"He's Superman..." Everyone in the room stared, dumbfounded, as Su Jin picked himself up off the floor.
He looked a mess, but the move he had just pulled off was astonishing, no different from a movie special effect.
It had been a simple movement, but that lightness, airtime, speed, and fluidity were beyond anything a human should have been capable of.
Su Jin stood up, crouched, and jumped, easily touching the ceiling.
Then he stood still, deep in thought.
It was impossible not to feel ecstatic about such a miraculous change in his body, but he had plenty of lingering worries too.
After all, his body had absorbed something from inside a zombie. He felt nothing wrong now, but there was no telling whether abnormal changes might emerge later.
Under the circumstances, though, there seemed to be no need to bring up those concerns.
Sun Ya stepped forward and excitedly felt Su Jin all over. "Superpowers! These are superpowers! Have you evolved?"
Even the usually silent Wei De looked considerably more animated.
They had been under strain for days, and Su Jin's coma in particular had pushed their anxiety to its peak.
Now it seemed... this wasn't a bad thing at all. It was a blessing.
Su Jin clenched his fists and shifted his body slightly. "I'm not really sure what's going on either... but nothing feels wrong. If anything, my body's gotten stronger."
"As the old saying goes, wherever there's poison, an antidote can be found nearby. From the looks of it, zombies are both a crisis and an opportunity to solve it."
"That makes sense. That makes sense..." Sun Ya nodded repeatedly, no longer able to keep his cool.
He had always managed to think rationally, but that same rationality kept reminding him that the collapse of the country very likely proved the existing system couldn't handle this sudden crisis.
For a small, improvised team thrown together in a hurry, even staying alive was immensely difficult.
Now a turning point had appeared!
A unique problem... had found a unique solution! Perhaps nature really was restoring the balance.
"It's too cramped in here. I'll go outside and test it out. Wait here." With that, Su Jin turned and headed downstairs.
As he descended, he kept exploring the new changes in his body.
His speed and agility felt as though they had skyrocketed!
The slightest exertion could propel him a considerable distance.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, he tried it.
Standing at the turn in the third-floor staircase, Su Jin pushed off with one foot and shot toward the landing below.
Before he landed, he kicked off the wall, twisted in midair, and leaped straight down to the second floor!
He felt no discomfort whatsoever when he landed.
It felt much like an ordinary jump down a few steps.
Su Jin glanced back upstairs, suppressed his delight, and continued down.
So zombies really do have treasures inside them. Crystals turned into Flesh Balls—different packaging, same thing.
Until he reached the building's ground-floor entrance, Su Jin stopped walking.
After moving his body around a little, he noticed something unusual.
His body had suddenly become lighter and more supple...
When he had first left the room, his body had grown a little heavier, though the sensation hadn't been obvious.
But now that he was on the ground floor, another pronounced change had begun.
The only variable over these past few minutes had been the light.
The room was darker than the stairwell, and the ground-floor stairwell was the darkest of all.
Was it the light? Or were the changes in my body still ongoing?
There was no point overthinking it. Su Jin pushed open the door and went outside!
The morning sun had risen, bathing everything in light.
Outside the building, the residential complex was already blanketed in morning sunlight.
Before he had even stepped through the entrance, Su Jin's expression changed dramatically.
His formerly weightless body felt as though it had been filled with lead... that earlier sensation was completely gone.
He took two steps to test it. He had merely returned to the state of an ordinary person; he hadn't gotten any worse.
The contrast with his earlier lightness was simply too stark.
Walking to the middle of the open space, Su Jin looked up at the building.
Several heads were clustered at the window, watching him.
"How's it going, Director?" Fu Hu called.
Sunlight fell across his face at an angle, and Su Jin narrowed his eyes.
His body kept getting heavier, but it was still bearable. Aside from that, nothing felt wrong.
Just then, a startled cry came from upstairs, and Fu Qingdai pointed off to one side.
"Watch out! A cat!"
Su Jin whipped his head around. A feral cat had already leaped out of the bushes and was lunging viciously at him.
Barely two meters separated man and cat.
With no time to think, Su Jin swung his foot up in a powerful kick!
His shin struck the zombie cat squarely in the lower half of its body.
Thud!
Pus, blood, and shredded organs sprayed from the cat's mouth and rear as its corpse whirled away like an oversized bamboo helicopter.
The mess splattered all over Su Jin.
"Fuck! Shut the door!" Sun Ya shouted over his shoulder, then braced himself against the balcony and leaned out, bellowing, "Don't come back up yet! Stay in the stairwell so we can observe you!"
Su Jin gagged, frantically spitting.
Strength!
Under sunlight, my strength increases enormously!
But he had only just gained superpowers, and now he was covered in zombie blood.
It's okay... it's okay. Maybe my condition is special, and I can't get infected anymore.
Running back into the stairwell, Su Jin huddled in a corner on the ground floor, his face deathly pale as he watched for any changes.
An hour later, Fu Qingdai's voice came from farther up the stairs.
"Brother, are you there?"
"I'm here. Nothing's wrong so far."
During the wait, Su Jin had regained his composure. Aside from the bloody stench covering him, there was nothing unusual about his body.
"Okay. Are you hungry? Are you cold?"
"Don't worry about me. Tell Elder Sun how I'm doing first."
Fu Qingdai didn't answer. A minute later, Sun Ya's voice rang out.
"Xiao Li, you don't feel cold at all?"
"Not at all."
Su Jin looked down at his body.
Excited after gaining his ability, he had come out wearing nothing but a long-sleeved shirt on his upper body.
Neither he nor anyone else had noticed.
The temperature outside was gradually rising, but it was still around twenty or thirty degrees below zero.
Yet he didn't feel cold in the slightest. His constitution really had changed considerably.
"It's been an hour. You got quite a lot of blood on you earlier. Based on our observations of the mice, you should have shown some abnormalities by now. Your case is unusual. It looks very likely that you can't be infected. Go to the fourth floor tonight and stay there for a day. Come back tomorrow once we've confirmed there's no problem. A full day and night should tell us the result either way. We've left water, food, and clothes in the room for you."
"Thanks! Make sure you protect yourselves."
After answering, Su Jin got to his feet.
He crouched and jumped, clearing more than a dozen steps in a single leap.
The next day, the weather was bright and sunny.
Su Jin stood bare-chested at the window, gazing up at the sun.
He had slept only three hours that night, yet he felt exceptionally energetic.
He could now confirm that contact with zombie bodily fluids wouldn't infect him.
And after another day of experimentation, he had gained a basic grasp and understanding of his abilities.
Light was the crucial factor affecting his abilities.
His speed and strength shifted continuously with the level of illumination: strength-focused by day, speed-focused by night.
The brighter the light, the more his physical defenses and recovery speed improved across the board. His explosive bursts of speed were also very fast, but they consumed a tremendous amount of stamina.
The dimmer the light, the more his agility and speed improved across the board, but his strength and recovery were average, while his endurance was greater.
The way these abilities shifted was simply too fantastical. After pondering it for several hours, he gave up on trying to work out the underlying mechanism.
Standing in the sunlight, Su Jin savored the immense strength in his muscles until a knock sounded at the door.
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