Reborn in the Apocalypse: A Commoner's Survival Log

After dinner, everyone talked about the discovery of the zombies evolving and producing crystal cores, and finally mentioned that the crystal cores could be used to upgrade superpowers.

Seeing that Yan Fei and Shen Zechuan had both advanced to level one and were now level one ability users, Xu Zhiyi felt envious. He wished he had gone too.

However, after hearing Yan Fei say that he had left him enough crystal cores to upgrade, he happily took the small bag of crystal cores with shining eyes and began to try to upgrade.

Zhou Yang and the others stared at him intently as he used up one pill after another.

Finally, ten minutes later, Xu Zhiyi opened his eyes with a smile.

"Hehe, I can feel that the energy in my body has undergone a qualitative change, it's at least twice as strong as before!"

Everyone was delighted to see that Xu Zhiyi had also successfully advanced, and they all offered their congratulations.

"By the way, wasn't it said that the pea also had a fire-type crystal core? Has it upgraded?"

Remembering that peas also possess fire-based abilities, Xu Zhiyi asked again.

Zhou Yang patted the head of the pea plant at her feet, looking somewhat worried: "I don't know, it didn't seem to react much after eating that crystal core. It can't talk either... How about you two have a competition later?"

"That works!"

Xu Zhiyi agreed with a confident look on his face, thinking that he had already leveled up, so surely he couldn't be worse than a dog.

After agreeing to continue digging for zombies the next day, the group dispersed and went home to wash up and go to sleep.

Only Yan Fei hurriedly went to Gu Tianqi's place again.

We need to report the fact that the zombies have evolved superpowers to Gu Tianqi as soon as possible, so that the base can be on guard. We also need to talk about the crystal cores and the upgrade of superpowers.

When Gu Tianqi heard that the zombies had evolved superpowers, he frowned and his face became gloomy.

The apocalypse is already so difficult, and now zombies can even evolve superpowers. How can anyone survive like this?

However, he breathed a slight sigh of relief after hearing Yan Fei say that the crystal core in the zombie's head could enhance the superpowers of superhumans.

Then he immediately issued a new mission to the army: starting tomorrow, they should go to the city in batches to dig up zombies and extract crystal cores, and make sure that most of the superhumans in the army are upgraded one level before the snow melts.

Otherwise, once the snow melts, a large number of evolved zombies will emerge, making it much more difficult to collect crystal cores. Moreover, without sufficiently strong ability users to resist the evolved zombies, the base will be in grave danger.

The next day, just as dawn broke, the base dispatched two teams, both heading towards the areas in the city with the most zombies.

After leaving Lu Xingye to watch the house, Zhou Yang and his group rented a sled, just like yesterday, and set off.

However, they didn't plan to go to any residential area today; instead, they planned to go directly to a small shopping mall in a nearby town on the other side.

It's called a small shopping mall, but it's actually about four and a half floors, and it has everything you'd expect from a typical shopping mall.

After Zhou Yang moved here, she took a stroll there once and knew the approximate location. Moreover, because the surrounding area is full of residential buildings, the shopping mall was quite crowded.

If there are any supplies left inside, he plans to collect them all and sell them to the base along with yesterday's supplies.

The zombies there weren't buried in the snow, so I wonder if they'll have developed crystal cores in their brains, just like those buried in the snow.

In his previous life, he first heard that there was an evolution virus in the snow that caused the zombies to evolve, but later there were rumors that there was an evolution virus in the air that caused the zombies to evolve. Anyway, he couldn't figure it out.

However, we'll find out today if we go and take a look.

Half an hour later, the group arrived at the outside of the mall. If it weren't for the huge sign standing there, they probably wouldn't have recognized it.

Fortunately, the mall has a high ceiling, so only the top two and a half floors remain, but it's hard to tell the difference because the exterior is all glass.

Zhou Yang and the others went over to check and found that it was stuck at a position about one floor above the ground floor. It wasn't very high from the ground of the second floor, but it was about the height of a person.

The place they were looking at happened to be a textile and bedding store, and there was a bed placed against the wall not far from their feet.

They then chose the glass above the bed as their entry point.

Yan Fei was the first to take the lead. He took out a bandage from his bag, wrapped it around his hand, smashed the glass with his fist, and then jumped down.

After landing safely, he yanked all the broken glass off the bedding and blankets on the floor before calling the others to come down.

Fortunately, there was a bed underneath to cushion the fall, so the height wasn't too difficult, and all five people and the dog got down smoothly.

The home textile store was still very tidy; I guess when someone came to scavenge supplies before, they didn't intend to buy these things.

We don't need a bed frame, but we could buy a bunch of comforter sets.

So the group picked out the more durable and dirt-resistant ones and bought them.

Once you leave the home textile store, you enter the mall. Without the dazzling lights, it looks dim and gloomy even during the day.

Since the first floor was full of furniture and household items, there was still a lot of stuff left. The group only picked out what was useful and quickly finished cleaning up the place.

The third floor houses restaurants and a karaoke bar, but it had all been ransacked. After walking around, the group only found a few bags of white sugar and instant tea.

The fourth floor only had four shops: a cinema, an art gallery, a gym and swimming pool, and a game arcade with a variety of games. Seeing nothing of interest, the group lost interest in going up and returned to the second-floor stairwell.

Just as I was about to go down to the first floor, I saw that the escalator, which was out of power, was covered with scattered items.

Zhou Yang guessed that the people who came to search for supplies might have encountered something and accidentally left some behind during the emergency evacuation, or they might have found that they couldn't carry everything and had no choice but to give up some of the items.

But when he followed it to the middle of the escalator and saw the dried bloodstains on the side wall, he knew it must be the former.

"There's so much blood here, either someone encountered zombies here, or it was a fight."

"Okay. Let's be careful. This area doesn't seem to have been cleared by the army like the one we saw yesterday. Everyone stay close together in case of an ambush."

"Yes." Everyone responded, agreeing with Shen Zechuan's words.

Because all the doors and windows on the first floor were covered with snow, and the light reaching the second floor was limited, it looked very dark downstairs, so everyone had to turn on their flashlights.

As soon as they stepped onto the ground floor, they saw bloodstains all over the floor, stretching into the darkness on the other side.

Seeing this, the expressions on their faces were not very good.

He then swept the flashlight around and found that the surrounding area was also in a mess, like a scene of fleeing disaster. There were some traces of what looked like bloodstains on the walls, and his expression became even more grim.

The group quietly circled the first floor, but found no trace of living people, not even a single zombie.

While searching through the shops on the first floor with some doubts, the group also found the electrical room and spent some time turning the power switch back on in the mall.

When the group returned to the brightly lit mall, the mess on the floor was even more shocking under the lights.

Bloodstains were everywhere—on the ground, on the walls, and all the way from the mall entrance to the underground entrance on the first basement level, which was the other end of the escalator they had come down from.

With so much blood, the most likely explanation is that a group of survivors who came looking for supplies encountered a zombie attack and then fled into the underground supermarket.

Following the trail of blood, the group arrived at the escalator leading to the supermarket on the basement level.

Although the lights had been restored and the area below was bright, no one could feel relaxed.

The blood-stained escalator now resembled a gaping maw, waiting for people to walk right into its trap, sending chills down one's spine.

Yan Fei stared at the escalator entrance for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "Let's go down and take a look. Be prepared to kill zombies at any time."

The others readily agreed, then gripped their weapons and began descending together.