Jiang Li first looked at her fist, then at the crater left in the cave wall, slightly stunned.
She hadn’t expected her strength to be this great. Her fist hadn’t broken the skin—only felt slightly numb from the impact. She was certain that if she encountered the cockroach beast again, she could smash its head in with a single punch without even using skills.
This was power beyond human limits. Even just a fraction of it was already astonishing.
Still, next time she tested her strength, she shouldn’t do it at home. Even the system had been startled enough to issue a warning.
The crater could be repaired with just one unit of stone. After fixing it, she returned to the fireplace.
“Should I try my skill?”
Her spirit had reached 12 points, and a flood of information about “spirit” surfaced in her mind.
Spirit condensed into a Qi Sea, divided into realms: Spring, Stream, Lake, River, Sea, Domain, Abyss.
This didn’t mean that higher spirit was always better. If spirit was water, then the body was the container.
It also didn’t mean spirit had to be lower than physical strength. Physical strength also had a maximum tolerance limit. Generally speaking, spirit could exceed physical strength, but not by more than double.
Within two times was the body’s maximum tolerance range.
Beyond that, if physical strength exceeded spirit, it didn’t matter much.
At this moment, her spirit had broken through its bottleneck and reached the “Stream” level.
Even without testing, Jiang Li could already estimate her power.
Previously, she could only release one fireball. Now, she should be able to release at least five.
This was only the “Stream” stage of spirit.
To reach the “Lake” stage, spirit had to exceed 20 points.
As expected, Jiang Li tested it by casting fireballs toward the fireplace.
By the fifth one, she felt a splitting pain in her head again.
“This is the result of exhausting spirit energy.”
She had already experienced this before.
So five fireballs was her limit.
She lay on the bed, still eating as she did.
Her stomach felt like a bottomless pit. From the moment she woke up after meditation, she had been eating nonstop—even while walking to wash up in the side room. By now, more than thirty pieces of mushroom jerky were almost gone.
Even so, her hunger had not eased at all.
She felt like she could shove food directly into her stomach.
So hungry…
Her eyes were red with hunger. Her legs unconsciously carried her to the wooden barrel holding the frog meat and cockroach meat near the fireplace.
The smoked meat had cooled, but its irresistible aroma still lingered in the air.
As expected, vegetables couldn’t compare to meat. Meat contained the dense energy her body urgently needed.
But she couldn’t eat it.
The gray fog toxins hadn’t been purified yet.
No matter how hungry she was, she couldn’t eat it.
After finishing the last two pieces of mushroom jerky, Jiang Li forced down her urge to eat and returned to bed, pulling the blanket over herself, intending to just force herself to sleep.
But the intense hunger felt like blades stirring in her brain.
She was truly starving.
Meditation was essentially pre-consuming her body’s energy to force growth.
And now she had to desperately replenish it.
At that thought, Jiang Li suddenly sat up and, helplessly, returned to the wooden barrel.
If she didn’t replenish the energy her body desperately needed, this body would collapse under the excessive physical and spiritual load.
Meditation really can’t be started lightly.
She already knew from the previous two sessions that meditation required massive food intake afterward.
So this time she had prepared a large bag of dried mushrooms, thinking it would be enough.
But to her surprise, the third meditation had transformed her body drastically. The energy requirement had skyrocketed—mushroom jerky alone was nowhere near enough.
She had no choice but to take a risk and eat meat contaminated with gray fog toxins.
She would have to go to the trading station tomorrow for detox medicine.
“But… Huang Tao went to restock. The trading station won’t have anyone tomorrow…”
No matter how much she regretted it, it was useless. She ate mechanically.
It was very fragrant.
Meat was far more delicious than mushroom jerky. Jiang Li swallowed half a barrel of smoked frog meat with tears in her eyes before finally feeling full.
Tomorrow morning, she would have to find Du Meiqin.
No matter how much she didn’t want to owe a favor, she would have to.
The early symptoms of gray fog toxin were gray patches appearing on the skin—like vitiligo. They didn’t hurt or itch, but as toxins accumulated, internal organs would begin to fail and bodily functions would weaken.
Jiang Li was grateful that her physical strength had improved. Even after eating half a barrel of toxic meat, she only developed gray patches—not yet life-threatening.
Ignoring the ugly patches, she lay down and fell asleep.
The gray patches on her skin had increased.
Perhaps because the food in her stomach had already been digested, she only felt slight numbness in her fingers and no other discomfort.
But she still needed detox medicine as soon as possible.
Her food was completely gone, leaving only one and a half barrels of meat. She skipped breakfast and drank a couple of sips of water instead.
This level of hunger was nothing compared to the burning starvation after last night’s meditation.
However, what pleased her was that the mushrooms in her planting pots would mature tonight.
She picked up the remaining smoked frog meat, along with the cockroach beast’s processed carapace and the frog skin.
These could all be traded.
Though they were useless in the village, they would fetch a good price in towns.
For example, frog skin was fire-resistant and could be made into clothing.
The cockroach carapace was harder than iron and had many military uses.
She intended to exchange them with Du Meiqin for purification mushrooms and detox medicine.
Medicine was expensive in this world—everything related to treatment was expensive.
Ordinary people, when injured or sick, could only endure it.
The weather was colder now. A chilly wind rustled through the dead trees.
Before even reaching the village entrance, Jiang Li saw several people in military uniforms going from house to house.
They were from the Defense Bureau. Starfire Village was close to the mine, so they would inevitably investigate here.
But—
What were they investigating?
The patrol soldiers weren’t guarding the entrance, so Jiang Li entered the village smoothly.
Following her memory, she arrived at Du Meiqin’s house.
She knocked twice. Hearing movement inside, she waited quietly.
Her eyes drifted to the red lantern hanging under the eaves.
She had seen it the last time she came.
Only this house had a red lantern in the entire area.
Creak.
The door opened, but she didn’t notice immediately.
Du Meiqin noticed her gaze and explained, “The red lantern means protection from the station chief Huang Tao. With it, people in Starfire Village won’t bully me just because I’m a widow with a child.”
There was a faint trace of bitterness in her voice.
The red lantern was both protection and a cage. No one dared speak to her, afraid of offending Huang Tao.
Jiang Li didn’t respond. Instead, she said, “I’m here to trade for purification mushrooms. This is my goods.”
Half a barrel of meat.
Even after following Huang Tao for so long, Du Meiqin had never seen so much meat.
And it was fresh disaster beast meat—only unpurified, its color a deep gray.