Road Survival, I Have a Hint System!

After transporting the materials from the giant eagle back to the vehicle, Zhang Tuohai continued his digging endeavor.

Motivated by the prospect of dinner, he worked with renewed vigor and soon unearthed an orange supply box.

Without bothering to extract the box, he opened it right there in the pit.

[Gained 5 units of fast-growing mushroom cultivation spores. 1 high-grade planting pot blueprint, 5 units of high-fertility soil, 5 units of clay, and 1 'Fast-Growing Mushroom Cultivation Manual.']

"Fast-growing mushrooms?" Zhang Tuohai felt a rush of excitement, his heart racing.

He quickly picked up the 'Fast-Growing Mushroom Cultivation Manual' and started flipping through it.

The manual was brief, just a few pages long.

It contained simple instructions on how to cultivate fast-growing mushrooms.

According to the manual, as long as the spores were buried in soil and watered appropriately each day, seedlings would sprout in one day and be ready for consumption in two days.

It required minimal management.

Moreover, these fast-growing mushrooms were rich in various vitamins, trace elements, and amino acids, and regular consumption could strengthen the body.

"What a great find!" Zhang Tuohai's eyes lit up.

He had plenty of food, mostly meat, but vegetables had always been a significant issue.

Without long-term vegetable consumption, various diseases could arise, with septicemia and night blindness being two notable examples.

Recently, he had been relying on some leeks and a pack of dehydrated vegetables to get by.

Now, that pack of dehydrated vegetables was almost finished.

Just when Zhang Tuohai was worried about a new source of vegetables, fast-growing mushrooms appeared at his doorstep.

It felt like a timely gift—like someone bringing a pillow when you were sleepy.

Zhang Tuohai calculated that if he planted all these fast-growing mushrooms and harvested them every two days, he could have a steady supply and even have some left over for sale.

"Hey, we'll be living in mushroom freedom! When they mature, I’ll definitely roast a couple skewers to celebrate."

He quickly transported everything back to the vehicle and made five high-grade planting pots.

He already had planting pots, currently using them to grow the leeks he had dug up.

However, those pots were just metal boxes, looking quite shabby.

The high-grade planting pots were made entirely of clay, with vastly better breathability and water permeability than metal.

They even had relief designs on them, making them look quite elegant.

Following the cultivation manual, Zhang Tuohai filled the planting pots with high-fertility soil, dug a hole in the center, added some mushroom spores, compacted the soil, and watered them—easily.

The biggest challenge in growing fast-growing mushrooms was the need for a lot of daily watering.

For others, this could be a significant problem.

Collecting enough drinking water each day was already a struggle, let alone watering mushrooms.

Even for players, this might be too much to handle.

However, Zhang Tuohai didn’t have this issue.

With a level-two water collector, he could guarantee at least 10 liters of water each day—plenty.

Once he planted the fast-growing mushrooms, he placed them together with the leeks for easier management.

After finishing, he lay back in his seat to rest and check the regional channel to see what the other players were up to.

As soon as he opened the regional channel, he was stunned by the flood of death messages.

The channel was rapidly refreshing with death notifications, and the number of survivors was plummeting.

Zhang Tuohai remembered that this morning, the number of survivors was 2,325.

Now, only 2,017 remained.

And it was still decreasing.

"What happened? How did over three hundred people die so suddenly?" Zhang Tuohai's expression darkened as he began reviewing the death messages.

After a while, his brow furrowed. He noticed that almost all the death messages shared a common trait: over 90% of the deaths were caused by mutated desert spiders.

"Mutated desert spiders?!"

Zhang Tuohai chewed on the name.

He was very familiar with it.

That morning, he had even injured one.

If he hadn’t worried about it dropping more little spiders upon death, he might have killed it.

However, that spider was sealed in the basement, and it couldn’t get out no matter what. So where were these mutated desert spiders coming from?

Watching the rising death toll, Zhang Tuohai fell into deep thought.

Soon, people began to post messages on the regional channel.

"Everyone, get out of the commercial area! A lot of big spiders have appeared from the south! They’re bigger than tables, and they actually eat people! Stay away, as far as you can!"

"Seriously? Spiders the size of tables? That’s impossible! I was planning to head to the commercial area for some luck, don’t scare me."

"Why would I lie? My friend was eaten by one of those big spiders! If I hadn’t run fast, I’d probably be gone too."

"What the guy above said is true! I can confirm! I teamed up with a few people to search a mall, and we ran into a big spider. All five of us had spears, but it sliced through us with its front legs. Our team leader, wearing plate armor, was pierced in an instant. I advise everyone to avoid fighting spiders and just run!"

"Where did these spiders even come from? One jumped onto my car and punctured the roof! If I hadn’t made a sharp turn and thrown it off, I wouldn’t be able to talk right now. By the way, does anyone have tools to repair the roof?"

"I think the spiders might be coming from the residential area. I saw a lot of them from a high point in that direction."

As more people joined the regional channel, various messages began to converge.

Zhang Tuohai pieced the information together and found that these spiders were almost identical to the mutated desert spider he had encountered that morning.

"Could it be that spider laid eggs?"

"No, that doesn’t make sense. I completely blocked the passage when I left, and the storage room was packed with furniture. There’s no way they could have gotten out."

After thinking for a long time, Zhang Tuohai couldn’t figure it out.

Since he couldn’t make sense of it, he decided to stop thinking about it and focus on how to avoid these creatures instead.

"System, what route can I take to avoid these things?"

[Recommendation: Head north through the park area to the mining district. That area is the center of the poison circle and has the fewest mutated desert spiders in the north.]

"Even the north has them?" Zhang Tuohai was taken aback.

He initially thought the spiders were only in the south. He didn’t expect them to spread so quickly, reaching the north as well.

He needed to make a move while their numbers were still low; otherwise, if they multiplied, even he might get trapped here.