When the "mushroom freak" pulled out that terrifying glass bottle, the avian bombers did not scatter. Instead, they flew higher and screeched even louder.
"Caw! Caw!"
"Squawk! Squawk!"
If screams could kill, Zhang Ming might already have died a hundred times.
Of course, eggs were only eggs, not chicks that had actually hatched. Besides, for the sake of sustainability, Zhang Ming never emptied a nest in one go. He always left a few eggs behind.
So after the "bombers" circled for a day or two and realized they were getting nowhere, they gave up and obediently returned to incubating their eggs.
Rumble!
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky. Lead-gray clouds had quietly obscured the sun, and cold rain fell from above, soaking his clothes.
The weather had been poor lately, with few sunny days and mostly overcast skies or rain. Yet Zhang Ming felt as though he had chewed a piece of Stride gum-he simply could not stop. Everything he did brimmed with energy.
"Another fine day for a bumper harvest!"
Zhang Ming suspected that the islands' rainy season was about to arrive.
He had no desire to go searching for food in a downpour.
He quickened his pace and hurried back to his sheet-metal house.
Carefully, he took the bird eggs out of his backpack and placed them in a large suitcase.
"One, two, three..."
The suitcase was filled with wood shavings and colorful bird eggs!
"Thirty-five, thirty-six..."
Zhang Ming savored his own special kind of happiness, the smile on his face growing wider.
Even though he knew exactly how many eggs he had, who could resist the joy of a bumper harvest?
"A hundred and one in total! I've broken a hundred!"
His food reserves were fuller than ever. Alongside his two staples, dried crab meat and coconut flesh, he now had bird eggs, further expanding his selection of ingredients.
Oh, and with mushrooms added to the mix, the rate at which his attributes increased had skyrocketed!
"At three eggs a day, these will last me over a month."
"After a month, they might have laid another batch... Yes, sustainable development is the way to go."
Then a new worry occurred to him. There were simply too many varieties of bird eggs. Besides gulls, there were auks, egrets, albatrosses, and several seabirds he did not really recognize.
These eggs brought new abilities with them, too.
And new superpowers required more attribute points to activate...
This was a vicious cycle!
"What am I supposed to do with so many superpowers and not enough attribute points?"
Reclining in his chair, Zhang Ming wrestled with the problem.
Earth.
"Good morning, comrades."
"Mysterious Zone 16 may have entered its rainy season. This will pose a major challenge to Zhang Ming's survival."
At the morning meeting that day, Li Xianfeng rubbed his temples, clicked his mouse a few times, and sent the latest mirage images to the large screen.
The scene was gray and hazy, with a steady drizzle obscuring the view.
The experts began discussing it. "I don't think there'll be much trouble in the short term. He's stocked up on plenty of food and firewood. We reminded him about all that in our broadcasts."
"He'd better avoid going out in the rain during the rainy season. Even with his strong physique, what if he gets sick and runs a fever?"
Li Xianfeng shook his head. "It's not a question of how much trouble he's in. Our young comrade Zhang isn't just alive-he's enthusiastically raiding bird nests. Somehow, he's managed to frighten the birds on the island."
"He's even been using leaves to spell out messages on the beach. We've underestimated him. There are plenty of things we no longer need to go out of our way to remind him about."
He captured one frame and enlarged it.
One line spelled out in leaves on the beach read, "Salted duck eggs."
What did that mean?
Naturally, he wanted them to broadcast instructions for making salted duck eggs!
The experts fell silent, exchanging wordless looks. This fellow was feasting on his deserted island every day, and now he was even finding ways to enjoy himself. Anyone who did not know better might have thought he was vacationing in a tropical rainforest!
Meanwhile, they had been racking their brains and working themselves to exhaustion, terrified that he might suddenly drop dead. It really felt like the attendants were fretting while the man they served remained perfectly untroubled.
Of course, two other lines on the beach drew the scholars' attention.
"Please explain the principles behind a Faraday Cage and how to build one."
"Natives here. Come quickly!"
Those two lines contained so much information that the expert teams began questioning everything they knew.
"Why does he want to know how to build a Faraday Cage? Is he afraid of being struck by lightning? Or is there a monster on the island that shoots lightning?" Li Xianfeng asked with a frown.
A Faraday Cage was a device that protected against high-voltage electricity.
Its frame was connected to the ground. When a high-voltage discharge struck the metal cage, the powerful current would be directed into the earth, leaving anyone sheltering inside unharmed.
This physical phenomenon had numerous applications in protection against high voltage and direct lightning strikes. It was even used in magic performances.
For instance, David Blaine had worn a metal suit weighing 12.2 kilograms to withstand a million-volt electrical discharge, relying on this very principle.
But why did Zhang Ming need to know the precise principles behind a Faraday Cage?
As for the line about "natives," it conveyed even more. The expert team could not even determine whether the claim was reliable or merely a bluff.
To be honest, Zhang Ming's movements over the past few days had been rather furtive, and the mirage could not track him.
Concerned about his mental state, they had specifically extended their broadcasts from half an hour to a full hour.
They had repeated wilderness survival advice over and over, telling him to stay put and wait, to learn from Uncle De and build a shelter rather than run around like Bear Grylls.
But... it had done no good!
After a brief silence, Li Xianfeng cleared his throat and said helplessly, "If he wants information about Faraday Cages, we should do our best to provide it. Send it over via satellite broadcast."
"As for the news about natives, it's not impossible, but we... really can't help him!"
"Even if there really is a native civilization on that island, what can we do? We don't even know where he is..."
They had privately discussed the possibility of intelligent civilizations existing within the Mysterious Zone many times.
The fleeting glimpse provided by their satellite had outlined a
boundless parallel world, vast and unfathomably deep.
The Mysterious Zone was far, far larger than Earth.
It might even be a thousand or ten thousand times larger!
A difference in scale could create a difference in kind. With an ocean so immense, the emergence of another intelligent civilization would hardly be surprising.
"Compile the information Zhang Ming wants and send it over this afternoon," Li Xianfeng continued. "Comrades, we have two more matters to discuss."
"The first is our plan to rescue the survivors in the Mysterious Zone. This is also one of the few international cooperative efforts still underway."
"Academician Ge, please give us a brief introduction to the satellite data analyzed over the past few days."
Although the satellite launched a few days earlier had operated for only a dozen seconds or so, the radio data collected in that brief interval had already allowed them to establish a few basic facts.
Holding a thick stack of documents, the gray-haired Academician Ge spoke wearily, dark circles beneath both eyes. "Our first conclusion is that the satellite received longwave transmissions sent by our international partners. This means the four major Mysterious Zones in the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Arctic Ocean are, in essence, connected. They are part of the same world."
"We can regard the Mysterious Zone as an immense parallel world."
"The Earth we currently inhabit has been 'embedded' into this vast parallel world through some unknown process."
"The Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Arctic Ocean are, in fact, entrances to the Mysterious Zone."
A young researcher with a doctorate raised a hand. "Do you mean that the Earth we inhabit is becoming part of the Mysterious Zone?"
"Exactly. As you all know, it's easy to lose your bearings after entering the Mysterious Zone. Without a rope linking the inside and outside, you may be unable to locate Earth even if it's only a few steps away."
Academician Ge said evenly, "This is a peculiar spatial phenomenon. Our current scientific and technological framework cannot yet explain it."
"If we were to explain it in more metaphysical terms, Earth is deliberately avoiding assimilation into the Mysterious Zone. It is hiding itself to evade the dangers there."
"As people in the West say, God protects humanity. Otherwise, the end of the world would already have come."
"Of course, we don't believe God exists. We're more inclined to believe that something akin to a Gaia Consciousness has given us a little assistance during this catastrophe."
Gaia Consciousness!
Li Xianfeng involuntarily straightened in his seat.
The proposed Gaia Hypothesis was one of the hottest topics in Paranormal Studies.
According to this hypothesis, the appearance of the mirages was an instinctive act of self-preservation by Earth's "Gaia Consciousness."
Just as the human body would automatically activate its immune system when ill, Earth, facing the possibility of being "devoured" by the Mysterious Zone, would develop a powerful drive to save itself.
The hypothesis further suggested that the disasters erupting in various regions were caused by resonance within humanity's collective consciousness.
As Earth's collective consciousness, the "Gaia Consciousness" was connected to everything in the world, from fungi, bacteria, and spores to forests, grasslands, lakes, and oceans.
Yet undeniably, the greatest variable among them was humanity.
When a particular group was wiped out within a mirage, humanity as a whole would spontaneously form the belief that "this people is unsuited to surviving the apocalypse."
That belief would become so powerful that it produced collective resonance, influencing the "Gaia Consciousness" and causing a massive disaster in that region.
In other words, humanity's spontaneous collective consciousness had caused Gaia to destroy that country. It was not some supposed "punishment from God."
The hypothesis was admittedly rather mystical. Parts of its chain of evidence still needed to be gathered, and believers and skeptics argued fiercely over it.
Nevertheless, it at least provided an explanation with a more or less complete internal logic.
That was how "science" worked. It did not reject unknown phenomena, nor was it a rigid collection of rules and restrictions. When unknown phenomena appeared, scientists would instead try to build a more comprehensive framework that could incorporate and explain them.
After rambling for some time, Academician Ge realized the discussion had wandered too far. With a light cough, the academic returned to the subject. "Let's turn the clock back a little over a month. The worldwide earthquakes were essentially global tremors triggered when Earth was 'embedded' into the Mysterious Zone."
"At the boundary between Earth's plane and the Mysterious Zone, space underwent substantial displacement. As a result, those unfortunate people may have accidentally been 'teleported' somewhere very far away."
"This long-distance spatial displacement occurred only at that instant. Entering the Mysterious Zone now no longer produces this phenomenon."
Li Xianfeng nodded slightly.
Academician Ge continued, "Based on the hypothesis above, the satellite our country launched earlier detected two electromagnetic signals."
"The first came from Mirage No. 1, the large cruise ship carrying three thousand passengers, approximately twelve thousand kilometers to the southwest. The signal was very simple: SOS transmitted by radio."
"The second came from the Arctic Ocean team, seventeen thousand kilometers to the northeast. The signal was very simple: Mayday transmitted by radio."
"These two sets of data are not entirely accurate. We would need at least two satellites for more precise positioning. Still, their overall reliability is fairly high."
The news was truly exhilarating. Of the three teams that had made it to the final stretch, a single satellite had located two!
Some of those survivors were indeed citizens of Great Xia!
As long as they knew the two teams' approximate locations, rescue was possible!
A buzz of discussion filled the room.
"Do their ships have enough fuel reserves to travel more than ten thousand kilometers?"
"Not a chance. They're short on fuel now, and they don't have much food left either. We'll have to send warships and aircraft to retrieve them."
"So this is one of the few international joint operations."
Expending enormous manpower and resources to rescue international teams was not merely an act of indiscriminate charity.
On the one hand, it really was intended to reduce the occurrence of geographical disasters.
On the other, it could create a more favorable diplomatic environment, making it a diplomatic bargaining chip.
With living conditions deteriorating sharply, the clouds of war loomed over human civilization.
Some regions were already at war.
Earth could no longer support so many people. Who would die, and who would survive? Who were friends, and who were enemies?
These questions had to be thought through.
Dark currents
surged through the world as human civilization spiraled downward. Every nation was dramatically expanding its military. Yesterday was always better than today, and tomorrow would always be worse. Even major powers had to proceed cautiously, securing each step to avoid being surrounded and hunted by a pack of wolves.
Li Xianfeng was even somewhat grateful that he lived in a major nation with strong industrial capabilities, and that his work leaned more toward academia, keeping him a little removed from the petty scheming and vicious maneuvering of politics.
There were so many things that utterly exhausted both mind and body.
Once the discussion ended, Li Xianfeng spoke again. "Everyone, besides rescuing the survivors, we have a second task. We need to establish a large research base near the boundary between the Pacific Ocean and the Mysterious Zone."
"The training and research programs for people with superpowers will officially begin within a month!"
Roughly one in ten people who entered the Mysterious Zone had awakened a superpower. That figure had greatly tempted the higher-ups!
The cost was far lower than eating monster meat. Mutated creatures remained scarce on Earth.
Even if most of the abilities were physical, who would turn down better physiques, more talented people, or even... longer lifespans?
(PS: Today's update is a double-length chapter. I'm tying up a small loose end first, so I won't split it into separate chapters.)
Before you continue