Undercurrents Surge

The third cafeteria at lunchtime was always bustling.

Lin Mo and Zhou Ming held their trays, navigating the crowded space with difficulty.

They finally managed to find a table that had just become free in a corner.

Lin Mo ordered two portions of braised pork, two braised chicken legs, a plate of stir-fried greens, a medium serving of rice, and a large bowl of free seaweed and egg drop soup.

"Lin Mo, you've got a big appetite today," Zhou Ming remarked, smacking his lips as he looked at Lin Mo's piled-high tray. "I haven't seen you eat this much before."

"I'm growing," Lin Mo mumbled, shoving another large piece of braised pork into his mouth.

The savory aroma exploded in his mouth, the richness of the fat, the firmness of the lean meat, the sweet and salty sauce...

His taste buds felt magnified several times over, each bite bringing extreme satisfaction.

"Damn, your eating manner is a bit much, isn't it?"

Zhou Ming watched him wolf down his food, involuntarily swallowing. "Anyone would think you hadn't eaten in three days."

"Hungry," Lin Mo replied vaguely, shoveling another large mouthful of rice.

He was truly hungry.

A craving for energy, emanating from the depths of his cells, almost overwhelmed his reason.

He felt like he could hear his stomach roaring, his blood boiling, his muscles greedily absorbing nutrients.

Zhou Ming shook his head and started eating too, but his gaze kept drifting back to Lin Mo.

"Seriously, is something a little off with you today?" Zhou Ming finally couldn't help but ask.

"What's off?"

"I can't quite say..." Zhou Ming sized him up. "It's like... you've gotten a bit stronger? And the way you're eating, it's like you're a different person."

Lin Mo paused his movements, then continued shoveling rice. "It's your imagination. I stayed up late last night, so I'm especially hungry today."

"Staying up late for what? Watching videos again?"

"Studying," Lin Mo said, his face unreadable.

"Studying what? Human anatomy?"

They exchanged a look and both chuckled.

Zhou Ming didn't press the issue. In college, who didn't have their quirks?

There was a guy in the next dorm who meditated at five in the morning every day.

Lin Mo breathed a sigh of relief, but his mind grew wary.

The changes brought about by the attribute increase were more noticeable than he had imagined.

An ordinary person might just think, "He looks good today," or "He seems a bit stronger."

But someone familiar, or someone with keen observation skills, would definitely notice something unusual.

He had to be more careful.

He slowed down his eating, trying to appear more "normal."

But just then, an accident happened.

Lin Mo reached for the soup bowl.

Crack!

The ceramic rim broke instantly, splitting in two!

Soup splashed out, spilling all over the table.

"Holy crap!" Zhou Ming yelped, startled. "When did you get so strong?"

Lin Mo looked at his fingers, stunned.

He hadn't used any force just now!

No, or rather, what he considered "normal force" had already far surpassed that of an ordinary person with the boost from his Level 3 attributes.

"The bowls in this cafeteria are really poor quality," Lin Mo reacted quickly, cleaning up the mess while complaining. "We need to file a complaint."

"Give it a rest, you're just strong," Zhou Ming rolled his eyes. "Though, I guess you always had a strong grip when you held a pen."

This gave Lin Mo a plausible explanation.

An art student, constantly holding pens and carving tools, would naturally have a stronger grip than average.

He seized the opportunity to change the subject. "Oh yeah, you were saying those people in the hospital who were in a coma, they woke up this morning? And their health improved?"

"Yeah!" Zhou Ming's spirits immediately lifted.

"My relative said that after those five people woke up, the doctors did a full check-up.

Guess what? Their indicators were terrifyingly good!

Blood pressure, heart rate, blood lipids, muscle mass... all at athlete levels!"

He lowered his voice. "Even weirder, one of them, after waking up, casually bent the iron railing of his bed! That was solid iron!"

Lin Mo's heart skipped a beat.

Internal Test Players!

Those people were definitely Internal Test Players!

The game attributes had returned to reality, so their physical fitness had greatly improved.

"What did the hospital say?" Lin Mo asked.

"What else could they say? A medical miracle!" Zhou Ming scoffed.

"But I heard they sent people to investigate and took those people away. They called it 'cooperating with research,' who knows?"

Lin Mo fell silent.

The government had already noticed.

That made sense; overnight, nationwide, there had been a large number of cases of "sudden coma - brain death."

And then there were those who woke up from their comas with abnormally enhanced physical fitness. How could such a major event be kept secret?

He just didn't know how much the government had figured out.

"What else did your relative say?" Lin Mo pressed.

"Nothing more." Zhou Ming shook his head. "The hospital issued a gag order, forbidding any loose talk.

But I heard that similar cases appeared not just in our city, but in many places across the country. There are rumors online that they're even happening abroad!"

"Abroad?"

"Yeah! It's trending on Twitter, and it looks like a plague, spreading all over the globe!" Zhou Ming swallowed, then abruptly changed the subject. "There's something even weirder."

As he spoke, he fumbled for his phone, his fingers flying across the screen. He opened a video and shoved it towards Lin Mo. "Look at this, it was filmed this morning at the market in the west of the city."

The video quality was blurry, like it was secretly filmed with an old phone.

The screen showed a pork stall, where a bare-chested, burly man was confronting several people in uniform.