In the dim night, she saw the vines wrapped around her body. With a slight struggle, the vines shattered into fragments and fell from her.
Nan Fei raised her hand, and a fireball the size of a fist appeared in her palm, illuminating the surroundings.
She had succeeded.
The tension in her heart finally eased.
As for being abandoned, she felt neither loss nor sadness.
The moment she was scratched, she had already predicted this outcome.
Nan Fei carefully sensed the warmth within her body.
What she had subconsciously interpreted as “warmth” was actually the energy in the air.
After awakening her ability, she gained some understanding of the world’s settings, which the novel had not clearly explained.
Simply put:
The apocalypse had arrived, and two special substances appeared in the air.
One was an energy that could cause human mutation and grant abilities.
The other was the dreaded zombie virus.
Those who mutated at the beginning were people whose bodies could not withstand the airborne virus; their bodies were destroyed and they became zombies.
Ordinary humans were those who could survive in the virus-filled environment.
Those who awakened abilities from the very beginning were “geniuses”—not only unaffected by the virus, but also able to absorb the rarer energy in the air.
But why would ordinary people turn into zombies after being scratched, while ability users would not become ability users after being scratched?
The virus was contagious. When scratched by zombies—creatures full of viral infection—the amount of virus entering the body far exceeded that in the air.
So most people quickly mutated.
But that didn’t mean death was inevitable.
If someone had extraordinary willpower and forcibly resisted the zombie virus, and then like Nan Fei grasped even a trace of that energy and rapidly strengthened it until it dominated the body…
Then the zombie virus would have nowhere to go and would be expelled by the energy.
Once they regained consciousness, they would discover that from the moment they grasped the energy, they had already awakened their ability.
As for the energy itself, it was not contagious, unlike the virus.
In theory, if an ability user forcibly injected energy into an ordinary person’s body, that person might also awaken an ability—but this was only Nan Fei’s speculation.
She felt the energy circulating slowly within her body and suddenly thought of her psychic ability from before she transmigrated.
Since she had awakened abilities before, did that mean there was no virus in the air back then?
Nan Fei didn’t understand.
She guided the energy and ran toward a certain direction.
After awakening her ability, she could feel that this energy was similar to her previous psychic ability—so why was the ability type different?
She suspected it might be due to the location.
The energy gathering point and flow route of her current fire ability were very different from those of her psychic ability.
So Nan Fei tried to guide the energy toward the place where her psychic ability had once gathered.
However, once she deviated from the established circulation route, she could no longer hold onto the energy and could only watch it return to its original path.
Nan Fei didn’t give up. Since the night was long and she couldn’t sleep anyway, she kept trying.
At the break of dawn, after repeated attempts, the energy finally moved closer to the psychic ability’s former gathering point.
The next moment, more energy surged into her body, filling that space completely. The remaining energy, without her guidance, naturally flowed along the original psychic ability pathway.
At that moment, a familiar sensation emerged.
With a thought, an invisible three-dimensional sphere seemed to form around her, enclosing her.
Within this sphere, she could sense all movements and disturbances.
Because she was inside a shopping mall with multiple floors, she could even sense not only her current floor but also the floors above and below.
However, since she was only level 1, the radius of the sphere was only about 15 meters. At this range, aside from vertical detection, visual observation was still more practical.
Although it was not as large as before, Nan Fei could not suppress her excitement.
This not only meant she had become a dual-ability user, but also that as long as she could find the energy-gathering points of others, she might be able to acquire new abilities.
Her excitement was hard to calm.
She couldn’t help but extend her perception further.
Until her psychic sense passed over the ruby ring on her finger.
There was an energy fluctuation there.
Nan Fei instinctively focused her mental power on it. The next second, a red light flashed and entered her eyes.
When she looked again, the gemstone on the ring had disappeared, leaving only a silver ring band on her finger.
What was going on?
Before she could get an answer, a wave of dizziness struck her.
Nan Fei found herself standing in a grassy field, staring at a standalone villa in front of her, completely stunned.
What was this?
A chain reaction caused by virus infection?
She thought this in her mind, but her body was already walking toward the villa.
The interior was decorated in a modern style, but Nan Fei had no time to look around—her gaze was fixed on a thin booklet on the coffee table.
On the cover were several large words:
“Ruby Space Usage Guide.”
Nan Fei opened it.
It described a upgradable living space. The villa was the space owner’s home, and everything inside could be controlled by thought.
In the living room, there was an upgrade device. One could place the energy crystals shown in the diagrams into the input slot, select an upgrade option, and upgrade the space selectively.
Looking at the colored crystals, Nan Fei guessed they were likely cores.
Further down, it stated that this entry into the space was a one-time benefit. Next time, only the soul would be able to enter.
Nan Fei twitched her lips and walked toward the upgrade device.
Upgrading bodily entry required 3,000 energy points—equivalent to 3,000 level-1 crystal cores.
Level 1…
And the zombies currently roaming around were level 0…
The only level-1 zombie she had encountered was the one that scratched her.
Upgrading meant finding 3,000 level-1 zombies in an endless sea of corpses and extracting their cores.
Nan Fei felt this was impossible in the short term.
Treasureing this one-time physical entry opportunity, she finished touring the villa.
It was just an ordinary house—the only difference was that it had no electricity.
Checking the system, she saw that upgrading power supply required 1,000 energy points.
Outside the villa was an endless grassland. It was hard to believe it was fake.
Within 10 meters of the villa, there was a transparent air barrier.
Everything beyond that distance was artificially generated for aesthetic purposes.
If she wanted to see the real world, she would need 10,000 energy points to upgrade it.
Nan Fei naturally didn’t have that much energy. She steadied herself and left the space.
On the second floor, there were many zombies. After a night of rampage, they had gathered at the stairwell, eyeing her as fresh meat.
Nan Fei raised her hand, and a black dagger appeared in her grip.
It was a reward she had received upon leaving the space.
Just in time—her golden blade had been taken by Qin Ze and the others, and she had been lacking a weapon.
Although fire ability was powerful, at level 1 the number of fireballs she could use was limited. Unless necessary, she still preferred using a blade.
Because she had previously been ambushed and injured by a controlled zombie, Nan Fei immediately activated her psychic ability to guard against sudden attacks.
And of course, to detect whether there were other psychic ability users nearby.
After all, someone had to be controlling the zombie that had injured her.