With Yu Yicheng’s maxed-out system, they no longer needed to stop for gas, take detours, or scavenge for supplies. They locked their sights on the destination and drove straight ahead. In less than half a month, the group successfully arrived at City A.
City A was divided into an outer city and an inner city. The outer city was where newly arrived survivors were quarantined. After spending a full week in the quarantine facility with no abnormalities detected in their physical examinations, they could smoothly enter the inner city.
The group found a hotel to settle into temporarily. On the very first night at the hotel, Cheng Yuchuan received a new mission from the system: find the spirit stone mine.
Staring at the three characters for “spirit stone mine” in the mission panel, Cheng Yuchuan fell into deep thought. He distinctly remembered that in his previous life, the protagonist’s mission had been to “find the spirit stone,” without the extra character for “mine” at the end.
Later, he had also gone to Spirit Stone Mountain with the protagonist. The entire mountain had only one half-person-tall spirit stone. After that, no matter how hard they searched, they never caught sight of another spirit stone.
Now, an extra character for “mine” had inexplicably appeared. Did this mean the number of spirit stones had changed compared to the previous life?
If that were the case, would the quality of the spirit stones also change? Otherwise, if an entire mountain of them had no aberrants lurking nearby, someone should have discovered it long ago and established a safe zone there.
Thinking idly wouldn’t yield results. The most urgent matters now were finding a map to Spirit Stone Mountain and settling Zhong Hao and Zhong Yue properly.
They couldn’t possibly continue following them to Spirit Stone Mountain. That route would pass through the territory of the Aberrant King, where large-scale aberrant tides could erupt at any moment. Bringing them along was absolutely out of the question. Even Lu Xihe and himself were considering whether to stay in City A.
But Lu Xihe would definitely refuse to stay behind, so Cheng Yuchuan only entertained the thought and never mentioned it to him.
At noon the next day, Cheng Yuchuan gathered the team members and explained the mission to find the spirit stone mine, along with his plans going forward.
He had Yu Yicheng, Qi Jin, and Ning Wanli head out first to search for the map, while he and Lu Xihe went to meet someone.
This served both to probe for information about the map’s whereabouts and to find a better arrangement for entrusting the Zhong siblings.
That afternoon, Cheng Yuchuan and Lu Xihe set out for the largest villa in the center of City A. With a handwritten letter and three slightly flawed high-tier crystal cores, they successfully secured a meeting with the villa’s owner, Li Qing.
“Hello, I’m Li Qing.” A short-haired woman dressed in a black leather combat suit leaped down from the second-floor corridor, landing steadily in the first-floor living room. She turned and strode quickly to Cheng Yuchuan, cutting straight to the chase: “In your letter, you mentioned seeing my younger brother in City O. Elaborate.”
Both parties went straight to the point. Cheng Yuchuan quickly finished explaining everything Li Qing wanted to know, then asked about the map to Spirit Stone Mountain.
Unfortunately, in this life, Li Qing was no longer Cheng Yuchuan’s teammate. The method of obtaining clues about the Spirit Stone Mountain map through her system seemed unworkable in this lifetime. Cheng Yuchuan had to settle for the next best option and ask Li Qing to help look after Zhong Hao and Zhong Yue.
Li Qing agreed readily and even offered to use the Li family’s influence in City A to help Cheng Yuchuan find a map to Spirit Stone Mountain.
She remarked that although she had only spent a short half hour with Cheng Yuchuan, it felt as familiar as reuniting with an old friend from years past. Cheng Yuchuan smiled without refuting, merely saying that perhaps they had known each other in a previous life.
With the matter of the Zhong siblings’ placement resolved, Cheng Yuchuan and Lu Xihe threw themselves into the search for the map. Three days later, Li Qing delivered a lead on the map’s whereabouts. Following the clue, Cheng Yuchuan successfully obtained the map to Spirit Stone Mountain.
After resting and regrouping at the hotel for two days, the five of them officially set out on their journey to find Spirit Stone Mountain.
The first few days of travel went relatively smoothly. The groups they encountered were small aberrant packs led by mid-tier aberrants.
Because of his previous experience communicating with Zhong Mo, Lu Xihe always felt that aberrants still retained human consciousness. When encountering an aberrant pack, his first instinct wasn’t to kill the mid-tier aberrant and plow straight through the group with the vehicle, but rather to attempt negotiation, asking the mid-tier aberrant to lead the others in clearing a path.
But strangely enough, no matter how many mid-tier aberrants he encountered, he couldn’t successfully communicate with any of them. While some mid-tier aberrants did lead their packs out of the way, it wasn’t because Lu Xihe had negotiated with them, they simply retreated on their own upon seeing him. This left Lu Xihe deeply puzzled.
Still, if he could avoid killing, he would. Killing them made Lu Xihe feel uneasy, as if he were slaughtering living, conscious, emotional people.
The closer they got to the territory of the Aberrant King that Cheng Yuchuan had mentioned, the more aberrant tides they encountered, and they were generally composed of mid-to-high-tier aberrants.
Cheng Yuchuan had no intention of clashing with them head-on. They found a cave and waited until the sun was high in the sky before driving onward. However, they still inadvertently drew the attention of the aberrants.
High-tier aberrants had evolved human-level intelligence, understanding troop formations and military strategy.
Three high-tier aberrants led dozens of mid-tier aberrants in completely surrounding the RV. The RV couldn’t withstand attacks from mid-to-high-tier aberrants. With several loud crashes, the rear of the vehicle was punched through with large holes.
“With this many mid-to-high-tier aberrants, can we make it?” Lu Xihe asked with some concern, given that they were currently deep in the Aberrant King’s territory.
“No problem.” Cheng Yuchuan remained utterly composed, glancing back at Qi Jin with a subtle signal before using his ability to summon heavenly lightning and cleave open a path. Qi Jin drove the vehicle through the gap and sped away.
Behind them, dozens of high-tier aberrants led over a hundred mid-tier ones charging in pursuit under the blazing sun, chasing the vehicle directly.
The RV had limited speed, and ahead lay mountains and cliffs, fleeing by car was unrealistic. If they accidentally wrecked the vehicle, they’d be stranded in aberrant king territory, and running into the aberrant king would be truly dangerous.
“Find a spot at the foot of the mountain to stop.” Cheng Yuchuan said calmly, watching the aberrants closing in behind them with unruffled composure.
“Got it.”
Qi Jin pulled over at a hillside, and Cheng Yuchuan got out to face the enemy head-on.
“Stay safe.” Lu Xihe cautioned him.
“It’s fine, you can come down and play later.” Cheng Yuchuan gave his thin cheek a gentle pinch, smiled, and stepped out of the car.
Seeing Cheng Yuchuan’s confident demeanor, Lu Xihe felt reassured and squeezed over to join Yu Yicheng on the Mianmian beast, which had transformed into a large sofa.
To be fair, the Mianmian beast sofa was incredibly soft, except that lying near its mouth meant getting your face nibbled from time to time. Yu Yicheng was already covered in bite marks.
Pulling open the sun-blocking curtain, Lu Xihe could see Cheng Yuchuan clearly outside the vehicle.
Cheng Yuchuan walked unhurriedly to a spot two meters in front of the RV and stood still. With a raise of his hand, faint blue threads of light gathered from all directions and spread out, and in moments, an invisible barrier of energy descended in the air, firmly shielding both him and the vehicle.
The dozens and hundreds of aberrants charging forward were solidly blocked outside the barrier, and even their clamorous screeching was muted to near silence.
With his other hand, Cheng Yuchuan calmly condensed his ability. The powerful energy wave was palpable even to Lu Xihe inside the vehicle, one strike from that palm, and who knew how many aberrants would be instantly obliterated.
“Wait!” Lu Xihe suddenly remembered something, calling out to stop the attack Cheng Yuchuan was about to unleash on the aberrants, and hurriedly got out of the car.
He still wanted to try communicating with the high-tier aberrants, what if they truly retained human consciousness and could still be saved?
Lu Xihe walked to the edge of the barrier. The high-tier aberrants froze for a moment upon seeing him, then grew even more agitated. Several of them surged toward Lu Xihe’s side, as if desperate to break through the barrier the next second and tear him apart to devour.
Lu Xihe tried repeatedly to reason with them, but the aberrants remained utterly unmoved, even more vicious and frenzied, launching fierce attacks on the barrier in front of Lu Xihe, their blood-red eyes filled with nothing but killing intent.
Their crazed, bloodthirsty behavior made Lu Xihe abandon the naive notion that they still retained human consciousness and nature. He retreated to stand beside Cheng Yuchuan, waiting to watch the level-five powerhouse send these high-tier aberrants flying with a single blow.
“Hey? Can we let them in one by one and take our time killing them for high-tier cores?” Lu Xihe suddenly recalled how he’d absorbed a high-tier core a few days ago to develop a new ability, and made the suggestion.
Reminded by him, Cheng Yuchuan’s eyes lit up with understanding. He raised a hand to ruffle Lu Xihe’s fluffy hair and smiled gracefully. “Of course we can.”
With that, the blue barrier curved inward, separating out one high-tier aberrant into the barrier, though it was still confined alone in a narrow space.
Cheng Yuchuan used vines to immobilize the aberrant’s limbs, then unleashed wind-type ability blades to slice it apart, removing the neck section containing the core, and gradually grinding away the remnants to extract the core.
Seeing the method work, Qi Jin and Ning Wanli also got out of the vehicle, asking Cheng Yuchuan to let some mid-tier aberrants in so they could harvest cores too.
Cheng Yuchuan readily agreed and began repeating the core-extraction process. One aberrant after another went through like on a machine production line, becoming nothing more than core-supplying units awaiting slaughter.
While controlling his ability to let aberrants in and extract cores, Cheng Yuchuan still had spare energy to chat with Lu Xihe.
“Try it again.”
Cheng Yuchuan handed the freshly obtained high-tier core to Lu Xihe. Following the previous steps, Lu Xihe absorbed the core, and sure enough, a new kind of energy different from before surged within him.
Holding his breath and focusing, he slowly gathered the new energy to his front. A tender green vine quietly sprouted from his palm, growing freely with its master’s will, swiftly climbing up Cheng Yuchuan’s cheek and gently stroking back and forth.
“Cheng Yuchuan, it’s wood-type ability!” Lu Xihe was overjoyed, cradling the little green sprout in his hands, unable to let it go.
“It really works.”
“Amazing! At this rate, as long as there are enough high-tier cores, anyone could become an ability user, and humanity won’t have to fear aberrants anymore.” Lu Xihe was so excited he leaped onto Cheng Yuchuan, hugging him and cheering uncontrollably.
In his excitement, he lost control of his ability, the vines grew wildly, and in the blink of an eye, the two of them were tightly wrapped and cocooned together, with only their heads sticking out.
“…” The air fell into dead silence. Locking eyes with Yu Yicheng inside the vehicle, Lu Xihe was so embarrassed he could’ve dug out a castle with his toes.
“With so many people watching, let’s keep it under control, okay? Sweetheart.” Cheng Yuchuan was caught between laughter and tears, patting Lu Xihe’s rear twice as he held him, unable to resist teasing.
Lu Xihe’s face instantly turned as red as a tomato. He kept his head lowered, not daring to meet Cheng Yuchuan’s eyes, and stammered, “O-okay, I’ll put it away right now.”
After that little embarrassment, even when absorbing the second high-tier crystal core and awakening wind-type abilities, Lu Xihe didn’t dare get too excited, afraid he might whip up a tornado and send both himself and Cheng Yuchuan spinning inside it.
The newly awakened abilities were all level one, barely enough to handle ordinary aberrants. They were still far from being able to take on high-tier ones.
Abilities should be strong, not numerous. Cheng Yuchuan took out a pile of mid-tier crystal cores he’d saved up from his spatial storage and handed them to Lu Xihe to level up gradually.
Lu Xihe couldn’t quite describe the feeling, each time he absorbed a core, the energy within him stirred, sometimes familiar, sometimes strange and new.
After that frenzy of absorption, his fire, wood, and wind abilities all jumped to level four, which made Yu Yicheng in the car watch with pure envy.
Over on the other side, Qi Jin and Ning Wanli were also absorbing crystal cores and leveling up as they went. Qi Jin had been stuck at level three in his eye-type abilities because two sub-abilities, Storm Blue Eyes and Blazing Crimson Eyes, hadn’t fully reached level four. Now, after absorbing over a dozen mid-tier crystal cores, he finally brought all his sub-abilities to level four, becoming a true level-four eye-type ability user.
With the strength to fight mid- and high-tier aberrants, Lu Xihe was brimming with motivation and joined the ranks of killing aberrants and harvesting crystal cores.
Cheng Yuchuan let a mid-tier aberrant in for him. After finishing it off, Lu Xihe felt it wasn’t satisfying enough and demanded Cheng Yuchuan give him a high-tier one.
Cheng Yuchuan shook his head and refused, saying bluntly, “You can’t beat it.”
“I can!” Lu Xihe thought Cheng Yuchuan was just worried he’d get hurt. He refused to back down no matter what and insisted Cheng Yuchuan give him a high-tier aberrant.
Cheng Yuchuan tried to persuade him again, but Lu Xihe used his wood ability to weave a mask out of vines and put it over Cheng Yuchuan’s face, glaring at him fiercely to stop him from saying another word.
Cheng Yuchuan had no choice but to give in and handed him a high-tier aberrant.
Lu Xihe immediately beamed with joy. Mimicking Cheng Yuchuan’s method for harvesting high-tier crystal cores, he used vines to restrain the aberrant’s limbs and then attacked its body with wind blades.
But after fighting for a long while, to the point where Lu Xihe was getting tired, the high-tier aberrant only had a few shallow cuts on it.
“Hey, I don’t believe this!” Having just been underestimated by his boyfriend, Lu Xihe was determined to take down this high-tier aberrant and make Cheng Yuchuan see him in a new light.
Lu Xihe exhausted his abilities and, after great effort, finally killed a high-tier aberrant. He was gleefully about to claim his first high-tier crystal core when…
The core shattered.