Energy

Lu Heng stared at the bracelet's low-energy warning, his brows slightly furrowed as he instinctively flipped through the bracelet's storage.

As he flipped through, he suddenly remembered the spider marrow crystal he had obtained by decomposing the spider earlier.

When he had decomposed the spider back then, he dug out this crystal core condensed in the center of the bone. It felt warm to the touch and contained a gentle heat, but when he actively had the bracelet appraise it at the time, it only popped up as an unknown material with no usage description, and the forging table could not recognize or retrieve it either. He did not understand its use, so following his habit of organizing his storage, he classified it separately and placed it in the storage miscellaneous goods zone, storing it properly rather than tossing it casually into a corner of the storage to gather dust.

Now, looking at the energy core in his hand, his heart stirred, and he instinctively took out this long-discarded milky-white crystal.

The moment his fingertips touched the surface of the spider marrow crystal, the blue light on the bracelet around his wrist suddenly flashed, and a brand-new exclusive appraisal pop-up window jumped out.

[Temporary linkage appraisal triggered: detected energy crystal compatible with energy storage device]

[Item: Spider Marrow Crystal]

[Grade: Black Iron-grade Energy Material]

[Description: Energy crystal condensed in the core of the Frost Forest Ground Spider, compatible with the Black Iron shelter energy storage core, can fill the energy storage core with energy, full energy storage 100%]

The instant the pop-up window appeared, Lu Heng understood completely.

This thing was the exclusive energy raw material that the energy core needed.

A wave of joy washed over Lu Heng's heart, and he immediately held the spider marrow crystal in the palm of his hand to examine it closely. The crystal was milky-white throughout, with wisps of warm energy circulating inside, and holding it in his hand allowed him to feel the abundant, restrained energy. Following the bracelet's prompts, Lu Heng snapped the spider marrow crystal into the groove of the energy core, and it engaged tightly with a click.

The next second, the crystal grew slightly warm, and the restrained energy followed the connection, linking up the pipelines of the entire shelter.

Lu Heng strode back to the bedroom and raised a hand to press the light switch.

With a snap.

The white light on the ceiling suddenly lit up, and the clear, soft light filled the entire bedroom, illuminating every corner of the floor tiles, the bed, and the bathroom.

Lu Heng's pupils lit up slightly, and he let out a long breath.

Having endured for so long, spending every day revolving around the campfire, with the smoke stinging his eyes and his vision blurred at night, he finally had electric lights now. He no longer needed to keep watch by the flickering, swaying, unstable firelight, and he could clearly see everything around him at night without having to constantly be on guard against the campfire going out and mutated beasts launching a sudden attack from the darkness.

With the light filling the entire bedroom and his vision clear and transparent, far more real and secure than the mottled and swaying light and shadow of the campfire, Lu Heng could finally properly examine the bronze hunting blade at his waist.

He raised a hand to draw the short blade and held it in his hand. The blade body was brand-new and smooth throughout, with regular and neat casting patterns, without the slightest bit of bumping or rust. Yet the whole thing was wrapped in a long-settled, archaic, and heavy aura-not the sharp and impetuous edge of newly forged iron, but carrying its own silent and distant texture. His fingertips gently brushed over the slightly cool blade surface, the touch delicate and hard. The edge was restrained, and although it looked unassuming, he could faintly perceive that special aura that kept aberrant entities in check.

He raised a hand to weigh the blade, which was a section heavier than the iron axe and military crossbow he had used previously. The weight distribution leaned toward heavy, and holding it single-handedly for a long time would cause a noticeable dragging sensation in the hand. Fortunately, his own physical strength had been enhanced through several bouts of slaughtering mutated beasts, and his physical stats far exceeded ordinary people's, so he could barely swing and grip it freely, and adapting to close-quarters combat was completely fine.

After toying with the bronze hunting blade, Lu Heng sheathed it, sat cross-legged on the beast-skin-paved bed, and tried to run the Basic Breath Cultivation Method in his mind.

Usually, he breathed in a casual and rough way, his rhythm scattered and casual as he completely followed his body's instincts. Now, having to deliberately control the duration and depth of his exhales and inhales, and intentionally guide the breath to circulate through the meridians all over his body, made his whole body feel awkward and stiff. He would instinctively revert to his usual instinctual breathing pattern and always had to deliberately concentrate to correct it, leaving both his body and mind extremely unaccustomed to it.

Lu Heng let out a soft click of his tongue, his brows and eyes revealing helplessness.

As expected, it was not something that could be mastered overnight. The cultivation formula was easy to understand, but breaking a natural breathing habit formed over a dozen years was the hardest part. He could only persist at fixed times every day in the future and slowly grind away until he adapted.

After toying with the breathing method for a moment, Lu Heng simply gave up.

Entering the threshold was still awkward and stiff, so forcing it was useless. Cultivation matters did not need to be rushed at this moment, and he could just practice with a calm mind every day from now on.

He got up and walked over to the bed in the bedroom. Looking at the flat, clean bed board and this clean, brand-new independent bedroom generated out of thin air based on the shelter, his heart was filled with a sense of down-to-earth security. Previously, the floor of the raw stone cave was uneven and hard against the body, with gravel mixed with frozen soil that was hard and cold. Even though he had padded it with two layers of thick beast skins, the hard, cold earth qi underneath still seeped upward. Sleeping for a long time at night made his waist and back sore, his bones and muscles could not get stretched out, and every night he slept lightly and in a tense state.

Lu Heng reached into the bracelet's storage grid and took out all the thick beast skins he had accumulated from days of hunting, laying them out layer by layer, neatly aligned on the bed board, stacked soft, thick, and even in thickness. After doing all this, he lay down directly on his side.

His back sank in, and the soft beast skin conformed to the curves of his body, completely blocking out the coldness of the underground frozen soil without any hard and grating stabs from gravel on the ground. Warmth slowly wrapped around his entire body, feeling so comfortable that he let out an involuntary, soft sigh.

Having spent days trekking through the outer marshes, fighting in the forests, being trapped in trees overnight, and guarding with a pounding heart against sneak attacks, he could only make do by resting on the rough stone cave floor at night. The body that had been tense for days finally relaxed completely at this moment.

With a windproof, rainproof, sealed, and reinforced shelter, a bedroom with stable electricity and lighting, and a secure, soft bed free from disturbance, Lu Heng truly felt at this moment that deep inside the desperate situation, his confidence to survive was growing stronger and stronger.

His tense nerves completely slackened, and the fatigue accumulated from days of fighting surged over instantly. Before long, a heavy sleepiness washed over him, and Lu Heng simply lay securely in the pile of beast skins, isolated from the outside wind, rain, and beast roars, and fell into a deep sleep unconsciously.

It was a dreamless night, and when he opened his eyes again, warm daylight seeped weakly through the ventilation slits reserved in the stone cave. Lu Heng stretched his limbs on the bed, raised his arms, and stretched a huge yawn. The soreness in his back and the muscle fatigue left over from days of running about were swept away. He sighed inwardly, feeling that the living experience of the dimensional bedroom far exceeded that of the raw stone cave. Having slept on the uneven frozen soil for many days in a row previously, even with double-layered beast skins for padding, the hard stones underneath always made him toss and turn half the night, resulting in extremely poor sleep quality-how could it compare to the comfort and security of this flat, soft bed?

He got up and walked over to the bathroom area, looked at the faucet installed on the wall, and gently turned the switch. Clear and clean water immediately flowed out. Just as he was finding it convenient, a light blue prompt panel suddenly popped up on the bracelet around his wrist.

[Prompt: The dimensional bedroom water supply system continuously consumes the energy storage core's energy, currently at the Black Iron-grade shelter basic water supply quota, with a fixed daily consumption of 6% energy storage.]

Lu Heng lowered his head to look at the remaining energy storage value of the energy core, clearly seeing the panel value directly deducted by 6%. Right now, the full energy supplied by the spider marrow crystal was only one hundred percent, and with a fixed daily consumption of 6%, it could support a little over sixteen days at most. He frowned slightly, a trace of concern welling up in his heart. This was still just the consumption for pure daily water usage; if he turned on more electric lights in the future, or unlocked more forging and temperature-controlled power-supplying facilities, the energy consumption would only increase exponentially. A single spider marrow crystal was still not considered durable.

He casually turned off the faucet, and the water flow was cut off with a sound. The daily consumption was a zero-point fixed settlement, and it would not increase or decrease in consumption due to short-term switches. The most urgent matter right now was to collect more crystal materials that could serve as energy when exploring outside later on, otherwise the bedroom's water supply and lighting would be cut off directly at any time.

His goal for this outing was clear: he planned to follow the river channel upstream to search for food along segments he had never set foot on before. He had only explored the downstream shallows before, and a large expanse of the upstream riverbank was still left blank. It was just the right time to supplement vegetable food, as the body could not hold up if he only ate meat for every meal.

Walking slowly forward on the road, Lu Heng weighed things up inwardly in his heart. The overlord of the outer Frost Forest, the blue-backed jackal, had already been cleaned out by himself, and he basically did not need to fear the overtly clustered fierce creatures, making it much safer to walk outside. However, what was hardest to guard against in the forest were the "old sixes" lurking in the dark to launch sneak attacks; mutated beasts might lie dormant under rock crevices, water weeds, or mud, and the visibility on rainy days was poor, so he could not afford the slightest bit of laxity.

Walking carefully and guarding against the surrounding movements all the way to an unfamiliar riverbank, the rain had soaked the soil along the bank until it was soft and moist. Lu Heng cast a peripheral glance toward the river beach and immediately spotted a cluster of bright, vibrant green leaves with distinct veins, whose shape was almost identical to the stems and leaves of wild radishes.

His gaze brightened, his pace unconsciously quickened, and he strode over to the edge of the grass, reached out to grip the root of the stems and leaves, and gave it a fierce, hard pull.

The mud-caked rhizome broke straight out of the soil, its rounded tuber wrapped in wet mud, looking indistinguishable from the wild radishes in his cognition.

Lu Heng pinched the plant in his hand, his brows slightly furrowed as a sliver of caution rose in his heart.

This was his first time running into this kind of plant, and although its appearance closely resembled edible wild radishes, the grass and vegetation along this unfamiliar river segment were chaotic, and many poisonous plants grew to a high degree of similarity with edible wild vegetables. It was completely impossible to distinguish them by the naked eye alone. On the survival path, he could not take risks based solely on subjective judgment, so for the sake of safety, he directly raised his wrist, and the bracelet's white light swept across the plant to complete the appraisal.

[Item: Cold-Resistant Wild Radish]

[Grade: Ordinary Ingredient]

[Description: Native edible tuber crop of the Frost Forest, non-toxic, can be eaten raw or stewed, replenishing moisture and trace elements.]

Seeing the appraisal information pop up on the bracelet, the heart hanging in Lu Heng's chest settled completely, and the plant in his hand was indeed a wild radish that could be eaten with peace of mind.

Clutching the mud-caked wild radish, he turned his head to survey the entire river beach, a look of expectation in his eyes as he bent down to carefully search for similar plants around him. He urgently wanted to harvest a few more to make up for the scarce vegetable food, but after pushing aside the grass back and forth, searching through the soft mud, and combing through half of the riverbank nearby, he only found three wild radishes of varying sizes scattered about. Counting the one in his hand, there were four in total.

The harvest was not considered large. Squatting in the wet mud, Lu Heng wiped the silt off the surface of the radishes and calmly sorted out the reason behind it.

Judging by the scattered distribution of the plants, it was most likely that flying birds in the forest had eaten the mature seed pods of the radishes, and the seeds had fallen along with their droppings into this moist river beach, coincidentally growing a few sparse stalks. Sunnier tidal flats with more fertile soil further upstream along the river channel most likely had patches of wild radishes growing in clusters; he simply hadn't reached that core growing zone yet.

At the same time, he also sorted out the core problem of retaining seeds for cultivation: ordinary-world radishes were biennial crops that needed to overwinter and bolt to produce seeds the following year, but this was a mutated frozen-soil wild radish, and its growth pattern was unknown, making it impossible to determine whether it could produce seeds within the same year.

A thought stirred in Lu Heng's mind, and he immediately made up his plan.

Upon returning to the shelter, of these four wild radishes, he would pick the one with the best appearance, plump size, and no hollow insect damage to keep separately, placing it in the dimensional bedroom's water environment for maintenance and observation. It would be best if it naturally retained seeds adapted to the frozen-soil environment; if it still required cross-year cultivation, he would patiently maintain and wait for it. As long as he could obtain radish seeds, he could set up a small planting area, eliminating the need to take risks venturing deep into the wild for foraging every time, achieving self-sufficiency in meat and vegetable ingredients for the shelter and completely getting rid of the shortcoming of a single meat diet.

Having figured out his overall plan, Lu Heng did not linger. He wiped the loose mud off all four wild radishes, stored them neatly into the bracelet's ingredient-exclusive grid, raised his gaze to look deep into the upstream river channel, and intended to continue exploring deeper to find clustered patches of wild radishes.