Using the Manual and Exploring the First Dangerous Room

"Why so angry? You're the one who wanted to buy it, the side effects have nothing to do with me."

Li Zheng scratched his head, too lazy to argue with her. They didn't have much of a relationship to begin with.

Li Zheng opened the chatroom and took a look. He didn't find any valuable information, so he got down to business.

An iron ingot appeared in his hand. He skillfully took off his coat and wrapped it up. He raised his hand and was about to smash the computer.

"Wait, if there's a research desk, shouldn't there be a blueprint?"

Li Zheng leaned against the drawer to confirm. The water purifier blueprint that he had previously inserted had disappeared, so there were only two empty USB drives.

There was nothing in the drawer either. It was completely empty.

"There really isn't a blueprint..."

Unwilling to give up, Li Zheng rummaged through the study again, his gaze finally landing on a bookshelf that he had ignored all this time.

The bookshelves were filled with no less than a hundred books, all of which were printed in a language Li Zheng could not understand.

"Eh? Why aren't there any descriptions for these books?"

Li Zheng's gaze swept across the books. When he saw a book with a black cover, the detector suddenly turned green.

"There's something here! The detector is more reliable!"

Li Zheng was all smiles as he pulled the book out and scanned the rest of the books. The detector did not give any other response.

"It seems like the last bit of information is in this book."

Li Zheng looked at the black leather book in his hand and noticed that there were strange creatures printed on the cover.

There was a three-headed lion, a spider with eyes all over its body, a green centipede, and a python with heads on both sides...

These were the creatures that Li Zheng could identify, but there were many more that were indescribable and had strange shapes.

Flipping open the cover, Li Zheng found that the pages had been ripped out, and there was a black USB drive with blood-red lines.

"There is indeed something here..."

Li Zheng was delighted at first, but then he realized that the system didn't even provide any information on the USB drive.

"Strange...could this thing not be from the matrix?"

Li Zheng was dumbfounded. "Whatever. I should check it out."

He leaned over and inserted the black USB drive. As expected, an image appeared on the screen.

"Why do I still not understand the words?"

Li Zheng frowned.

After it read the contents in the USB drive, it only showed images of the strange creatures on the cover of the book. However, all the words were distorted lines, and they did not have any meaning at all.

"This writing...why does it look more and more like a doctor's handwriting…"

Li Zheng couldn't help it.

"Fortunately, I can learn this at the research desk."

Li Zheng saw the word "learn" light up on the screen and tapped it.

In the next moment, the image transformed into a ray of light and entered Li Zheng's mind.

A large amount of images rushed in. After they were summarized and sorted out, they turned into images of creatures.

Focusing his mind, Li Zheng discovered that a new function had appeared on his interface.

[Matrix illustration]

He opened it and saw a table of contents, "Creatures in the Matrix (7)"

After he tapped on it, he saw the image and text information in the USB drive.

The characters that he couldn't understand before had now turned into Chinese characters, so he could read it.

"Three-headed ghost lion."

"Thousand-eyed spider."

"Venomous centipede."

"Two-faced snake,"

…

He selected the three-headed ghost lion to view its details.

[The three-headed ghost lion is a genetically-modified creature. Although it has three heads, they share one consciousness. Only one of them is male, and the rest are lionesses. No special gene was found.]

[Characteristics: lionesses like to hunt in groups, while the lions like to fight solo.]

[Weakness: soft part of the abdomen.]

[Danger rating: 302.]

"Good stuff. The value of this manual is at least equivalent to a silver-grade item."

Li Zheng was quite satisfied as he kept the illustrated manual.

He got it just in time for him to explore the dangerous rooms.

At the very least, he knew the weaknesses of the creatures.

After he put away the manual, Li Zheng saw a scan button next to the table of contents.

When he tapped on it, a virtual lens appeared in front of him, and a blue line was moving up and down.

Surprisingly, it was the scan function.

"Nice. In the future, if I encounter creatures I don't recognize, I'll just scan before I attack. It's so easy."

Satisfied, Li Zheng raised his arm and smashed the research desk into pieces.

[Deconstructing the damaged research desk. Obtained: technology core x1, copper ingot x1, damaged type I power core x1]

"Hmm... It seems that it's too damaged this time. There's one less iron ingot than last time. I have to pay more attention next time."

Li Zheng left the study and headed to the bedroom. "But this power core is too fragile. Why does it always break after I smash the equipment?"

"Speaking of which, I forgot to smash the four cultivation vessels in the previous room..."

He scratched his head and was annoyed.

He forgot something so important because he was too excited after obtaining the two flame flowers.

"But that thing is so big, and it seems to be made of iron. If I really smash it all, I'll be very tired."

"Forget it. It's good like this. At least I'm not tired."

With that in mind, Li Zheng arrived at the master bedroom.

He started off by dismantling the bed, the sheets, and the curtains, and got 50 fibers.

Then, he walked around the room and didn't find anything of value. The detector didn't respond either.

Taking out the Desert Eagle and the lantern, Li Zheng swiped his card in front of the metal door.

The metal door slowly opened, revealing the familiar light film behind it.

"I'm finally going to face the danger in the matrix."

Li Zheng took a deep breath, suddenly feeling a little regretful.

He should just enter the safe rooms and search for supplies.

Why was he so ambitious?

"But something is missing if I play a game without fighting monsters..."

Li Zheng exhaled and sighed, "perhaps this is what it means to be a masochist."

After mumbling to himself, he stretched his limbs, gritted his teeth, and walked into the film.

The colors in front of his eyes faded, and everything was pitch black. Only the light from the lantern around him illuminated the area.

"Damn! It's a room without any light source!"

Even though it was dark all around, Li Zheng could tell from the slightly damp air that this was probably a room that looked like an underground cave.

"The lamp's illumination is less than three meters. It'll be difficult to see anything further. I wonder if the illustrated manual will be of any use in this situation."

Li Zheng turned on the scan function and looked around.

At the same time, there was a flapping sound in the darkness. It seemed to be the sound of some creature flapping its wings.

"What is it?"

Li Zheng turned to look, only to catch a black shadow flashing by. It disappeared in an instant.

However, it was enough.

The manual buzzed and locked onto the black shadow, displaying its information.

"Terror bats, genetically-modified creatures. They like to live in groups, and each group has at least 20 of them."

"Characteristics: echolocation, rapid flight, low toxicity."

"Weakness: fear of light and fire."

"Danger rating: 20."

"It's only 20. Compared to the three-headed ghost lion, this is nothing."

Li Zheng was amused. "And I have its weakness. I'm in for it now."