A Post-Apocalyptic Journey to Another World

After returning home, Zhang Xi rested for two whole days. That night, he was finally going to take the Hard Man Potion.

Although this was only the second time I had taken it, the thought of the terrible pain still sent chills down my spine.

The pain was indescribable; the highest level of pain on Earth is level twelve, the pain of childbirth. But a woman from his mercenary group in his previous life told Zhang Xi that childbirth was nothing compared to the "Hardcore" potion.

Zhang Xi took out the test tube, drank the blue potion in one gulp, and then lay down flat. The potion felt like magma as soon as it entered his mouth, burning all the way down his throat, churning into his internal organs, and then spreading outwards. Zhang Xi persisted in using his consciousness to guide this flame from his internal organs all the way to his limbs.

The effectiveness of the "Hardcore" drug on the human body is directly related to whether the patient remains conscious during the absorption process and whether the body actively accepts the drug's effects.

The entire absorption process usually takes about 12 hours. Ideally, one should remain conscious for 12 hours, which will allow one to directly advance to the mid-Bronze rank. After absorbing the remaining pharmacological effects in the body over the remaining month, one can reach the peak of the Bronze rank!

If you faint at the beginning, you can only barely advance to the Bronze level, and your body won't actively absorb the remaining potion afterward. Although both are Bronze level, the absolute power difference between the early Bronze stage and the peak Bronze stage is several times greater. Therefore, how long you can remain conscious is extremely important.

For two whole hours, Zhang Xi persisted in guiding the flame to spread to every part of his body. This process was slow and paradoxical, like a person holding a torch and burning himself, while worrying about where he might miss. He had to carefully sense which parts of his body were not yet in excruciating pain and guide the excruciating pain there.

The moment the "flames" finally engulfed his entire body, the first stage ended, and the second stage began: countless "hands" reached out from the flames, pulling at every muscle and nerve. It was as if his whole body was cramping; waves of aching pain lashed at Zhang Xi's nerves, and he almost couldn't bear it several times. This process lasted for the entire middle of the night.

The pain of the third stage felt like countless tiny knives relentlessly slicing open every inch of skin; this stage was relatively much easier. Zhang Xi knew he had finished. It would be over soon.

The boy lay on the bed, feeling the traces of primal energy flowing through his blood. He had succeeded; it was a perfect absorption! He struggled to his feet.

I had only taken one step when I suddenly felt an extreme chill surge through my heart, and before I could even stand up, I collapsed again.

"what happened!"

I didn't have this reaction the last time I took the Hard Man Potion. Could it be because it was made with the blood of an Frost Troll instead of a regular Troll?

Zhang Xi hurriedly mobilized the little spiritual energy in his body to stimulate his heart, but this time it wasn't pain, but icy coldness; he felt as if his soul was being frozen. Despite constantly gathering spiritual energy to try and maintain consciousness, he was gradually sinking into coldness and darkness.

The boy's heart stopped beating, and his body was strangely covered in frost, making him look no different from a corpse in a hospital morgue.

At that moment, a wisp of energy, unlike ordinary elemental energy, emanated from the playing cards in the boy's shirt pocket and entered his body, directly reaching his heart. Like a large hand caressing and massaging his heart, the boy's heart began to beat again. That wisp of energy then seeped into his heart.

Two days later, Zhang Xi slowly woke up in the morning. As soon as he woke up, he struggled to pull out his phone and dialed 120... Then he fainted again.

When Zhang Xi woke up again, the first thing she saw was Wang Ruilong's chubby face: "Xi'er, you're awake! You went out for a bit and got yourself into this state. The doctor said it's a miracle you're still alive!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Xi immediately asked Wang Ruilong, "Do my parents know?"

“Of course, you were critically ill, so of course we had to notify your guardian. But I stopped the teacher from doing it. I only told your aunt and uncle that you were sick, not that you were about to die.” The chubby boy was very oblivious; judging from his dark circles, he had clearly been watching over you for a long time. Zhang Xi couldn't help but feel a little moved: “How long have I been in the hospital?”

“A day and a night isn’t that long. What happened to you? When I arrived at the hospital, I almost fainted when I saw you! Do you know what an African refugee looks like? You’re exactly like a starving African refugee!”

What's the date today?

"July 15th."

Zhang Xi was startled. The inexplicable cold made him unconscious for three whole days. Including the day he was not unconscious, he went four whole days without drinking water or eating. It was truly a blessing from heaven that he did not die of thirst.

Zhang Xi examined his injuries. This accident was quite serious, completely different from his condition after taking the Hard Man Potion in his previous life.

First, all the internal organs are in a state of partial damage, and then most of the muscles and meridians in the body cannot be mobilized.

Wang Ruilong told Zhang Xi that when the doctor examined his injuries, he found that all his muscles and nerves were in a state of shattered tearing and rupture. Strangely, his heart and aorta continued to function strongly, which was the reason he survived.

In short, he survived, but he was paralyzed. Furthermore, due to damage to his vocal cords and swallowing muscles, he is unable to speak or eat.

Wang Ruilong thought the doctor was talking nonsense because Zhang Xi started talking to him as soon as he woke up.

If Zhang Xi's injuries were those of an ordinary person, he would have been bedridden for life. However, his physical condition has now reached the mid-Bronze stage, and his recovery ability and resistance have exceeded the range of ordinary people.

Zhang Xi estimates that he will recover to normal within a month at most.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Zhangxi discovered that he seemed to possess the ability of a troll to quickly regenerate and recover from injuries, although not at the exaggerated speed at which the troll could heal wounds with the naked eye.

To accommodate the doctors' tolerance and to minimize unnecessary trouble, he stayed in the hospital for another week.

During this period, he deliberately slowed down the process of Yuan Energy repairing his body. He tried his best to guide the Yuan Energy and sort out every part of his body little by little. Even so, he had to be discharged from the hospital after only one week.

On the day of discharge, the hospital's vice president in charge of medical affairs personally came to visit. He was a short, balding old man with thick glasses. Even more striking than his glasses were his bulbous nose and his talkativeness. The old man's name was Xiang Yizhi, one of the most renowned medical experts in Pingyuan City.

Ever since discovering the boy's incredibly rapid recovery, this vice president of the hospital, one of China's most renowned medical experts, has become a frequent visitor to Zhang Xi's ward. He'd come over and chatter on and on, saying he wanted to treat Zhang Xi for free, and that the boy looked like his long-lost son.

Zhang Xicai didn't believe his nonsense. He guessed that this medical expert was probably thinking about how to get this so-called "long-lost son" onto the dissection table.

The dean was holding Zhang Xi's hand tightly, refusing to let go, kissing it passionately. The look in his eyes behind those thick-rimmed glasses was like that of a crazed old lecher staring at a beautiful woman, which terrified Zhang Xi. These old scholars were capable of anything; Zhang Xi thought they might actually dissect him for research.

Next to Pingyuan No. 1 Middle School is a park called Maling Park.

This is a popular spot for couples to meet, and every evening, bored young men would go and disturb the pairs of lovers in the grove.

Because this place was far from residential areas and sparsely populated in the early morning, Zhang Xi went to the grove alone. After checking that no one was around, he channeled his energy and punched a willow tree trunk as thick as a washbasin. A cracking sound came from the trunk, and when he removed his fist, he saw a clear fist print, about half a palm deep, on the trunk, surrounded by a layer of frost!

"Huh? How could this be?" Zhang Xi was speechless.

Unlike monsters, which are born with some incomplete elemental abilities, humans must break through the Golden Realm before they can awaken their own elements and become superhumans.

Of course, there are always exceptions; a tiny minority of geniuses, one in a million, awaken their special abilities early, like monsters in Warcraft. But Zhang Xi knew that his ordinary physique meant he wasn't one of those exceptions.

If he couldn't figure it out, he stopped thinking about it. Being more capable was always a good thing anyway. He casually peeled off some bark and looked at the trunk. The entire trunk was covered in fine cracks, even the back. Clearly, the tree was beyond saving.

Then Zhang Xi tested his running speed on the park path, 100 meters in 5 seconds! That's close to 70 kilometers per hour. This is the limit speed of wild beasts like lions and tigers, and Zhang Xi could maintain this speed for about half an hour.

70 mph! What an embarrassing speed. There's a folk legend that 70 mph is enough to knock a college student flying. Zhang Xi confirmed that his current strength was at the seventh level of Bronze.