At night, Shelter 301 was perfectly silent. The occasional roar from the distant forest only served to deepen the quiet.
Horizontal Tunnel No. 1 was 200 meters underground. The temperature here was unaffected by the surface weather, remaining at a constant 15 degrees Celsius year-round.
Ye Fei turned over, pulled his blanket tighter, and continued manipulating the mushrooms.
The high humidity at night was the perfect time for mushrooms to grow.
Controlling the growth of ten mushrooms at once felt like a game, spreading the Creep of the Insect Race.
Indeed, this was the little game Ye Fei played to help himself fall asleep.
White Fungal Hyphae snaked and spread beneath the fallen leaves. Vast swaths of hyphae intertwined and stacked, forming a thick layer of Creep.
The Creep secreted digestive enzymes, slowly corroding trees and the animal carcasses it enveloped. This method of absorbing nutrients was far faster than the arduous process of drawing them from the soil.
Thanks to the unceasing efforts of the Shelter’s survivors, the mushroom clusters had grown from a few small patches into a single, vast expanse.
The gully in front of Shelter 301 was now the domain of mushrooms. They were growing larger and larger, and at a glance, it was starting to resemble a Mushroom Forest.
The more mushrooms there were, the stronger their hallucinogenic aroma became, attracting more and more herbivores.
The only slight regret was the concern over Hallucinogenic Spores drifting into the mine tunnels. Because of this, they tried to keep the mushrooms from growing on trees. Otherwise, if they had launched Spores mixed with mud onto the large trees, the scene would have been far more spectacular.
Suddenly, Ye Fei felt the mushrooms begin to tremble. An instant later, he felt his bed start to shake as well.
That night, everyone was jolted awake.
’An earthquake?!’
But the Superpower User on night watch guarding the mine entrance noticed something was wrong. Outside, it was as bright as day.
’It’s a Nuclear Bomb!’
Everyone was stunned when they heard the news.
The only nearby group with nuclear weapons was the Wuzhou City Shelter. This meant they had encountered an incredibly terrifying Mutant Beast, so terrifying that they had been forced to use a Nuclear Bomb.
Early the next morning, the hunting party set out for the small town’s signal tower.
They soon returned with grim news: the Wuzhou City Shelter’s broadcast signal was gone. The base had likely suffered catastrophic losses.
After a discussion, the members of the hunting party decided not to disclose this information to the ordinary survivors. Previously, everyone had believed the Wuzhou City Shelter, with its tens of thousands of people, was immensely powerful. For many, the hope was to one day escape there.
Ye Fei, meanwhile, quietly asked Luo Zai for some of the intelligence he had gathered over the past few days.
He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t asked, but he quickly discovered that every Shelter was facing its own set of thorny problems.
The biggest problem was the encroaching forest, which Ye Fei already knew about. But there were two others he hadn’t anticipated at all: cockroaches, rats, and internal strife.
The number of cockroaches and rats in the city’s sewers far outnumbered the Human Race.
Now that mutations were occurring, the areas in the cities that humans had abandoned were occupied by these two pests. Their Power was expanding rapidly. Some Mutants even claimed to have seen Ratmen wielding weapons.
As for internal strife, many Superpower Users had completely seized power. They began to enslave ordinary people, committing numerous depraved acts. Some Superpower Users even formed raiding parties that took pleasure in preying on their own kind.
After hearing all this, Ye Fei couldn’t help but feel fortunate to be in Shelter 301. The leader here was a social Darwinist, but at least his actions were relatively normal. In any other Shelter, he feared he would have been killed by his own people right after he’d transmigrated.
At noon, while Ye Fei was cooking mushrooms for people in Tunnel No. 1, Wang Gang ran over.
"Brother Fei, want some roasted earthworms?"
Wang Gang asked.
Ye Fei saw right through him. "Last night was just an earthquake."
He wouldn’t tell Wang Gang of all people. The guy had earned the nickname "Wang the Big Mouth."
Wang Gang scoffed. "I know there was a nuclear explosion last night. And since you’re saying that, it must mean the Wuzhou City Shelter is done for."
Ye Fei was surprised. "How do you know?"
Wang Gang grinned smugly, tossing a dried earthworm mixed with mushroom paste into his mouth. He then said slowly, "You think I’m a geological engineer for nothing? The entire mine vibrated last night, but they were all transverse waves. Only a Nuclear Bomb could do that."
"What era are we in? You still think only a Nuclear Bomb could do it? Why couldn’t it be the Celestial Movement of Myriad Phenomena?"
Ye Fei was just spouting nonsense.
Wang Gang froze for a moment. "Oh, right... I forgot about the heaven-defying abilities of you Superpower Users. Still can’t compare to the Rock King Emperor, though."
"Can’t compare now, but that might not be true in the future."
"Tch, keep dreaming."
Wang Gang sat on the ground to the side, eating his earthworms. He scooped up a spoonful of mushroom soup and said, "Whoa, these mushrooms are getting bigger and bigger. Any larger and they’ll turn into mushroom trees."
"It won’t. Haven’t you noticed that the mushrooms inside the tunnels stop growing once they’re palm-sized? It’s only the ones outside that keep expanding."
Wang Gang was taken aback. "These mushrooms are pretty smart."
"Of course they’re smart."
As he spoke, Ye Fei felt for a mushroom on the nearby wall. He pressed down on the Fungus Rod, trying to make it grow sideways. The mushroom snapped back. But after Ye Fei repeatedly applied pressure, forcing the Fungus Rod to bend, it actually held its curved shape after a short while.
This little maneuver left Wang Gang dumbfounded.
"Whoa! Are these mushrooms conscious?!" Wang Gang’s jaw dropped.
"Conscious? No way. It’s just a sign of their extremely high Adaptability to the external environment, something like a conditioned reflex."
Ye Fei said, making it up as he went.
He then continued to spin his tale, "I handle hundreds, even thousands, of these mushrooms every day, so I discovered this. It’s actually really fun. Look, we can make the mushrooms grow into any shape we want, like a sphere."
As he said this, Ye Fei willed it, and the mushroom in his hand began to develop. Constrained by his grip, it grew into a spherical shape, its Mushroom Cap perfectly enclosing the Spores inside.
"A spore grenade."
"If you make the Mushroom Cap concave, it can even collect Hallucinogen."
Ye Fei then demonstrated a few more "tricks" he’d supposedly discovered, leaving Wang Gang completely mesmerized.
For Ye Fei, whose micromanagement abilities had greatly improved, these things were effortless. He could even make a mushroom grow into any shape he wanted without applying any external force at all.
The speaker may have been careless, but the listener took it to heart.
True to his loose-lipped nature, Wang Gang quickly spread the word about these new uses.
For a time, a craze for researching new ways to use the mushrooms swept through Shelter 301.
Later that evening, after hearing all sorts of third- and fourth-hand rumors, Xu Yi couldn’t sit still any longer. She went to find Ye Fei again.
This time, Ye Fei didn’t tease her, nor did he try to dissuade her from her idea of getting an Infection from the mushrooms. Instead, he half-truthfully shared some "experiences" regarding the sensations one feels after getting the mushroom Infection.
Xu Yi left, lost in thought.