Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, casting a hazy, dreamlike glow over the otherwise dark interior, as if veiled by a thin, delicate gauze.

Lin Ruo lay on the large bed and immediately opened her eyes. Although she had just woken up, there was no drowsiness in her eyes; she was exceptionally clear-headed.

Even after the extreme heat and chaotic adjustment, her 5 a.m. biological clock was still deeply imprinted in her body.

The house was very warm, and the fire in the fireplace was still burning. She glanced around, and the familiar surroundings made her relax. She squinted her eyes slightly, snuggled into the thick down comforter, and stretched out a big yawn. Sleeping at night is so comfortable.

She sat up in bed, quickly put on the clothes draped over the blankets, walked to the window, and pulled open the thick curtains. Outside, everything was white; the snow had already covered her bedroom windowsill, and a thick layer of snow covered her glass. Snowflakes were still falling softly. Lin Ruo estimated in her mind that, based on the height of the window, the snow outside was probably about one and a half meters deep.

Outside in the snow, three enormous mutated beasts were running wildly across the snow. Afu and Ashou had also reverted to their original sizes, and the meter-thick snow only barely covered their ankles.

Ah Liu and Lao Bai were using their thick tree branches to clear the snow from the top of the fortress. The heavy snow falling from the sky blocked Lin Ruo's view.

Her mental energy quickly spread outwards, and she soon discovered the mutated plants that she had replanted in the mountains after the acid rain. They were now buried deep in the snow, but they were in good spirits. They even waved their branches to greet Afu and the others when they saw them running out.

Those mutated animals had already dug caves for themselves at higher elevations to avoid the blizzard.

With a thought, Lin Ruo collected all the snow around the fortress into her spatial storage. The moment the snow suddenly disappeared, A Liu and the others knew that Lin Ruo had woken up.

A-Liu's willow branches stretched in from outside the gate, heading straight for Lin Ruo's bedroom. The branches were still covered with a layer of white, carrying the crisp scent of frost and snow.

Seeing Lin Ruo standing by the window, the willow branches gently wrapped around her and lightly rubbed against her wrist. For them, this kind of weather was not a natural disaster at all, so even though the snow was so thick, they did not feel nervous at all, but were very happy.

Lin Ruo placed her hand on Ah Liu's willow branch, and a chilling sensation kept creeping into her body through her palm, which was easily neutralized by her water-based superpower.

She gently patted the willow's branches, a smile slowly appearing on her face. She knew how powerful this big willow tree was at charming people.

"Let's go, let me prepare breakfast for you first. I have to go out for a bit later."

She got up, quickly washed up, and headed to the dining room. Perhaps drawn by the aroma of blood and flesh, Lin Ruo had just prepared breakfast for them when the low barking of Afu and the other two echoed outside the fortress gate.

Lin Ruo put down what she was holding and extended her spiritual power first. She saw that the three furry creatures were covered in snow, with Ah Shou's pure black fur being the most noticeable.

They were afraid of getting the floor dirty, so they obediently squatted outside the door and called for Lin Ruo to come out and clean it for them.

Lin Ruo was quite impressed that someone could get themselves into such a state outside; it must have been from rolling around in the snow, as it was all covered in snow so evenly.

With a thought, she created three streams of water that formed a film on the snow, cleaning it off before it dissipated into the blizzard.

Lin Ruo was controlling the water film, and the water inside was still warm. They comfortably closed their eyes, and when the water film receded, they shook their fur and rushed towards the food bowls in the restaurant.

Lin Ruo shook her head slightly and placed the flesh and blood belonging to A Liu and Lao Bai next to them. Lao Bai's branches rubbed against Lin Ruo a few times, while A Liu was even more direct, wrapping her branches around Lin Ruo's waist and doing a few loving lifts until Lin Ruo called a stop. Only then did the two of them stick the branches into their flesh and blood and start eating.

She plunged headlong into the training room. In the last six months of the extreme heat, Lin Ruo had absorbed all the remaining superpower crystals she had. When she traded with the B City base before, she thought that the superpower crystals at that time were enough for her to upgrade to level 9.

In reality, she also sacrificed a significant amount of the supernatural energy cores she acquired at the Qinglin Base to fill the energy required for the two cores in her brain.

Lin Ruo hadn't expected that upgrading to level 9 would require so much energy. If she didn't absorb the supernatural energy cores and just cultivated slowly on her own, it would probably take her several years to accumulate enough energy.

In the past six months, Ah Liu's fruit has ripened again. After Lin Ruo ate the fruit, she found that the progress bar of her mental strength seemed to have lengthened considerably. In the past, she could feel her mental strength increase significantly after eating Ah Liu's fruit once, but now she no longer felt that kind of dramatic improvement. The improvement was very slow.

This feeling was subtle, and Lin Ruo could sense that if her mental strength could be upgraded again, it would definitely bring her a pleasant surprise.

Lin Ruo didn't know why this was happening, and no one could teach her. She could only figure out how to cultivate on her own. Fortunately, her cultivation hadn't encountered any major problems so far.

In the training room, she was standing under seven times the force of gravity. Under such pressure, even a small stone would weigh a hundred pounds. Moreover, Lin Ruo was wearing weight rings made of black jade crystals on her wrists and ankles, so every move she made required a lot of effort.

Sweat streamed down her body, soaking her thin training clothes. Under such immense gravity, the wet clothes felt even heavier. As she moved, more sweat was flung out, making heavy "slapping" sounds under the force of gravity.

Lin Ruo didn't pay much attention to these things. She was highly focused, practicing her previous fist and knife techniques over and over again, with perfect movements and long, even breaths.

She collapsed to the ground, completely exhausted, as her water-based powers began to circulate throughout her body, rapidly relieving her aches and pains.

When this ended, she was exhausted first, but she still had some superpowers left, which is why water-based superpowers flowed out to help her heal. She lay on the ground panting heavily, but her superpowers continued to be output. In addition to the water-based superpowers that healed her, the 7 times gravity in the spatial domain had not yet disappeared.

Half an hour later, when she felt that familiar pain in her brain, she withdrew her spatial domain, smiled with a pale face, and realized that her superpower had finally been exhausted.

She felt like she was a masochist cultivating every day. She shook her head, slowly got up from the ground. The soreness in her body had subsided a lot. She picked up the crystal core that had been prepared next to her and began to restore her mental strength and superpowers.

Time flew by, and two hours later, Lin Ruo, who was sitting in the middle of the training room, finally opened her eyes again. As she expected, both her physical fitness and her superpowers had only improved a little bit. She had been cultivating like this in this apocalypse for three years, and she was happy to do it every day.

Using her water-based powers, she took down the towel hanging nearby, soaked it in warm water, and wiped her face and neck a few times to relieve the greasy feeling left by the sweat before standing up and leaving the training room.