Chapter Ninety-Eight: White Shark

But if he threw out the Tost giant squid, it would almost certainly become infected by the Kala virus on this planet as well.

Given the squid’s enormous size, the materials Qin Fei would need to cure it completely would be at least ten times greater than what he would need for himself.

Unless he had no other choice, Qin Fei would never, under any circumstances, release the squid from the cryogenic chamber.

One Tek energy cell could keep the Tek helmet running for about an hour.

If the Tek chestplate was used for underwater propulsion, it would consume at least five Tek energy cells per hour just to maintain the power needed for movement beneath the water.

If he used both the chestplate and the helmet in the water at the same time, it would probably not be long before the Tek energy in Qin Fei’s backpack was completely exhausted.

For that reason, Qin Fei avoided using the chestplate’s underwater propulsion unless it was absolutely necessary.

After putting on his helmet and diving fins, Qin Fei slipped into the water.

The fish on this planet looked peculiarly stupid.

Having never seen a life-form like Qin Fei before, they almost never dodged when they swam past him.

That made things easy: with a quick grab, Qin Fei could catch the fish passing by him without much trouble at all.

Besides that, he occasionally found titanium ore, copper ore, and quartz on the seabed.

Since they might come in handy later, Qin Fei gathered these resources into his backpack as he explored the surrounding waters.

With his backpack’s load capacity already reaching a full sixty kilograms, he had no need to worry about storage space for the time being.

He kept exploring until he reached the edge of the shallow sea.

There, he found a transparent glass panel. Nearby lay an instrument that looked something like a searchlight.

Qin Fei picked up both items.

[Captain’s Log, Healer: This is a tablet computer containing information recorded by the crew of the Healer.]

[Scanner: The scanner can be used to obtain technological blueprints or data on living organisms.]

Perhaps because it had been left here for too long, or perhaps because it had been submerged in seawater for so long, the tablet was badly damaged.

After it powered on, only a single block of text remained, barely visible on the screen.

July 3, 2211.

"The virus has spread beyond control. Everyone on Earth... including me, is covered in disgusting yellow-green blotches."

July 15, 2211.

"Everyone infected by this virus dies within two months... How much longer do I have?"

August 1, 2211.

"After nearly a month of searching, I finally found the source of the virus. It was an escape pod from the planet 4546B..."

August 25, 2211.

"We have no choice anymore... I’ve decided to go with the others aboard the Healer to planet 4546B and look for a chance to be cured."

Because the computer was damaged far too severely, the text ended there with no further entries.

From the information recorded on the tablet, Qin Fei formed a few guesses of his own.

Judging from the text...

By the time Qin Fei arrived on this planet, the game’s protagonist may already have obtained the hatching enzyme secreted by the Sea Emperor.

Using that hatching enzyme, the protagonist completely cured the Kala virus in his body. Afterward, he boarded a homemade rocket and returned to Earth.

Although the protagonist had been successfully cured, that did not mean the rocket he built was free of the Kala virus.

One had to remember that this outrageously infectious and resilient virus could survive in a vacuum, even in space itself.

Thus, the virus was carried all the way back to Earth from the distant Adrang system by the protagonist.

Naturally, if the Kala virus had left even the advanced civilization known as the Precursors helpless, then humanity on Earth would have had no hope of curing it.

The virus soon spread across the entire planet.

And with it came the apocalypse.

To survive, the tablet’s owner had joined the others aboard the Healer and come to planet 4546B in search of a solution.

But from the looks of things, the crew of the Healer had probably already been wiped out by the virus.

After Qin Fei finished analyzing the information on the tablet, he turned his attention to the other item: the scanner.

In the world of Subnautica, the scanner was an incredibly powerful tool.

It could scan any object and instantly analyze its properties, structure, and constituent materials, then deduce the exact blueprint for making it.

Qin Fei’s Tek replicator, meanwhile, possessed a capability similar to that of a 3D printer. As long as he had the blueprint and materials, he could produce whatever item he wanted in unlimited quantities.

If Qin Fei combined the two, he could duplicate any object he had scanned.

After obtaining the scanner, Qin Fei began frantically scanning various underwater plants, and in the process acquired many items that were extremely useful to him.

For example, the coral tubes and salt deposits he found in the water.

After the scanner analyzed their composition, placing both into the Tek replicator allowed him to produce sodium hypochlorite bleach.

This bleach could disinfect water and be used to purify seawater.

Once purified, the seawater could be drunk directly.

In this way, Qin Fei’s drinking-water problem was essentially solved as well.

While gathering materials, Qin Fei also made his way to the outer edge of the shallow-water region.

There, the seabed was covered in plants shaped like snowflakes. Reflected by those snowflake-like forms, this stretch of ocean was almost completely white.

Among the snowflakes lived certain fish that looked much like megalodons.

They were enormous, and there were many of them.

Most importantly, they were all snow-white.

Because of that, they could slip into the snowflake-like plants, hide themselves by blending into the pale surroundings, and ambush fish that passed nearby.

What was more, the surface of those white sharks was covered in the same disgusting yellow-green blotches.

These were the symptoms of a late-stage Kala virus infection...

Since night was about to fall, and Qin Fei was very much attached to his life, he did not dare enter the hunting grounds of the white sharks. Instead, he turned back to the stone platform in the shallow sea.

That night, while Qin Fei slept, a sharp pain shot through his foot.

Because he was terrified of dying, Qin Fei reacted with remarkable speed. Startled awake by the pain, he sprang up at once, put on his Tek armor, and hovered in the air.

Using the helmet’s night-vision function, Qin Fei looked down at the stone platform where he had been sleeping.

A white shark was actually sprawled there.

Most bizarre of all, the yellow-green blotches all over its body had now transformed into countless protuberances.

Not only that, but several of those growths had already begun to lengthen, becoming one nauseating tentacle after another.

Using those tentacles sprouting from its body, the white shark had climbed onto the stone platform and successfully ambushed Qin Fei while he slept...