Chapter 17: After This Explosion, Can We Recoup Our Losses?

In this wave of people who took the initiative to explore the dungeons, nearly half were lost or killed just during the welfare and adaptation periods.

Do you think you’ll be safe if you don’t enter the dungeons? As the saying goes, “Calamity descends while one sits at home.” How many dungeons opened directly in people's homes, on city streets, in shopping malls, or inside office buildings? Those who didn’t survive the welfare period need not be mentioned. As for those who did, the sudden, inexplicable prompt in their minds—

“You have entered an X-level dungeon: XXXX. Current dungeon power at ten percent. Good luck!”

—left them completely bewildered. The beasts, birds, or monsters they were already struggling to face suddenly grew much stronger, causing another wave of casualties. Of course, during the welfare and adaptation periods, the power of the dungeons was greatly suppressed.

As long as you were careful and clever enough, staying alive was relatively easy—unless you were terribly unlucky and an S-level dungeon landed right on your head. In that case, you could only blame your own bad luck.

So, this round mainly eliminated the weak and cowardly, those of poor quality who dared not even fight back in the face of danger. Even so, the real world had suffered heavy population loss. While it wasn’t as though nine out of ten homes were empty, in every ten households, five or six had lost someone.

Some families weren’t so lucky and were wiped out entirely.

Now, three or four days had passed since the adaptation period ended, and the dungeons’ power had risen to thirty percent!

In Yun Duo’er’s eyes, the once bustling, crowded streets were now eerily quiet. The shops they passed were either shut down or had their doors wide open with not a soul inside.

The first time Yu Yan witnessed such a scene in her previous life, though her heart had already turned to ashes with her daughter’s death, a trace of sorrow still passed through her.

All the more so for Yun Duo’er, who was just a child, her heart all the more sensitive and delicate.

Yu Yan could only hope that her daughter’s good friend had survived, so she might bring her some joy.

“Siqi, Siqi, where are you?”

“It’s me, Yun Duo’er! I’ve come to find you!”

When Yun Duo’er first found Tang Siqi’s home, she was quite happy.

But she quickly realized something was wrong. The front door stood open, just like the other shops she’d passed, silent and empty within. Her mother had explained that such situations usually meant a dungeon had descended right there in the shop.

Everyone inside had been sucked into the dungeon.

Eager to find her friend, Yun Duo’er hadn’t considered risking herself by entering those dungeons.

Now it seemed Tang Siqi’s home was the same. A sense of foreboding crept into Yun Duo’er’s heart.

“Mama?”

“It’s all right, darling. Even if your friend was pulled into a dungeon, she may not necessarily have died. Let’s look for the entrance to their dungeon. If it’s a dungeon of D-level or lower, there’s still a chance she survived.”

If it was above D-level, Yu Yan didn’t hold out much hope.

D-level dungeons already had a considerable number of Xuan-ranked creatures. Though they were the weakest of their kind and could only exert thirty percent of their power, to ordinary people, that was more than enough to be deadly.

Unless you were a special forces veteran and equipped with the right weapons and gear, surviving a D-level dungeon at thirty percent power was only marginally easier than ascending to the heavens.

Yun Duo’er pressed her lips together.

Though Yu Yan hadn’t the heart to say it, Yun Duo’er understood what her mother left unsaid. With a face more serious than ever before, she searched room by room until a shimmering, watery curtain of light rose from the balcony.

C-level dungeon: Eagle Grief Ravine.

Creatures: Bald eagle, rock serpent, blue-tailed giant scorpion, Zhu Yu grass, wild raspberries, and more.

Note: “Dungeons are ranked F through 3S, with F the weakest and 3S the strongest!”

Yun Duo’er fell silent.

Yu Yan opened her mouth, unsure how to comfort her.

“Mama, will you come in with me? If Siqi’s still alive, let’s save her together.”

One of the rules after the adaptation period: to leave a dungeon, you must kill at least one creature inside. In D-level or higher dungeons, you must slay a Huang-ranked or stronger creature.

In A-level dungeons, the requirement is even higher: if you cannot kill at least one Xuan-ranked creature, you’ll be trapped inside forever.

Therefore, if Tang Siqi was lucky enough, she could still be alive—just unable to kill a Huang-ranked creature and thus trapped.

Yu Yan nodded. “All right.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

After a moment, Yun Duo’er asked quietly, “Mama, am I being selfish?”

“How could you be?” Yu Yan took her hand and led her into the dungeon. “If my best friend were trapped in there, I’d go in without hesitation to save her too.” Unfortunately, her own friends were scattered far away, the closest dozens of kilometers away in reality.

In her past life, Yu Yan never had the chance. She doubted she would in this one, either.

“But Siqi, she’s very likely…”

The word “dead” circled Yun Duo’er’s tongue for a long time, but she couldn’t bring herself to apply it to her best friend.

“But she might not be dead,” Yu Yan said decisively.

Now that they were here, and had seen the dungeon’s description—Zhu Yu grass especially interested her! Three months after the apocalypse began, special types of ability-users started appearing, including alchemists as well as craftsmen. Zhu Yu grass, combined with two other low-tier spirit herbs, could be refined into Fasting Pills by an alchemist.

They weren’t as miraculous as those in some novels, but could keep someone from feeling hungry for a day.

In special circumstances, they were invaluable.

Inside Eagle Grief Ravine—

No sooner had Yu Yan and her daughter set foot inside than they found themselves in a sea of giant scorpions.

Each of these scorpions was plump and muscular, the smallest as big as a fist. Their blue, gleaming tail stingers arched high, clearly unwelcoming of these two intruders. Yu Yan gave a low cry, and two sixth-grade fire rhino horns appeared in her hands.

Without hesitation, she hurled them into the densest cluster of scorpions.

With two thunderous explosions, swarms of giant scorpions were blasted to bits.

Of the tens of thousands that would make anyone with a fear of crowds scream, several thousand were instantly destroyed; the rest scattered like startled beasts. Their blue tails drooped in dejection: So you think you’re so grand, with so many treasures you don’t know what to do with them?

Using sixth-grade fire rhino horns on us, when the highest among us are only second-grade little minions—aren’t you afraid of wasting them?

Do you think you’ll get any return from blowing us up?

Yu Yan felt awkward.

She’d been running around high-level dungeons these days and had forgotten what it was like to slog through mid-level ones. Seeing the mass of monsters, she’d reflexively thrown her best fire rhino horns. She’d already lost more than half of her stash in the battle at the Gu Diao nest.

Thinking of the dwindling rhino horns in her storage, Yu Yan felt a pang of heartache!

Clearly, she needed a more suitable attack method. If she kept wasting spirit materials at this rate, even a tycoon like her couldn’t afford it!

The four skills granted by the Phantom Lotus Plant Spirit in her storage were mostly support-oriented.

The transformation skill currently only protected herself and was all but useless for offense. Yu Yan mused that it was time to roast a piece of ninth-grade fire rhino meat. In her previous life, she’d been a fire-ability enhancer; in this life, she was even more adept at playing with fire…