Chapter 76

On the first day of the natural disaster, the temperature was 28 degrees Celsius, with light rain, rainwater acidity of 10, and air pollution level of 5.

Is this what you call light rain?

Qiao Ning looked out the car window at the torrential rain, deeply suspecting that the system had some misunderstanding about the amount of rainfall.

In her hometown, this level of rain would be considered at least moderate rain.

The current rainwater has a low acidity, so its corrosive effects on vehicles have not yet manifested.

She is now a Tier 7 vehicle, with an additional 100,000 defense and 50,000 attack power, in addition to the vehicle's inherent material durability.

The defense modes include: shield, titanium armor, and armor reinforcement.

Attack modes include: long-range missiles, barrage of bullets, light cannons, chain-reaction cannons, and particle lightsabers.

There are also underwater modes: hydroelectric power generation, oxygen exchange and exhaust system, waterproof and pressure-resistant functions, torpedoes, fish arrows, and underwater particle cannons.

All of these models require a large amount of energy and materials to operate.

There are many ways to obtain energy, both inside and outside the car. It can be replenished directly with external fuels, such as oil and natural gas, or it can utilize the natural environment, such as solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, and electricity.

Level 7 vehicles also possess flight and hovering capabilities, which also consume a significant amount of energy. Currently, these two functions are not needed.

The fact that supply crates are not spawning on the highway does not mean that you do not need to drive forward.

Just like the last natural disaster, who knew it would cause a wildfire or a beast tide? You'll need to find a glacier to survive. If you don't drive much in the early stages, you might need to spend more time finding your destination later.

In the previous Cataclysm cycle, players could communicate with each other and even teleport to other players' coordinates. This Cataclysm is a completely single-player mode; players can't contact anyone, and if the game goes wrong, there's no one to help.

Just to be on the safe side, Qiao Ning thought it best to drive for a while while the acid rain levels weren't too high, otherwise she might not be able to drive later.

Driving on a glass road is a thrilling experience, especially with the vast ocean all around, teeming with ancient marine life. If you ignore the dangers, the scene truly resembles an epic prehistoric film.

Qiao Ning drove for a while, then handed the car over to the smart assistant to continue driving.

He would take time to train his body and practice swordsmanship.

Ice Scales was right next to her, using the giant insect shell that she had smoked and seasoned as a chew toy.

As it was almost lunchtime, Qiao Ning was about to take out ingredients from the storage box to cook when she discovered a big problem!

The locker is locked!

Qiao Ning quickly checked if the other storage items were working properly, but they were all locked!

"Is this how the system works?"

With all storage items sealed off, Qiao Ning only had the items in the car left.

The kitchen has 10 jin of flour, 20 jin of rice, a basket of washed vegetables, and a plate of fruit. The freezer contains 20 jin of frozen dumplings (with different fillings) and 30 jin of pork, beef, and mutton. The refrigerator has very little food, mostly ready-to-eat or reheatable foods, such as sausages, duck breast, sandwiches, small cakes, and sticky rice cakes.

There's a lot of this stuff; even with her and Binglin's appetites, it's impossible for them to eat it for seven days.

Furthermore, there isn't enough drinking water. The kitchen water pipes are connected to the water supply pipes and the drinking water tank. Currently, there are only 10 liters of water in the tank.

Qiao Ning turned her head and saw Binglin lying to the side, wagging its tail and waiting for its meal. She suddenly remembered that it had a gluttonous space and there were many supplies in Binglin's space!

Ever since the last natural disaster and poisoning, Qiao Ning has made it a habit to put a little bit of each kind of material into Ice Scale's space.

Aside from game items, Ice Scale Space also has supplies like gasoline, water, and food, though not much. It has mostly its favorite snacks.

Food can last a few days if we're frugal, and we can manage to boil and filter water, but the biggest problem is the lack of gasoline.

A level 7 car has a fuel tank, a power supply tank, and an energy tank. Her fuel tank has a large capacity, holding several thousand liters of gasoline. However, her car also consumes a lot of fuel. The various electrical appliances consume fuel, driving consumes fuel, and daily activities such as cooking, flushing the toilet, and making fertilizer all require fuel and electricity.

A conservative daily fuel consumption estimate is 480 units. Driving accounts for the majority of this.

For other natural disasters, Qiao Ning could try solar power, wind power, or hydropower. However, this natural disaster was absurd; the sun was nowhere to be seen in the sky, it only rained and there was no wind, so wind power generation simply couldn't be started.

Surrounded by oceans on all sides, hydroelectric power generation seems feasible, but the key issue is that this is a world plagued by acid rain disasters, and the ocean water doesn't have a normal pH level!

Qiao Ning had just tried to start the hydroelectric generator when, after only a few minutes, she heard a system alarm saying that a metal pipe in her hydroelectric system was contaminated and corroded, and needed to be replaced immediately. If it weren't for the spare metal parts in the car, she wouldn't even be able to fix it right now.

All the hard work of stockpiling goods over five natural disaster cycles has been wiped out in a single day, leaving us with nothing.

The only usable and reliable fuel right now is gasoline; its only problem is that it runs out quickly.

With limited ingredients, Qiao Ning could only make do by steaming several large baskets of buns. The fillings were mainly pork and beef, with a little bit of vegetables.

Beef makes up the majority of the filling, with pork accounting for about 30%. It has the unique texture and flavor of beef, as well as the savory aroma of pork. Qiao Ning has a filling recipe that her mother taught her, and the filling is exceptionally well-seasoned. It's not fishy at all, and every bite is filled with savory and juicy meat filling. The crust is thin and the filling is generous; one bite and it's so delicious it melts in your mouth.

Qiao Ning sat on the edge of the bed, watching the rain outside the window, munching on a large meat bun, and drinking some chilled juice from the refrigerator to cleanse her palate.

She made several extra-large buns for Binglin. Binglin knew they didn't have much food right now, and seemed a little reluctant to eat them. They shrank to the size of a puppy, clinging to both sides of its food bowl, and nibbled on the buns little by little.

She made a lot of meat buns. If she couldn't finish them, she would let them cool down and freeze them. When she was hungry, she would take out a few, steam them, and that would be a meal.

After finishing her meal, Qiao Ning continued practicing her body tempering and swordsmanship. Perhaps because she had already fused with the evolutionary crystal, basic body tempering and swordsmanship were no longer enough for her. She began to research and explore her own cultivation method from these two approaches.

It's currently only a rough, unfinished prototype, but its effects are significantly better than basic body tempering and basic swordsmanship. It's also much more suitable for her.

The chat channels, friend list, trading area, and storage items were all blocked. With nothing else to disturb her and unable to venture out in the acid rain, Qiao Ning stayed in the car, cultivating, cooking, and playing with Bing Lin. Surprisingly, she found a long-lost peace and relaxation.

It seems that it's not so bad if only she and Binglin are left in the whole world; the two of them can live more freely and comfortably.

The first day of the natural disaster passed peacefully and uneventfully with just one person and one dog. In the evening, Qiao Ning took some time to study seawater filtration.

Her special ability is ice and snow, which has become even stronger after evolution. She can transform her body into ice and snow, merge into glaciers, and flow into water. Moreover, Qiao Ning absorbed the power of the glacier during the last natural disaster, giving her special ability a new direction for evolution. She can devour and assimilate, or rather, melt other substances.

Qiao Ning tried to melt the impurities in the seawater using her special ability, but failed—her newly unlocked special ability was not yet proficient or strong enough to achieve such precision.

Ice Scale's water control ability is different. Its strength may not be stronger than Qiao Ning's ice ability, but it has more uses.

The water it produces is fine for washing dishes, clothes, and bathing, but not for drinking.

"Can you turn the seawater outside into this bowl of clear water? The kind you can drink?" Qiao Ning easily picked up the ice scale, which had shrunk in size, and placed it on her lap. She then lifted its two front paws and kneaded it for a while.

The dog's paw pads are so cuddly, they feel so soft and fleshy, a little rough, just the right firmness.

Ice Scale received a claw massage and hummed comfortably. It glanced at the seawater that Qiao Ning had just brought to the car in the bucket and let out a soft moan.

This water can be purified, but it will take some time.

This bucket of water contains about 5 liters. After the ice scales purify it, there are 4 liters of clean water left, along with a bunch of impurities and a pinch of salt.

It took less than three minutes in total.

If the water becomes even dirtier, it will take longer to purify.

Qiao Ning understood what it meant. Increased acidity from acid rain and air pollution can also cause changes in seawater quality, which in turn alters the biological communities and ecosystems within it.

It will definitely be much more difficult to purify.

In order to have water available for the next few days, Qiao Ning instructed Bing Lin to purify some water whenever she had free time and store it in its Gluttonous Space.

The impurities left after purification can be poured into the all-purpose toilet to decompose, and the remaining sea salt can be stored as a seasoning or used for pickling.

She had all sorts of seasonings in her kitchen, but most of them were stored in sealed-off storage containers. Only a small portion was left in the kitchen.

After steaming the buns, there was about 200 grams of salt left in the kitchen. This sea salt arrived just in time.

She was hungry at night, so she got up and cooked a bowl of noodle soup with sea salt. After eating it, she didn't notice any side effects. The taste was not much different from the regular noodles, except that the crystals were finer.

Because she didn't need to get up early, open supply boxes, fight monsters, or farm in the wilderness, Qiao Ning stayed up all night to watch a movie for the first time ever.

Binglin was originally nestled next to her watching the movie, but halfway through, the dog got too engrossed in the film and got scared by the ghost in it.

At night, it refused to go back to its bed to sleep, insisting on sleeping next to Qiao Ning's pillow and demanding that Qiao Ning pat its back and stroke its fur to lull it to sleep.

What could Qiao Ning do? She could only move the pillow further in to make room for the dog to lie down.

After finally getting the dog to sleep, Qiao Ning glanced at the time and saw it was already four in the morning. She immediately turned off the lights and went to bed.

At seven o'clock in the morning, a loud clap of thunder woke up both the person and the dog in bed.

Ice Scales are in the form of fur, and their golden-red fur bristled in fright.

Qiao Ning's bed was next to a large window. After pulling back the curtains, the first thing she saw was a faint reddish water stain on the window. These were marks left by rainwater streaking across the window, and the color was noticeably darker than the pale red spots from yesterday.

The gloomy sky, with its occasional flashes of thunder and lightning, made one feel a tightness and oppression in their chest.

On the second day after the natural disaster, the temperature was 34 degrees Celsius, with light rain, rainwater acidity of 20, and air pollution level of 10.

Qiao Ning frowned immediately when she saw the disaster information on the system.

Rain and rising temperatures are not a good thing.

Especially when it's acid rain, the high temperature will accelerate seawater evaporation, leading to even more rain and creating a vicious cycle.

Qiao Ning didn't have a raincoat, but she had red equipment that could freely change shape and style. She transformed her Nightfall Armor and boots into raincoat and rain boots, then got out of the car to experience what it meant for today's rainwater to have an acidity level of 20.

As soon as she opened the car door, Qiao Ning choked so badly she almost couldn't catch her breath.

The surrounding air had an indescribable pungent smell. With each breath, my entire respiratory tract felt like it was covered with a layer of sand, making me feel suffocated, uncomfortable, and even painful.

Qiao Ning held her breath and touched the rain with her finger. Her slightly calloused fingertip immediately became red and swollen, and then her skin began to fester.

Qiao Ning gasped, turned around and went back to the car. She first took out wound medicine, antibacterial and detoxifying agents, and anti-inflammatory drugs from Bing Lin's space.

Use them one by one; the wound medicine is effective and can heal the wound. Anti-inflammatory drugs can only reduce redness, swelling, and ulceration, while applying a little antibacterial and detoxifying agent to the wound can remove contaminants, bacteria, and viruses from inside and outside the wound.

Half of the treatment involves first using antibacterial and detoxifying agents, followed by topical wound medication; a little bit of treatment is all it takes for a complete recovery.

This is only the intensity of acid rain on the second day after the natural disaster.

Qiao Ning took off her equipment and let it clean itself. Red-grade equipment has high durability, but after this trip, 3000 durability points were down to 2800.

If the durability is gone, she doesn't have the materials to repair it right now.

All her materials were stored in her storage containers; the little left in the car wasn't even enough to combine a single piece of mixed metal.

The worst part wasn't that her equipment was losing durability, but that she discovered her car's defense was also starting to drop.

When the 100,000 defense points are depleted, only the vehicle's metal remains to withstand the corrosion of acid rain, and the consequences are unimaginable.

"This can't go on. Who knows how high the acid levels will be in the next few days? If the car's defenses can't hold up, it could be dangerous."

Qiao Ning glanced at the ocean outside and made a bold decision.

She commanded the smart assistant to stop the car, activate underwater mode, and then break through the road barrier, falling into the ocean.

The ocean is vast and its acidity is far lower than that of acid rain, so the seabed is currently the safest place.

In underwater mode, the car form transforms into a submarine, making it more suitable for underwater exploration. Ice Scale sheds its bright red fur and becomes a scale-armored form.

This time, its scales changed color again, becoming a deep blue like the ocean, making it incredibly beautiful underwater.

Qiao Ning even saw several strange creatures that looked like fish and dolphins circling and twisting around the ice scales.

Qiao Ning wondered uncertainly, could these ancient giant fish be courting?

The moment the thought crossed her mind, she saw the mane on Icescale's neck bristle underwater, and then it swatted all the fish away with its tail.

Then, it angrily swam towards Qiao Ning and howled at her.

After listening for a while, Qiao Ning realized that its cries were actually a barrage of profanities, complaining about the fish.