mastermind is likely to have included this route in the monitoring, and Qi Lin must open up a new route in the wasteland.

The most worrying thing about opening up a new route is to accidentally intrude into the territory of some high-level mutant creatures - such as the King Blood Dragon Lizard, which is easy to find, just avoid it from afar. But if you encounter a monster such as a frozen rock worm, you will only be shocked to realize that you have penetrated into the opponent's territory after being attacked - and the premise is that you can survive the attack of the opponent, otherwise you don't even know how to die.

In the "Wasteland Survival Rules", many players who are not very strong, when exploring the unknown area, do not even know that they were killed by something, and are already squatting in the small black room waiting for the countdown to the resurrection.

However, there are more people who hang up, and players have naturally summed up a lot of practical experience, which can be used in the virtual game world and can be used in the real wasteland.

One of the most important lessons learned is the use of "wasteland natives".

In addition to humans, there is also a special species living in the wasteland - the living dead.

Compared to the humans who have taken refuge in underground shelters, these living dead who have been living on the ground are the real "natives of the wasteland".

There are two kinds of living dead, zombies that are no different from monsters and zombies with a certain intelligence, although the latter does not necessarily have good intentions towards humans, and even many zombies are extremely hostile to normal humans, but, at least they were once humans, and they have retained their memories and thoughts as humans, so there is also the possibility of communication.

If Qi Lin can find a zombie who is willing to communicate with him, it will definitely be of great help to his next actions.

Qi Lin slowed down the speed of the all-terrain off-road vehicle slightly, and deliberately leaned towards the northeast hills.

According to in-game data, most zombie colonies in the wild prefer to be located at the bottom of a mountain or at the bottom of a slope.

Qi Lin was lucky, he had just crossed a hill and saw what he wanted to see - two kilometers away, at the bottom of the back slope, there was a row of shacks made of plastic sheeting, foam boards and wooden sticks, and around the shack was a low wall made of stones, and a zombie wearing only a pair of tattered trousers, with almost all the skin peeled off and unable to distinguish the gender was sitting in front of a shack, holding a rusty piece of iron in his hand, and cutting a long branch. It looks like they're making a weapon like a short spear.

There are also a few other zombies who are lazily lying on the hillside basking in the sun.

Based on the number of shacks, Qi Lin judged that it was probably a small-scale zombie village, and the number of zombies was about twenty to fifty.

How to deal with zombies is also a science - most zombies are not friendly to the living, but there are also zombies who live in human cities and live peacefully with the player...... In fact, with the exception of individuals with brain damage, zombies do not think much differently from humans, and there are even some zombies who still consider themselves human.

In front of him, these zombies can form a village, and there are some shelves for drying simple clothes, blankets and leather in the village, Qi Lin feels that this should be a group of zombies whose "humanity" is still relatively intact.

Qi Lin took a few canned braised pork in the trunk of the car, took out two more military stimulants, and slowly walked towards the zombie village.

What do zombies like? This issue has also been studied by players...... After all, with so many players, there will always be idle guys who hurt the eggs, and besides, this question is not meaningless.

Clothing, weapons, daily necessities...... In addition to these practical things, there are also those who like precious metals and jewelry, and in a city where Qi Lin has settled, there is also a zombie NPC who runs a grocery store and is particularly fond of collecting books and magazines from the old days.

Zombies have a variety of hobbies, but there are two things that all zombies won't refuse - canned food, and drugs.

Although the body of a zombie is completely dependent on absorbing radiation to sustain its functioning, almost all zombies with conditions retain the habit of eating...... The feeling of chewing on food reminds them of the memories they had when they were born, and zombies prefer canned food to a whole piece of roasted meat, which bears the imprint of industrial civilization.

As for drugs, it is not difficult to understand, zombies will not suffer from the impression of side effects, but they can't escape drug addiction and mental dependence, that feeling of fluttering fairy is too tempting for zombies who don't have much entertainment in life.

Qi Lin didn't bring drugs such as Jet and white powder with him this time, but stimulants can barely be regarded as close relatives of this kind of thing.