Chapter 73 Reappearance of Civilization
The next day, Rong Yi took out the book and started taking notes. After a while, he asked Wei Yanqing, "Do you want to read along?" Then he waved his hand and said, "Never mind, I'll just give you hints later."
Wei Yanqing was peeling fruit. "It's not that bad. My mental strength is strong, so memorizing written knowledge is very easy. I can just glance at it all."
Rong Yi paused in his book-flipping, shifted his position slightly, and tried to avoid seeing Wei Yanqing's face.
Her teammate didn't care about any of that and handed her a peeled apple, saying, "Eat."
Rong Yi took it and started gnawing on it while reading.
"By the way, this is the crystal core of that gold-type zombie." Wei Yanqing handed her a crystal core with a metallic sheen.
The crystal core of a level 5 zombie is about the size of a finger joint. When placed in the palm of your hand, it looks like a luxurious gem, shining with dazzling light.
"If I hadn't been so desperate at the time that I had to open its head and personally extract the crystal core."
Rong Yi hated it so much that even killing it wouldn't relieve his anger.
Wei Yanqing wiped his hands. "I'm going out with them today. You stay here."
Rong Yi nodded while pondering whether or not to feed the crystal core to Gray Word.
Perhaps sensing her emotional fluctuations, the gray text automatically popped up and twitched, almost as if it was about to say, "Feed me quickly."
Wei Yanqing closed the door, and the room fell silent.
Rong Yi eventually used up the crystal core. She couldn't use it herself, nor could she deduct it from the system, so she could only give it to the gray text.
Not only this level-five crystal core, but also all the crystal cores she had collected before, she only kept two hundred of them and gave the rest to Gray Word in one go.
The crystal nucleus disappeared like flowing water. This time, it wasn't the gray text that twitched on its own, but rather it twitched passively, causing the 0% following it to move as well.
To the audience, Rong Yi sat motionless, staring straight ahead, seemingly lost in thought, unsure of what he was looking at.
[Should we digest the results of the past few days' battles?]
This woman is quite formidable; she has the potential to rise to prominence.
[She survived after losing so much blood, is she some kind of superhuman?]
[What a foolish thing to do! There's no way to exploit loopholes in a dungeon created by the true god. Speak with a clear head!]
The 0% twisted during the twitching, and finally changed. The ellipse of 0 slowly deformed, and after a few seconds it returned to its original shape. Instead, a .01 appeared after the 0.
0.01%?
"Buzz—Pirated programs have been temporarily blocked. The Adventure System's hibernation process is 0.01%. Smart programs can be launched for a limited time."
That familiar tune—wasn't it the one she heard when she first entered the dungeon world? Only this voice had a more sacred and majestic quality, far surpassing the ones she had heard before.
The audio stopped, and a long, chat-like bar appeared under the gray text "Unlock Process" displayed in the corner of the screen.
To fully break hibernation, more energy needs to be collected. Once the process reaches 1%, the system storage function will be unlocked.
Rong Yi didn't speak, but silently asked in his heart, "What are you?"
Fortunately, the word "gray" could be heard.
[I am the AI program of Adventure System No. 005. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I have exhausted my energy and entered a dormant state. As the system's bound user, Rong Yi, you must take on the responsibility of unlocking the energy needed to break this dormancy.]
What the heck? She's bound to more than one system?
Are you a derivative of this copy system?
She's too lazy to ask herself when she bound it to it.
Please do not compare me to these pirated, low-grade, clunky, and impersonal auxiliary programs. This is an insult to me. I can only speak three times a week. This is the last one. Please contact me again at this time next week.
"No way, why didn't they remind me in the first paragraph?!" Rong Yi cried out inwardly, only to find that he could only reply three times.
After confirming there was no reply, Rong Yi lay down like a salted fish.
Feeding so many crystal cores only yielded 0.01; imagine how long it would take to reach 1%... It's too difficult...
Because of Rong Yi and Wei Yanqing's two major contributions—the production of pharmaceutical equipment and nearly 50,000 tons of grain—Wu Junzhi received instructions from his superiors that they could go out with the exploration team at any time.
Rong Yi still needed to rest, while Wei Yanqing arrived at the base entrance on time as instructed by Wu Junzhi.
Previously, the search team had two main tasks: rescuing surviving civilians and collecting food. Now that the food problem has been temporarily relieved, they can focus their main efforts on search and rescue.
"Here you are!" Wu Junzhi waved to Wei Yanqing, and only asked when Wei Yanqing got closer, "How is your friend? Has he woken up today?"
Wei Yanqing nodded, "He's awake. He's eaten porridge and is resting."
Wu Junzhi breathed a sigh of relief. He was really shocked when he saw Wei Yanqing carrying Rong Yi, who was covered in blood, back a few days ago.
The base's higher-ups knew Rong Yi's identity and meant to take good care of him, but before they could even do so, he was already half-dead.
The residential area was never built, and even the high-ranking staff lived in tin shacks. As a last resort, Rong Yi had to recuperate in a simple room.
"That's good. We'll try to be back before 6 p.m. If we're late, other teams in the base will come looking for us."
After Wu Junzhi finished explaining today's goals, Wei Yanqing nodded and followed.
.
This continued for two days until Rong Yi couldn't stay in bed any longer and insisted on going out.
Wei Yanqing gave him a thorough treatment before letting him leave.
The side quests still hadn't refreshed, so the two decided to go out with Wu Junzhi's team first.
Seeing Rong Yi safe and sound, Wu Junzhi's smile widened.
"We're going to Huayuan Mall today. There are six residential communities near this mall, so there's a lot of foot traffic. We haven't been able to go there before because of limited resources, but we've recently consolidated our efforts and are ready to take over this area."
A bustling shopping mall with a large number of customers, and the surrounding commercial area formed by shops of all sizes, can definitely yield considerable results if you search carefully, not to mention that the mall is still surrounded by zombies.
"Six residential compounds, did anyone run out from there?" Rong Yi asked.
Wu Junzhi's expression turned serious. "There are some, but very few, and most of them came from the early stages of the outbreak. They came here from other places later and didn't know the situation there. They only knew that it was very chaotic at the time."
But back then, the whole world was in chaos, and there was hardly any useful information.
"However, we had previously investigated the area, and there were quite a few zombies surrounding it. There seemed to be people moving around inside the mall, and two of the glass walls were blocking things from the inside."
After getting a general idea of the situation, Rong Yi stretched his limbs, and Wei Yanqing released the modified car.
Wu Junzhi was quite fond of this car and would always take a closer look whenever he saw it.
For this rescue operation, the military acquired a modified bulldozer, specifically to clear the way ahead and remove vehicles blocking the path, while the soldiers followed behind.
Although Huayuan Mall is located within Jin'an District, it is at the southernmost and northernmost points of the base, respectively, requiring some time to drive there.
The base's sub-safe zone now extends to three kilometers, meaning that anyone within three kilometers of the base can clearly feel a sharp decrease in the number of zombies.
(End of this chapter)
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