Just like before, Zhang Yanhang set a small goal for himself—he wanted to raise his level to LV.5 within two hours.
He had previously used the Enemy Seeking Radar to survey the surroundings. To the west, the number of zombies was pitifully low, while to the east, the number of zombies appeared to be gradually increasing. So, barring any surprises, he would likely head eastward, in the direction of the city center.
"Next up, I'll start with a Time Pause, pull up the map, and then find a place that suits me best—where the zombies are most plentiful," Zhang Yanhang took a Drop treasure box from a Teacup dog out of his Waist Bag, that's right, he had kept this Treasure box precisely for this.
[Please choose the specific content of "Drop treasure box (Teacup Poodle Zombie)"]
[Item One: ?]
[Item Two: ?]
[Item Three: ?]
[Item Four: ?]
[Item Five: ?]
Ignoring the options for the Drop treasure box, Zhang Yanhang directly opened the window, climbed out to the exterior wall, and then climbed all the way up until he stood on the rooftop of the apartment building. For someone like Zhang Yanhang, who had experience scaling skyscrapers, climbing a six-story building was a breeze.
Standing atop the building, more than twenty meters high, Zhang Yanhang looked gravely to the distant west. Unless he was hallucinating, there seemed to be a vast green prairie to the west of Raccoon City, stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Could that be the Goblin Plain mentioned in the equipment acquisition locations?" After another careful look, Zhang Yanhang felt confident he was correct.
Some might wonder why Zhang Yanhang called a prairie a plain, as a plain is a type of landform, the counterpart to a plateau, mainly indicating a region with relatively low elevation.
Moreover, Zhang Yanhang didn't observe features like hills or mountain ranges. Adding to this, the prairie was roughly parallel to the height of Raccoon City, so, theoretically, it should indeed be a classic plain.
Though he recognized the Goblin Plain, Zhang Yanhang was entirely unfamiliar with what lay to the north of Raccoon City—a towering, cloud-piercing tree so tall, he could only see its massive trunk from his position, but not the crown. It was simply ludicrous in its height.
Then there was the south of Raccoon City, where Zhang Yanhang observed an endless expanse of yellow-brown mountains rolling on and on.
"This map is way too big," Zhang Yanhang thought to himself. "With just what's visible, there's so much, who knows what lies further out..." He felt that even with his speed of twelve meters per second, it would be impossible to fully explore this vicinity in a little over an hour.
Indeed, Zhang Yanhang had previously used his watch to time his speed: from ten meters per second, it had improved to twelve meters per second. The change wasn't drastic—a 20% improvement—and still didn't allow him to meet the small goal of running fifty meters in 3.3 seconds.
"That towering tree to the north and the mountain range to the south can wait. For now, my main scouting target should still be Raccoon City. After all, the zombies here are easy to deal with, making them perfect for grinding Soul points. Once I level up a bit more, I'll then explore other sections of the map."
But before that, Zhang Yanhang decided to make a trip to the vast prairie to the west to verify whether it was truly the Goblin Plain.
Boom! Zhang Yanhang leaped down from the rooftop, twenty meters high, and landed smoothly as though nothing had changed from takeoff to landing, not even a bend in his knees.
Zhang Yanhang decided to head to the western prairie first because it was very close, probably only a few hundred meters away.
He struck a runner's pose and then began to charge towards it. After approximately half a minute, he reached the boundary line between the prairie and Raccoon City.
Yes, there truly was a boundary line—it was as if someone had excavated a portion of Raccoon City and the prairie separately and then forcibly stitched them back together.
To the right of the boundary line was the pedestrian walkway and asphalt road of Raccoon City, and to the left were the soft earth and lush green grass seamlessly joined together, creating an indescribably strange feeling, reminiscent of the type of texture glitches one would find in a video game.
"The topography of Ashen World is indeed completely different from that of the Main World," Zhang Yanhang mused briefly before stepping onto the prairie. He had little interest in the landscaping of Ashen World; his fascination was solely with the Soul points.
Running on the prairie for at most a minute, Zhang Yanhang then spotted a Monster lying on the ground sleeping—green-skinned, less than a meter tall, with a mouth full of big yellow teeth, pointy ears, and clutching a large machete with a notched blade, the same type Zhang Yanhang had seen before.
Aside from not being able to see whether the creature had the characteristic crimson eyes—because it was sleeping—most of the other basic traits matched. So, Zhang Yanhang figured that if his judgment wasn't wrong, this was likely the Big Saber Goblin mentioned in the brief.
And since he had encountered a Big Saber Goblin, that confirmed this place was indeed the Goblin Plain, not some other random prairie.
"Now that I've confirmed this is the Goblin Plain, I should continue exploring Raccoon City," he thought.
Once he cleared all of Raccoon City, his next step would likely be the Goblin Plain, as Goblins were also a weak Monster species ideal for grinding Soul points, and they tended to appear in groups.
Having made up his mind, Zhang Yanhang turned and charged back towards Raccoon City, and while running, he also pulled out the Enemy Seeking Radar.
As said before, the items he carried, like his clothes, would be locked in a sort of indestructible status similar to him, but they could still be used normally.
Applied to the Enemy Seeking Radar, this meant he could ignore its minute-long cooldown and the consumption of Energy Value to use the radar without limit, thus turning it into the type of proper radar that updates in real-time every second.
This was the source of Zhang Yanhang's confidence about opening the map. If he had to search for zombies' positions while running on his own, it wouldn't matter if he was given an hour or a whole day—he probably wouldn't get far, considering Raccoon City was a complete city after all, no matter how small.