Ice Age Apocalypse: I Hoard Billions of Supplies

Zhang Yi and the others returned home and did nothing else, just leisurely rested for a whole day.

……

When the next day arrived, Zhang Yi finally began to sort out and allocate the spoils from the Qinling expedition.

The first thing he had to do, of course, was to investigate the composition of the purple crystal that Totoro had brought back.

Its importance went without saying, but when Zhang Yi took it out and examined it carefully, he could not sense any strangeness at all.

It was as if this were just an ordinary crystal; if placed in a craft shop, it would fetch a price of maybe a couple hundred yuan.

Zhang Yi had no choice but to hand it over to Lu Keran and ask him to help figure out what the thing actually was.

Lu Keran took the purple crystal and looked at it for a long time without coming to any conclusion.

So she activated her Divine Machinery Manipulation ability and carefully sensed its internal structure.

She closed her eyes, and in a single instant her body trembled violently.

Then two clear streams of tears flowed down from the corners of her tightly shut eyes, falling to the floor drop by drop.

Zhang Yi was very surprised, but he did not dare speak for fear of disturbing her.

After a moment, Lu Keran slowly opened her eyes, which now looked somewhat dazed, as if she had just experienced a dreamlike scene.

Only then did Zhang Yi cautiously ask, “Keran, what’s wrong? What did you find?”

Lu Keran’s gaze gradually returned to normal, but there was still a lingering confusion about her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know either. I just sensed a very complex set of emotions. The joys, angers, sorrows, and pleasures of the world seem to be fused together inside this strange crystal.”

Zhang Yi was completely speechless.

Emotions?

Could this possibly be a memory crystal used to collect people’s emotions?

Lu Keran wiped her tears and then spoke seriously, “Besides that, I also sensed an extremely powerful and precise force contained within it.”

Zhang Yi finally breathed a sigh of relief. “See, a treasure that had Shengjing Region scheming to get it can’t be that simple.”

Lu Keran shook the purple crystal in her hand. It was large, about the length of an arm, and not light in weight.

“Brother, the outer layer is a container; it should be something that holds the internal energy. Only by opening it can you access the power inside.”

Zhang Yi touched his chin and studied it carefully.

“You mean the Serpent-folk used a formation to gather energy and then used this to collect it?”

“But how would you use it? You can’t just smash it open first—too dangerous.”

Lu Keran gave Zhang Yi a resolute look.

“Brother, leave this to me. I’ll figure out a way to release the internal energy.”

Zhang Yi had no idea what Lu Keran intended to do.

However, the military had already developed energy storage technology, and Zhang Yi’s firearms were equipped with such devices.

“All right then. But this thing could be dangerous. I’ll help you.”

From Zhang Yi’s estimate, the energy contained inside must be terrifying.

If handled carelessly and it exploded here, it could destroy the entire Shelter.

Lu Keran was certainly glad to have Zhang Yi’s help.

Zhang Yi said, “But we’ll handle this later. First let’s take care of the other things.”

There were many empty houses next to Lu Keran’s workshop; usually a few would be used as storage for her materials.

Zhang Yi opened up a huge room and immediately released a large amount of elemental ore.

“I collected a lot of elemental ore this time. You can study it and see how to use it. As for machines, I’ll leave everything to you. You take care of it.”

Lu Keran nodded. “That’s easy. I’ve studied elemental stone fragments before; I know how to extract energy from them.”

Zhang Yi smiled. “No rush, research it slowly. There are also other things I need to give you!”

Zhang Yi led Lu Keran to the living room and called everyone over.

Then he opened his Dimensional Space and took out a corpse of a ground centipede, throwing it onto the floor.

It was just a ground centipede more than five meters long, but placed in the living room it still made a strong visual impact.

Everyone present still felt uneasy about such an ugly subterranean creature.

Yang Siya patted her ample chest and scolded, “Zhang Yi, why did you bring this thing out?”

Zhang Yi laughed. “Take a look and see if this thing can be cooked into a couple of dishes.”

Yang Siya immediately rolled her eyes. “Its shell is too hard; bullets can’t even penetrate it. How could anyone eat it?”

Zhang Yi sat on the sofa and smiled. “I’m not joking. This creature has swallowed a lot of elemental ore veins. Unlike humans, it can directly devour energy bodies. To be honest, I have an idea.”

At those words, perceptive Yang Xinxin immediately guessed Zhang Yi’s plan.

“Brother, you want to raise these worms? Like raising pigs?”

Everyone displayed puzzled expressions.

“What would raising these things be for?”

Yang Xinxin pointed at the ground centipede corpse.

“It’s like how we eat mutton. Sheep eat grass, and we eat sheep. Humans can’t directly eat grass, so the sheep fill the gap in the food chain.”

“And if superhumans want to increase their power, they usually have to devour other superhumans or super beasts’ origins. They can’t directly obtain energy from fossil fuels or food and convert it.”

As he explained, everyone gradually understood.

Zhou Ke’er’s eyes immediately lit up. She looked at the ground centipede corpse in front of her and said excitedly:

“So what you’re saying is, we could raise ground centipedes and make them strong. Then we harvest their origins to strengthen ourselves, right?”

“As long as we have enough elemental stones, we can keep harvesting the centipedes’ origins continuously.”

“Even…”

Her voice began to tremble with excitement.

“Even cultivate a powerful army of superhumans!”

Zhang Yi smiled and nodded.

He folded his hands and rested his chin on them, speaking leisurely, “That’s what Shengjing Region did. Otherwise, why do you think their superhuman numbers exploded?”

When he said that, everyone suddenly understood.

Zhou Ke’er nodded lightly; this explanation cleared up the confusion in her mind.

Superpowers are also a form of energy.

Humans eat food and become stronger. Burning coal gives off heat.

Energy is not created or destroyed, only transferred.

So why hasn’t anyone found a way to convert other energies into superpowers?

There must be a method; Zhou Ke’er just hadn’t found it yet.

The appearance of the ground centipede filled that gap.

“Of course,” Zhang Yi continued, “the higher the level you want, the lower the conversion efficiency. To get an Epsilon-level ground centipede, eighty percent of the time you’ll need some special substance, like Divine Source.”

Or something from the underground world.

“But if we raise these things, making you and those superhumans in Tianhai City I selected rapidly grow to squad leader level won’t be so difficult.”

Zhang Yi’s mouth tilted slightly.

The discovery of the ground centipede was also a huge gain for him, perhaps not inferior to finding elemental ore.

Author’s Note