The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH233

Chapter 233 — A New Discovery

With an influx of animals coming nearby to drink water, Luo Xun and the team collectively felt that it wasn’t a suitable time to head out lately. Fortunately, they didn’t really have any pressing need to leave anyway—they had just finished screening a full round of the adjacent mutated farmland and hadn’t planned to go to the City A base to trade for supplies in early August. Naturally, they could comfortably guard their own small base, content to farm, play games, and raise their child.

This group of people, who possessed an abundance of completely disposable time, rested for a single night after hauling back the final batch of crystals. The next day, they gathered in the warehouse dedicated to storing the crystals, lounging around a kaleidoscopic mountain made of small, gem-like stones, systematically categorizing the loot.

This undertaking was a massive project requiring the collective participation of every single member of the Otaku Team. There was no helping it; the sheer volume was so overwhelming that even with everyone thrown into the labor line, there was no telling which day they would finally conclude the task.

While their physical movements had been exceptionally rapid when gathering these items over the past couple of days, scooping massive mounds of crystals into gunny sacks with shovels was a completely different story from meticulously panning for gold grain by grain in the sand.

When screening the crystals this time, everyone kept several small and large bags arrayed by their sides, dedicating one bag to each specific type. The elemental crystals required by the base members needed to be isolated as quickly as possible; additionally, common attributes like earth-type crystals were also separated into individual bags during the sorting process. As for the loose, single crystals with ambiguous attributes, everyone did their best to categorize them based purely on color.

Under these dynamics, the physical workload was truly substantial. To ensure they didn’t reach a point where their brains grew hazy from exhaustion and they accidentally tossed a crystal into the wrong pile, Luo Xun modified their workflow after the first grueling day of labor.

Every morning upon rolling out of bed, everyone would still prioritize tending to the crops. Once the household plants were fully managed, they would spend a fraction of the time sorting through the crystals right before lunch.

Following their midday rest, they would spend roughly three hours in the afternoon bustling inside the storage room, after which everyone could retreat to the game room to play video games or engage in whatever personal projects they desired.

Working systematically for a brief duration daily like this, Luo Xun and the team spent a full half-month without managing to conquer the subterranean crystal mountain, leaving everyone feeling a mix of boundless delight and intensely sore wrists.

However, over this half-month, Luo Xun and the team hadn’t exclusively focused on a single chore. By now, Luo Xun and Yan Fei’s bedroom had been decorated quite respectably. The vast master bedroom had been cleverly partitioned by Yan Fei using custom metal frames and wardrobes, dividing the layout into an inner and an outer room.

The inner chamber housed their king-size bed, nightstands, and wardrobes, surrounded entirely by the storage units they had salvaged from the base previously and the pristine metal dressers Yan Fei had newly fabricated.

The outer room featured a massive TV mounted on the wall, a media console designed to hold their gaming hardware, a desk explicitly set aside for little Baozi along with bookshelves for his future reading material, and a massive stretch of open floor covered by a newly fabricated “carpet.”

That carpet was a piece Luo Xun had crafted with his own hands, and the primary material utilized for the rug happened to be an item they previously lacked a good strategy to process—animal hides.

Following the onset of the apocalypse, Luo Xun and the team had encountered mutated land animals on several occasions. What gave them a massive headache was that while flying waterfowl were easy enough to process—allowing them to harvest fine down from the plumage to save for winter coats and bedding—the thick hides of those predators weren’t anywhere near as practical to use.

Up until now, although Luo Xun and the team had systematically stored, washed, and sun-dried those hides, they had merely left them tucked in a corner alcove to gather dust. If he hadn’t been brainstorming ways to add comfort to his child’s space this time, he might not have even recalled those hides.

They possessed a large sheepskin and a massive rabbit hide stashed away. After these two animal types mutated, their skins had ballooned several times in thickness, and the fur had naturally become exceptionally coarse and rigid, feeling slightly prickly to the touch while remaining outrageously thick.

If someone were to tailor garments from hides of this caliber, putting aside the extreme weight, the individual wearing it would probably face immense physical difficulty just trying to take a step forward.

Luo Xun pondered the matter multiple times before deciding to retrieve a piece of the rabbit hide. Turning it over, he anchored a layer of thin foam padding along the inside, backed by a sheet of durable canvas fabric, creating a makeshift carpet with the raw fur facing flush against the floorboards.

This fixture was vastly thicker than a conventional carpet. Spreading it across the floor boards provided excellent insulation and served as a shock-absorbent pad, making it perfect for the child to use.

As for whether the wool and rabbit fur could be spun into yarn to knit winter garments… it was theoretically possible, but Luo Xun and the team temporarily lacked demands on that front, nor did they know how to construct a functional spinning wheel, so they could only compromise by utilizing them this way for now.

Alternative “carpets” of this style were not exclusive to Luo Xun’s bedroom; Xu Mei and Song Lingling’s room also featured a large piece, both explicitly prepared for the children’s spaces.

Early this morning, after getting out of bed to wash up and neatly dressing little Baozi, Luo Xun first cradled the baby by the windowsill to catch some morning sun, casually checking if any wild predators had accidentally blundered onto the greenhouse roof. Although Luo Xun and the team had explicitly painted a layer of “camouflage” across their roofing—which handily deceived the eyes of humans and animals from a distance—even genuine mutated thickets faced the occasional blunder from loose wildlife, let alone their roof.

Just a few days ago, a dimwitted bird had dropped onto their roof, even pecking curiously at the fan-like metal ventilation plates.

Fortunately, Luo Xun and the team had detected the intruder in a timely manner. After it left behind several clumps of bird droppings, it was promptly captured to upgrade the family’s dining table.

At this moment, loose white clouds drifted across the sky outside, and the newly risen morning sun struck the network of ponds, leaving the surface shimmering with brilliant waves. Waterfowl drifted leisurely across the liquid, while a few terrestrial predators intermittently drew near the banks to catch a drink.

Luo Xun stared out at the water’s surface, his mind wandering slightly. The surrounding landscape was overflowing with wild vegetation that had grown rampantly into an absolute forest, the immediate foreground a vibrant expanse of golden hues resembling ripened rice fields. Coupled with the ponds and the wildlife, a casual glance at this raw nature made it look as beautiful as paradise.

In the distance, the waterfowl would intermittently dip their heads straight beneath the surface…

Luo Xun suddenly spun around, looking at Yan Fei with a highly surreal expression. “Darling, are we being a bit dense?”

Yan Fei arched an eyebrow, failing to comprehend where his partner’s comment was originating from.

Luo Xun pointed out the window. “Why do you think those waterfowl are congregating near our coordinates?”

“Because of the water?” Yan Fei remained puzzled. Not only had waterfowl arrived, but didn’t the immediate perimeter host an immense variety of alternative animals as well?

Luo Xun shook his head. “If it were merely because water is available, would they be migrating here family by family?” Flanking the perimeter were not only adult waterfowl, but the mutated land animals also spanned various large and small sizes. When Luo Xun and the team were out sifting for crystals a few days ago, they had discovered more than one bird’s nest holding small chicks inside!

The mutated wildlife similarly contained adult and juvenile tiers, but were those smaller specimens truly the offspring of mutated animals, or simply entities that remained compact after mutating? Luo Xun and the team couldn’t make a definitive assessment.

Yan Fei didn’t grasp the underlying nuance of Luo Xun’s words, merely staring at him with arched brows as he waited for him to explain.

Luo Xun let out a slightly smug smile, pointing out the window. “Waterfowl can’t sustain their lives purely by drinking water. I watch them huddle along the banks of those ponds every single day without ever leaving…”

Before his words could even finish, a wave of realization struck Yan Fei, and he turned to look toward the flooded fields in surprise. “You mean… there are fish in the water?!”

Luo Xun nodded forcefully.

As for how the original fields could suddenly host fish after barely weathering a few rainstorms? And why the fish inside hadn’t undergone secondary mutations to transform into zombie fish? The two were unable to locate immediate answers to these dilemmas for the time being.

Furthermore, because Luo Xun and the team had explicitly refrained from drawing near the flooded marshes when they ventured out previously, they couldn’t verify for a fact whether fish were nesting inside. Their current hypothesis remained a pure deduction.

The couple brought the child downstairs to join the dining table for breakfast—currently, the dining hall below was essentially utilized by the group exclusively in the mornings. During midday, everyone casually grabbed a bite in the basement, while evenings were spent almost entirely inside the game room.

Stepping into the first-floor dining room, before Luo Xun could even break his morning deduction to the group, he spotted Li Tie and the guys huddled over their laptops in a state of high intensity. Catching sight of Luo Xun and Yan Fei stepping inside, the boys hurriedly waved them over.

“Brother Luo, Brother Luo! Brand-new updates we just intercepted in the middle of the night and early this morning!”

Opening the files Li Tie and the guys had compiled overnight from the server, Luo Xun and the team scrolled through the data in succession.

The previous deployment where the City A base partnered with several alternative major bases across the country to head to specific mining sectors and manufacturing plants had yielded a follow-up. Currently, the military columns had successfully reached a certain mining region, establishing a functional, compact base dedicated exclusively to extraction operations. Reportedly, the initial batch of raw ore had already been loaded onto transport vehicles and was currently being hauled back.

The base administration seemed to harbor the intent to restore rail transportation, but there was no telling how severely the regional tracks had been fractured after the apocalypse, or whether a moving train would encounter catastrophic anomalies once operational.

Additionally, the document that left everyone feeling a trace of profound trepidation was an experimental blueprint—a research report regarding superpower users.

The human body similarly contains a “crystal.” This single sentence caused the hairs on everyone’s arms to stand up instinctively.

Although Luo Xun and the team felt a wave of shock upon reading this update, in reality, they had already harbored a silent hypothesis regarding this parameter inside their hearts.

Zombies possessed them, mutated animals possessed them; why would humans be an exception? Especially since the elemental superpowers wielded by survivors relied explicitly on absorbing crystals to grind their tier progression. If someone were to argue that humans were structurally distinct from alternative organisms and lacked crystals entirely, they wouldn’t believe it themselves.

However, a hypothesis remained a pure hypothesis. Prior to catching an official, explicit confirmation, everyone had subconsciously chosen to ignore the parameter.

Luo Xun, in particular, had never caught wind of this development across his entire past life. Thinking about it now, there was a high probability that the base administration worried that once the information leaked to the public, the interior of the base would descend into absolute, uncontrollable chaos. Currently, even without the dilemma of internal crystals, the mere allocation of domestic supplies and rations was enough to cause family members to turn on one another and neighbors to transform into predators. Let alone a development that explicitly tied into raw crystals and absolute superpowers?

Unlike visible assets like supplies and food—where one could only deduce whether another person possessed a hoard based on superficial markers—a crystal was an asset virtually every single superpower user housed by default, requiring absolutely zero estimation.

Finishing these encrypted files, confronted with this highly impactful update regarding internal crystals, the alternative data regarding deep crystal mechanics and potential development lines suddenly felt far less critical.

“B-Boss.”

“Brother Luo.”

“Captain…”

The group turned their gazes toward Luo Xun with a trace of silent reliance, and in an instant, the psychological pressure resting inside Luo Xun’s chest intensified substantially.

He let out a deep, steadying breath, scanning the circle of faces before doing his best to maintain a composed cadence. “Regarding this matter… I personally evaluate that the high-ranking officials will never broadcast it to the public. Because once it’s leaked, the absolute fallout would be far too massive, and it would likely trigger an incredibly catastrophic domestic reaction.”

Hearing his assessment, the group nodded in succession.

“Therefore, we possess absolutely nothing to worry about right now.”

The moment the words fell from Luo Xun’s lips, Zhang Su curled his lips into a highly wicked, enchanting smile. “I have a question.”

“Speak.” Luo Xun had a distinct intuition that this guy wouldn’t utter anything pleasant. True to expectations, Zhang Su opened his mouth once more: “Those researchers discovered that superpower users house crystals inside their skulls—how exactly did they discover that? A craniotomy? Experimental specimens?”

True to form, absolutely nothing pleasant.

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