38: Chapter 38 Accelerating the Exploration Process

After searching the sixth house, Wang Ting led his squad to evacuate.

Although it was shortly past noon, he wasn't greedy and didn't continue searching further into the outskirts.

The search of the six houses refreshed a total of two types of supplies; a portion of them was fresh food, and another portion was medical supplies.

Everyone brought the refreshed supplies and the searched items back together and handed them over to Ren Chuan for unified processing.

Ren Chuan also immediately mobilized more manpower to begin demolition work on the houses that had already been cleared, dismantling all useful timber.

The main bodies of the houses were basically built of wood, and after demolition, those beams, pillars, and planks were of great use.

The residents building the rammed earth wall in Outpost Camp received the sent wood, turned them into templates to fix the retaining walls, and then rammed them down bit by bit, increasing work efficiency quite a bit.

"Put your backs into it, put all the weeds and straw in, and ram it down solidly for me. Anyone who doesn't put in the effort shouldn't even think about getting an energy block today. The wall is our lifeline. If anyone cuts corners, when the anomaly attacks, the ones who die will be ourselves."

Dong Hu commanded his subordinates to ram the soil down bit by bit, and the stakes made of beams were continuously driven down, making everyone work with intense enthusiasm for a time.

After several consecutive days of work, the rammed earth wall of Outpost Camp had already begun to show initial results.

Centered around the Infinite Building, a clay foundation about 50 meters long and 40 meters wide had been built into a small layer. The earth wall foundation was about half a meter high and 40 centimeters wide, mixed with straw and packed tightly by ramming pestles, exuding a rough brownish-yellow color.

According to Dong Hu's plan, in the next few days, they would continue to raise the earth wall to a height of at least three meters, embed wooden frames inside the wall to reinforce it, and only then build the walkways, watchtowers, and stockade gates on top of the wall to further improve all parts.

If everything went smoothly, the final height of the main wall completed would reach at least 4 meters.

The construction of the Vine Town floor was also carried out methodically under the organization of Feng Bo and the others.

Feng Bo roughly organized twenty people to enter the stronghold, and they carried out a carpet-style cleanup of the houses after the search, dismantling all useful things such as wooden boards, beams, pillars, and floors.

A portion was sent to Outpost Camp to build the earth wall, and another portion was used to reinforce the stronghold's defense.

The temporary stronghold's wall was built with abandoned cars and wooden boards. Its construction speed was faster, but the height was only about two meters. The wall directly blocked across the entire street, isolating the stronghold from the town.

On the side of the stronghold close to the outskirts, after days of exploration, more than a dozen houses had been thoroughly searched by Wang Ting and his men. All useful things were moved back, and the vast majority of the houses were demolished by Feng Bo and his men, leaving only a few houses close to the stronghold.

After the houses were demolished, large areas of streets and open spaces were left behind.

Feng Bo and the others directly ordered their subordinates to cut off those vines, gather them together, and then set a big fire to burn them all cleanly.

As a result, the land within a hundred meters behind the stronghold was cleared into open space.

Without cover, it would not be so easy for monsters to approach.

...

Outpost Camp, inside the large tent.

Wang Ting, Feng Bo, Dong Hu, and a few others sat around a table. On the table was a crude location map of Outpost Camp and a description of the surrounding environment conditions.

Everyone sat together in a circle, and except for Wang Ting, they all slightly frowned, obviously having all encountered problems.

"The earth wall foundation has been laid, but the wooden frames are not enough. The timber for building the stockade gates and watchtowers cannot use the wood dismantled from those houses either; some boards are already decayed and lack sufficient strength."

Dong Hu was the first to raise his own difficulty: "If there is no higher quality timber, then the subsequent construction of the wall can only reach this extent, and it is impossible to make it more sturdy."

Tieling Wasteland inherently lacked trees, but building walls could not do without this thing, otherwise the strength would not meet the standard.

A substandard wall was extremely fatal in the apocalyptic world.

"The problem of wood will be solved inside the Vine Town floor. The houses leading to the outskirts have been cleared almost completely; exploring a bit further out will lead to the location of that forest."

There was a forest in the outskirts, but it was not close. Clearing houses these days was also to open up the road.

Wang Ting looked at Ren Chuan and Feng Bo, then spoke up to ask: "How is the exploration arranged for the outskirts going?"

"This afternoon, Xiang Nan will lead a team to conduct long-distance exploration, with the goal of reaching that forest and finding possible water sources around. However, whether the forest is safe and how many monsters are there will only be known after exploring."

"Tell Xiang Nan and the others to be careful. If they find something wrong, they must report back immediately, with all exploration taking safety as the top priority. Also, if they discover a Thorn Vine Beast, report it immediately, raising the priority to the highest."

Wang Ting's gaze was calm and composed. He couldn't wait any longer; for several consecutive days, he hadn't seen any trace of the Thorn Vine Beast. If he could find the Thorn Vine Beast and record it, his accumulation of monster points could increase by a huge margin.

A look of surprise flashed deep in Feng Bo's eyes, but he didn't show it, only nodding and saying: "Understood."

"Captain, the brothers of the maintenance team checked the vehicles found in this district according to your instructions, and the situation is not too good."

Ren Chuan's words made everyone concentrate their attention on him.

Cars were a person's second life in the apocalyptic world.

Now the entire camp only had one truck provided by the town, but for everyone, that truck was just a drop in the bucket.

Especially in the Floor World, there was no way you could completely disassemble this truck and then send it to the Floor World to reassemble it.

Therefore, cars were also urgently needed inside the Vine Town floor to improve exploration efficiency, and could even save lives at critical moments.

Ren Chuan showed a troubled look: "I've searched all these safe districts, and not a single car can be used. The degree of vehicle corrosion and damage varies from a few months to several years. However, almost all cars' batteries, circuits, and tires are scrapped, and some even have broken engines. I had them dismantle all the usable parts and piece them together, but it only barely managed to make enough parts for two cars, not including things like batteries and engines."

The districts cleaned up by Wang Ting and the others were close to the outskirts. The number of cars was not large, and coupled with not encountering items that refresh cars, everything that could be found was junk.

"Can it be repaired?"

"Barely, but the performance won't be very good. And we need to get parts like engines and batteries from the Shelter over there."

Every time they went out to trade supplies, Scarecrow Town would exchange for some parts needed to repair cars.

Therefore, there must be spare parts in Scarecrow Town right now, but those things were not among the supplies supported by the town this time, so they needed to request them from Boss Zhao and the others.

"Go back and tell Boss Zhao and the others to gather the parts for two cars."

Wang Ting didn't hesitate at all. Since he wanted to develop this Floor World, he must invest sufficient resources.

He paused slightly, thought for a moment, and asked again: "How many transcendent materials do we have now?"

Ren Chuan was stunned for a moment, then replied: "Eight portions of transcendent materials, and the rest are ordinary materials of the Parasitic Fungus Vine."

Wang Ting and the others did not go all out to exterminate the Parasitic Fungus Vines. The Parasitic Fungus Vines they killed were either those that actively launched attacks during the search process or were hunted down after the squad discovered their traces, so the quantity was not large. Exactly because of this, the transcendent materials they currently acquired were not many.

Wang Ting said: "Take them back together and hand them over to Boss Zhao and Boss Fan. Leave not a single one of the 8 portions of transcendent materials."

"This..." Ren Chuan was somewhat hesitant, "It seems it's not yet time to hand over the spoils of war."

"Whether the time has arrived or not doesn't matter. Taking these things back will make it easier for you to get more resources. Don't delay development time for this little thing. Transcendent materials are not important; supplies are more important. Only with supplies can we hunt more monsters."

Wang Ting wasn't stingy at all. His foundation did not lie in transcendent materials, but in those hidden monsters.

His gaze seemed to pass through the stairway passage and landed on Vine Town. He knew that only by speeding up could he hunt more monsters.

Then, he could possess the power like monsters.