Chapter 53: The Last Talent Before Doomsday!

『Day 9: You continued to observe Qin Yushi as, like all Awakeners, she needed to eat; starving and with no external information, she decided to risk leaving the basement.』

『Day 10: You ate the hot pot that Chen Keqing had painstakingly prepared at home while continuing to observe Qin Yushi’s dealings with the beasts roaming the Contaminated Zone, and although Qin Yushi faced several near-death encounters and narrowly escaped the beasts’ claws, she ultimately relied on herself to break free from the Contaminated Zone.』

『Day 11: After scrubbing down with Chen Keqing, you resumed watching Qin Yushi, who stayed in a nearby Safe Zone and gathered much intelligence; because other Awakeners were present, she felt the Safe Zone was no longer safe.』

『Day 12: You continued observing and saw that within the Safe Zone an Awakener coveted Qin Yushi’s beauty and set a trap, killing one Awakener, but with the situation still unsafe, she decisively left.』

『Day 13: Qin Yushi returned to school and became the first openly acknowledged Awakener in the area.』

It turned out that Qin Yushi had spent the first dozen days after the doomsday arrival this way.

The simulation content prompted Su Ze to sigh in his heart.

It had really not been easy for her…

Although the simulation text did not provide very detailed descriptions of the sudden horrors of the crises, the brief glimpses were enough to set the imagination ablaze.

Imagine a several-hundred-kilogram brown bear suddenly appearing in your living room without any warning… you would be in what state of mind? Would you scream, lose consciousness, or muster every ounce of strength to run away?

But perhaps there could be something even more hopeless.

When you finally managed to escape from your house and casually closed the door behind you… thinking that even if the door couldn’t stop the brown bear, it would buy a few precious seconds… you would turn around and find a famished tiger in the narrow hallway outside, drooling at the corners of its mouth as it stared at you…

This was likely the scene that Qin Yushi faced during the first round of Contaminated Zone threats.

That was why Su Ze said that it had already been quite an achievement for her to survive.

However, the true hardships of the doomsday had only just begun…

The simulator’s remaining cooldown time was 9 minutes and 45 seconds.

Another round of simulation ended.

The female Teacher standing by the laboratory blackboard announced that assignments should be submitted before the end of class and then left.

However, the students in the laboratory were now focused on the doomsday news.

There were many voices around them discussing the doomsday topic.

These discussions naturally existed because, from morning until now, the anomalies across the ocean had continued and worsened.

News reports had already said that certain regions seemed to have entered a state of eternal night, and the sun had vanished…

Su Ze temporarily tuned out the chaotic discussions around him.

He had just abandoned a seemingly decent Purple Talent and continued to wait for a Gold Talent to appear…

“It’s almost 8:00,” he said.

Su Ze looked down at the time on his watch.

In the more than ten hours of simulation before, he hadn’t seen a single Gold Talent again, while he had encountered quite a few Purple Talents.

“It’s about time; if another Gold Talent appears, should I choose it?”

Su Ze pondered this in his mind.

A whole day of simulations had once again provided him with some detailed intelligence about the doomsday.

However, there was no new intelligence on the broader situation.

To put it simply, the simulation content was somewhat too homogeneous.

The version 1.0 simulator was indeed about to collapse.

『Simulator cooldown time has ended…』

Before long, the cooldown had ended.

Su Ze regained his focus and returned his attention to the simulator.

『Apocalypse simulation has begun…』

『Please choose one of the following three Talents as the innate Talent for this simulation!』

『Water Elemental (Green): You can summon powerful water illusions to assist you against enemies』

『Bacon King (White): You are skilled at roasting bacon and can even make vegetables taste like bacon』

『Infinite Domain (Gold): You can expand a theoretically infinite domain, within which you can observe everything and automatically sense danger and hostility; when you lock onto a specific enemy within the domain, you can steal part of their Strength for your use』

As if on cue, it appeared.

Su Ze’s gaze lingered on the Gold Talent’s description.

A theoretically infinite domain…

Although the word ‘infinite’ was a bit of an exaggeration, prefacing it with ‘theoretically’ made it reasonable.

“I’ll have to try it to see.”

Just by reading the Talent description, Su Ze had no idea how it actually felt to use it, so he proceeded directly into the simulation…

『Innate Talent ‘Infinite Domain (Gold)’ selected』

『Day 1: Doomsday arrived as scheduled, and you chose SC-35 Safe Zone as your doomsday spawn point…』

『Day 2: ……』

『Day 5: Using the Infinite Domain Talent, you began observing Qin Yushi’s situation』

『Day 10: You continued observing and saw Qin Yushi escape from the Contaminated Zone unharmed』

『Day 16: You defeated a challenger again, solidifying your dominance in the Safe Zone; at the same time, you continued teleporting to Yun City every day to accelerate the refresh of the Contaminated Zone where the No. 18 Middle School was located…』

『Day 20: Under your covert manipulation, the Contaminated Zone where the No. 18 Middle School is located had refreshed…』

『Day 21: You proceeded methodically to the Contaminated Zone where the No. 18 Middle School was located, found Qi Xiaoye, and brought her back to Su City…』

『Day 22: ……』

Su Ze had already seen today’s simulation content many times before.

He had become very adept at it.

In each simulation round, he could find Qi Xiaoye in about twenty days and bring her back.

The reason was, of course, that the refresh of Contaminated Zones followed a fixed mechanism.

Suppose that within the Tier-1 phase of the doomsday there was a Contaminated Zone code-named a3; a3 would have a fixed quota allowing some ordinary people to become Awakeners.

It might be twenty, or it might be thirty.

Each Contaminated Zone was different.

Once the quota was used up, the Contaminated Zone would automatically refresh.

Therefore, what Su Ze needed to do was to accelerate this refresh process.

He just needed to recruit more ordinary people and help them become Awakeners.

As for directly destroying the pollution source to trigger its refresh, that might also work.

However, his simulation self never tried that even once.

Because he worried that if the process went wrong, he wouldn’t be able to find Qi Xiaoye…

『Day 53: You helped Qin Yushi’s team defeat a powerful enemy, and in the heat of passion between you and Qin Yushi, you even found time to scrub each other’s backs』

『Day 72: You joined the official Safe Zone, began building a department loyal to you, and took charge of intelligence work…』

『Day 73: Thanks to the Infinite Domain Talent’s ability, you discovered that in the neighboring Safe Zone some people harbored resentment toward your presence and were hiding ill intent; you investigated and learned that among those displeased were members of the Bai family you knew, and that night you struck, eliminating many enemies』

『Day 90: You received intelligence on a containment object, and with Qi Xiaoye’s support, you went to investigate…』

『Day 91: You all struggled to kill the containment object…』

『Day 101: While scrubbing each other’s backs with Qi Xiaoye, you suddenly became an Awakener…』