Chapter 1 Some Unexpected Gains

Feng Bujue was somewhat surprised by what he'd gained after returning to the castle. A minute after he knocked, Ivan answered the door. Feng Bujue went inside and chatted with the General for a few more words, trying to borrow a torch or something to light the way. In the end, the other party generously gave him a dagger and a flashlight, and even advised him not to waste any more time trying to escape…

In fact, in this script, players only needed to ask, and the Boss would give them these two items for free. One was to facilitate travel in the jungle, and the other was for lighting.

As levels increased, these kinds of tools became easier and easier to obtain. Because items of this ordinary quality were not very valuable at higher levels, their nature became similar to consumables. Around level twenty, players would have at least one or two Fine-quality pieces of equipment. Even if they couldn't find them in the script, they could definitely buy them with the game currency and skill points earned by leveling up to twenty. After all, Thriller Paradise had various ways to obtain equipment.

Having obtained the flashlight and the knife, Feng Bujue began his jungle escape.

He estimated that there wouldn't be any ferocious beasts in the bushes surrounding the castle. Since animals acted according to instinct, they should know that the area near the castle was the territory of the king of beasts. Of course, here I am referring to General Zaroff, not Comrade Qin Ze.

Therefore, Feng Bujue was carefree when he first entered the jungle, and he moved very quickly. He hacked through thorns, never stopping, wading through weeds more than a meter high, jumping over muddy pitfalls, and going around steep stone walls. Apart from stepping on a large pile of what he suspected was coyote feces, everything went smoothly.

[Please note, Zaroff has departed from the castle.]

When this system prompt sounded, Feng Bujue looked at the taskbar, which showed: [Time remaining until sunrise: 240 minutes]

It was also around this time that Feng Bujue truly drilled into the belly of a beast called "the jungle."

At some point, several leeches had covered the back of his neck. When he noticed his Survival Value decreasing, Feng Bujue discovered their presence. He lost some more health as he scraped these blood-sucking mollusks off the back of his neck with the knife. Fortunately, the game description mentioned that, in similar situations, parasites would not burrow into clothes, only attacking exposed skin. Otherwise, Feng Bujue would definitely have to strip naked and carefully check himself before he could feel at ease.

At this moment, he finally realized the cost of his previous rapid progress. The effects of the humid tropical climate began to appear, and his Stamina Value was decreasing at a very bad rate. The Jazz Steps were obviously restricted in this rugged jungle terrain, and the clothes on his body made him feel hot and uncomfortable, but the lesson of the leeches made him afraid to even roll up his sleeves.

Another half an hour passed, and the jungle in the darkness had revealed its hideous face, with heavy tree shadows and shade like a curtain. As the surrounding trees became denser and denser, Feng Bujue had to frequently climb to the top of the trees to look at the sky, otherwise he would gradually lose his way.

The further he went into the heart of the jungle, the more obvious the difficulties brought by the environment became. Some areas had as many as three to five layers of vegetation, from top to bottom, like a tent, making the moonlight useless. The flashlight became Feng Bujue's only reliance.

"When I watched *Man vs. Wild* back then, I thought they were just putting on a show. Now that I've entered the forest myself, I'm as miserable as a grandson… Sure enough, watching others work isn't tiring… The actual difficulty of traversing the jungle is far beyond what the camera can convey." Feng Bujue thought to himself. He couldn't help but recall a set of classic Discovery Channel recordings he had watched before. The host of that show gave him the feeling that "surviving in the wilderness doesn't seem that difficult." But he understood at this moment that this kind of behavior of taking a small knife and trying to trek long distances in the wilderness was definitely not something ordinary people could do.

Suddenly, from the darkness to Feng Bujue's right, came two animal calls, like heavy breathing, mixed with a wee—wee— sound, which sounded like a wild boar.

Feng Bujue's first reaction was to climb a tree. He didn't want to fight a four-legged creature in a pitch-black environment.

The call was getting closer, accompanied by the sound of the wild boar trampling the ground and its body rubbing against the trees.

Feng Bujue quickly climbed up the tree and aimed the beam of the flashlight at the direction of the noise.

"That's not right… It sounds like there's another sound…" Feng Bujue vaguely heard another animal's voice, and he quickly understood why a wild boar would be rampaging in the middle of the night.

A dozen seconds later, the wild boar appeared in Feng Bujue's sight. Its limbs were short and thick, its body was strong, and it had sparse, thick black bristles on its body. It had a great sense of power when it charged forward, like a small black tank. At this moment, a tuft of bristles around the wild boar's neck had stood up, and it kept calling out. These signs indicated that it was quite agitated, and it seemed to have encountered some very powerful predator.

As soon as the wild boar appeared, the hunter who was chasing it showed up closely behind. It was a giant python, although not as exaggerated as the behemoth in the northwest corner of the island, this one was also quite large.

In fact, most people find it hard to imagine just how big of a prey a python can swallow. To put it this way, a five-meter-long python is enough to swallow a two-meter-long crocodile, and an eight-meter-long python can swallow an entire zebra.

The one in front of Feng Bujue was eight meters long…

Perhaps the wild boar was running for its life, or perhaps the system wanted to arrange for the player to witness what was about to happen… In short, within the range of the flashlight's light, a very classic scene unfolded – the pig ran into a tree.

But the snake didn't run into the pig. It moved forward in a winding manner, spreading its body horizontally to form a semi-circular encirclement, trapping the wild boar next to the tree trunk. The tree was very thick, probably too thick for two adults to hug, and at this moment it had become a wall preventing the wild boar from escaping.

The giant python arched its body and raised its head, looking down at its prey. The wild boar probably knew that it was doomed, so it launched a final counterattack, aiming its upturned fangs at the snake's body, and charged straight ahead.

Before it could hit the snake's body, the snake's head fell at high speed, biting the wild boar in one bite, swinging it in a half circle in the air, and then slamming it heavily on the ground, immediately releasing its bite and biting again. The speed was so fast that it was dazzling, as if someone had reached into a pot of hot oil with two fingers and picked up a piece of soap.

The wild boar was officially in its mouth, and the giant python immediately began to "eat." This animal's way of eating was just one word: "swallowing." This process depended on the size of the prey and sometimes took several hours.

Feng Bujue had managed to block some of the flashlight's light, lest he disturb the other party's meal, and then he tiptoed down the tree. He didn't have time to wait for the giant python to slowly stuff the entire wild boar into its mouth. He could only pray that the other party would focus on eating and not pay attention to him.

After successfully getting down the tree, he didn't immediately sprint towards the southeast. Instead, he chose to leave this place first and put some distance between himself and this monster.

Unexpectedly, at this moment, Feng Bujue heard another animal's voice, an even more deadly threat.