TDRA Chapter 48

As Xiang Yi watched Gu Ning casually give the crystal core to Cheng Ming, he pursed his lips and tightened his grip on the two crystal cores in his hand. With extreme reluctance, he elbowed Jia DaoZhang twice and handed over a crystal core to him.

Jia DaoZhang’s slender eyes widened as he stared at the crystal core and pointed at himself: “For me?”

Xiang Yi skimmed his lips: “Well, seeing as you’ve helped a lot too.”

“Hey, hey, you shouldn’t have done this.” Jia DaoZhang acted with humbleness but his hands quickly reached out and grabbed the crystal core. He silently thought in his mind that since Xiang Yi gave him this crystal core, he would no longer throw a fit whenever Xiang Yi called him a swindler in the future.

Those who had crystal cores in their hands found a place to lie down before swallowing it with great solemnity.

Father Gu and Mother Gu were a little nervous, Mother Gu even asked worriedly: “Can we swallow such a big thing? Should we swallow it with some water?”

After Gu Ning had assured them for a while, did they apprehensively place the crystal core into their mouths.

It didn’t take too long for them to pass out one by one.

Xiang Yi had already done this in many instances, this time he swallowed the crystal core and didn’t fall asleep immediately. He just leaned against the wall and let Xiang Xu feel the fluctuation of his psychic energy.

Those who didn’t get the opportunity were a little disappointed and ate their breakfast in silence.

Seeing this, Brother San spoke: “Don’t look so gloomy, from tomorrow onwards, let’s go out every day to kill zombies and get more crystal cores.”

“That’s right. We should try to obtain as many crystal cores as we could before other people noticed it. Otherwise, it will only get harder in the future.” Gu Ning continued. It was conceivable that once the news of the crystal cores was released, it would trigger a craze for hunting zombies, which was a good thing. But the prerequisite was that she had to ensure that her group developed special abilities as a priority, which in turn would keep their combat power strong in the coming battles.

Gu Ning had a vague feeling in her heart that as humans became more powerful, zombies won’t be their only enemies. Further, into the future, the intensity of the war among humans would only increase as supplies became scarcer. It might even be more brutal than the war between zombies, and right now, it was still the beginning.

Taking advantage of this time to build up their strength would be of great use in future wars among humans and zombies.

After hearing Brother San’s and Gu Ning’s speech, the rest slightly cheered up.

Gu Ning glanced at her watch and quickly calculated the time in the other world in her mind. There was still plenty of time for her to remain here, so even if she fell asleep for a few hours like that day, it shouldn’t delay or affect the things in the other world.

She pulled out the pure white crystal core in her backpack and was a bit nervous, after all, Xiang Xu said that the green circle of light in her pupils was a sign that the special ability had been developed. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t feel the psychic energy fluctuation, so she was afraid that eating this crystal core might give the same result…… Gu Ning didn’t dare think any further and put the crystal core directly into her mouth, then closed her eyes. The first time she swallowed the crystal core, she was so possessed that she ate it like *Zhu BaJie gobbling down the ginseng fruit, without tasting anything at all, and she got horrified by her action afterward. This time she decided to feel it carefully, the crystal core instantly melted on her tongue, turning into a cool stream of water. And as if something was guiding it, it flowed down her throat even without her swallowing it. Gu Ning could accurately feel the cool stream flowing inside her body, tracing out a clear path.

(T/N: 猪八戒 Zhu BaJie was the pig character from the novel Journey to the West.)

Xiang Xu was originally paying close attention to Xiang Yi’s psychic energy fluctuations after he ate the crystal core, but suddenly snapped her attention to Gu Ning in shock: “Wow such strong psychic energy fluctuations.”

Gu Ning passed out.

If she had been in her space, she would have seen that the green sea which had been calm and uneventful, suddenly boiled up. Huge waves rolled up and lapped on the shore, and the tender grass on the shore, which had just been finger-length, was soaked with the seawater and immediately grew at a speed visible to the naked eye as if it had been given a stimulant. In the spurt of its growth, they rose over a metre tall. The wind howled through the hills and the leaves from the tree rattled, stretching out their curled-up new leaves against the wind.

“How strange. Such strong fluctuations of psychic energy, and then it disappeared all of a sudden.” Xiang Xu said in wonder. It was logical that if the crystal core stimulated the psychic energy in a person, it would maintain the fluctuation of the psychic energy for a long period before it slowly calms down.

But instead of that, Gu Ning’s psychic energy fluctuations came and went in a blink of an eye, as if it was just an illusion on her part.

“How strong is it?” Xiang Yi couldn’t help but ask.

“If Yan Yu’s psychic energy is a stream and mine is a lake, then Sister Gu Ning’s is…… a sea?” Xiang Xu explained in a bit of disbelief and added: “Even if it’s not a sea, it’s still a lot stronger than mine.”

Xiang Yi was silent for a moment, then asked: “Quickly help me check my current situation.”

Xiang Xu shook her head: “It’s still not enough.”

Xiang Yi couldn’t hide his disappointment, an emotion that was hard to find on his face, a testament to how depressed he was right now: “So how much more will be enough then?”

The people who had just fallen into a coma slowly woke up.

The first person to wake up was Shi Tou.

His first sentences when he woke up were: “I feel like I have a lot of power within my body.”

Then he walked over to the wall and punched it.

There was a loud thud!

All the people in the room widened their eyes in alarm.

Shi Tou’s fist sunk into the white wall cracks spread out on the white wall with his fist as the centre and the bricks underneath it crumbled.

“It’s a strength-based psychic.” Xiang Xu stated.

The soldiers were happy for Shi Tou for a while, after all, Gu Ning had said that the chances of developing special ability were very low but their overall odds as a group were already very high

They currently didn’t know the advantages Gu Ning’s news about the crystal cores brought for them. In fact, the first group of people who swallowed the crystal cores were the ones who seized the best opportunities because the later they consumed it, the stimulation it gave on their psychic power decreased, thus lessening the chances of developing special abilities. Also, the “psychic energy storage space” that was initially expanded in the body would reduce and get smaller.

It could be said that the earliest group of people who swallowed the crystal cores would gain the best resources and receive the most benefits.

During the wars in the future, the current benefits gained now would become even more obvious.

At present, humans were still in a state of complete novelty and exploration of psychic power, thus they didn’t know the depths of these things yet. Even Xiang Xu had only been able to gain some fragmentary insights from those pieces of memories, but she was unable to see the whole picture.

After Shi Tou woke up with a Strength element ability, the soldiers began to speculate excitedly about what kind of special abilities the next person who woke up would gain and how long would it take for each of them to wake up.

Amidst all that gossiping, Brother San asked with a smile: “Little girl, come and guess, who will wake up next?”

Brother San successfully drew everyone’s attention to Xiang Xu and they all knew her special ability and were curious if she could guess correctly.

Xiang Xu’s spiritual energy had covered the entire room, so the intensity of everyone’s psychic energy fluctuations was all in her head. She flashed a cute smile at Brother San, and her clear childish voice rang out: “The second one to wake up should be her.” Her small finger pointed to Huang MengYao.

The soldiers were curious to see if Xiang Xu’s guesses were correct.

Half an hour later, Huang MengYao slowly opened her eyes. All the soldiers exclaimed in wonder.

It took no more than twenty minutes for Shi Tou to wake up from his coma.

Huang MengYao, on the other hand, took nearly an hour to wake up.

She felt the psychic energy slowly flowing through her body like a river, then opened her palms as she stared above them without blinking and felt her heart pounding hard. She pursed her dry lips and concentrated slightly, and all of a sudden, a flame appeared above her palm. The moment this flame appeared, her eyes lit up abruptly and an extremely bright smile bloomed on her face.

“Fire element ability.” Xiang Xu said with a smile, feeling the fluctuation of that flame’s psychic energy before adding with satisfaction: “It’s stronger than that Yan Yu’s.”

Huang MengYao’s eyes lit up even more.

Subconsciously, she glanced in Gu Ning’s direction, feeling impatient to show Gu Ning when she woke up.

A soldier jeered: “Xiang Xu, did you just anyhow guess it? Why don’t you guess again who will wake up next?”

Xiang Xu’s finger directly pointed at Cheng Ming and Jia DaoZhang before replying: “These two, I just don’t know who will wake up first and who will be later.” Their psychic energy fluctuations were not too far apart, so Xiang Xu didn’t know which of these two would wake up first.

This time they waited for another half an hour.

Cheng Ming and Jia DaoZhang woke up almost at the same time.

Brother San couldn’t resist and urged: “Hurry up, hurry! Show us what kind of special abilities you gained!”

Cheng Ming and Jia DaoZhang glanced at each other and both revealed a smile.

Then at the same time, they took a deep breath.

Suddenly, there was a wind rising, a harsh gust of wind darted through the crowd, then several wind blades swirled around Cheng Ming with a faint sound of air breaking.

“Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth…… What kind of special ability is this?!” Brother San asked in surprise.

Xiang Xu also shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know it too.

Cheng Ming scratched his head and said after a slight chuckle: “It should be Wind element?”

“That should also be a type of mutated element.” Xiang Xu replied then looked at Jia DaoZhang: “What about you, Jia DaoZhang?”

Everyone shifted their gaze to Jia DaoZhang.

Jia DaoZhang’s slender eyes narrowed into slits with glee at this moment and asked with a smirk: “Don’t you guys feel a little cold in this room all of a sudden?”

It was only after he said this, did the crowd notice the drop in temperature within the room all of a sudden.

“Ice?!” Xiang Yi exclaimed in surprise as he stared at the basin of water where they washed the crystal cores, which had a thin layer of ice formed on the surface.

“The floor is frozen too!” A soldier shouted in shock.

Everyone glanced down, and sure enough, a layer of white frost had appeared on the floor at some point, and it was starting to freeze at a rate visible to the naked eye——

“Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth…… This is another mutated element?!” Brother San said with his eyes widened.

Jia DaoZhang chuckled a few times: “Since it hasn’t been named yet, I’ll call this as Ice element from now on.”

Then the only ones left were Zhang XiaoBai and Gu Ning.

This time, they waited for an hour.

Zhang XiaoBai slowly opened his eyes, looking at everyone’s expectant eyes, he felt somewhat stressed out.

He took in several deep breaths before his rapidly beating heart calmed down a little. After taking another breath, he extended his hand, and with a single thought, something appeared in his hand.

It was a flickering thunderbolt that swam back and forth in his palm, faintly emitting a bursting sound that was a little bit terrifying even just looking at it.

“Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth…… another mutated element again?!” Brother San’s voice changed its tone.

“This just looks so awesome……” said a shocked Luo Long.

“Why do I feel that the more we wait, the more awesome the special ability becomes?!” Zhong Xu half-heartedly stifled a sentence.

Then all eyes in the room instantly gathered on Gu Ning who was still unconscious.

Brother San gulped and said in a daze: “Wouldn’t that make Gu Ning a bully?!”

They felt tingly and shocked beyond words just from imagining it.

Little did they know that what happened in this humble room today would be remembered in the future as a dazzling legend in post-apocalyptic world history.

Moreover, today was the start of a legend.

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(T/N: Sorry for the late update. Half-way through the first round of proof reading, the application hanged and then half of the translation were gone. Luckily the auto-saved file had most of the translation so had to translate the end while proofreading everything again. Hehehe sorry about the delay!!

Oh btw, the author seem to have forgotten to mention about Gu Ning’s parents in this chapter, so just a slight info/spoiler, they were like Xiang Yi and didn’t went into any coma/sleep, so no special abilities obtained.

Thank you all for reading! Stay tuned for next week update then. =) )

(Editor: De Vile)