The city

"He can construct a small Psychiatric Ward, briefly separating a target's frenzied emotions and distorted consciousness from their body and locking them inside. Their physical body remains in reality."

"He can diagnose the source of mental contamination, determining whether the madness is man-made or caused by supernatural corruption, and administer Mental Sedation to suppress the target's frenzy."

Su Nian couldn't keep the grin off his face. Surely it was fair to say he'd awakened two systems.

He'd developed his own appraisal ability.

It was the apocalypse. Everyone was bound to have a few tricks up their sleeves... but he, Su Nian, wouldn't let anyone hide a thing from him.

He'd strip them all bare.

There could only be one sneaky bastard.

So this was an extraordinary? This ability was interesting.

Why weren't the other two getting out? His cursor kept selecting the vehicle instead.

[Ding. Spend 200 survival points to upgrade the vehicle's window glass (ordinary civilian tempered glass → military-grade laminated tempered glass)?]

"No, thank you."

Gong Qing got out and stood about a meter from the gray fog for a while before returning to the vehicle. The other two awakened didn't get out.

Inside the lead SUV.

Hao Ren held a pale blue notebook in his hands. A dozen or so blinking cursors appeared across different spots on the windshield.

Lines connected the cursors, forming a map shaped like an eagle soaring with its wings spread.

Various locations were marked along the eagle's body, some blue, some yellow. Several areas were a sinister blood red.

An isolated point of light sat on the inner side of the "eagle's talon." Hao Ren reached out and traced a winding curve along its past trajectory until the line connected to the point.

"Just how big is this world?" Hao Ren murmured.

Five large, blood-drenched Chinese characters appeared on the previously blank notebook.

[Do not go to Green Mountain Town]

Hao Ren's calm expression abruptly changed. He gulped down fresh air as if he were drowning, his face filled with terror. Beads of cold sweat dripped from his chin.

A blinking point on the eagle's belly went still, as though it had lost its life.

"What's in Green Mountain Town?! An A-class anomaly?"

Hao Ren murmured softly.

With Su Ran's strength, a B-class anomaly shouldn't have terrified her this much.

Anomalies generally had five ranks. The lowest was C-class, commonly known as the widespread class because of how numerous they were.

Anomalies of this rank had visible physical forms and generally couldn't spread.

The Maggot Willow they'd encountered earlier belonged to this rank.

Above that were B-class (dangerous), A-class (disaster), and S-class (destruction).

As the sun sank behind the western mountains, the convoy set off again at Hao Ren's instruction.

Su Nian rode his tricycle, thinking about how to earn more survival points. He desperately needed them now.

He currently knew of two methods. One was to encounter an anomaly and escape alive, which was obviously difficult to pull off. The risk was too high.

The other was to kill people.

Killing people for no reason went against his principles, and the three awakened wouldn't agree to it either.

He hadn't been willing to spend his remaining two hundred points. He wanted to upgrade everything... and he also wanted to awaken as a sequence extraordinary, but he didn't have enough... He always needed to save a little for emergencies.

He didn't have much food left. If they failed to find a city in time to replenish their supplies, he could upgrade his provisions to hold out a little longer. It was a safety net.

The country road stretched straight ahead, with gray haze on either side. They didn't know where they were or where their destination lay.

Many people in the group dragged their exhausted bodies along. They had to set off as soon as darkness fell, spending more than ten hours on foot every day.

Humanity's ability to survive was formidable. Willpower could often make the impossible possible.

But only if they had food and water.

Many people drank "Golden Holy Water" to survive. Golden Holy Water could be recycled to sustain life.

Su Nian hadn't been here long. After the fog swallowed him, he'd had plenty of food and water in his backpack... For now, he didn't need to drink "Golden Holy Water."

[Ding. Congratulations, host. You have successfully survived one day and earned 100 survival points.]

"System, why didn't you tell me there was a daily handout?" Su Nian felt a little thrill of delight, as if he'd found a hundred yuan on the street.

Being broke had scared him!

"Host, you never asked."

Su Nian was a little speechless. He'd read plenty of novels and thought the system he had was already the best of the best, so he hadn't asked.

"System, do you have a beginner's gift pack you haven't given me?"

"Host, I don't. Only lousy systems offer beginner's gift packs. They do it to keep their hosts from unbinding them."

"Some people don't want a system?" Su Nian looked puzzled.

"Yes, host, there are people like that. Competition among us systems is fierce. If we don't keep up, we get eliminated."

[Survival points: 300]

After several more hours of walking, the group's pace slowed noticeably. Nothing like this had happened over the past week.

The view suddenly opened up on the right side of the road. Beneath the rolling gray fog, the silhouettes of buildings flashed into view.

"It's a city!"

"Great! We can finally go in and find supplies."

A stir ran through the crowd.

Su Nian understood why the convoy had slowed down. At their usual pace, they would definitely have missed this city.

How had the awakened known in advance that there was a city here?

The gray fog slowly dispersed, revealing a vast stretch of buildings. In the darkness, a faint glow shone within the city, like luminous moss.

The lettering on a rusted blue sign was still legible.

Welcome to Happiness County.

At that moment, the silent county town, without a source of light, seemed incredibly eerie, sinister, and terrifying.

If he had a choice, Su Nian really didn't want to go in.

The vegetation in the green belts on either side of the highway had grown wildly, encroaching on the road. The plants in the fields were lush and unusually tender.

Su Nian even spotted some leaf lettuce that had grown like trees, three or four meters tall.

Vegetables wouldn't keep and weren't filling. Otherwise, a single plant would have fed him for days.

Only when dawn began to break did the convoy slowly come to a halt.

Two middle-aged men climbed out of the awakened's supply vehicle, set up a pot and stove, and began boiling water.

Hao Ren got out of his vehicle, gripping a large megaphone.

"Everyone, we'll enter the city to search for supplies in two hours. Some of you joined us later, so I'll give you a quick explanation."

"First, don't enter large areas of shadow. Don't get into disputes while searching for supplies. The commotion will draw the anomalies' attention. Anomalies only dislike sunlight; they aren't afraid of it."

"Second, searching for supplies takes stamina. I have extraordinary ingredients here. One bowl of porridge will keep you full for at least ten hours."

"It isn't free. I want fifty percent of the supplies you find. It's voluntary, not compulsory..."

As Hao Ren spoke, Su Nian's five-pointed-star cursor had already selected him.

[Hao Ren]

[Constitution: 14 (A combined value representing health, damage resistance, stamina, self-healing, carrying capacity, and physical strength. Reaching zero causes immediate unconsciousness/death. Can recover naturally through eating and resting. The limit for ordinary humans is 9.)]

[Spirit: 19 (Used to resist mental contamination and illusions, and for mental processing. If the value falls too low, the individual will descend into self-doubt. Reaching 1 causes complete madness. The limit for ordinary humans is 9.)]

[Talent: Fated Hit (Sequence Eight)]