Chapter 42

Shen Cong had harbored the thought of trying to hatch the ant eggs, but he did not expect that the eggs, which had been releasing such thick Activity radiation, would start losing it.

‘Is it because they left their mother too soon, or because there’s a problem with their hatching environment?’

Shen Cong scowled while rolling the ant eggs that were the size of a plastic bottle in his hands. He had a great desire to learn everything about Activity. It was not important to him whether the ant eggs could be hatched or not. What was important was why they could not be hatched, and what variable or factor had caused them to be unable to hatch.

Once he understood that, he could look into how Activity was passed from body to body.

Perhaps he could also find the reason behind why some humans mutated and the others did not, and even change the current situation.

While thinking about this, Shen Cong was unable to resist releasing a wave of his Activity. He intended to inject it into the ant eggs in a last ditch attempt to save them and to see whether the ant eggs could return from the brink of death after they gained Activity.

However, this random interference caused a striking reaction.

The ant eggs changed their radiation frequency a little, seemingly because they wanted to absorb Shen Cong’s Activity. This change was very minor, but Shen Cong, after going through multiple hardships, had great control over Activity, so he noticed the slight change.

A thought also appeared in his head at that moment. ‘The ant eggs want to live!’

Willpower was required to interfere with Activity radiation, and only through willpower could a person change their radiation frequency spontaneously. It was just like how Shen Cong had interfered with Titan’s Activity radiation frequency to disguise it as a mutated ant. If the ant eggs did not have the willpower to live, it would be impossible for them to change their Activity radiation frequency.

Shen Cong did not know whether this guess was correct. He could only try his hardest to work together with the ant eggs.

He sent his Activity bit by bit into the ant eggs and soon sensed that the ant eggs started searching for his radiation frequency on their own.

This was a very slow process.

After Shen Cong sent a bit of Activity into the eggs, he would stop and rest for a while. Once the Activity scattered away, he gave the ant eggs a bit of his Activity again.

But he did not give all of them his Activity in one go. He gave it to them one by one, which allowed him to see that only two ant eggs were changing their frequency. The other one showed no signs of life and was still slowly losing its Activity.

Shen Cong then decided to not give this particular ant egg anymore Activity and just let it perish. He could compare it with the other ant eggs in the future.

With something to serve as comparison, he could make an even more direct judgment as to whether what he did was right or wrong.

*****

It was late.

After three and a half hours, the radiation frequency from two of the ant eggs was finally in sync with Shen Cong’s Activity frequency. At that moment, Shen Cong felt that he now shared a faint connection with the ant eggs. They were originally just normal ant eggs, but now, they gave him a sense of closeness.

‘This… should be a feeling caused by our frequencies being in sync.’

Shen Cong thought about it for a while before he analyzed the matter as such. There was another way to analyze the situation, but he did not intend to let it come to the forefront of his mind, because he thought it was rather ridiculous.

After the two eggs became in sync with his Activity frequency and devoured the Activity he gave them, they finally became stable and no longer showed signs of losing their Activity.

Shen Cong shut his laptop and made preparations to take a bath before he took a nectarine and went to sleep. But he did not forget to mock himself a little.

‘First, I hatched the eggs from the green-headed flies. Now, I’m hatching brachyponera ant eggs. Looks like I have a strong connection with insect eggs.’

The murderous peach tree had borne twenty-eight Activity-laced nectarines. He used one as an experiment and ate another four. Right now, he had five Activity-laced nectarine pits and twenty-three Activity-laced nectarines.

That night, before going to sleep, Shen Cong ate three nectarines in one go.

His body had already become used to the explosive impact of the Activity that came from the nectarines. It would not harm him even if he ate a little more.

He had a good sleep that night and only woke up on the second day because of his alarm clock. He quickly went to check the effect of eating three nectarines and found that Titan’s Activity had increased from 30.1% to 34.5%, which meant its Activity had increased by 4.4%.

As for Shen Cong, his physical constitution improved in all aspects again, though not by much.

After his strength increased to that of three bulls, breaking that limit became difficult. Eating three nectarines only increased his strength to that of 3.1 bulls or 3.2 bulls. But Shen Cong was not disheartened by this. As long as his strength continued to increase, it was good. He had always wanted to become a superhuman in his dreams.

As long as he continued to improve and did not reach his limit, his hopes of becoming a superhuman would not disappear.

He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and washed his clothes. Right now, he did not lack water. Even if he boiled the water from the lake, it might not be hygienic enough for him to drink it, but there was no problem in him using boiled lakewater to wash his body.

After he was done with his personal hygiene, he delivered Activity to the ant eggs, and then climbed to the roof of his truck to practice martial arts. He ate some canned beef after that and went to check the tyre pressure as well as the sealant where the truck head and the truck compartment were joined. Once he was done, he turned on the radio to search for signals that could be used by other survivors to communicate with other people.

When his mechanical watch showed that it was half past seven, Shen Cong put on his equipment, which had completed the Alloying process and was full of Activity.

Fully equipped, he left Titan.

He planned to hunt evolved beasts, but before that, he still had to complete his task of searching through the ruins, because he was not done with it yet yesterday. He wanted to search for the firearms storage in the police station and go through places that might have diesel fuel as well as gas stored in them, even though he knew that the chances of him finding anything he wanted was low.

The sun shone on the ground, and hot steam slowly increased the temperature of the surroundings. After the cloudy days were gone, the might of summer was shown in its full glory. The barren wasteland only had a handful of plants, so it was no different from a desert. Shen Cong could not link what he saw with the scene of shadows cast everywhere on the land by the trees that spread all over the country.

Since Shen Cong wore the Drastically Modified Battle Armor, he was sweating bullets.

The improvement of his physical constitution meant that his heat resistance had also increased. As long as the temperature did not go over 50 degrees Celsius, he would not suffer a heat stroke. The temperature right then was around 35 degrees Celsius, so Shen Cong could endure it.

He soon located the police station based on its location in his memories.

He made a record of Yinpingzhen’s police station in the past, but now, the building before his eyes had been reduced to ruins, and there were clear signs that it had been searched through.

The scavengers had swept through Yinpingzhen before Shen Cong arrived. Aside from some places that were difficult to search through or had rubble over them, everything else had already been searched through.

Bang.

Shen Cong moved a stone away. The ruins had been swept clean. There was not a single resource left behind.

When he saw that there were no firearms left in the police station, Shen Cong did not stay around. He immediately switched places and went to the ruins of a tyre shop. It had been on the second floor of a building, which had completely collapsed. Stones completely buried the first floor.

If Titan was there, Shen Cong would only need to use the bulldozer blade twice to clear up the ruins.

But now, for safety’s sake, he did not have the intention to reveal Titan.

He moved the bricks and stones away by himself.

In any case, he had the strength of three bulls. It was not a problem for him to handle a few bricks.

Soon, he cleared the path into the ruins and saw a room buried underneath. It had many new and old tyres, along with tools related to them. The tyres had all been squashed out of shape, so Shen Cong did not want them, but he did find quite a number of rubber strips, mushroom nails, cold patches, and even some items like tyre repair gels.

But he did not manage to find diesel.

Then, he searched through a motorcycle repair shop, a car shop, and a car repair shop, but none of them had what he wanted.

‘Perhaps the only places that have diesel are the gas stations that provide petroleum in China.’

Shen Cong recalled the spot where the gas station was and headed to the last place that might store diesel.