Chapter 199: Setting the Mountain on Fire, Imprisonment
Sarah felt a surge of frustration upon seeing the game's achievements appear. She had barely played five minutes of this round and it was already over?
'Too fast!'.
"The beehive doesn't seem like something I can handle at the beginning."
Sarah noted it silently and restarted the game.
This time, she discovered that there seemed to be other characters besides Wilson to choose from. Each character seemed to have their own unique characteristics. Of course, she had only unlocked Wilson so far. For the other characters, some required meeting specific conditions, while others required surviving a certain number of days in the game.
When starting a new game, Sarah quickly noticed the difference.
"Hey! My spawn location has changed? Is the map randomly generated or am I just in a different place?", Sarah exclaimed in surprise.
The place where she had been born was surrounded by trees and close to the sea. But now, the landscape had become a desert, with a significant amount of undiscovered minerals.
Just like in the previous game, Sarah started by collecting garbage: berries, hay, branches, and rocks. Then, methodically, she crafted an axe and a hoe. After chopping down two trees, Sarah directed the hoe at the mineral on the ground and began to extract.
Soon, rocks, saltpeter, and other materials were scattered all over the terrain.
At that moment, Wilson, in the game, spoke again: "Some minerals look different from common minerals. Maybe they contain something good."
Upon seeing Wilson's words in the game, Sarah, sitting in front of the computer, clearly noticed it.
'Different from common minerals? Hey, there's a mineral with a lightning bolt!'. Sarah quickly detected the difference.
The mineral she had extracted before was basically a large rock, with no pattern on its surface. But next to it, a slightly smaller rock had a pattern that looked like a lightning bolt.
Seeing this, Sarah controlled Wilson to take the hoe and start hammering it. With a creak, the stone in front of her broke, scattering rocks, saltpeter, and other materials on the ground, in addition to a piece of gold mixed in.
"So! The mineral with a lightning icon will produce gold nuggets when excavated!". Upon seeing this, Sarah instantly understood some of the game's mechanics. She just couldn't understand if it was a certainty that it would fall or if there was a possibility.
As if she had discovered a new world, pick in hand, Sarah began to search for mineral with lightning. She ran to the top of the map, collecting all the supplies she found on the way.
Then, Sarah discovered something new. While wandering through the forest, she came across a spider egg. As soon as she got close, it opened and a ferocious-looking spider emerged, relentlessly chasing her for a long time.
Looking at the axe in her hand, Sarah felt like challenging this Spider Empire. But remembering her previous death from a bee sting and that she hadn't even passed the first day, she restrained herself.
Crossing the forest, she came across a building called a pigsty, but she didn't see any pigs. She didn't understand what it was for.
Ignoring it for the moment, Sarah continued wandering around the map. Just then, the sky began to darken, and Wilson, also in the game, muttered to himself: "It's getting dark. Maybe I need to light a campfire."
The game's time wheel has three distinct zones: day, dusk, and night. It was already night, clearly reserved for players who were entering a new era.
"It's night, should I light a campfire and torches now?".
Sarah checked her status bar and ate two berries to increase her hunger bar.
"But what happens in the game when it gets dark? Will I die?". As she watched the sky gradually darken, Sarah was eager to see what would happen at dusk.
But when night fell, the game became completely dark, so Sarah continued to light a campfire. As night fell, the sound of the wind and other strange noises coming from her headphones made her a little uneasy.
"But isn't this bonfire too small? Can it only illuminate a very small area?".
She looked at the time in the upper right corner. It was still a while until dawn, and the bonfire could only illuminate a short distance.
Standing in front of the bonfire, Sarah felt a little uneasy and moved away a bit. As she moved quickly, Sarah noticed something: the sanity bar in the upper right corner decreased rapidly as she moved away from the bonfire.
At the same time, a chilling effect suddenly appeared on the screen. Wilson, in the game, panicked.
"Who's there?".
"What the hell is this!".
While Wilson was talking, Sarah got goosebumps. In the darkness, she suddenly noticed some unsettling eyes. The sounds in her headphones became even more chilling. She even heard footsteps approaching from the darkness, scaring her so much that she immediately ran towards the bonfire.
"Monsters keep appearing at night!", Sarah thought with a lingering fear.
Upon returning to the bonfire, Sarah opened her toolbar to light another one, but she ran out of materials and could only make a torch.
After thinking about it for a bit, she decided to build the torch. The durability indicator in the lower right corner of the newly built torch continued to decrease. However, compared to the entire screen, the torch's illumination range was still too small.
But Sarah soon noticed something: the torch she was holding could set other things on fire. Berry bushes, trees, and weeds, for example.
"This illuminates a lot more!", she exclaimed.
Sarah experimented by moving the mouse over the surrounding trees and berry bushes, and instantly, flames erupted.
At first, Sarah just wanted to burn the trees around her to light up the screen. But as the trees began to catch fire, Sarah suddenly found it quite fun.
After all, playing with fire in real life is extremely dangerous and carries significant safety risks. Setting a mountain on fire is punishable by life imprisonment.
Even as a child, she would use matches and lighters to light napkins on fire, often tricked by her parents, who told her that playing with fire would make her wet the bed. But in the game, there were obviously no such worries.
So, while the torch lasted, Sarah ran and burned everything. In addition, the surrounding forest was still connected, and instantly, the entire screen was on fire.
The night did not last long; Soon, the game became daytime and the autosave icon appeared. At the same time, the torch she was holding ran out.
Upon seeing the still burning trees, Sarah felt a little regret. She hadn't had enough fun yet!
Although it could be lit during the day, the atmosphere was different.
Next time, she will definitely...
The rest will be explained later.
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