Chapter 7: Awakener Spell!

『Day 17, you woke from a nightmare; after waking, your healing energy had not decreased, and you knew your residence was also within the Contaminated Zone…

You decided to start investigating the Contaminated Zone around your home first.』

『Day 18, you found some clues and discovered that the residents near your home had vanished as if they had evaporated… Later, you found a bizarre mirror; you believed this was the pollution source, but you did not dare to touch it.』

『Day 19, you gained nothing in the Contaminated Zone you were in. However, you discovered that the neighboring Baima Community had many zombie-like infected; these infected were highly aggressive, yet they preferred to hide in dark corners.』

『Day 20, you saw an Awakener leading a team leaving the school, and you knew their goal was to look for daily necessities.』

『Day 21, you made a surprising discovery: the Contaminated Zone seemed to have strictly defined boundaries.』

『Day 22, while looking in the mirror, you were dragged into the mirror world and underwent a terrifying trial; without the Talent “Retreat in One Piece,” nine lives would not have been enough…

Now you understood why the residents of this Contaminated Zone had vanished into thin air.』

『Day 23, you investigated Jiahe Community and found many mutated animals gathering there; these animals were extremely ferocious, and ordinary firearms could hardly deal with them』

『Day 24, you investigated the Contaminated Zone near the middle school and found that the residents there had likewise vanished; you guessed that the hidden threat here was similar to the mirror world』

『Day 25, …』

『Day 26, …』

『Day 27, …』

The record of survival time quietly updated.

Your simulated self truly kept carrying out the investigation task, and you had almost fully scouted the Contaminated Zones around the school.

After this information was gathered, Su Ze obtained two extremely important pieces of intelligence.

First, each Contaminated Zone harbored a different kind of danger, but without doubt these dangers were fatal to ordinary people.

Second, Contaminated Zones had rigid boundary lines.

The first piece of information spoke for itself.

If you wanted to live longer in the apocalypse, you naturally had to stay within the Safe Zone as much as possible and avoid stepping into a Contaminated Zone.

Otherwise, disaster could strike you at any moment.

The second piece of information was essentially a supplement to the first…

Only after knowing the exact limits of a Contaminated Zone could you determine your own safe range of activity.

『Day 28, you returned home to rest; on the way you met other survivors and exchanged brief words. At night, although you avoided facing any mirrors, you were still dragged into the mirror world again; relying on the Talent “Retreat in One Piece,” you once more escaped by the skin of your teeth.』

『Day 29, the survivors you met yesterday disappeared; you guessed they had died in the mirror world.』

『Day 30, you sneaked back to the school and discovered that there were already more than 10 Awakeners there; the method by which they became Awakeners was no different from what you had heard before』

『Day 31, you clashed with an Awakener; your roommate stood up for you and the Awakener accidentally broke his leg』

『Day 32, lacking medicine, your roommate lay in bed unable to move. You secretly healed your roommate and then left the school again.』

『Day 33, you returned home to rest; that night you smashed the bizarre mirror that was probably the pollution source. You slept very uneasily that night.』

『Day 34, when you woke, you found that a large number of plants had suddenly sprouted throughout the Contaminated Zone you lived in. The plants attacked you, and with the help of the Talent “Retreat in One Piece,” you barely escaped.』

『Day 35, you went back to the school; the Awakener who had injured your roommate came to apologize. Although you knew the apology was insincere, you said nothing. You had a nightmare; the Talent “Retreat in One Piece” struggled to save your life, but in order to become an Awakener you chose to risk everything, and in the final second before death you obtained the information… becoming an Awakener requires a spell…You died.』

The cellphone on the table displayed a map on its screen.

The Contaminated Zone intel just obtained in the simulation had been roughly sketched and recorded by Su Ze on the map.

At this moment…

After noticing that his simulated self had died again,

Su Ze’s expression remained quite calm.

“As expected, people who become Awakeners can’t always follow the old rules; after hurting someone they can gloss it over with a hollow apology…”

Although the simulation hadn’t explicitly mentioned any change in Awakeners’ status at the school, this conclusion could still be inferred from the limited content.

… In everyone’s eyes, the status of an Awakener was probably already one grade higher than that of others.

No wonder his simulated self had chosen to gamble with his life in a nightmare.

He had fought desperately precisely to become an Awakener and stand on equal footing with the other party.

Unfortunately, he had still failed at the last moment.

Fortunately… he had finally obtained the crucial piece of information.

“A spell?”

“So the method I learned before for becoming an Awakener has actually been missing this key factor all along, namely the so-called spell.”

Leaving aside what the spell actually was…

Su Ze suddenly suspected that the other Awakeners in the simulation had deceived him.

Such vital information, yet no one had told him.

Well, under the law of the survival of the fittest, others indeed had no obligation to tell him…

『Simulation Assessment: bold yet meticulous, courageous and resourceful』

『You may choose one of the following three simulation rewards:』

『1. Retreat in One Piece (purple)』

『2. A customized Contaminated Zone map (choose a starting point, radius 10 km)』

『3. Wind Whisperer (blue)』

The purple Talent conspicuously appeared among the reward options.

Su Ze’s hand almost twitched.

The practicality of this Talent was beyond doubt…

It could let him venture deep into the tiger’s den and still come out safe.

Yet in the end it was only a purple-grade Talent.

“Hold it in… there’s still time; maybe I can roll a gold-grade Talent.”

Gritting his teeth, Su Ze still abandoned the reward options of this round.

Before long, the 10-minute simulator cooldown quietly passed.

Su Ze started the simulation again.

『Apocalypse simulation has begun…』

『Please choose one of the following three Talents as your inherent Talent for this run!』

『Qing-Dynasty Zombie (white): you can jump very high and even double-jump in midair, but your movements are stiff and inelegant』

『Chef (white): you excel at cooking, and food handled by you becomes so delicious that it makes people want to burst out of their clothes』

『Hibernation Expert (white): you have unique sleeping skills; as long as you fall asleep you consume no energy, but only if you can actually fall asleep』

What…

What are these three piles of crap…

Staring at the new round of Talent options, Su Ze was a bit dumbfounded.

How about giving that previous Talent reward back to me?