Train Survival: You're really trying to survive!

After arranging all the spoils from this trip, Su Li and the others finally had breakfast.

Besides the secret food, Zurich and his friends also sliced ​​and ate the delicious conch meat raw.

This delicious conch meat truly lives up to its name; with each bite, in addition to the fresh sweetness of seafood, there's a rich, milky aroma.

The group ate with great appetite.

Next, they began their daily half-hour training, digesting the magical energy in the secret food and improving their strength.

After finishing their morning exercise, Su Li and his group put their gear back on and headed to the area rich in silver and gold mines that the radar had detected.

According to radar, the mining area was three kilometers away from Zurich in a straight line. However, getting there actually required a long journey.

They first swam towards deeper waters, and after swimming for about 1 kilometer, they saw a trench. Then they plunged down and began to dive deeper into the sea.

Because the gravity on this planet is only 40% of that on Earth, the water pressure is not as strong. As Zuli and the others entered the deep sea, the water pressure gradually equalized with the air pressure inside their bodies, making it more comfortable than at sea level.

Zuli and his team dived to a depth of 100 meters. The sunlight in this world is very penetrating, and even at a depth of 100 meters, visibility remained excellent.

Furthermore, the surrounding life became more abundant, with creatures resembling fish from Earth beginning to swim around Zuli and his companions. Seaweed and plants resembling Ganoderma lucidum also appeared on the surrounding rock walls.

Su Li and his team descended to a depth of about 120 meters and discovered a huge cave. Su Li took out a Sun Pearl from his backpack and activated it.

Once activated, the Sun Pearl emitted a soft sunlight, illuminating the entrance to the cave.

Su Li hadn't forgotten that this was a world of energy level 0.8, and that such a cave might harbor some kind of monster.

Ivan, carrying the shield, swam ahead, followed by Zuli, with Sophia and Song Mingyu close behind.

The cave is quite large inside, with the stone walls covered with countless small pits, and the interior of the cave extends slowly downwards.

As you go deeper into the cave, the surrounding water temperature begins to rise noticeably, and you can see dense bubbles rising from the depths of the cave.

After advancing for about another kilometer, they finally arrived at the place marked on the map.

It was a huge underwater cave, several square kilometers in size and at least 30 meters high.

There are many caves on the walls surrounding the cave. In the middle, there is a pile of ore, and in the center of the pile is a deep pit from which bubbles are constantly rising.

On the surrounding ground, many mushrooms emitting a faint purple glow grew, illuminating the entire cave.

Zuli felt the temperature; it was about 40 degrees Celsius. Combined with the constantly rising bubbles, this was most likely a hydrothermal vent.

Sofia swam up to Su Li at that moment, patted Su Li on the shoulder, and pointed in a direction when Su Li turned around.

Zuli looked in the direction Sophia pointed, and after looking carefully for a while, she discovered that there was a long, worm-like creature drifting with the current.

This peculiar worm is almost entirely transparent, with only its head showing some color; it's truly difficult to spot unless you look closely.

Su Li racked her brains but couldn't recall any information about this animal. So there were three possibilities: first, this insect wasn't a monster; second, it was a monster of Black Iron rank or higher; and third, the encyclopedia didn't record any information about this kind of monster.

Su Li prefers the third option. This is because the encyclopedia only records tens of thousands of Black Iron-level monsters, but there are actually hundreds of millions of Black Iron-level monsters.

The encyclopedia only records those representative monsters that the Blue Star civilization was more likely to encounter.

So, is the monster encyclopedia useless? Of course not. If you memorize tens of thousands of representative monsters, you can make certain judgments when you encounter a new monster based on your knowledge of those monsters.

Su Li squinted, staring intently at the monster.

First, look at the elemental quantity. Based on the amount of elemental energy the monster inhales and exhales, it can be basically determined that this is a Black Iron-level monster.

Its skin isn't camouflage; it's truly transparent. This means that this monster's survival strategy relies either on its transparency to launch surprise attacks or to evade enemies. Both of these factors suggest that this monster is relatively weak in direct combat.

The fact that the teeth are flat suggests that this monster is most likely not carnivorous.

Su Li looked down at the monster's body and discovered that its lower body was hidden inside the cave.

"Then it must be a monster that looks like a garden eel," Su Li guessed.

After observing the transparent garden eel, Su Li turned his gaze to the flower bud-like objects on the ground. He felt threatened by these things. Why? Because he noticed that the flower buds around them were slowly turning towards them.

Like a hunter poised to pounce.

Su Li found a single flower bud, held up the mountain shovel, and slowly swam towards it.

As Zuli approached, the skin outside the flower bud began to wriggle. When Zuli was only 10 meters away, the flower bud burst open instantly.

Then, a round object was launched towards Su Li in an instant.

In an instant, Su Li switched the Mountain Slope in her hand to an ice sword, and an ice blade collided with the projectile.

The ice spikes instantly froze the projectiles.

Su Li remained vigilant for a while, and then noticed that after the flower bud burst open, it slowly curled up and became still.

So Su Li quickly swam over, picked up the frozen object, and used the system to examine it.

[Concentrated Explosive Spores: Explode upon contact with enemies. Can be decomposed.]

Then Su Li walked over to the flower bud and examined it.

【Deep-sea Exploding Mushroom: When a creature approaches, it will release spores that blast the enemy to pieces.】

After blasting the enemy to pieces, their corpses will be scattered around you, becoming nutrients for your growth.

Zuli opened the mushroom bud and found a clump of powdery spores inside.

[Exploding Spores: A Potential Replacement for Gunpowder]

"Could this stuff be used to make bullets?" Su Li was intrigued and collected the powder.

Then he picked up the manual, explained his findings to his teammates, and decided on the next formation.

[Keep your distance from that giant bug and don't provoke it for now. First, go mine the mineral deposits in the middle of the cave. Then send Sophia back to test the performance of the bullets made from these explosive spores. If they perform well, then collect all the explosive mushrooms around there.]

After assigning tasks, Zuli and his team were about to begin mining.

Here underwater, Zu Li and his team's steam mining machines were unusable, so they had to use pickaxes to break through the ore one by one. The equipment for transporting ore also couldn't move in the sea, so they had to carry it by hand.

This makes mining much more complicated.