He’d reached the bottom!

To be safe, he poked around in all directions. Only after confirming there were no other nest tunnels did he let out a long sigh of relief.

He looked up.

The bottom of the pit was over two meters deep; he estimated it to be about two and a half meters from the surface.

At this depth, the termite nest had to be at least five to ten years old, perhaps even older.

That meant this wooden cabin had been abandoned for at least five years.

He didn’t rush to climb out. Instead, he kicked at the surrounding dirt walls, occasionally hacking away layers of soil with his knife, gradually shaping the pit into a relatively regular square.

After stomping the soil at the bottom firm, he used his palms to pat it down even more, not stopping until all the dirt walls within his reach were packed solid.

A pile of dirt remained in the center of the pit—his escape route.

First, he stomped the base of the mound firm on three sides. Then, starting from the untouched side, he stepped down on the surface, creating a flat step.

He stood on it and stomped out another step above it. After repeating this a few times, he had fashioned a simple staircase.

Termites were able to build such a large-scale nest underground because the soil was already mixed with their saliva and secretions, making it much more adhesive than ordinary dirt. A few good stomps were all it took to make it very solid.

The steps didn’t need to be very high, just enough for him to jump out of the pit.

With the pit being two and a half meters deep, he only needed about ten steps to reach a height of roughly one and a half meters, which would be sufficient.

HUFF...

After climbing out of the deep pit, he let out a long breath.

’Doing this without a shovel is exhausting. Just look at my hands.’

To clear out the excess soil during the excavation, he could only use his hands to dig it out like a dog. Now, both hands were completely caked in mud, a rather disgusting sight.

He went to the stream to wash up and only then realized the sun had already begun to set, its crimson-gold light dyeing the clouds on the horizon red.

’This is good enough. I’ll call it a day. Can’t rush things without tools; my body is more important.’

After digging for a whole afternoon, he felt waves of soreness in his waist and back, so much so that he could barely stand up straight.

While it was still light out, he immediately set off back toward his shelter.

He had only taken a few steps when his ears twitched. He heard the faint sound of a motor coming from the direction of the coast.

’The production crew?’

’It couldn’t be local fishermen, could it?’

Driven by curiosity, he immediately changed direction and headed along the stream toward the rocky coast.

Not long after he left, Andre’s figure appeared by the stream.

The shelter he’d built was on the hillside. It would take the production crew some time to descend the mountain, so both parties arrived near Lin Chen at about the same time.

"Hm?"

Andre merely glanced around the stream bank and quickly spotted fresh footprints on the shore.

’Judging by the depth and freshness of the mud, these tracks were made within the last hour. Lin was just here. Looks like my hunch was right.’

He waded across the stream and found more footprints.

Following the direction of the tracks, he passed the Bamboo Tree and the tobacco field, and a collapsed wooden cabin slowly came into view.

Only about a third of the cabin’s structure remained; most of the building was destroyed. Rotted wood had clearly been moved outside, and hot embers were still buried beneath the remains of a fire pit.

In the center of the cabin’s interior, a dirt pit over two meters deep lay silently.

’Not bad, kid. He actually dealt with the entire termite nest. Looks like he’s planning to use its depth to build a cellar.’

’That’s a great idea. How come I never have the luck to find a treasure trove like this?’

He wandered around the area, then walked through a pineapple field with a look of pure envy on his face. As he passed an orange tree, he casually plucked a few and tossed them into his back basket, planning to take them back for a taste.

Finally, he followed the slope down to the sea, where he happened to arrive at high tide, so the coastal reefs were not visible.

While Andre was silently scoping out Lin Chen’s new home.

「Meanwhile.」

Over on the beach, Lin Chen had just finished his first physical examination.

Ariana had, as usual, informed him of the random physical, then reverted to her cold, icy demeanor.

"Lin, there’s something I’m sure you’re already aware of—the matter concerning the hunting of tagged animals."

Robert approached him with a beaming smile. "Capturing this prey will earn you a large number of points—at least ten times that of other marine life of the same size."

"If possible, I suggest you..."

"Thank you for the suggestion."

Lin Chen cut him off directly. "Leave such an easy way to get points to the other contestants. I hope to prove my worth and win the championship with my own two hands."

"Ten times the points, you say? Fine, I get it. I’ll just have to catch more seafood. Besides, I haven’t even gone into the ocean yet, right?"

"No matter how many points a grouse is worth, can it compare to a Lobster?"

"Look at that Mangrove Forest, there are oysters all over the ground. Aren’t those just free for the picking?"

"No, no, no, that’s different," Robert said. He had clearly learned from the last season and came prepared this time.

"The number of points you can get from a single species is limited. The higher the difficulty of capture, the lower that limit is. For seafood you can just pick up, like oysters, not only are they worth few points, but we also stop counting them after the third one."

"This applies to all shellfish you can gather on the beach, in the reef area, and in the Mangrove Forest, not just oysters."

"Unless it’s a creature you personally catch—one that moves and tries to escape—you can’t continuously accumulate points."

Lin Chen gave him a surprised look but didn’t say anything, just nodded silently.

"The system is fair enough, it’s the same for all the contestants. But I’ll say it again: leave the stocked prey for them."

’Aside from the stocked prey, there were basically no other animals to catch in the forest, save for small things like green lizards, which weren’t worth much.’

’In other words, while the stocked prey seemed to offer a lot of points, it was really just to compensate for the lack of natural hunting opportunities.’