Night of Despair

Yu Hong flipped through the subsequent pages.

'Humus needs to be dug from beneath trees. Please try to dig in areas with more decayed branches and leaves, as the soil collected will be more nutrient-rich. Once dug, the soil should be sun-dried for three days to kill insect eggs and weed seeds....'

The following pages detailed how to place the soil into boxes, maintain environmental humidity, the amount of water needed, how to add mushroom spores, the frequency of observations, and how to handle certain issues.

Every detail was covered without omission.

In just a few pages, the notes contained no superfluous information, and there was even a reminder about how to prevent mushroom lung.

After finishing the mushroom cultivation section, Yu Hong had a general plan in his mind for how to proceed with mushroom farming.

"The key is, there aren't any spores or cultivation boxes!" He frowned, "So that's the catch."

He flipped back to the previous page and saw a line of text at the bottom: For inquiries about purchasing spores and cultivation boxes, please ask for specific prices.

Shaking his head in exasperation, Yu Hong continued to strengthen a new talisman array, then flipped through the rest of the content.

This time, he skimmed through it quickly.

Then he discovered a problem.

'Is mushroom cultivation actually the foundation for raising other species?'

'After growing mushrooms, they're used to raise cockroaches, and once enough cockroaches are bred, they're used to feed lizards. It's a continuous cycle.... But the initial seeds for each cycle must be purchased from the post office.'

He finally understood how Old Yu managed to supply mushrooms, cockroaches, and lizards on his own.

As for wild vegetables, they were everywhere in the forest, and following Stammering Yiyi around, he had learned to identify quite a few.

After reading the survival manual, Yu Hong picked up the leg fighting skill manual.

"Hmm...." He looked at the illustrations in the manual speechlessly.

The manual only contained three moves.

The low kick, side grab kick, and upper kick.

The low kick, as depicted, involved a kick to the opponent's lower legs to make them lose balance and fall.

The side grab kick was more ruthless. Grab the opponent's arm, then use the heel to kick the opponent's waist and abdomen. The pulling of the arm and the impact on the kicked area create a tearing force, making this move extremely damaging. Successfully executed, it could seriously injure the internal organs, causing a normal person to collapse instantly.

The upper kick was the simplest, a kick aimed at the opponent's vital area between the legs.

'Just these three moves.... I might have figured them out myself from just daydreaming...' Yu Hong was speechless and continued flipping through.

He found the following content interesting.

The manual described various scenarios, with different states, positions, and postures, and how to execute those three leg techniques as quickly as possible.

'That's more like it....' He nodded slightly.

After carefully studying the two booklets, the sky outside had darkened once again.

He cooked some food, lit a fire, and continued to strengthen the talisman array.

For three consecutive days, he went nowhere, either practicing the advanced physical training method in the cave or studying and transcribing the survival manual and leg technique manual.

The reinforced charcoal lines were very thin, and he quickly transcribed all the content from the two manuals.

The place where he transcribed was thin wooden boards he had chopped with an axe, stacking them together to make a booklet.

After completing the transcription, he returned the booklet to Li Rushan and asked about three difficult problems he had accumulated.

Li Rushan promptly answered the questions and began promoting his newly made mushroom cultivation boxes, clean spores, and the crude wooden dummy used for leg technique practice.

This guy was determined to squeeze out every penny from Yu Hong.

But for self-sufficiency, Yu Hong still used Large Pyroxene Stone to buy the boxes and spores.

After taking them back, he began digging dirt for sun exposure and preparing enough clean water for future cultivation.

A separate space needed to be excavated in the cave as a mushroom cultivation room.

Although there were specialized cultivation boxes, the spores that spread when the mushrooms matured could escape through any gaps, posing a significant risk.

He didn't want to end up coughing, feverish, and weak like Old Yu.

Soon, two more days passed.

Yu Hong finally completed reinforcing all the talisman arrays. The talisman arrays covered the entire cave, perfectly shielding every corner, forming a standard Pyroxene Secret Room status.

The Black Mark could finally spare some time to enhance other things.

And what Yu Hong wanted to strengthen the most was the leg fighting skill booklet.

Inside the safe house in the cave.

He quietly watched the leg technique transcribed wooden boards stacked together in front of him. There were thirteen boards in total, making up the leg technique training booklet that Li Rushan sold him.

'The previous ordinary physical training was strengthened into the advanced physical training method, so this ordinary leg fighting skill... what can it be strengthened into?'

Yu Hong felt the new thread of cool energy within him. He had practiced a total of four strands of cool energy, meaning he could replenish his stamina four times under extreme exhaustion.

Although in other aspects, he was no different from an ordinary person, except for frequent running practice that allowed him to run a little faster.

The existence of cool energy turned Yu Hong into a little superhuman, different from ordinary people!

'If an average person could run a maximum of five thousand meters, then I could run four times that, twenty thousand meters. If it were ten thousand meters at most, then I could run forty thousand meters! This strengthened advanced physical training method could become a snowball effect, getting stronger and stronger the earlier it's enhanced.'

Thinking of this, Yu Hong exhaled deeply and placed his hand on the wooden boards.

He silently chanted in his mind.

'Strengthen the leg technique practice booklet, with the direction of Internal Strength Martial Arts Leg Technique!'

The last time his mind leaned towards a martial arts style, resulting in the enhancement of the advanced physical training method. Tasting success, this time, he again imagined scenes from martial arts movies he had seen before.

A black line flashed.

Immediately, the Black Mark responded.

'Start strengthening?'

Yu Hong looked down and indeed saw that a countdown had appeared on the wooden boards: 4 days, 17 hours, 41 minutes.

"It actually works?!?" His heart skipped, and his eyes showed intense anticipation.

The advanced physical training method had given him a substantial stamina advantage, and now, if the strengthened leg fighting skill could also significantly enhance his combat abilities, he would have great survival protection against humans in this harsh environment.

With the ability to fight and run, further fortifying an entire set of bulletproof gear would truly arm him to the teeth!

'I hope it strengthens into something strong!' Yu Hong hoped. 'The last enhancement took a bit over nine hours for the advanced physical training method, and this time it's going to take over four days, so it must be much more powerful than the advanced physical training method!'

*

*

*

Baihe City.

In the eerie underground tunnels.

The ground was an abandoned railroad, black and occasionally rust-red, with piles of various debris and trash at intervals.

Xu Yang, with two team members, held hand-cranked rechargeable flashlights and walked along the edge of the tracks.

They passed heaps of garbage, smelling a strong mix of mildew and the putrid stench of dirty water.

As they walked, they observed their surroundings.

The walls on both sides were covered in miscellaneous graffiti and slogans. Below the slogans, every now and then, there was a lit room with noises of cursing and laughter coming from inside.

Xu Yang frowned as he continued inward, quickly arriving at a room labeled "Old Cat Bar."

The walls at the room's entrance were covered with green mold, shiny and slippery.

Xu Yang looked up and noticed that the ceiling of the tunnel seemed to be leaking, with a thin stream of water running down the wall, dividing at the door frame, and pooling on the ground.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust and walked into the room.

It was indeed a bar, with red lighting dyeing the single-seat sofas red.

Wooden panels separated each sofa.

About ten people sparsely occupied the sofas, with scantily-clad female waitstaff moving back and forth, serving food and drinks.

Around a sofa in the center, four people gathered to play cards loudly. The noise came from them.

"Care for a glass of mushroom wine?" As Xu Yang and his two team members entered, a ponytailed girl, dressed in three small cloth strips, immediately approached them.

"Looking for someone." Xu Yang impatiently pushed her aside and headed towards the bar's corner.

The three of them, fully equipped, dressed in uniforms belonging to the United Forces, made the bar's security hesitate and not dare to approach.

Quickly, the trio arrived in the corner, facing an at least two-meter-tall burly giant.

"White Python, Mr. Guo?" Xu Yang asked deeply.

The burly man lowered his head, his hands resting on the table like a hibernating bear. His messy black hair and several unbuttoned buttons on the gray shirt exposed his muscular chest.

He looked in his early forties, with a sorrowful expression, cloudy eyes, and the dry trace of vomit at the corner of his mouth.

He was a dissatisfied man.

"What do you want?" The burly man raised his head coldly, glancing at Xu Yang and his team.

"There's a job. We'd like to hire you to help. The reward is negotiable." Xu Yang lowered his voice.

"Go ahead, what's the job?" White Python asked coldly.

"Go near the Pyroxene Ore Mine, two hundred kilometers away. Find someone and bring him back, within half a year." Xu Yang replied.

"Too far, I'm not going." White Python stated coldly, "Besides, there's no information on this person."

"Just an ordinary adult male, possibly with some gear, but even an average rookie soldier could easily handle him. The main difficulty lies in the journey." Xu Yang quickly added, "We can offer fifty pounds of jerky, twenty pounds of dried mushrooms, a hundred pounds of synthetic flour as compensation."

"Not enough." White Python didn't even lift his head. "Add five silver coins."

Xu Yang paused in silence.

"Fine, a third of the payment upfront before departure, the rest after you return."

"Deal." White Python agreed coldly. "Three days later, meet here again. Give me the things, and I'll depart immediately."

"Alright!"

Xu Yang and his team left.

Once outside the bar, one of the team members couldn't hold back any longer.

"Captain Xu, that's five silver coins. Do we really have to agree? A single silver coin can exchange for ten to fifteen pounds of jerky!"

"White Python's skills are excellent—firearms, combat, stealth—all well-rounded. Other than his poor attitude, he's great. Moreover, as long as we capture that person, everything will be alright. If we don't get that person, it counts as White Python's failure, and we won't need to pay the remaining amount then." Xu Yang smiled.

"Also," he paused. "You remembered the exchange rate wrong. Currently, at the National Bank, one Silver Tower silver coin can be exchanged for twenty-three pounds of jerky. After all, it's a mineral synthetic currency used for refining the Sunshine series materials...."