The convoy drove for another three full days before reaching the outskirts of City M.

Because there is no military force actively helping remove the abandoned vehicles, garbage, and other things on the road, it brought them a lot of trouble on the road. There were scattered and overturned vehicles everywhere. Some of them seemed to have collided or exploded, and were burnt into a pile of scorched residue.

Fortunately, there are more vehicles along the way. While moving forward, they will pump oil from those abandoned cars. Instead, there is a tendency to use more gasoline as the fleet moved forward.

"This road is really f*cking difficult to drive. Only because our car is strong and can push those roadblocks, otherwise, how could we drive here with the previous thin-skinned car?"

A group of people gathered for lunch. From the map, if there were no accidents, they would only need to drive about two hours to enter the urban area of city M.

"Really, if we had those broken cars, we wouldn't have the guts to even think of the coming here." Guo Bing smiled and took a sip of beer. They had just found this from a jinhuai car on the side of the road, and didn’t know how long it was on the road.

"I haven't seen many survivors along the way." Chen Ning glanced out of the window. "Aside from city L, it can't be that most of H province has fallen?"

"Perhaps. But there is no way of getting news now. Maybe there is a survivor base, but just not along the route we took."

"What should we do when we going back? Use this same road? There are a lot of zombies on the road." When driving through province H, the number of zombies nearby the provincial capital, city L, was really a headache.

"It depends on the situation. First, see if there is anything we want in city M. As for the way back... At least a lot of rubbish has been cleared on this road when we came. If we change our path, we will have to clean it up again... "

He Zizhong, Fang Hao, Shen Haiping, Liu Jiangfeng, and a young man named Le Tian who was less than twenty years old, ate and rested at another table, and did not participate in the discussion of the route between Guo Bing and Chen Ning.

Le Tian was chatting with Fang Hao. This young man hadn't not yet been discharged before the apocalypse, and happened to be returning home from vacation to visit relatives. He stopped by his cousin's house in F city and encountered the end of the world. If it weren't for encountering Zhang Xiaoming, who he knew, and joining the Samsara team, he didn't know how he could have escaped to the base alive.

At this moment, the young man was asking Fang Hao for advice on how to kill zombies.

The path Fang Hao and He Zizhong took is different from that of Guo Bing and the others. They follow another system, and the exercises in the space can be attributed to the unique martial arts secrets. Although the directions of their practice are different, they share the same root, and are two different directions of the same discipline.

Although Fang Hao's attack method was not as powerful as He Zizhong, the accuracy of hitting the target with every shot made the youth very envious.

"...I always move my hand with this stabbing action. There is no way to insert it in the same position every time."

Fang Hao held the chopsticks to demonstrate to Le Tian. "Don't shake your wrists. This can't be learned by rushing. When you have time, get some wood, weeds, etc. and make a personal dummy, and stab the same position of their eye sockets each time. If the wrist strength is enough, try to pierce the back of the head every time..."

The content of the two young and cute youths' talk would make people's hairs stand up. On the other side, He Zizhong, Shen Haiping, and Liu Jiangfeng drank beer and ate beef jerky (produced exclusively by Fang Hao) and talked about zombie crystal nuclei. Almost all people with supernatural powers have certain expectations for crystal nuclei. Even ordinary people expect this kind of thing to stimulate the human body's potential and allow themselves to obtain supernatural powers.

"...I think it's more reliable to eat it." Shen Haiping solemnly bet with Liu Jiangfeng.

"Then why don't you try first? Maybe you can stimulate an ability?" Liu Jiangfeng squinted at him. Although there are such rumors in the base, there are still zero people who really dare to try it personally.

"Don't you already have abilities? Can't you just try it with the help of some beer?" Shen Haiping said, pointing to the plastic bottle with crystal nucleus placed on the corner of the room. That was his half day's fruits of labor, holding an axe and wearing rubber gloves to pull them out one by one!

He Zizhong smiled and stopped the two of them: "Just forget it. After all, the kind of thing in a zombie's head might not have been eaten by them."

The two gave up, and Liu Jiangfeng sighed and stretched out his hands. "When can I upgrade? They say it's a physique ability, but only strengthens my physical fitness. Just look like Mengzi; his abilities have all developed in the direction of strength. At best, I’m a human sandbag—the kind not easy to break."

He Zizhong also felt helpless about this. "We tried some methods before, but unfortunately we didn't find any good solutions."

"What about the methods in those apocalypse novels?" Shen Haiping suddenly asked.

He Zizhong looked at him helplessly. "Have you read a lot of these novels?"

Shen Haiping was taken aback, then shook his head. "Usually I am too busy at work... Actually I don't know how to use computers. Even the mobile phones used before the end of the world were old phones with digital buttons."

Liu Jiangfeng spread his hands. "I've read some online novels, but all I read are fantasy harem¹The real words are "泡妞" which translates to picking up or soaking in girls. No English equivalent, so I just used harem novels. I haven't read any apocalypse ones."

Seeing them look at him, He Zizhong also shook his head. "I usually do not read those novels..." As a modern person, work usually took up his time, and he was even too busy to socialize. If he has time for a pastime, he'll watch movies and TV shows at home; and even when reading books, it's mostly physical books.

If it weren't because of this, when he was reborn and downloaded a lot of information on making soy sauce and vinegar, how would he forget to add more apocalypse novels for reference?

At this moment, Fang Hao and Le Tian, who were chatting up a storm suddenly turned their heads. "I've read it!" The two said in unison.

Fang Hao scratched his cheek and smiled in embarrassment: "I've read some, but the methods mentioned in it have been tried before, and none of them worked."

Le Tian quickly asked, "What about meditation?"

Fang Hao nodded and looked at He Zizhong, who stretched his hands out. "I tried it too, but there is no response."

"What about feeling the ability through the crystal nucleus?"

He Zizhong asked Liu Jiangfeng: "You can feel the power in your body. Does it work?"

Liu Jiangfeng was stunned, and shook his head: "I can't feel it, just focus on it when you want to use it, and you can use it."

"Me too." So, they all don't have any idea how to circulate energy or transfer it through the crystal nuclei.

"Why don't we try it?" Le Tian suddenly proposed.

"This isn't that good? The crystal nuclei have not been allocated yet." Liu Jiangfeng looked at the plastic buckets by the wall. Although his heart was itchy, he shook his head.

"It's okay. Use mine to test first. If someone uses it up, returning a piece later is fine." Le Tian said, flipping his hand, and there were a few crystal nuclei in the palm of his hand. "This is from the last mission. The boss sent it to me. I didn't exchange for anything the base and kept it." He said, sending it to one person.

Shen Haiping bitterly shook his head as he took it. "I have no abilities at all."

Le Tian itself is a space user, and is mainly responsible for collecting important things that they are afraid to damage. Although the space is limited, there are still some space he can store his own things.

Seeing a few people experimenting with the crystal nucleus, Ding Minggang, the fire-type supernatural ability player, and the power-type Mengzi also came together, leaving only the deputy captain Chen Ning still discussing with Guo Bing about the plan afterwards.

After the last mission, He Zizhong and the others were separated from the Samsara team halfway, and all the crystal nuclei harvested by the Samsara team would naturally be allocated to the Samsara team. Everyone had some crystal nuclei, but most of them exchanged it directly with the base into points and then traded for whatever they needed. After all, its use is unknown.

Nowadays, only a few people with abilities still carry them with them, and are not willing to exchange them.

In fact, most of the ability players will find ways to experiment and see if they can upgrade their abilities with the nuclei if they have it. But unfortunately, no one has found the right method so far.

Fang Hao and He Zizhong once again tried the methods they could think of, but there was still no response. However, the two of them are not in a hurry. After discussing, they reached a conclusion that after the energy of the crystal nucleus is absorbed in the space, part of the energy is likely to be incorporated into the well behind the house. The two of them usually drink from the well, and the water can improve both their abilities. Otherwise, how could they suddenly upgrade their abilities before?

Now He Zizhong's dual abilities have reached the second level, and Fang Hao has also activated a speed ability after his initial healing ability has been upgraded. The speed ability has also upgraded to the second level a while ago. Now both of them are dual ability, level two ability holders, so they are not as anxious as others when it comes to studying the issue of crystal core upgrades.

After twenty minutes or so, no one had any results. He Zizhong and the two returned the crystal nucleus to Le Tian. Ding Minggang, the fire type supernatural power person, did not give up, taking a long time experimenting. Not to mention, he even suffocated his strength and had a red face. Finally, upset, he slammed his fingertips into the crystal core with fire: "What kind of broken thing is this, give me some reaction!"

As he spoke, his fingertips, ability, and the crystal core were in contact with each other at the same time. A burst of light emerged from the crystal nucleus in his palm, and that crystal nucleus instantly ignited a group of pale white light, rushing to his body along his fingertips!

The people sitting around stood still for a moment. Guo Bing and Chen Ning realized that the room had suddenly become quiet, and looked over suspiciously: "What's wrong?"

"One more, one more time!!"

"What's the situation?! What happened?! It succeeded?!"

There was a scream in the room, and even Guo Bing and Chen Ning's greeting was ignored.

Le Tian worked hard to contribute his own small vault, allowing Ding Minggang to conduct another experiment.

A total of three crystal nuclei were consumed before they finally figured out the usage of the crystal nucleus. An ability person needs to condense their ability at their fingertips, palms, etc., and touch the crystal nucleus at the same time. Only then will the crystal nucleus be activated, and the energy be transmitted into the the body of the person using the ability.

At the same time, the crystal nucleus will turn into a mass of white debris. It no longer has a form, and will drift away with the wind as soon as it's blown.

komorebi

Thank you for your support and the ko-fis during the last few weeks. My work issues sorted themselves out and with the bulk 10 chapter update, I don't have that many stored up. So back to the sporadic 2-3 chapter weekly cadence. 🤗