December 4th
Temperature: 22 degrees Celsius
The last day before the natural disaster.
The nervous time forced Chen Zhuo to get out of bed early.
He briefly thought about what he needed to do today.
"First is water. There's a small stream near the back of the Shelter's mountain. I must go there today."
"Secondly, building resources like wood and stone are running low."
After yesterday's upgrade and the construction of the drainage ditch, most of it was used up. Currently, he has 48 pieces of wood left in his backpack, and only 7 pieces of stone.
Furthermore, regarding yesterday's trades, Chen Zhuo would only send friend requests for trades he felt were very useful for his current situation.
He completed a trade with Yang Wei yesterday, and three other people hadn't responded to his friend requests.
He opened the chat again to check and found that all friend requests had been accepted.
"Hello, I'm very interested in your trade items. Can we discuss the price?"
Chen Zhuo couldn't afford to waste precious daylight hours discussing details with others. He simply edited three identical messages and sent them to the three people before hurrying out to begin his material collection for the day.
Pushing the door open, the sky looked overcast at this moment, but Chen Zhuo knew it wasn't actually dark clouds.
He recognized at a glance that it was the dust that had appeared when he was transported to this world, and it was becoming increasingly dense.
Chen Zhuo was now basically certain that this stuff was the cause of the acid rain; these dust particles could float thousands of meters high.
"Like volcanic ash? But there are no volcanoes nearby?"
Putting aside his doubts, Chen Zhuo followed the map and headed towards the back of the Shelter's mountain.
Although the water source was not far, that was the straight-line distance seen from the map's God's-eye view.
The actual distance Chen Zhuo walked was even comparable to the distance from his spawn point to the Shelter.
Not only did he have to take many detours, but because it was an uninhabited barren mountain, most of it consisted of rugged, steep slopes that were impossible to walk on.
Fortunately, it was only a hill over two hundred meters high. If it were a thousand-meter mountain, Chen Zhuo wouldn't finish walking it in ten days.
He carefully chose where to step, slowly taking one step and looking three ahead, not only to prevent falling and injury but also to pay attention to various creatures in the mountain, such as various snakes and other venomous insects.
Fortunately, no accidents like a king cobra attack occurred as he was about to reach his destination, though he did get several mosquito bites.
But none of that mattered. What mattered was that after three hours of climbing, Chen Zhuo finally found the long-sought water source.
Before this, he had been living on instant noodles, only daring to use half a bottle of water, so how could he not be excited to see a clear stream now?
Scratching the bites on his body, Chen Zhuo called up the system to check if the water source was clean.
【'Clear stream, mountain spring water formed by groundwater seeping from this unknown hill, potable'】
Seeing the system's affirmative reply, Chen Zhuo had no doubts. He immediately bent down and lay by the stream, drinking his fill.
He really couldn't be blamed for being so impatient, because he had been truly parched these past two days.
An average of 500ml of mineral water per day was completely disproportionate to his high-intensity work.
But before finding the water source, he really didn't dare to squander it. Although there were many black technologies in the system's mall, it didn't provide him with any food or water.
Even though he had discovered the water source with the map yesterday, he was still very cautious and didn't drink all his remaining water until he confirmed its safety with the system, only then daring to drink his fill.
After drinking enough of the cool stream water, the dryness in his throat completely disappeared.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stood up, and decided to make good use of this stream's resources.
After all, it was highly likely that this place would also be contaminated after the acid rain, and he didn't know when it would become safe and potable again.
Chen Zhuo also wanted to protect this water source, but the current situation was that the stream flowed down from the back mountain, and he no longer had enough time to go to the back mountain, let alone having no good way to solve the problem of acid rain contaminating the water source.
He directly synthesized all the remaining wood into large wooden barrels in the crafting interface.
The wood in his backpack was instantly emptied, replaced by 24 large wooden barrels quietly lying in his backpack.
One large wooden barrel had a capacity of 50 liters. It took him over ten minutes to fill all 24 barrels, and Chen Zhuo nodded with satisfaction.
A total of 1.2 tons of water in his backpack gave him a great sense of security. This water wasn't too much, but it was enough for him to drink for over half a month.
Speaking of which, 1.2 tons of water only occupied one slot in his backpack.
The backpack that came with the Survival Platform had a total of 20 empty slots, and items of the same type seemed to be able to stack infinitely. At least, Chen Zhuo hadn't encountered a situation where the same item occupied two slots yet.
Moreover, the items in the bag remained in a static state. The wild boar he hunted yesterday was still fresh and bloody when taken out now. This backpack was undoubtedly one of the most important functions of the Survival Platform.
However, as the collected resources increased day by day, the slots were becoming insufficient.
The items given by the Survival Platform and the system's items were all inside, and now Chen Zhuo only had 5 empty slots in his bag.
"For now, I won't move anything. If it's really not enough, I'll throw the never-used stone axe and stone pickaxe onto the trading platform."
With things mostly arranged, Chen Zhuo took out his last piece of bread and gnawed on it, finishing it in a few bites, then immediately started chopping trees on the spot.
He hadn't forgotten that besides collecting water, he also needed to get more stone and wood on this trip.
But then he thought again, stone could be directly dug from the mountain body when the acid rain started.
This would not only acquire stone but also expand the Shelter, which was the best of both worlds.
However, stone was needed for tonight's trade, so to be on the safe side, he only dug about ten pieces of stone and then quickly finished up.
For the rest of the time, only a figure constantly swinging an axe remained by the stream... Chen Zhuo finally stopped around three in the afternoon.
Putting away his iron axe, his two forearms hung limply at his sides, and Chen Zhuo, covered in sweat, collapsed on the ground to rest.
Five consecutive hours of chopping trees had completely exhausted his physical strength.
Actually, it wasn't that his endurance was so good that he could work continuously for so long; it was purely because of the iron axe given by the system.
Although the description only said it improved tree-chopping efficiency, it actually not only increased his swinging speed but also saved him a lot of effort with each swing.
Five hours of work also caused the wood in his bag to surge to 170 pieces, and stone to 23 pieces.
Rested enough, Chen Zhuo stood up and wiped the sweat from his face.
Finally, before leaving, he plunged into the stream fully clothed, letting the cool stream wash over his body. Water droplets slid down his hair and skin, washing away his fatigue and smell.
The crisp stream water invigorated every pore, and Chen Zhuo closed his eyes, slowly enjoying his first cold shower in the Wasteland World.
Soon.
He emerged from the stream and stood by the bank. A gentle breeze brushed against his damp skin, bringing a hint of coolness and making him much more alert.
"I need to get back to the Shelter before dark..."