Chapter 309: Amoeba Worm Instance

On the main road of the base, the crowd's discussion, which initially focused on Fan Bing, quickly shifted to Lin An.

Compared to celebrities before the apocalypse, people are fundamentally more interested in the strong.

Fan Bing stood there somewhat dazed.

After becoming an Awakened One, even if one's strength is poor, with heightened senses they can still hear the crowd's noisy discussion clearly.

The discussion reaching their ears was almost unrelated to them.

Is it a sense of loss?

Or...

Once again, they felt the difference between before and after the apocalypse.

Aside from the initial astonishment, the base members' remaining attention toward her was limited to what she would do.

Imagined fervent fans, or becoming the center of attention.

None of these appeared.

Even if someone discussed her, it was merely marveling that Lin An could find anyone.

Lin An, Lin An...

Everyone's focus was solely on Lin An.

Actually, it was somewhat eerie.

Enjoying liveliness is human nature.

But inexplicably, any topic at the base could be tied to Lin An.

It seemed as if this name had already taken deep root in everyone's minds, and any external information could not shift it in the slightest.

An Jing Tian led people standing far away on high ground, with the Supervision Team members behind him remaining silent, out of place among the lively crowd.

"Continue testing the effect of topic guidance."

"Record their discussion."

"Screening..."

Wen Ya glanced sideways at Fan Bing, who seemed lost in thought, and gave a faint smile.

Is that very surprising?

If Fan Bing knew how Lin An took over the academy, she probably wouldn't be surprised.

In place.

Fan Bing's gaze was complex.

The Safe Zone was better than she had imagined, and she even felt fortunate to have made the right choice.

But compared to after the apocalypse broke out, under the protection of two Awakened Ones she still enjoyed the treatment of being surrounded by admirers.

Compared to now, where everyone merely regards her as a new staff member, this gap inevitably prompts a quiet sigh.

The only thing that gave her slight comfort was that a few Awakened Ones' girlfriends were curious about her lipstick shade and the design of her clothing.

At least someone still praised her beauty...

But there were a few girls in the crowd with bright red lips, which made her glance sideways for a moment.

Their faces were pallid, yet their lips were red like blood.

The next morning.

The sky was just beginning to lighten.

Inside the Core Fortress, Lin An closed his eyes and focused, adjusting to his optimal state.

Wen Ya carefully inventoried the prepared supplies.

Although there was still one day left before the instance opened, he decided to enter early.

Chu An's words gave him great pressure.

On the instance information, the displayed task difficulty remained unchanged.

Unfathomable.

Compared to when he first encountered the instance, his strength had at least doubled.

However, in the system's judgment, the difficulty had not changed at all.

Considering all these anomalies,

Lin An couldn't help but feel worried.

Either his increased strength was insignificant against the enemy he was about to face,

or

the instance's difficulty is unrelated to strength.

No matter how strong, one would still die.

The four-person squad carried over a month's individual rations and a large amount of drinking water.

Four motorcycles, with weapons, ammunition, and grenades filling half of the ring.

They did not equip weapons on their persons.

After all, Lin An and the others are Awakened Ones; weapons and ammunition can only serve as auxiliaries.

Or simply put, they were prepared for subduing subordinates inside the instance.

Of course, the premise is that the Amoeba Worm Instance has humans.

Whether it be memories from the past life or the information given by Huang Shaohua, each instance is equivalent to a small world.

Most instances are like a microcosm of reality.

Therefore, preparing more weapons and supplies might come in handy.

As for food and drinking water.

One month's supplies are sufficient.

If after one month.

No, if they haven't come out after twenty-one days, then there's no need to come out.

The zombie tide will attack the base in twenty-one days.

Without the combat strength of Lin An, Zhang Tie, and others, the base has little chance of holding.

If the base is breached, we will also be erased by the system.

Therefore, Lin An even considered.

Could it be that the instance will trap me, causing the base to be breached and thus I will be erased by the system?

I have no choice but to go.

All I can say is that I'm unlucky; just picking up a random prop can trigger a system quest.

Or simply put, the Doomsday System has sensed the anomaly and instinctively begun to target him.

At the entrance of the Core Fortress, Mo Ling had changed into a meticulously tailored shrunken combat uniform, with a timid little girl following behind her.

The two look similar, but the little girl appears far more lively than Mo Ling.

"Lin An."

Mo Ling calmly raised her head and called out, and the little girl behind her, slightly frightened, hid behind her back and softly shouted:

"Lin An brother..."

An Jing Tian, bringing up the rear, nodded at Lin An with some regret, holding a recorded report in his hand:

"Brother Lin."

"One piece of bad news, one piece of good news."

Lin An turned his head at the sound and noticed that Mo Yu had already reverted from a zombie to a human.

He felt a vague sense of emotion.

The antitoxic serum given by the Savior System is truly astonishing.

Turning zombies back into humans, but unfortunately there's no way to study it.

"Let's start with the bad news."

Yesterday he ordered An Jing Tian to test on Mo Yu, and it seems the test results aren't good.

An Jing Tian quickly walked to his side and handed over the recorded report in his hand:

"When one-third was injected, the zombie-state Mo Yu fell into a coma."

"Afterwards, slow injection continued, but there were no abnormalities."

"In other words, no matter how little antitoxic serum is injected, it will not cause mutation."

"Of course, it's also possible the test sample was too small."

"But, we can only confirm."

"AnXia's becoming a mutant, including subsequent strength enhancement, has nothing to do with the antitoxic serum."

"So, the test failed."

Silence, no words.

Lin An let out a sigh, then looked at the half-tube of antitoxic serum handed over by An Jing Tian.

No need to think.

The good news is probably that only half of the antitoxic serum has been used.

Plus AnXia's half, he still has two full tubes of antitoxic serum left.

The antitoxic serum is worth a fortune, or rather, it's priceless.

But for Lin An, he'd rather not keep any, just to ensure AnXia can definitely be rescued.

There's no way; if we can't test, we can't test.

After the zombie tide ends, we must find AnXia no matter what.

Even if AnXia cannot revert to human, I will "raise" her for life.

Suppressing his thoughts, Lin An looked around.

Zhang Tie repeatedly inspected his shield, feeling some heartache as he rubbed the claw marks on it.

The blood-colored gauntlets on his hands were strained out of shape.

Gao Tian carefully adjusted his compound bow, while Mo Ling beside him held Mo Yu and whispered instructions.

After one minute, Lin An took a deep breath and nodded to the team members:

"Get ready to depart!"

"Report any abnormalities immediately after entering the instance!"

No longer hesitating.

This time, only the core personnel know about entering the instance; the base members thought he had just led the team out again.

For some reason, Chu An, who should have appeared, has not yet shown up.

Lin An adjusted his condition to optimal, and his consciousness initiated a light screen.

"Confirm entry into the instance!"

Although confirmation began, waves of beeping and white fluctuations surrounded the four.

Cold, the system's metallic mechanical sound rang out:

"B-rank 【Amoeba Worm】 special instance has opened; players entering this time: Lin An (2 Fourth Rank Awakened One), Zhang Tie (2 Fourth Rank Awakened One), Gao Tian (1 Fourth Rank Awakened One), Mo Ling (1 Undead Body)"

"This instance's difficulty: Dangerous-Terrifying!"

The countdown sounded.

「9.. 」

「8... 」

At the last three seconds, after hesitating a moment, An Jing Tian still handed the sealed white envelope to Lin An.

Space warped, and the transmission was about to begin.

In his blurred vision, Lin An caught the thrown envelope, looking puzzled.

Only Jing Tian's intermittent voice sounded:

「Brother Lin! Colonel Chu said... 」

「There's no way.. 」

「Look again! 」

As the voice and image completely disappeared, everything seemed to fall into darkness.