The convoy traveled with Brother Hui's Sequence ability at its core, but it had only come together because these Sequence Adepts had joined forces.
Every Sequence Adept had a vehicle, as well as survivors under their protection.
An Xi and her girlfriends were one such example.
Some had three or four people with them, others just one.
None of them traveled without survivors. After all, survivors could handle chores, help with driving, and so on.
The fact that items Chu Sheng upgraded could harm the Anomalies was the best news the convoy had heard so far.
It also meant a huge boost to the convoy's combat strength.
For a moment, the eyes of the three people besides An Xi lit up as they looked at Chu Sheng. They all wanted him to upgrade their weapons.
But Chu Sheng turned them all down, saying he had overused his ability.
He only had a hundred Survival Points left. He couldn't waste them.
Hearing this, Brother Hui and the other two didn't push him.
Chu Sheng was part of the convoy now, so they could get their upgrades anytime. They had already survived half a year of the apocalypse. A few more days wouldn't hurt.
After a meal by the campfire, Chu Sheng returned to his tent with the supplies from An Xi.
There actually wasn't much.
There was just a length of nylon rope, roughly five or six meters long.
There were only two power banks, both the rental kind.
Besides those, there was an iron plate, though it wasn't big, measuring just 30 centimeters long and 20 centimeters wide.
However, Chu Sheng had cut it into three pieces while demonstrating the butcher knife.
The last item was the real prize.
A solar panel!
It was a foldable solar panel made up of eight smaller panels, and it folded down to the size of a tote bag.
(See image.)
Chu Sheng hadn't particularly cared about the other items. An Xi's solar panel was the main reason he had offered the upgrade.
After putting the solar panel away, Chu Sheng lay in his tent, thinking about what lay ahead, and closed his eyes without realizing it.
The next day.
The convoy's survivors began preparing breakfast, and a flurry of rustling sounds came from nearby.
Chu Sheng sat alone in his tent in a daze, thinking about the information that had appeared in his mind. "How did this happen?" he murmured.
When he had woken up that morning, information had suddenly appeared in his head, and his body had felt much stronger.
He felt like he could punch a cow to death.
He had awakened!
He had woken up today and inexplicably awakened.
[Sequence 9: Heavenly Craftsman]
He could combine supernatural materials from the Anomalies with ordinary items to create Sacrificial Items.
Just one ability, simple and direct.
After obtaining the upgrade system, Chu Sheng had stopped hoping to awaken. His daily morning self-reflection had become nothing more than a habit.
When he had desperately wanted a Sequence, it hadn't awakened. When he had given up on it, it awakened.
He felt as though he was being toyed with.
Still, he quickly recovered. No matter what, awakening a Sequence was a good thing.
At the very least, he no longer needed to pretend.
And this Sequence paired very well with his upgrade ability.
Both were abilities that improved items. If he could turn items into Sacrificial Items, then being able to upgrade them was perfectly reasonable, right?
Chu Sheng took the portable gas stove out of his backpack, intending to cook some dried noodles. But the moment he stepped out of his tent, Zhu Qing approached him with envy written all over his face.
"From the looks of you, your Sequence must have finished awakening?"
"Huh? How did you know?" Chu Sheng looked at him in surprise.
Without a word, Zhu Qing took a small mirror from his pocket and handed it over.
Chu Sheng took it and saw that his hair had turned white.
Not a pale white, but a silvery white.
(The protagonist is on the cover. See image.)
The apocalypse had been going on for quite a while, and Chu Sheng's hair had grown fairly long.
But after waking up, his hair had been swept back in a clump. With his mind full of thoughts about awakening his Sequence ability, he hadn't noticed the change in color.
"Why did my hair turn like this?" Chu Sheng asked with a puzzled frown.
Zhu Qing explained, "Exchange is the essence of a Sequence."
"After awakening a Sequence, something about you changes for no apparent reason."
"Nobody can really explain these changes. They might be good, or they might be bad."
"When the apocalypse began, communications were still working. The captain learned a lot from the authorities, including the price of a Sequence."
"Some people's eyesight deteriorated after awakening, or they went blind. Others outright lost a hand or a foot, or one of their senses, like touch, taste, smell, and so on."
At this point, Zhu Qing sighed. "Luckily, the Sequence Adepts in our convoy weren't that unfortunate."
"The prices we paid weren't too steep."
He pointed at himself and continued, "Take me, for example. My price is that I can't feel pain after turning into a giant."
"That's a price? Isn't that a benefit?"
"Right?" Zhu Qing chuckled. "I think it's a benefit too. Sure, pain is a protective mechanism, but it doesn't affect my everyday life. And not feeling pain as a giant makes me even more fearless."
"Your price seems to be nothing more than a change in hair color. It's not exactly a blessing in disguise, but it's still the best of a bad situation."
Imagining the Sequence Adepts Zhu Qing had described, with their missing hands, feet, or senses, Chu Sheng nodded in wholehearted agreement.
"Not bad. I'll just think of it as permanent hair dye."
Chu Sheng used the mirror in his hand to tidy himself up a little.
Meanwhile, Zhu Qing glanced around. Seeing that nobody was paying attention to them, he sidled up to Chu Sheng's ear. "Let me tell you a secret."
"Do you know what An Xi's price was?"
Chu Sheng froze at the question and looked at him in confusion, instinctively asking, "What?"
Zhu Qing snickered. "That girl used to be pretty busty. After her Sequence awakened, she was flat as a runway."
Remembering how An Xi had patted her flat chest the previous night, thrown an arm around him, and said she would come to him for her next upgrade, Chu Sheng exchanged a knowing grin with Zhu Qing.
Zhu Qing didn't stay long. He left just as Chu Sheng's noodles were nearly done.
Not mooching meals during the apocalypse was probably an unwritten rule.
After a simple meal, Chu Sheng ducked back into his tent.
He took the eyes and claws of the Eerie Cat he had killed earlier out of his backpack.
The Eerie Cat was an Anomalies, so these should count as supernatural materials, right?
Mulling it over, Chu Sheng placed the butcher knife together with the eighteen sharp blades he had pulled from the Eerie Cat's paws.
He activated his Sequence ability, and a white light suddenly enveloped the butcher knife and Cat-Claw Blade.
Fusion was much slower than upgrading.
Chu Sheng waited over ten minutes before the white light gradually faded.
In their place was a pitch-black butcher knife with a blood-red fuller running down the middle of its blade.
A sharp blade that looked much like one of the cat's claws extended from the end of the handle.
[Cat-Claw Butcher Knife] [Sacrificial Item ranking: 9633]
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