Lin Xia slept for about two hours. When he woke up again, he saw Chi Zheng standing outside the vehicle, staring blankly into space.
The rain still hadn’t stopped. However, the remnants of public electricity in the Fourth District were entirely depleted, leaving the entire city trapped within a vast, boundless curtain of rain. Sunlight struggled to pierce through the layered strata of clouds, only managing to filter down a sliver of unbright light.
“What time is it?” Lin Xia jumped down from the premium rental vehicle and stretched his arms, feeling full-blooded and revived once more.
“Three-thirty in the afternoon. Are you hungry? I still have the crab roe wraps we made earlier.”
The crab roe for the wraps came from the underground cold storage, consisting of semi-finished products manufactured before the cataclysm that could be eaten after a bit of heating.
Although he had only slept for two hours, the battle with the mutated crab had been highly taxing on his physical strength. At this moment, Lin Xia felt ravenously hungry, truly needing to gorge himself.
Industrial crab roe produced in the Third District certainly couldn’t compare to pure natural organic food from the First or Second District, but it was still considered a high-grade ingredient in the Fourth District. Before the cataclysm, their household could rarely afford to eat it.
Thus, he summoned the food stall cart, used the gas stove to reheat the wraps, and boiled a pot of mushroom and green vegetable soup, enjoying a delicious extra meal.
Once he had eaten and drunk his fill, it was naturally time to continue killing crabs.
Chi Zheng’s triangular-blade knife was already finished. Both its hardness and weight were substantially higher than the previous small tiger-claw piece, requiring Lin Xia to readapt.
He selected the piranhas—which he was already highly adept at killing—to start with. This stuff was massive in quantity and perfect for grinding his proficiency.
However, stepping down the ramp this time, Lin Xia discovered that the accumulated water had already submerged the first floor and was steadily rising toward the height of the second floor.
If it kept going like this, in three days at most, the rooftop where they currently stood would also be submerged by the rising water. At that time, even if they didn’t want to leave, they would be forced to flee.
Lin Xia suddenly felt a sense of urgency. He began to slaughter fish even more structural than before, and for a time, the collection prompt echoed continuously in his ears.
Although the piranhas weren’t valuable, they won out through sheer numbers. Accumulating them yielded a considerable energy value, enough to maintain the normal operation of the food stall cart for a month.
Feeling that he had practiced enough, Lin Xia only then redirected his target toward the mutated sea crabs.
Armed with a handy weapon, his speed in killing the sea crabs this time was much faster than before, allowing him to resolve a battle in almost forty minutes.
However, the probability of a sea crab appearing wasn’t as high as a school of fish. Thus, Lin Xia had a sudden stroke of genius; he mixed the piranhas and water snakes with some industrial seasoning powder from the second-floor camping area to create bait, and began to chum the waters at the bottom of the ramp.
As a vagrant child from a collapsed orphanage, fishing was an essential survival skill. Lin Xia had invented several fish bait formulas himself and had even sold them at a fishing tackle shop to supplement the household income, so creating a bit of chum was absolutely no trouble.
Sure enough, the effects were significant! Mutated sea crabs of varying sizes rapidly assembled at the ramp, sometimes coming in twos or threes at once, making Lin Xia afraid to chum any further later on, terrified of being swarmed and beaten up by a pack of crabs.
Accumulating 100 catties of abdominal crab meat and 1 catty of crab roe this way, Lin Xia finally graduated from the mutated sea crabs.
“Why are they all male crabs?!” he complained in a whisper.
From the ratio of crab meat to crab roe, it was evident that the mutated crabs suffered from a severe gender imbalance. Especially later on when he threw the bait, the female crabs attracted almost always appeared accompanied by two to three male crabs, creating quite a bit of combat trouble for Lin Xia.
“The sea at Canary City is polluted. Two hundred years ago, a vicious event involving a mass die-off of marine species broke out, and later on, an ion plasma leak occurred at the Mahati Industrial Zone. Marine life that managed to survive generally possesses a certain degree of mutation.” Chi Zheng pointed at the jar of mutated crab roe that couldn’t even be filled halfway.
“Nowadays, marine life only reproduces normally in the primitive, pollution-free exclusive maritime zones of the First District. In another few decades, I’m afraid there won’t even be this kind of crab left in the sea at Canary City.”
Lin Xia: …
He could somewhat understand the cataclysm now. After all, the planet had already been ruined to this extent; another wave of mutations wouldn’t hurt and might even manifest a new lease on life.
“The white-tier requirements for the second upgrade have already been met,” he said, flipping through the upgrade quest panel.
“The white quest requires gathering 100 catties of ingredients, combining two recipes, and submitting the finished products. Upon completion, besides adding 3 defense points to the food stall cart, we can also obtain seasoning refills and 10 liters of pure water. But if we want to accept all quests in one go like last time, we’re still missing quite a bit for the yellow and orange tiers.”
Speaking up to here, Lin Xia paused. “Truthfully, I feel that submitting the white quest right now is completely not cost-effective. There’s nothing on the food stall cart that needs repairing, so it would be a total waste of an upgrade refresh, and we might even be forced into a new upgrade cycle.”
“It’s better to save it for now and use the refresh where it matters most.”
Chi Zheng agreed. In fact, he would agree with whatever Lin Xia said; Lin Xiaxia always called the shots in their household.
With a stock of 100 catties of crab meat, Lin Xia felt a lot more confident.
Although the grade might not match the Sac-Gland Tiger, it was certainly stronger than the Big-Headed Lizard. The diners in the hole-in-the-wall dining district could even accept the Big-Headed Lizard; as long as the price was set reasonably, they had no reason to leave a negative review.
He had now figured out some of the patterns of running a stall in the Black Fog Farm. The hole-in-the-wall dining district focused heavily on cost-effectiveness, meaning the quality of the ingredients wasn’t the deciding factor—cheap, affordable street snacks were far more suitable than a grand meal.
“So we must take the route of small profits but quick turnover!” Lin Xia said excitedly. “The preparation process for snacks is simple, allowing a large volume of finished products to be made in a short time. Furthermore, it saves water, electricity, and time, making it most suitable for earning money during the early stages of running a stall!”
“Aiya, why didn’t I think of this before! Why bother making stewed, boiled, or pickled things? That’s just creating difficulties for myself.”
As he spoke, he saw Chi Zheng suddenly raise his head, his hawk-like gaze fixing steadily into the distance.
Lin Xia felt something was amiss, but he didn’t make a sound, waiting patiently for Chi Zheng’s reaction.
Sure enough, before long, the man shifted his gaze back. “Something is coming over.”
“What thing?” Lin Xia was a bit excited. He reached for the simple rank tester, turned on the switch, and let out a gasp. “R2! It’s an R2!”
He turned to look at Chi Zheng. “Can I do it? Do you think I can handle a Rank R2 mutated beast right now?”
Chi Zheng hesitated for a while, only nodding after a long pause.
In truth, he felt it was a bit forced and that Lin Xia might get hurt, but Lin Xiaxia’s eyes were too bright, and he couldn’t bear to disappoint him.
In any case, with him guarding by his side, nothing should go wrong. Worst case, he would secretly make a move when the time came, which would at most result in the failure of the Challenge Quest.
Yes, the reason Lin Xia was this excited was because the mutated beast appearing this time happened to land right on the clearance line for his Challenge Quest.
He wasn’t blindly showing off either. He killed N5 mutated sea crabs with practiced ease, estimating his current strength to be around R1, perhaps even touching the edge of R2.
If that was the case, he was actually capable of fighting a Rank R2 mutated beast. Although he wasn’t guaranteed a victory, he wouldn’t be taken down in a single hit either, leaving a very large room for maneuvering.
Holding the mindset of “taking a gamble to turn a bicycle into a motorcycle,” Lin Xia resolved not to let this Rank R2 mutated beast escape. He didn’t know when he would encounter such a suitable target next time.
“Alright!” Lin Xia cheered, clutching his triangular-blade knife as he rushed down the ramp.
Almost at the exact same time, a tooth-grinding snapping sound echoed in the accumulated water beneath the ramp, as if something incredibly hard had been broken by brute force. The turbid current was churned and parted by an even greater force, and a three-meter sea beast revealed its true form.
It was actually a mutated giant lobster!
Lin Xia even suspected he had a protagonist aura over his head. How could whatever he thought of just manifest? Isn’t a lobster a perfect, ready-made ingredient?!
However, this lobster was far more ferocious than its frozen counterparts in the warehouse.
It burst forth from the water like a massive shadow, crawling up the incline slowly yet filled with an oppressive air. The turbid water washed over its hard carapace, revealing a sickly deep brown color that looked as if it had been soaked in petroleum, completely covered in various protruding nodules and sharp bone spikes.
Then there were its claws—disproportionately massive, like two battering rams from the abyss. The loud noise Lin Xia had heard just now was one of these claws snapping a fire hydrant that was half-exposed above the water surface. That thing was made of cast iron, yet the mutated lobster snapping it was as effortless as chopping melons and vegetables.
This… this is an R2?!
Lin Xia took a small step backward, beginning to doubt the accuracy of the simple rank tester.
Fortunately, the mutated lobster’s primary target was not him.
In fact, shortly after emerging from the water, this lobster opened its massive mouthparts located near its gills, sucking in the chum on the water’s surface like a whirlwind.
Lin Xia: … So lobsters and crabs both like the exact same flavor?!
However, now was not the time to dwell on this question, because the giant-clawed lobster quickly swept the bait in the water completely clean. When its maxillae and mandibles twitched frantically but could no longer obtain any expected food from the turbid sewage, it began to angrily strike the water’s surface with its giant claws, crawling and scanning all around in the water. It continuously sucked in and sprayed out water splashes, yet its harvest remained sparse.
How could there be any? To prevent being swarmed by crabs later on, Lin Xia had already stopped tossing new bait into the water. Right now, what the giant lobster ate was just the scraps left by the crabs, compounded by the consumption of the fish schools and water snakes. It truly was a case of the more it sucked, the less remained.
The giant-clawed lobster busied itself in the water for a long time, confirming it could no longer pursue even a single shred of the alluring scent. Consequently, its pair of massive compound eyes finally shifted targets, locking precisely onto Lin Xia’s position through the murky curtain of rain.
This prey also smelled very fragrant, but there was a terrifying thing beside it, which left the giant-clawed lobster somewhat hesitant.
Its massive body slightly adjusted its angle, appearing as if it wanted to step forward but was wary. Its deep brown carapace rubbed against the concrete surface of the ramp, emitting a hair-raising scraping sound.
Delicious… terrifying…
Delicious… will die…
The lobster’s small brain wrestled back and forth.
Before it could come to a conclusion, the target of its salivating desire could wait no longer.
Lin Xia gritted his teeth, gripped the triangular-blade knife tightly in his hand, and noiselessly crept toward the giant lobster.
Forget it, striking first gains the upper hand!
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