Chapter 92 - Strange Ability Nucleus

The trucks of the Chenguang Team continued travelling in the vicinity of the Dabie mountain range. Relatively speaking, this place had no signs of human habitation and there weren’t many zombies too, so that Nie Yi didn’t have to use his abilities at all, and his current situation of being unable to use abilities was also concealed.

Nie Yi could sense that his ability nucleus had energy, but for some reason, he couldn’t mobilise the energy inside. This was fine in itself, yet he could still absorb energy from his surroundings!

He could still absorb fire and water energy, like before when he had two ability nuclei, but he couldn’t use it, as if something was separating his connection between his spiritual strength and ability.

If he had encountered such a situation before, Nie Yi definitely would have discussed it with Qi Jingchen and would have found a way to resolve it together, but now...

Qi Jingchen had always been dizzy recently, so don’t even mention discussing with him, Nie Yi wasn’t even able to calm his heart down to research his ability nucleus.

These days, Nie Yi hadn’t left the RV at all. It was also the same today. He held Qi Jingchen while sitting on the bed in the RV and had Qi Jingchen rest in his embrace so that he wouldn’t be jolted too heavily, and was gently stroking Qi Jingchen’s face.

Previously, perhaps because he had taken care of him well, though Qi Jingchen often looked pale, he still appeared very healthy. However, Nie Yi could even see the bluish veins under Qi Jingchen’s skin now.

Qi Jingchen also hadn’t been eating properly for a few consecutive days...

In the past, even though Qi Jingchen was extremely picky about the food Nie Yi had made, he still ate a lot in any case, but now, he simply wasn’t eating at all!

“Boss, we’ve arrived at the location you said.” The RV stopped and Ping Shengchao spoke from outside the window.

When Nie Yi heard Ping Shengchao’s words, he gently put Qi Jingchen down before getting out of the car, then saw the outside scenery.

In his last life, Nie Yi had once come to Dabie mountains, and had found a place in the mountain that was particularly suitable for setting up a secure base.

However, at that time, he and Qi Jingchen already had a secure base, so they didn’t use this place. Until this life.

Now, for safety purposes, he definitely couldn’t set up the base at where he and Qi Jingchen had done so in their last life, so naturally they could only choose this place.

The RV stopped in front of a mountain village’s elementary school. This village was set up in the mountains, but had a large land size. The scenery of mountains on one side and water on the other was elegant; it was interlinked with the outside, and had a spacious road that allowed trucks to pass through, and even only had this one path that had to be driven along for a long time before it could be entered. It was easily guarded and hard to attack; it was definitely a good place to settle down in during the apocalypse!

Zombies could not smell the scent of humans from too far a distance. It could be imagined that there wouldn’t be any zombie appearances here as long as no one attracted them over.

“Have people clear out the village,” Nie Yi said. “Those Z County survivors and the ones who were later rescued, just have them live in this village.”

“Yes.” Ping Shengchao nodded.

Nie Yi then said, “Later, you come with me to take a look over there.” He was pointing at a nearby mountaintop.

Though this village was good, it wasn’t the best.

In his last life, in order to find mutated plants, Nie Yi had once climbed up the neighboring mountain. After climbing to the peak and discovering that the mountain was surrounded by arduous cliffs, he unexpectedly saw a depression at the spacious place of the peak.

This depression wasn’t large, but the soil was very suitable for farming; this was good enough already, but Nie Yi had also discovered a rock seam at the side, and when heading down the crack, he even encountered a valley!

And that valley was a place that was even more suitable for planting compared to the depression on the mountain.

Not only was this place’s terrain steep and not easily discovered, if ability users remodelled the cavern inside, they could also have many people living in the mountain’s belly.

At the same time, it was relatively steep around this mountain. If they had earth ability users dig out tunnels from between the mountains, they could even build secret paths in all directions, allowing them to quietly hide in the mountains.

The mountain forest was so large; hiding several thousands wasn’t even a problem, much less the Chenguang Team that only had two thousand people.

That’s right, Nie Yi intended to leave behind all two thousand people.

Originally, he and Qi Jingchen only intended to leave behind those normal people who already had no resistance against level two and three zombies, as well as those who were weaker. But after knowing that there may be other people who were reborn, he decided that even if he wanted to leave, he would only take seven or eight people.

Having more people made them a bigger target, and also made it easier to be watched. One needed a base camp in the apocalyptic life, but it was still more convenient for there to be fewer people when fleeing. Most of the time, it was always quality over quantity.

Nie Yi wanted to bring Ping Shengchao to see the place he had settled on and he naturally wouldn’t let Qi Jingchen stay here by himself. He knew that he could easily be in danger since he couldn’t use abilities now, and had even specifically brought those ability users who were the strongest.

Qi Jingchen wrapped himself up in a thick cloak, and Nie Yi carried him in his arms and led the men to set off.

Speaking of, it was rather strange. His ability couldn’t be used, but his physical constitution had, on the contrary, improved to some extent. It was so much that he was clearly carrying a person yet he managed to walk as if he was flying around the mountains.

“Boss, we can’t catch up!” Ping Shengchao was following behind Nie Yi and spoke up very helplessly. Nie Yi... truly walked too fast.

Nie Yi slowed down, then looked at Qi Jingchen in his embrace before saying to Ping Shengchao, “You need training.”

“I’m already training with a lot of effort...” Ping Shengchao said, “This mountain path is too hard to travel. Boss, how are you able to walk so stably without even looking at the road?”

“Using spiritual strength.” Nie Yi shot a look at Qi Jingchen as he spoke.

In his last life, everyone did not have much understanding of spiritual strength. In this life, ability users were currently even more clueless... Nie Yi looked at Ping Shengchao and the other ability users who followed along and said, “Spiritual strength is something every ability user has. If you want to use your ability better, your spiritual strength has to be strong. Usually, level three ability users have a faint response to spiritual strength, and after reaching level four, one could precisely sense spiritual strength and use it.”

“Then Boss, how are you able to use spiritual strength?” Didn’t Nie Yi just reach level three?

“I’m a genius,” Nie Yi said expressionlessly.

Ping Shengchao was a little speechless, but after thinking about it, he also felt that this sentence was very reasonable. Wasn’t Nie Yi precisely a genius? In this world, there was no greater genius than him.

Nie Yi explained the uses of spiritual strength as he slowly walked forward. In order not to bother Qi Jingchen, his voice was gentler, so the people behind him could only keep moving closer to his side.

However, how could people stack together so closely while walking in a mountain forest? In the end, these people still had to line up in a row. Like this, the two people at the back couldn’t quite hear Nie Yi anymore and couldn’t help but feel very anxious.

“You don’t have to be so impatient. I’ll specially teach this to you all in the future,” Nie Yi said.

When those following heard Nie Yi, they finally relaxed. That’s true; they currently don’t have strong abilities, and weren’t really able to sense their spiritual strength, so learning this now was truly a bit early.

The mountain Nie Yi pointed out to Ping Shengchao appeared very near, but was actually very far when travelling by foot. Their team walked for two straight hours before they finally reached the bottom of the mountain.

Then they saw a precipitous cliff.

Nie Yi’s current strength wasn’t good and he had no intentions of climbing the cliff. He thus had Shao Zhenglan and Fei Xuelei, these two earth ability users, go up to see the situation, then had a few ability users hunt some game in the vicinity. He himself held Qi Jingchen and brought Zhang Zihai and Ping Shengchao to sit at the side.

It wasn’t long after he had stopped that Qi Jingchen, who recently hadn’t been awake for long, suddenly opened his eyes.

Qi Jingchen opened his eyes to see a field of dark green surrounding him and felt a little at a loss. After he saw Nie Yi, his eyes just rested on him. “I want to drink water.”

When Nie Yi heard Qi Jingchen, he immediately took out a thermos from the bag he was carrying, then twisted off the lid and placed them on Qi Jingchen’s lips.

The water in the thermos was warm, and was the perfect temperature for drinking. However, when Qi Jingchen smelled it, he immediately turned his head to the side in dissatisfaction. “Smells bad!”

Nie Yi didn’t feel it was strange to hear this then took out a glass cup and gave it to Ping Shengchao. “Water.”

Ping Shengchao poured water in, then Nie Yi passed the cup to Zhang Zihai at the side. “Heat it up.”

At the start when Zhang Zihai was learning to use his fire ability like Nie Yi, he had always ended up burning a hole in the pot, but he no longer committed such mistakes now. He held that glass cup and it didn’t take long for the water to heat up.

Nie Yi took that cup of warm water and brought it to Qi Jingchen’s lips, feeding him bit by bit.

Qi Jingchen slowly drank, then finally finished the whole cup of water. His complexion finally became a little better and he said, “This place is nice.”

Everything in the surroundings gave Qi Jingchen a sense of cleanliness, and made him feel a lot better; his eyes had also become clearer.

When Nie Yi saw this, his heart became joyful, and he immediately couldn’t help but secretly grit his teeth— ever since he lost his abilities, he could no longer become a heater and warm Qi Jingchen up. Nowadays the weather was so cold, and Qi Jingchen might freeze if he stayed in this sort of place for long.

Thinking of this, Nie Yi then wrapped the cloak over Qi Jingchen a little tighter. Qi Jingchen was bundled up by him until his face was only half-revealed.

Qi Jingchen’s appearance was like an infant in swaddling cloth, but he wasn’t angry at all and was instead in a good mood. At the same time, he also realised that though his health was still very weak, his spiritual strength had mostly recovered.

It seemed strange, come to think of it. Clearly he had only lost a bit of blood, yet he had a sort of feeling as if his vitality had been severely damaged.

Qi Jingchen was unable to figure it out and raised his left hand, wanting to see his index finger. As a result, he realised that he was bundled up too thickly and couldn’t see his hand at all.

historical

With his unwell body, Qi Jingchen was disinclined to think too much. He closed his eyes and no longer thought of anything.

At this time, however, Ping Shengchao asked, “Boss, your ability hasn’t recovered yet?”

“Yes,” Nie Yi said.

“What happened?” Ping Shengchao asked in concern.

“I’m not sure either. We have to build a secure base here these days, so I’ll look into it when the time comes,” Nie Yi said. In the apocalypse, there was nothing more important than strength, so he definitely couldn’t leave this place before recovering his ability.

He initially had plans to visit his uncle, but if he wasn’t strong enough, he could only give up this matter.

In the apocalyptic life, life and death was basically depending on fate. Although he intended to save his uncle, he wouldn’t care too much even if he couldn’t. After all, at the very start, he had once seen humanity become extinct.

Nie Yi was just thinking about his abilities when he felt some spiritual strength approach him. It was Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength.

Nie Yi was very familiar with Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength, but this time, for some reason, he had a strange feeling when he sensed this spiritual strength— Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength unexpectedly made him unable to help himself from getting closer, even wanting to open up his everything to the other.

Then, Nie Yi swiftly opened up his entire body.

In his last life, Nie Yi’s subordinate had once accidentally brushed across Nie Yi’s body when using their spiritual strength, then Nie Yi had beaten him up until he was near death.

Spiritual strength could ‘see’ many things that the eye couldn’t, so Nie Yi naturally wouldn’t permit other people’s spiritual strength to touch his body. However, it was different if the spiritual strength was Qi Jingchen’s.

Nie Yi’s heart voluntarily moved. His spiritual strength directly wound around Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength, and even led Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength to sweep past his chest and head downwards...

Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength unhesitantly flung aside Nie Yi’s spiritual strength and entered Nie Yi’s mind.

A human’s brain was usually the most important. To an ability user, the importance of their brain was needless to be said. For the overwhelming majority of ability users, once they reached level four, they would no longer permit anyone to use any method to examine their brain’s condition, so much that even those ability users who were big-hearted would also subconsciously not allow the secure base to look at their ability nucleus.

However, when Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength entered Nie Yi’s brain and went straight for Nie Yi’s ability nucleus, Nie Yi did not put up any resistance. On the contrary, he even safeguarded Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength and asked in concern, “Are you tired?”

Qi Jingchen did not pay attention to Nie Yi. This was his first time entering another’s mind, thus he was very careful and did not dare move too much lest he hurt Nie Yi.

Then, he saw a place that resembled his past mind and yet was also completely different.

This was where Nie Yi’s ability nucleus was located, so if he played around here and controlled Nie Yi’s ability with his spiritual strength, Nie Yi would be consigned to eternal damnation; but Nie Yi did not stop him at all.

Qi Jingchen’s spiritual strength frolicked a little and gentled a little as well. It went a circle around Nie Yi’s mind, and finally approached Nie Yi’s ability nucleus.

Nie Yi’s ability nucleus had unexpectedly become from two to one, and even became grey... Qi Jingchen’s heart immediately sank.

Could Nie Yi’s ability be restored? Qi Jingchen did not like the current colour of Nie Yi’s ability nucleus, and after circling around, used his spiritual strength to touch that ability nucleus for a moment.

He had only touched it to feel it out, but that ability nucleus unexpectedly produced an astonishing transformation at this moment!

The grey hull retreated and revealed the ability nucleus’s true colours. It was so beautiful it made one gasp in admiration.

It was like a wisp of the sun’s radiance had appeared in a brilliant crystal ball. The pure colours of reddish gold and crystal intertwined with each other and perfectly fused into one, causing one’s gaze to be unable to help but be attracted to it.

This was the most beautiful ability nucleus Qi Jingchen had ever seen.