She didn’t expect him to block an entry-level evolved mutant; she merely hoped that if anything approached, he could provide an immediate warning.
Then she turned around, walked into the innermost part of the private dining room, and squatted down in a corner.
Her hands were trembling, though not out of fear.
She pulled three energy cores from her pocket—the very three pink cores whose attributes she had altered during combat earlier.
None of the three were large; the biggest was roughly the size of her fingernail, while the smallest was merely the size of a soybean.
Yet added together, their total energy volume was far from negligible.
Staring at the three cores in her palm, Xia Qing grit her teeth tightly.
An entry-level evolved mutant was roaming outside.
A creature like that was something even Jin Chao’s professional special forces squad couldn’t withstand; as someone who had awakened an ability barely a few days ago, charging out now was pure suicide.
Yet she couldn’t just wait around idly either.
The evolved mutant would locate this spot sooner or later; they couldn’t stay trapped here indefinitely.
When the time came—with no route of retreat and no allies to rely on—both she and Little Chubby would perish.
She needed a method—a way to rapidly enhance her strength within a short window of time.
According to standard post-apocalyptic common knowledge, energy cores had to be absorbed one by one, allowing internal energy to stabilize before attempting the next.
Consuming multiple cores simultaneously was an extremely perilous act.
Overwhelming the body with excessive energy influxes could damage one’s energy pathways at best, or cause instantaneous bodily rupture at worst.
Yet every second spent hesitating only amplified the danger.
Right now, her only option was to act with absolute decisiveness.
Opening her mouth, Xia Qing jammed all three energy cores inside at once and swallowed them down.
The moment the cores slid down her throat, she sensed that something was terribly wrong.
The combined energy of three cores was indeed far too violent.
Absorbing them one by one—though slow—ensured a significantly higher absorption efficiency.
Energy would merge into the body gradually like a trickling stream, gentle and stable.
Yet absorbing three simultaneously triggered three distinct surges of energy exploding inside her frame all at once.
They crashed through her blood vessels like three raging rivers charging out of control.
While it accelerated the process, the physical strain multiplied exponentially.
Before long, Xia Qing was squatted flat on the floor, propping herself up with one hand against the ground.
Her other hand clamped tightly over her mouth.
Cold sweat beaded continuously across her forehead, streaming down her cheeks.
It mingled with rainwater until the two became indistinguishable.
Her complexion turned stark white before shifting to a sickly blue, her lips turning a bruised purple. Every blood vessel across her entire body throbbed with agonizing pain.
It wasn’t a dull ache, but rather felt as though someone were repeatedly thrusting needles back and forth through her veins, making every inch of her circulatory system scream in agony.
Yet she couldn’t make a single sound.
The three energy surges collided rapidly inside her body.
Xia Qing felt her frame resembling a balloon stretched to its absolute limit, liable to burst apart at any second.
Pain.
An agonizing, unbearable pain.
Her fingernails dug deep into the flesh of her palms, blood seeping through the gaps between her fingers, yet she felt none of it.
—Because the pain ripping through her blood vessels drowned out everything else.
Her teeth bit down hard into her lower lip until blood flowed, yet she remained unable to utter the slightest sound.
The evolved mutant remained outside. Any tiny noise could expose her position.
She had no choice but to endure it.
Surge after surge of energy battered her body like ocean waves crashing against a coastal reef.
Every wave of impact left her vision blacking out and her consciousness fading into blurriness.
She had no idea how much longer she could hold on—she might pass out cold or suffer fatal bodily rupture in the very next second.
Finally, when the most violent surge of energy charged straight into her brain—
Her consciousness snapped like a guitar string pulled far too tight.
She blacked out.
Yet it was no ordinary faint.
Her consciousness felt as though an invisible hand had plucked it clean out of her body, hurtling through an endless void of pitch-black darkness until—light emerged.
It was a doorway.
No, not a doorway.
It was a sensation—as if her consciousness had been projected into a different space-time, another dimension entirely.
She stood in a realm of pure void, surrounded by a blinding white glow with nothing beneath her feet, yet she could sense herself standing firmly upon solid ground.
Then she spotted a figure.
The person stood directly opposite her, roughly two or three meters away.
Wearing a faded grayish-white T-shirt with her hair casually bound behind her head, her face bore an expression that felt simultaneously familiar and strange.
Familiar because that face was identical to her own; strange because the expression it wore was far more exhausted than anything she had ever seen.
It was the other version of herself.
“Hey, wake up!” The Xia Qing opposite waved her hand, her voice penetrating the void to land with crystal clarity in her ears.
Xia Qing froze for a second before stepping forward with fast strides.
Scanning the other version of herself up and down, she noted that she looked even thinner than during their previous encounter, with deep dark circles beneath her eyes—looking as though she hadn’t slept properly in a very long time.
Yet her eyes shone far sharper than before, forged with a razor edge honed through countless life-or-death battles.
“I’m in your world right now,” the other Xia Qing spoke, her speaking pace fast as if pressed for time.
“I just used the supplies inside my spatial storage to construct a base. The situation over there isn’t great, but at least we have a foothold now.”
Radiation zones littered the landscape everywhere…
It was hardly any better than this mutant-infested apocalypse.
Xia Qing’s brain still buzzed heavily, yet her consciousness was rapidly coalescing.
The two had met inside a dream once again.
To be precise, their mental consciousnesses transmigrated across space-time, establishing a brief connection channel between two parallel worlds.
This was their shared secret, as well as Xia Qing’s primary means of retrieving fragment memories from her past life.
Whenever she fell into a deep coma or entered profound sleep, an opportunity arose to converse with the self from the other timeline.
Though brief each time, every encounter yielded critical pieces of intelligence.
The two immediately exchanged information without delay.
Xia Qing rapidly recounted the situation on her end—
—The emergence of the entry-level evolved mutant, Su Bai’s death, the team’s forced dispersion, and her risky decision to consume three energy cores simultaneously.
The other Xia Qing listened attentively, her brows knitting tighter and tighter.
“An entry-level evolved mutant?”
Her tone darkened: “An evolved mutant has already appeared on your end? How long has it even been?”
“It appeared at least five months ahead of schedule,” Xia Qing stated. “I have no idea why.”
The other Xia Qing fell silent for two seconds before speaking rapidly: “Listen carefully.”
“Ability energy is categorized into distinct tiers. This tier classification system will be officially published by the International Ability Research Association roughly six months from now.”
“When that time comes, letters like S, A, B, C, and D will be used to rank levels from highest to lowest.”
“As for you right now—assuming you successfully absorbed all three energy cores—you should barely touch the threshold of D-tier.”
“Entry-level evolved mutants were officially identified six months later in the original timeline as well.”
“But you need to understand one crucial point.”
“‘Officially identified six months later’ does not mean ‘they didn’t exist until six months later.'”
“Evolved mutants may have existed all along, merely in extremely scarce numbers, mostly hiding in areas inaccessible to humans.”
“Encountering one ahead of time isn’t just bad luck—it proves that the mutant evolution rate on your end is progressing significantly faster than standard baseline projections.”
“An entry-level evolved mutant’s strength is equivalent to a human ability user ranked between C-tier and B-tier.”
“With your current strength, taking one on single-handedly is pure suicide.”
Xia Qing etched every piece of this intelligence firmly into her memory.
She also shared details regarding the situation in the wasteland world with her counterpart.
Suddenly, Xia Qing snapped her eyes wide open.
She was still squatting in the corner of that restaurant’s private dining room, her back pressed firmly against the wall.
Little Chubby remained stationed at the door, keeping watch with his back turned to her, completely motionless.
Everything inside the private room remained unchanged—
The moldy tablecloth, the aging air conditioner, the damp air.
Yet her physical body had transformed.
Xia Qing lowered her head, looking at her own hands.
The color of her pupils had shifted—