"Hoo... Hoo... Hoo..."
Alex Thompson gasped for breath as he collapsed in an abandoned supermarket, his heart racing with fear. Hastily, he got up and ran towards the second floor of the supermarket where the office with its security shutters awaited, locking himself inside.
Finally, he felt a semblance of safety.
Through the window of the second-floor office, he looked out at the zombies roaming outside the supermarket, their faces blank and aimless.
Just moments ago, Alex had been sitting at home when he suddenly felt dizzy.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in this unfamiliar area.
Before he could make sense of what was happening, the zombies were hot on his heels, prompting Alex to sprint into the nearby abandoned supermarket.
"Welcome, chosen challengers, to the apocalypse world."
"Here, you will need to gather supplies to sustain your life while also facing off against zombies and mutated monsters that can take your life at any moment."
"Survive by any means necessary, fortunate challengers!"
At that moment, Alex heard a mechanical female voice in his mind.
Simultaneously, his vision was filled with an augmented reality-like perspective.
In the middle of his vision, there were interfaces for backpacks, trading windows, chat channels, emails, and more.
He opened the backpack, finding it empty.
Alex's expression darkened.
He hadn't replenished his energy for a day already.
If what the recent prompt suggested was true, without supplies, death awaited him.
"Ding! You have a mail, please check!"
As Alex subconsciously opened the email, a voice echoed in his mind.
"The Infinite Resource System has been bound to the host!"
Soon enough, Alex understood the purpose of this so-called system.
Because in his backpack, a mineral water icon suddenly appeared in the first slot.
And in the bottom right corner of the icon, there was an infinite mathematical symbol.
∞
This is the system?
The protagonist's essential?
Alex quickly took out the mineral water.
Sure enough, the icon of the mineral water in the backpack did not disappear.
Alex frantically took out the mineral water.
When 500 milliliters of mineral water filled the entire office, Alex ecstatically confirmed that he had obtained the legendary system.
This system could provide him with an infinite amount of resources every day, and today it was mineral water!
Alex opened the chat channel and found a city icon below.
At this point, many people were speaking on the channel.
Number 89757: "Damn, what is this thing? Suddenly teleported here and told to fight zombies, I want to go back!"
Number 777889: "It's over, it's over, there's no resources around, outside is full of zombies, I'm probably going to die for nothing."
Number 589345: "I just saw a poor guy bitten by a zombie with my own eyes, and he turned into a zombie right away, luckily I ran fast!"
Number 450321: "Instead of wasting time babbling, we'd better hurry up and collect resources."
"..."
Alex slowly scrolled through all the chat content, finally confirming that all of this was real.
"The chosen ones, those who meet the criteria, are transported here, forced to participate in this survival game.
Looking at the city chat channel's IDs, at least hundreds of thousands of people have arrived in this apocalyptic world, residing in the same city as oneself.
So, are there even more people, more cities?
And at the moment the prompt officially sounded, the game had already begun.
Some people will continue to survive by collecting resources, while others will quickly die of hunger, thirst, or be bitten to death by zombies.
Alex continued to open the trading platform, finding that a small number of people were already selling supplies.
Mostly food and water, with a few other items such as flashlights, lighters, and so on.
The trading method is bartering, with the seller proposing conditions, and as long as the buyer has the corresponding items, the trade can be completed.
Looking at the few trading demands, most of them were for water and food.
And what he had the most of was mineral water.
Alex directly cleared out any items on the trading platform that exchanged water resources.
The email notification sounded incessantly.
In just a moment, Alex solved his need for food for a long time.
Number 10086 purchased 5 loaves of bread.
Number 10086 purchased 2 packs of ham.
Number 10086 purchased 3 portions of spaghetti.
Number 10086 purchased 1 lighter.
...
At the same time, many people in the chat channel came out to discuss who this number 10086 was.
Number 38383: "Holy crap! Just now, I had 5 loaves of bread up for sale, and number 10086 bought them all, does this person have so many resources?!"
Number 9527: "What is this? All the supplies I put up were bought by number 10086 alone!"
Number 979698: "Could this number 10086 be a game booster?! Decreasing our resources, increasing our survival difficulty!"
Number 56666: "It's highly possible! Otherwise, how could someone suddenly have so many resources to exchange for things? It's likely a puppet master behind the scenes."
"..."
Alex looked at the chat content, then at his own number, only then realizing that the trading process would display both parties' numbers.
This setting directly exposed him to everyone.
Fortunately, only the numbers are shown when trading is initiated.
After exchanging mineral water for other supplies, Alex exchanged these new items to fulfill the trading demands.
Now, he could easily open his own grocery store.
Alex took out a steaming plate of spaghetti and a cup of orange juice from his backpack, eating while continuing to browse the trading platform, but he never found the things he wanted.
Weapons!
That's what he lacked the most right now—tools for self-defense.
Not to mention firearms and ammunition, he couldn't even find a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.
Upon careful consideration, it seemed that the people who had gathered supplies hadn't put them up on the trading platform.
After all, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, having a good self-defense tool could greatly increase survival chances.
However, today was only the first day, and the survival pressure wasn't too high yet.
Many people were still hiding in safe areas, not venturing out to gather supplies.
After a few days, when they reached the point of desperation, Alex believed that resources would gradually become more abundant.
For now, all he needed to do was stay in this abandoned supermarket, waiting until he had enough self-defense strength saved up.